Monday:
The Greek elections have voted in a bunch who are vaguely more in favour of sticking to the austerity package and keeping the bailout money coming in.
Which is good because Greece needs to stay IN the Euro. But cut everything by 30%.
Seriously, if you can get past the fact that Greece is vastly UNCOMPETITIVE because they're stuck with a bad exchange rate, the benefits of being IN are enormous.
Cutting everything by say 30% is EXACTLY what you get with a DEEP devaluation: everyone's salary is cut by 30%, but all internal prices are cut by 30% at the same time. Everyone with savings, bad luck 30% goes up in smoke. But everyone with DEBTS, there's 30% less to pay on them. And yes, that includes the GOVERNMENT's debts, so bad news for those German banks.
Of course the cost of your imports JUMPS (causing inflation, probably, depending on how dependant on imported food and fuel you are). But YOUR goods become much cheaper for EXPORTS. Or (equivalently) it's cheaper for people with Euros to come and spend them in your country. Remember, everything is 30% cheaper.
And if you want to sell TOURISM then you want to make it EASY for your (RICH) neighbours to come visit with no fiddly money changing. So the advantage of staying IN the widely traded currency union is OBVIOUS.
Really, what's more worrying is the French voting in the Socialists who what to chuck the whole Franco-German recovery plan in favour of a SPENDING SPREE.
Honestly, democracy! Who's idea was that?
Oh, it turns out it IS the Greeks fault after all.
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
Day 4187: Tainted Love
Sunday:
Milipot calls Kettle black.
Last time I got any diaries written, Mr Simon expressed some concern I was being a bit HARSH on Hard Labour by judging them based on what they WERE not what they ARE.
But you know, until they actually start professing some NEW positions (and opportunistic tactical opposition REALLY doesn't count) then I don't think it unfair to judge them by what they WERE on the uncontroversial grounds that IT'S WHAT THEY STILL ARE.
Despite Mr Milipede soft-peddling some of the ANTI-CIVIL RIGHTS policies, they have barely moved from their HIGHLY RIGHT-WING stance on law and immigration.
And under Mr Balls, their economic position is UNCHANGED from the Darling plan (a plan which would have CUT DEEPER than the Coalition's – the main difference being that Darling intended to CUT THE HEALTH SERVICE. The Conservatory pledge of real-terms increases in health spending, which we've agreed to be bound by, means that EVERY OTHER DEPARTMENT bears a HEAVIER share of the cuts, allowing Labour to perpetuate the MYTH that they would have cut less. But it IS still a myth.)
Mr Bully Balls might SHOUT about a "plan for jobs and growth" at every given opportunity, but this is, again, a TACTICAL response to the length of time economic recovery is taking and how that prolongs the painful austerity measures, with no recognition that the outcome under Labour would have been virtually indistinguishable.
Worse, it amounts to no more than a REHEAT and REPEAT of Mr Darling's "borrow more for a temporary VAT cut" tactic of 2009, which resulted in (at best) a dead cat bounce of the economy (and is arguably as much the cause of the "double dip" as anything that the Coalition, Europe, America or Ming the Merciless of Mongo has done since). Like injecting adrenaline into a heart-attack victim, you can get them to jump up and run around, but you're ignoring the MASSIVE DAMAGE to their system that you are EXACERBATING by simulating recovery ARTIFICIALLY.
That isn't a stimulus as Mr John Keynes would have understood it (because you DON'T end up with any infrastructure or educational advantage at the end), and it is completely false to suggest, as Mr Balls continues to do, that Keynesian economics would support continuing to borrow to support a CURRENT ACCOUNT deficit until the rest of the world fixes the economy for us.
Milipot calls Kettle black.
Last time I got any diaries written, Mr Simon expressed some concern I was being a bit HARSH on Hard Labour by judging them based on what they WERE not what they ARE.
But you know, until they actually start professing some NEW positions (and opportunistic tactical opposition REALLY doesn't count) then I don't think it unfair to judge them by what they WERE on the uncontroversial grounds that IT'S WHAT THEY STILL ARE.
Despite Mr Milipede soft-peddling some of the ANTI-CIVIL RIGHTS policies, they have barely moved from their HIGHLY RIGHT-WING stance on law and immigration.
And under Mr Balls, their economic position is UNCHANGED from the Darling plan (a plan which would have CUT DEEPER than the Coalition's – the main difference being that Darling intended to CUT THE HEALTH SERVICE. The Conservatory pledge of real-terms increases in health spending, which we've agreed to be bound by, means that EVERY OTHER DEPARTMENT bears a HEAVIER share of the cuts, allowing Labour to perpetuate the MYTH that they would have cut less. But it IS still a myth.)
Mr Bully Balls might SHOUT about a "plan for jobs and growth" at every given opportunity, but this is, again, a TACTICAL response to the length of time economic recovery is taking and how that prolongs the painful austerity measures, with no recognition that the outcome under Labour would have been virtually indistinguishable.
Worse, it amounts to no more than a REHEAT and REPEAT of Mr Darling's "borrow more for a temporary VAT cut" tactic of 2009, which resulted in (at best) a dead cat bounce of the economy (and is arguably as much the cause of the "double dip" as anything that the Coalition, Europe, America or Ming the Merciless of Mongo has done since). Like injecting adrenaline into a heart-attack victim, you can get them to jump up and run around, but you're ignoring the MASSIVE DAMAGE to their system that you are EXACERBATING by simulating recovery ARTIFICIALLY.
That isn't a stimulus as Mr John Keynes would have understood it (because you DON'T end up with any infrastructure or educational advantage at the end), and it is completely false to suggest, as Mr Balls continues to do, that Keynesian economics would support continuing to borrow to support a CURRENT ACCOUNT deficit until the rest of the world fixes the economy for us.
Day 4184: Game of Clegg
Thursday:
Obviously the Epic "Dragons and Dangly Bits" Fantasy that is HBO's "Game of Thrones" is completely inappropriate for a baby elephant to watch. More importantly, Daddy refuses to give cash to Mr Rupert Stavro Moredick so we don't get Sky and have to wait for the Blu-Rays before we can see season two!
Anyway, SPOILERS, in season one, nice-but-dim Northern Nick Stark (from Sheffield) gets the job as DEPUTY KING and has to hang out with evil Balloonisters, Georgie and Saucy. He is GOOD. They are BAAAAAD. Guess who gets called a TRAITOR and has his head chopped off.
(And we won't even try to make gags about the House of Clegg having the DIRE wolf as its symbol! As for what Mr Balloon and his evil twin Georgie are doing... let's just say I don't want to get pushed out of a castle tower!)
Yes, it's the latest Liberal Democrat "treason", only this time it's the CONSERVATORIES calling us names – thus proving that they ARE exactly the same as HARD LABOUR.
"We supported you over Mr David Outlaws and Mr Dr Vince "the Power" Cable," they WHINGE. Yeah, AFTER they had lost the jobs in question.
Here's a clue – had the Hulture Secretary Mr Jeremy taken it like a man and resigned, then we'd have given you JUST AS MUCH support as you gave us.
Still, we don't help ourselves when we're both TOO LOYAL to our Conservatory "allies" to actively stab the deserving Hunt when he needs it, but equally TOO PRINCIPLED to support him when he obviously ought to have quit/been fired/never should have accepted the job in the first place. These positions CANCEL EACH OTHER OUT and we end up doing something that – to the real people outside the Westminster bubble – is at best INCOMPREHENSIBLE and more commonly regarded as SPINELESS.
Once again, we look like we're "PLAYING THE GAME".
Obviously the Epic "Dragons and Dangly Bits" Fantasy that is HBO's "Game of Thrones" is completely inappropriate for a baby elephant to watch. More importantly, Daddy refuses to give cash to Mr Rupert Stavro Moredick so we don't get Sky and have to wait for the Blu-Rays before we can see season two!
Anyway, SPOILERS, in season one, nice-but-dim Northern Nick Stark (from Sheffield) gets the job as DEPUTY KING and has to hang out with evil Balloonisters, Georgie and Saucy. He is GOOD. They are BAAAAAD. Guess who gets called a TRAITOR and has his head chopped off.
(And we won't even try to make gags about the House of Clegg having the DIRE wolf as its symbol! As for what Mr Balloon and his evil twin Georgie are doing... let's just say I don't want to get pushed out of a castle tower!)
Yes, it's the latest Liberal Democrat "treason", only this time it's the CONSERVATORIES calling us names – thus proving that they ARE exactly the same as HARD LABOUR.
"We supported you over Mr David Outlaws and Mr Dr Vince "the Power" Cable," they WHINGE. Yeah, AFTER they had lost the jobs in question.
Here's a clue – had the Hulture Secretary Mr Jeremy taken it like a man and resigned, then we'd have given you JUST AS MUCH support as you gave us.
Still, we don't help ourselves when we're both TOO LOYAL to our Conservatory "allies" to actively stab the deserving Hunt when he needs it, but equally TOO PRINCIPLED to support him when he obviously ought to have quit/been fired/never should have accepted the job in the first place. These positions CANCEL EACH OTHER OUT and we end up doing something that – to the real people outside the Westminster bubble – is at best INCOMPREHENSIBLE and more commonly regarded as SPINELESS.
Once again, we look like we're "PLAYING THE GAME".
Day 4181: Dog-in-the-Manger Collars
Tuesday:
The Church of Ingrates – Britain's built-in band of god botherers – have issued their response to the Equal Marriage consultation and it goes thus:
The Church of Ingrates – Britain's built-in band of god botherers – have issued their response to the Equal Marriage consultation and it goes thus:
"We have a duty to provide a marriage to anyone who asks for marriage, which, er, we're breaking at the moment when it comes to gay daddies.Apparently this is a threat to the ESTABLISHMENT of the Church. Which is supposed to be a bad thing for some reason.
"And if you make us do our duty then we'll stop doing marriages for anyone! How's THAT for a threat to marriage!"
Day 4180: Prime Monster Throws Baby Out With Bath Water
Monday:
Time to catch up with some diaries that I missed. Starting with the Prime Monster's trip to the pub.
'Cos actually, this DOES matter.
How many vulnerable people are there in Britain counting on the Prime Monster not to forget them?
Time to catch up with some diaries that I missed. Starting with the Prime Monster's trip to the pub.
'Cos actually, this DOES matter.
How many vulnerable people are there in Britain counting on the Prime Monster not to forget them?
Monday, June 11, 2012
Day 4173: Can You Forgive Her?
Monday:
Oh Pollyanna Toytown, what a poisonous wee troll you are.
Mr Matthew is much kinder to her, persevering to find praise for Mr Dr Vince in among all the bile she spouts. But I'm not that kind of elephant!
Replaying the Coalition negotiations with the benefit of two years' hindsight, Polly still can't get them right. The Lib Dems, she says, should have forced a Conservatory minority government. AND we should have struck a harder bargain with them from our position of outnumbered-six-to-one-by-the-gerry-rigged-electoral-system strength.
Well make your mind up. Either we agree to a Coalition and make them do some stuff, or we let them rule as a minority. We don't get to do BOTH.
We should, insists La Poll, have forced Mr Balloon to campaign for AV, and we should have prevented the austerity programme. In spite of it being HARD LABOUR'S programme too – Mr Alistair Dalek promised "cuts deeper than Thatcher's", and of course Mr Liam "Father Dick" Byrne's note "there's no money left".
Oh, it's so OBVIOUS now!
Of course, Pollyanna's HINDSIGHT is as QUESTIONABLE as her PROGNOSTICATION.
She describes Lord Adonis as "adept" in offering us an olive branch. This would be the same Lord Adonis whom she described a day earlier as being FURIOUS with us back when we were unable to negotiate a deal with Labour for the entirely inadequate reason that even if there had been enough MPs between our Parties to form a government – and there weren't – Ed Balls and Ed Milipede were too busy sizing each other up for a willy waving contest to even PRETEND to negotiate properly. I mean CLEARLY, it was the Lib Dems' fault that Labour in 2010 could neither win enough seats nor behave like adults.
She also says how Mr Milipede said from the start he would embrace us. This would be the same Mr Milipede who vowed to destroy the Lib Dems, would it? Or the one who promised he would demand Captain Clegg's head in any future coalition negotiations – an utterly RIDICULOUS position to take for a man contemplating having not managed to win an election and going cap in hand to a smaller party to ask for our support. First on the table: "F*** You" – interesting strategy, Mr Not-Going-To-Be-Prime-Monster-then. How are you going to look when you go back to your supporters and say, " Sorry guys, we're back in Opposition because I stupidly put petty vengeance on the leader of another party ahead of the good of the country".
When Cap'n Clegg said Mr Frown had to go he was only pointing out that the COUNTRY had made its JUDGEMENT. That's not UNREASONABLE after an election when someone's been decisively rejected by the voters; if the Liberal Democrats lose seats and votes as badly in 2015, I suspect the Cap'n may be telling people to negotiate with his successor because he'll do the HONOURABLE thing and step aside, just like Mr Frown should have done. By announcing his position nearly five years in advance, though, Mr Milipede reveals that he only wants Dork Lord of the Sith-esque revenge for the slaying of his Master.
Of course, Pollyanna wants to avoid this awkward moment, by having US knife Captain Clegg on their behalf.
Let me rephrase that: the Hard Labour Party would like us to get rid of the MOST SUCCESSFUL LIBERAL SINCE LLOYD GEORGE.
Hmm, is it POSSIBLE that there is an ULTERIOR motive in their suggestion there?
"If Cameron is voted out, building a moral alliance with the people who kept the Tories in power risks looking shoddy to a disillusioned electorate."
No, Pollyanna, it is YOUR POLITICS that is SHODDY, you and your vile Hard Labour toadies. YOU are the ones who scream and wail about "betrayal" when coalitions go against you, and suddenly have a change of mind when it looks like you might need our support yourselves.
On Mr Andy Marrrmight's sofa, Pollyanna makes big tearful eyes and remarks on Lords reform "we need it but it looks like we're not going to get it". Well, who's going to block it, Polly? YOUR HARD LABOUR PARTY that's who.
You utter, utter hypocrite.
You claim to WANT Lords reform, but you'd rather take cheap pops at the Deputy Prime Monster, who is ACTUALLY DOING LORDS REFORM, than make the mildest criticism of your own side when they prop up the Conservatory establishment and vested interest.
"Can you forgive the Liberal Democrats?" Polly asks.
To paraphrase You should get down on your knees and GROVEL for OUR forgiveness.
Your selfish, self-interested actions are those of a TORY. You betray the poor even as your sanctimonious columns use their plight for your own ends; you protect your own wealth and privilege, your position on the Guardian unearned except by inheritance; you are greedy for power. And your Part doesn't just support Tory policies when they have to; they go around actively coming up with Tory policies, or even more-Tory-than-the-Tories policies (ninety day detention without trial; I.D.iot cards; 18% capital gains tax; 75p for pensioners; light touch banking regulation; tuition fees; privatising the health service and all the rest).
Polly Toynbee, you ARE a TORY.
We can TALK to Tories. We can hold our fluffy noses and WORK with Tories. But we don't FORGIVE them.
Un peut cross? Oui!
Oh Pollyanna Toytown, what a poisonous wee troll you are.
Mr Matthew is much kinder to her, persevering to find praise for Mr Dr Vince in among all the bile she spouts. But I'm not that kind of elephant!
Replaying the Coalition negotiations with the benefit of two years' hindsight, Polly still can't get them right. The Lib Dems, she says, should have forced a Conservatory minority government. AND we should have struck a harder bargain with them from our position of outnumbered-six-to-one-by-the-gerry-rigged-electoral-system strength.
Well make your mind up. Either we agree to a Coalition and make them do some stuff, or we let them rule as a minority. We don't get to do BOTH.
We should, insists La Poll, have forced Mr Balloon to campaign for AV, and we should have prevented the austerity programme. In spite of it being HARD LABOUR'S programme too – Mr Alistair Dalek promised "cuts deeper than Thatcher's", and of course Mr Liam "Father Dick" Byrne's note "there's no money left".
Oh, it's so OBVIOUS now!
Of course, Pollyanna's HINDSIGHT is as QUESTIONABLE as her PROGNOSTICATION.
She describes Lord Adonis as "adept" in offering us an olive branch. This would be the same Lord Adonis whom she described a day earlier as being FURIOUS with us back when we were unable to negotiate a deal with Labour for the entirely inadequate reason that even if there had been enough MPs between our Parties to form a government – and there weren't – Ed Balls and Ed Milipede were too busy sizing each other up for a willy waving contest to even PRETEND to negotiate properly. I mean CLEARLY, it was the Lib Dems' fault that Labour in 2010 could neither win enough seats nor behave like adults.
She also says how Mr Milipede said from the start he would embrace us. This would be the same Mr Milipede who vowed to destroy the Lib Dems, would it? Or the one who promised he would demand Captain Clegg's head in any future coalition negotiations – an utterly RIDICULOUS position to take for a man contemplating having not managed to win an election and going cap in hand to a smaller party to ask for our support. First on the table: "F*** You" – interesting strategy, Mr Not-Going-To-Be-Prime-Monster-then. How are you going to look when you go back to your supporters and say, " Sorry guys, we're back in Opposition because I stupidly put petty vengeance on the leader of another party ahead of the good of the country".
When Cap'n Clegg said Mr Frown had to go he was only pointing out that the COUNTRY had made its JUDGEMENT. That's not UNREASONABLE after an election when someone's been decisively rejected by the voters; if the Liberal Democrats lose seats and votes as badly in 2015, I suspect the Cap'n may be telling people to negotiate with his successor because he'll do the HONOURABLE thing and step aside, just like Mr Frown should have done. By announcing his position nearly five years in advance, though, Mr Milipede reveals that he only wants Dork Lord of the Sith-esque revenge for the slaying of his Master.
Of course, Pollyanna wants to avoid this awkward moment, by having US knife Captain Clegg on their behalf.
Let me rephrase that: the Hard Labour Party would like us to get rid of the MOST SUCCESSFUL LIBERAL SINCE LLOYD GEORGE.
Hmm, is it POSSIBLE that there is an ULTERIOR motive in their suggestion there?
"If Cameron is voted out, building a moral alliance with the people who kept the Tories in power risks looking shoddy to a disillusioned electorate."
No, Pollyanna, it is YOUR POLITICS that is SHODDY, you and your vile Hard Labour toadies. YOU are the ones who scream and wail about "betrayal" when coalitions go against you, and suddenly have a change of mind when it looks like you might need our support yourselves.
On Mr Andy Marrrmight's sofa, Pollyanna makes big tearful eyes and remarks on Lords reform "we need it but it looks like we're not going to get it". Well, who's going to block it, Polly? YOUR HARD LABOUR PARTY that's who.
You utter, utter hypocrite.
You claim to WANT Lords reform, but you'd rather take cheap pops at the Deputy Prime Monster, who is ACTUALLY DOING LORDS REFORM, than make the mildest criticism of your own side when they prop up the Conservatory establishment and vested interest.
"Can you forgive the Liberal Democrats?" Polly asks.
To paraphrase You should get down on your knees and GROVEL for OUR forgiveness.
Your selfish, self-interested actions are those of a TORY. You betray the poor even as your sanctimonious columns use their plight for your own ends; you protect your own wealth and privilege, your position on the Guardian unearned except by inheritance; you are greedy for power. And your Part doesn't just support Tory policies when they have to; they go around actively coming up with Tory policies, or even more-Tory-than-the-Tories policies (ninety day detention without trial; I.D.iot cards; 18% capital gains tax; 75p for pensioners; light touch banking regulation; tuition fees; privatising the health service and all the rest).
Polly Toynbee, you ARE a TORY.
We can TALK to Tories. We can hold our fluffy noses and WORK with Tories. But we don't FORGIVE them.
Un peut cross? Oui!
Sunday, June 10, 2012
Day 4172: Mr Balloon has it both ways
Sunday:
So, to the department of Culture Media and Sport – the Olympics provide the Sport, Lord Leveson is covering the Meeja and as a SLIME MOULD...
Look, just because he's got no hit dice doesn't mean he can't make a saving throw... especially when supported by a wandering Prime Monster.
Appearing on possibly the most oleaginous Mr Marrmite show in AGES (and is there anything else, my lord bishop, that you should like to share with a grateful nation on this occasion of jubilisious auspitude?*), Mr Balloon made his position quite clear:
He didn't WANT to sack Mr Dr Vince, but obviously what he said in PRIVATE – once it was made PUBLIC – meant that he had to.
And he didn't WANT to appoint Mr Jeremy Hunt, but he took legal advice and it turns out that what Mr Jeremy said in private OR in public didn't make ANY DIFFERENCE to how he approached his job.
Hang on, those are MUTUALLY CONTRADICTORY positions – if your private utterings don't matter, why did Mr Dr Vince have to go? If they DO, how could Mr Balloon appoint the Hulture secretary?
It is a MYSTERY!
Let us just say, Britain's chances in the Olympic gymnastics, bending over backwards to look both ways, competition are pretty good.
And to prove that he CAN enter the Get-Shot Put too, Mr Balloon has slung Lady Insider Warsi into an inquiry in under a fortnight. A new personal best!
*And that's without getting to Ms Pollyanna Toytown on the sofa. More of her later, I'm afraid, so sickbags at the ready...
So, to the department of Culture Media and Sport – the Olympics provide the Sport, Lord Leveson is covering the Meeja and as a SLIME MOULD...
Look, just because he's got no hit dice doesn't mean he can't make a saving throw... especially when supported by a wandering Prime Monster.
Appearing on possibly the most oleaginous Mr Marrmite show in AGES (and is there anything else, my lord bishop, that you should like to share with a grateful nation on this occasion of jubilisious auspitude?*), Mr Balloon made his position quite clear:
He didn't WANT to sack Mr Dr Vince, but obviously what he said in PRIVATE – once it was made PUBLIC – meant that he had to.
And he didn't WANT to appoint Mr Jeremy Hunt, but he took legal advice and it turns out that what Mr Jeremy said in private OR in public didn't make ANY DIFFERENCE to how he approached his job.
Hang on, those are MUTUALLY CONTRADICTORY positions – if your private utterings don't matter, why did Mr Dr Vince have to go? If they DO, how could Mr Balloon appoint the Hulture secretary?
It is a MYSTERY!
Let us just say, Britain's chances in the Olympic gymnastics, bending over backwards to look both ways, competition are pretty good.
And to prove that he CAN enter the Get-Shot Put too, Mr Balloon has slung Lady Insider Warsi into an inquiry in under a fortnight. A new personal best!
*And that's without getting to Ms Pollyanna Toytown on the sofa. More of her later, I'm afraid, so sickbags at the ready...
Saturday, June 09, 2012
Day 4171: Ridley Scott v Gynaecology, part deux*
Saturday:
(*Sorry, Mr Simon got the better title first!)
Bit put out!
We got caught sneaking in to the cinema and they just let me in! Seems someone thought I was one of the SPECIAL EFFECTS!
As for the movie... It's not so much "Prometheus" as "Pandora". As in "Take the money or open the box"!
What's clear is that "Prometheus" struggles to find its STORY, because PLOT keeps getting in the way.
Which is a shame because "At the Mountains of Madness" HAS a decent story, or at least it did when Lovecraft wrote it.
(Seriously: small expedition travel beyond the limits of human knowledge to discover unexpected alien citadel wherein lies the shocking secret from before the dawn of human history in the form of a race of ancient aliens and their revolting shape-shifting servitor-creations. And one of the Shoggoths has survived! It's a pity 'cos we'd probably have preferred Guillermo del Toro's version.)
Oops, I've just SPOILERED the entire film. Still, if you don't want any MORE spoilers, I'd look away now!
If you remember, "PLOT" (at least in my definition) is the sequence of events that happen in a narrative while "STORY" is the reason we should care that those events happen in that order.
In this case we actually have TWO plots: "Chariots of the Gods" and the original "Alien". It's not ENTIRELY impossible that it's supposed to be a clever pun by the filmmaker about alien DNA combining and corrupting the human "story". Or it might just be a horrible car crash.
Channel Four were kind enough – or UNKIND enough – to put on the original ALIEN later that same night for comparison.
The first thing that is obvious is how much of a debt "Prometheus" owes to "Alien", from the way the one-word-title builds up out of lines during the opening sequence to the closing monologue delivered as "the final log of the...".
We get the same little data plaque about the starship Prometheus (crew of seventeen) that we got about the Nostromo (crew of seven). And the Prometheus visually resembles the Nostromo, both inside and out. Actually, the exterior also looks a lot like the Firefly Class "Serenity" of, er, "Firefly" and, um, "Serenity". Although the advances in CGI mean that we are able to see the ship much more clearly, and in sunlight rather than the shadows of space or a storm-wracked LV 426. And, like much of the movie, Prometheus is made to look beautiful, in a way that was never entirely possible or clear for Nostromo.
But these deliberate similarities soon start to hurt the film.
When we penetrate an alien complex (part-terraformer, part-research lab, part-tomb) to discover a roomful of mysterious knee-high objects (vases rather than eggs this time) we know that they're going to open up to release something icky. (In this case – as Simon says – it turns out to be the black oil from The X-Files, which seems to be Ridley ambitiously trying to sort out someone else's confused backstory as well as his own.)
When Rafe Spall and Sean Harris are trapped in the tomb, you know just know they're going to wind up with some alien willy-analogue trying to melt their space helmets and force its way down their throats. Wouldn't it have been more interesting to have them survive their enforced night in the tomb and get back to Prometheus only to find it had been the site of a massacre? As it is, THEIR story goes nowhere. AND the story of the infected scientist/boyfriend goes nowhere.
When we find "that spaceship" we know it's only a matter of time before we end up with the Space Jockey in his chair. (Even though it makes no sense at all for the end of this film to recreate the situation we discovered at the start of "Alien" – namely crashed ship full of potential Aliens waiting to be discovered – what with it being set on a completely different planet, with a completely different weaponised Alien in the hold. The only possible conclusion is that the Makers/Space Jockeys routinely crash their horseshoe-shaped spacecraft while carrying bio-weapons of mass destruction. That's probably why they're extinct.)
Basically, repeating the "beats" from "Alien" keeps getting in the way of telling the story that "Prometheus" is trying to tell. But is that the only problem?
"Alien" is, it almost goes without saying, a much BETTER movie than "Prometheus", not just much more tightly focused and of course a damn sight more scary, but also even if you ignore all the (not-so-very) subtext about fear of penetration and vagina dentata, it's still profoundly insightful (even if it's borrowed from the MILLENNIUM Falcon!) about how the future of space won't be all gleaming starships and boldly going, but actually dirty and working class and driven by ugly, mundane concerns about the money, where the crew are expendable if it turns a profit and the face of the big corporation is literally an android. Think about how profoundly DANGEROUS space really is: fire, decompression, asphyxiation, hull failure... the tag-line "In Space, No One Can Hear You Scream" is (again) literally true – you don't actually NEED a xenomorph for space to kill you very dead in any or all of these ways. The crew's lack of respect for space, for nature (except of course for Ripley who is the only one who bothers with the rules and does the checks) is what kills them as much as the big shiny penis-with-teeth. In that sense "Alien" isn't just the monster; it's everything about throwing vulnerable human bodies into this situation.
Even if you take away the deliberate use of notes from "Alien", "Prometheus" isn't saying anything nearly so interesting.
Like a teenage GOTH, the movie thinks that it is being really DEEP and asking MEANINGFUL questions like "where are we from?" and "why are we here?". These are hardly ORIGINAL questions, though. And the sub-von Däniken pseudo-answers provided are hardly less so, either.
(Seriously, again: the "god does not build in straight lines" line is straight out of his "aboriginal peoples couldn't have constructed the Nazca lines" playbook. Von Dänikenism was already laugh-and-point material by the time Doctor Who was ripping him off in the early Seventies. Which, frankly, is pre the original "Alien".)
In the story, the alien "Makers" (and taking the elephant-headed Space Jockey of "Alien" and retooling his species as just "really big humans in a Faction Paradox hats" is definitely taking something weird and awesome and making it less interesting) came to Earth and either did the Scaroth Last of the Jagaroth thing of starting life on Earth or possibly just added their own DNA to the existing mix so that humans would evolve.
At least the movie has enough sense of shame to let someone say: "but evolution doesn't work that way" (unless you're Terry Nation – so look on, Master Ridley). But then it makes nothing further of that.
Likewise, at least is it raises the ontological regress: even if WE were made by the Makers, who made THEM? But then it drops that idea too.
The entire premise of the film, of course, is that the Makers left invitations all over the Earth asking us to pop over and visit. So why do the maps not lead to their homeworld? Or at least the Space Jockey embassy on Centauri Prime? Why, of all places, a covert bioweapons development base that they'd want to keep secret? One, furthermore, where the weapons, apparently, got out of control before the Makers even had time to finish terraforming the place.
(Unfortunately, the overlooked possibility that our heroes are wrong and that the star maps are in truth a warning of the "here be monsters" doesn't make a lot of sense in this context either. It's only a place of monsters AFTER the Makers cocked up, and by that point there was no one left alive to go round posting obscure warnings in cave paintings.)
I suppose it's just about possible that (in another genre-jump to "The Matrix") "Prometheus" is trying to say that HUMANS are a BIOWEAPON developed on this planet too (and, what, that the Alien is a later model?) allowing the Makers to conquer planets by proxy. (Which reminds me, "Quatermass and the Pit" is coming soon to our local cinema. Or if you prefer one of the Doctor Who versions, "The Dæmons", then notice that the existence of the star maps – widely separated in time and geography – implies that the Makers must have kept on coming back to "check up" on Earth's progress. And while that doesn't exactly contradict anything we see, it does seem to go against the "and we'll leave you to it" spirit of what seemed to be happening in the opening disintegrating-Maker sequence.)
And how exactly does Idris Elba's captain Janek suddenly figure all this out given that (a) he's spent least time of anybody actually IN the alien complex and (b) demonstrated exactly zero interest in the archaeological mission up to this point?
There are moments when Ridley appears to be reaching for a crossover with his (other) masterpiece, "Blade Runner" – in particular the way that Mr Wayland the supposedly-dead-but-to-the-surprise-of-no-one-actually-on-board-in-a-packing-crate boss of Wayland (not-yet-Yutani) corporation clearly wants to have a word with his creator about getting some more life. This is further reflected in the way that the android David, played by Michael Fassbender, has been created by humans (like the replicants) but without a proper skill set of emotions (like the replicants). And of course, the android created by humans is a symmetry for the humans created by the Makers. Probably.
David is right: "why did you create us" deserves a better answer than "because we could", or at least that answer deserves some proper exploration. But frustratingly, once again, it is raised only to be immediately set aside.
It's almost as though the big philosophy questions are as much stumbling blocks as the plot points lifted from "Alien". Rather than linking together to drive the story, they serve to trip it up, pull it up short with an "and now think about this" moment, before returning you to your scheduled space opera.
Because a lot of this IS soap opera in space. "I can't have children" / "I'm pregnant... but how!" / "It's a squid!" This sort of thing is barely above "Dr Milburn, I thought you were dead" / "I was!" No, wait, they do that one too! Not to mention "Gasp! You're my father!"
(As subtle foreshadowing goes, "This robot is the nearest thing I'll have to a son" followed by "Oh hello Ms Vickers, do you have issues or what?" barely troubles the scorers.)
The clue to the soapyness ought to be the increased ensemble cast, but even this they do wrong. In "Alien", a crew of seven is just about right so that each character has room to BE a character, and each gets a memorably distinct death (or not in the case of Captain Dallas since his cocooning was edited out).
Seventeen is both too many faces for us to recognise and care about them as they get picked off and at the same time ridiculously too few for a mission of first contact. As an archaeological mission, playing essentially a hunch to see if there's anything out here you might, just might, send out a bunch of oddballs like this, particularly if – as it is depicted in "Alien" – spaceflight is become routine, even humdrum, so that a crew of seven "space truckers" can haul a refinery back to Earth from the deeps of space.
But "Prometheus" also wants us to believe that space is NOT humdrum, that the Prometheus mission is a big deal, that Wayland (not-yet-Yutani) have invested a lot of money and effort into this. In which case, why only one ship? You'd send two ships at least if not half a dozen, so there's always someone in orbit to rescue your ass; even the Apollo moon landings left backup in Lunar orbit! And why the loose cannon captain, brain-fried geologist and dropout botanist, why not a hundred security guards. Especially given there is not only a very senior company board member on board but, as it turns out, the CEO too. Wayland quite literally have all their (alien) eggs in one basket case.
(Actually, maybe it's the sudden loss of a trillion-dollar space mission plus two of their most senior executives that precipitates Wayland being merged/taken over by Yutani in the first place!)
But you can bet that even if such a mission went out looking for Dr Shaw's aliens, their protocols would very strictly say at the first sign of first contact you pull out and leave it to the government(s) of Earth. First contact is NOT something that the world is going to permit to happen freelance.
(Whether an obsessive like Dr Liz Shaw would then follow those protocols, or a monomaniac like Wayland would obey the government(s) of Earth is another matter, and might have contributed a plot point or two.)
That's not to say that the characters who HAVE characters aren't interesting, fun and well-acted.
Noomi Rapace's soulful Dr Elizabeth Shaw (probably not the Doctor Who companion played by Caroline John in the early Seventies, but you never know) is a credible (if occasionally credulous) replacement heroine for Warrant Office Ellen Ripley without being a retread of Sigourny Weaver's career-defining character. Idris Elba (if we overlook his sudden moment of Captain Basil Space-Exposition, described above) is terrifically laconic throughout. Charlize Theron underplays in just the right way, playing the emotionally shut-down Ms Vickers so that we just might believe she's another robot. She deserved a better exit than the perfunctory squished-by-falling-spaceship that she got. Guy Pearce... wears an awful lot of latex. (Seriously, were there supposed to be flashbacks? Did he beg to be in the movie? Was John Hurt not available this time round?)
Of all of them, Fassbender's David is the most interesting. And a movie that was much more about him and much less about whatever it was "Prometheus" was supposed to be about would have been a better watch.
(Alex noticed, incidentally, that the androids are, in sequence, Ash, Bishop, Call and now David. We look forward to Eugene in the next instalment.)
It's never entirely clear what's motivating him. Obviously, the superimposed plot of "Alien" requires him to have a secret agenda, orders from Wayland (not-Yutani) that compromise his loyalty to the crew.
And there is a sense that, like HAL from "2001", his homicidal and seemingly irrational behaviour is caused by a programming conflict.
But then at other times, he definitely appears to demonstrate self-awareness.
In what probably ought to be the most important moment of the film, he almost admits it to Dr Shaw when he asks: "Don't we all want to kill our parents?" That's a very disturbing thing to think, but also very profound when looked at on an evolutionary timescale. From a certain point of view, every successful new species must supplant its forefathers.
(Actually, that's not quite true – what happens is you inherit an evolutionary niche if your predecessor species is out-evolved by its PREDATORS. But that's a different crossover franchise.)
This then should be the engine that drives the movie's story – humans threaten to supplant Makers, androids threaten to supplant humans.
Unlike other ideas, this one isn't just touched on and dropped. It remains underdeveloped, but – like a will-o-the-wisp – pops up again in different guises throughout. Dr Shaw's inability to have children – and the implied personal failure connected with that – is then inverted when her unexpected pregnancy is a literal monster (and there's some kind of perverse maternal bond going on there when, at the end, the squid-thing saves her). Ms Vickers confronts Wayland with the bitter accusation: "The king has his reign and it ends."
(Wayland, of course, does not want to be a king. He wants to be a god.)
It all comes down to the two questions at the end, Wayland and Shaw each trying to persuade David to ask one thing of the awakened Maker they've found: "Who are you?" and "What do you want?" Oh no, hang on, that's "Babylon 5".
The questions are (I paraphrase) "How do I live forever?" and "Why do you want to kill us?"
In probably the film's most fatal flaw, Ridley choose not to let god get to answer.
It's very reminiscent of the let-down at the end of Doctor Who's "The Impossible Planet"/"The Satan Pit" story (yes, "Quatermass and the Pit" AGAIN!) where the audience deserved a confrontation between the Doctor and the Devil and instead what we got was David Tennant pulling faces because the Devil had already scarpered.
Of course, the fact that only David (the android, not Tennant) speaks the Maker's language (and we the audience get no help from omnipotent subtitling either) means that we do not know which question he chooses to put. Or if he puts either question. For all we know, what he actually says is, "These people are here to kill you and by the way your mother smells of elderberries."
Perhaps reducing the Maker to a dumb beast IS some kind of "blind watchmaker" statement about "creators". Nevertheless, leaving god without a voice leaves the film without a punch-line. When it's ALL been about the WHY, you can't just miss that out, or worse declare it as "wait for the sequel". It means that even the Alien has better motivation than these gods, and all IT wants to do is eat you or mate with you. Or possibly both at once.
In the end, "Prometheus" is a "Modern Prometheus", a Frankenstein's Monster bolted together from bits of dead philosophers and the leftovers from a thirty-five-year-old better movie. And no stolen fire to animate it.
And whoever thought that finishing with a shot of the most rubbish version of the Alien yet would be a surprise "twist" wants shooting.
(*Sorry, Mr Simon got the better title first!)
Bit put out!
We got caught sneaking in to the cinema and they just let me in! Seems someone thought I was one of the SPECIAL EFFECTS!
Baby Plush
Face Hugger
As for the movie... It's not so much "Prometheus" as "Pandora". As in "Take the money or open the box"!
What's clear is that "Prometheus" struggles to find its STORY, because PLOT keeps getting in the way.
Which is a shame because "At the Mountains of Madness" HAS a decent story, or at least it did when Lovecraft wrote it.
(Seriously: small expedition travel beyond the limits of human knowledge to discover unexpected alien citadel wherein lies the shocking secret from before the dawn of human history in the form of a race of ancient aliens and their revolting shape-shifting servitor-creations. And one of the Shoggoths has survived! It's a pity 'cos we'd probably have preferred Guillermo del Toro's version.)
Oops, I've just SPOILERED the entire film. Still, if you don't want any MORE spoilers, I'd look away now!
If you remember, "PLOT" (at least in my definition) is the sequence of events that happen in a narrative while "STORY" is the reason we should care that those events happen in that order.
In this case we actually have TWO plots: "Chariots of the Gods" and the original "Alien". It's not ENTIRELY impossible that it's supposed to be a clever pun by the filmmaker about alien DNA combining and corrupting the human "story". Or it might just be a horrible car crash.
Channel Four were kind enough – or UNKIND enough – to put on the original ALIEN later that same night for comparison.
The first thing that is obvious is how much of a debt "Prometheus" owes to "Alien", from the way the one-word-title builds up out of lines during the opening sequence to the closing monologue delivered as "the final log of the...".
We get the same little data plaque about the starship Prometheus (crew of seventeen) that we got about the Nostromo (crew of seven). And the Prometheus visually resembles the Nostromo, both inside and out. Actually, the exterior also looks a lot like the Firefly Class "Serenity" of, er, "Firefly" and, um, "Serenity". Although the advances in CGI mean that we are able to see the ship much more clearly, and in sunlight rather than the shadows of space or a storm-wracked LV 426. And, like much of the movie, Prometheus is made to look beautiful, in a way that was never entirely possible or clear for Nostromo.
But these deliberate similarities soon start to hurt the film.
When we penetrate an alien complex (part-terraformer, part-research lab, part-tomb) to discover a roomful of mysterious knee-high objects (vases rather than eggs this time) we know that they're going to open up to release something icky. (In this case – as Simon says – it turns out to be the black oil from The X-Files, which seems to be Ridley ambitiously trying to sort out someone else's confused backstory as well as his own.)
When Rafe Spall and Sean Harris are trapped in the tomb, you know just know they're going to wind up with some alien willy-analogue trying to melt their space helmets and force its way down their throats. Wouldn't it have been more interesting to have them survive their enforced night in the tomb and get back to Prometheus only to find it had been the site of a massacre? As it is, THEIR story goes nowhere. AND the story of the infected scientist/boyfriend goes nowhere.
When we find "that spaceship" we know it's only a matter of time before we end up with the Space Jockey in his chair. (Even though it makes no sense at all for the end of this film to recreate the situation we discovered at the start of "Alien" – namely crashed ship full of potential Aliens waiting to be discovered – what with it being set on a completely different planet, with a completely different weaponised Alien in the hold. The only possible conclusion is that the Makers/Space Jockeys routinely crash their horseshoe-shaped spacecraft while carrying bio-weapons of mass destruction. That's probably why they're extinct.)
Basically, repeating the "beats" from "Alien" keeps getting in the way of telling the story that "Prometheus" is trying to tell. But is that the only problem?
"Alien" is, it almost goes without saying, a much BETTER movie than "Prometheus", not just much more tightly focused and of course a damn sight more scary, but also even if you ignore all the (not-so-very) subtext about fear of penetration and vagina dentata, it's still profoundly insightful (even if it's borrowed from the MILLENNIUM Falcon!) about how the future of space won't be all gleaming starships and boldly going, but actually dirty and working class and driven by ugly, mundane concerns about the money, where the crew are expendable if it turns a profit and the face of the big corporation is literally an android. Think about how profoundly DANGEROUS space really is: fire, decompression, asphyxiation, hull failure... the tag-line "In Space, No One Can Hear You Scream" is (again) literally true – you don't actually NEED a xenomorph for space to kill you very dead in any or all of these ways. The crew's lack of respect for space, for nature (except of course for Ripley who is the only one who bothers with the rules and does the checks) is what kills them as much as the big shiny penis-with-teeth. In that sense "Alien" isn't just the monster; it's everything about throwing vulnerable human bodies into this situation.
Even if you take away the deliberate use of notes from "Alien", "Prometheus" isn't saying anything nearly so interesting.
Like a teenage GOTH, the movie thinks that it is being really DEEP and asking MEANINGFUL questions like "where are we from?" and "why are we here?". These are hardly ORIGINAL questions, though. And the sub-von Däniken pseudo-answers provided are hardly less so, either.
(Seriously, again: the "god does not build in straight lines" line is straight out of his "aboriginal peoples couldn't have constructed the Nazca lines" playbook. Von Dänikenism was already laugh-and-point material by the time Doctor Who was ripping him off in the early Seventies. Which, frankly, is pre the original "Alien".)
In the story, the alien "Makers" (and taking the elephant-headed Space Jockey of "Alien" and retooling his species as just "really big humans in a Faction Paradox hats" is definitely taking something weird and awesome and making it less interesting) came to Earth and either did the Scaroth Last of the Jagaroth thing of starting life on Earth or possibly just added their own DNA to the existing mix so that humans would evolve.
At least the movie has enough sense of shame to let someone say: "but evolution doesn't work that way" (unless you're Terry Nation – so look on, Master Ridley). But then it makes nothing further of that.
Likewise, at least is it raises the ontological regress: even if WE were made by the Makers, who made THEM? But then it drops that idea too.
The entire premise of the film, of course, is that the Makers left invitations all over the Earth asking us to pop over and visit. So why do the maps not lead to their homeworld? Or at least the Space Jockey embassy on Centauri Prime? Why, of all places, a covert bioweapons development base that they'd want to keep secret? One, furthermore, where the weapons, apparently, got out of control before the Makers even had time to finish terraforming the place.
(Unfortunately, the overlooked possibility that our heroes are wrong and that the star maps are in truth a warning of the "here be monsters" doesn't make a lot of sense in this context either. It's only a place of monsters AFTER the Makers cocked up, and by that point there was no one left alive to go round posting obscure warnings in cave paintings.)
I suppose it's just about possible that (in another genre-jump to "The Matrix") "Prometheus" is trying to say that HUMANS are a BIOWEAPON developed on this planet too (and, what, that the Alien is a later model?) allowing the Makers to conquer planets by proxy. (Which reminds me, "Quatermass and the Pit" is coming soon to our local cinema. Or if you prefer one of the Doctor Who versions, "The Dæmons", then notice that the existence of the star maps – widely separated in time and geography – implies that the Makers must have kept on coming back to "check up" on Earth's progress. And while that doesn't exactly contradict anything we see, it does seem to go against the "and we'll leave you to it" spirit of what seemed to be happening in the opening disintegrating-Maker sequence.)
And how exactly does Idris Elba's captain Janek suddenly figure all this out given that (a) he's spent least time of anybody actually IN the alien complex and (b) demonstrated exactly zero interest in the archaeological mission up to this point?
There are moments when Ridley appears to be reaching for a crossover with his (other) masterpiece, "Blade Runner" – in particular the way that Mr Wayland the supposedly-dead-but-to-the-surprise-of-no-one-actually-on-board-in-a-packing-crate boss of Wayland (not-yet-Yutani) corporation clearly wants to have a word with his creator about getting some more life. This is further reflected in the way that the android David, played by Michael Fassbender, has been created by humans (like the replicants) but without a proper skill set of emotions (like the replicants). And of course, the android created by humans is a symmetry for the humans created by the Makers. Probably.
David is right: "why did you create us" deserves a better answer than "because we could", or at least that answer deserves some proper exploration. But frustratingly, once again, it is raised only to be immediately set aside.
It's almost as though the big philosophy questions are as much stumbling blocks as the plot points lifted from "Alien". Rather than linking together to drive the story, they serve to trip it up, pull it up short with an "and now think about this" moment, before returning you to your scheduled space opera.
Because a lot of this IS soap opera in space. "I can't have children" / "I'm pregnant... but how!" / "It's a squid!" This sort of thing is barely above "Dr Milburn, I thought you were dead" / "I was!" No, wait, they do that one too! Not to mention "Gasp! You're my father!"
(As subtle foreshadowing goes, "This robot is the nearest thing I'll have to a son" followed by "Oh hello Ms Vickers, do you have issues or what?" barely troubles the scorers.)
The clue to the soapyness ought to be the increased ensemble cast, but even this they do wrong. In "Alien", a crew of seven is just about right so that each character has room to BE a character, and each gets a memorably distinct death (or not in the case of Captain Dallas since his cocooning was edited out).
Seventeen is both too many faces for us to recognise and care about them as they get picked off and at the same time ridiculously too few for a mission of first contact. As an archaeological mission, playing essentially a hunch to see if there's anything out here you might, just might, send out a bunch of oddballs like this, particularly if – as it is depicted in "Alien" – spaceflight is become routine, even humdrum, so that a crew of seven "space truckers" can haul a refinery back to Earth from the deeps of space.
But "Prometheus" also wants us to believe that space is NOT humdrum, that the Prometheus mission is a big deal, that Wayland (not-yet-Yutani) have invested a lot of money and effort into this. In which case, why only one ship? You'd send two ships at least if not half a dozen, so there's always someone in orbit to rescue your ass; even the Apollo moon landings left backup in Lunar orbit! And why the loose cannon captain, brain-fried geologist and dropout botanist, why not a hundred security guards. Especially given there is not only a very senior company board member on board but, as it turns out, the CEO too. Wayland quite literally have all their (alien) eggs in one basket case.
(Actually, maybe it's the sudden loss of a trillion-dollar space mission plus two of their most senior executives that precipitates Wayland being merged/taken over by Yutani in the first place!)
But you can bet that even if such a mission went out looking for Dr Shaw's aliens, their protocols would very strictly say at the first sign of first contact you pull out and leave it to the government(s) of Earth. First contact is NOT something that the world is going to permit to happen freelance.
(Whether an obsessive like Dr Liz Shaw would then follow those protocols, or a monomaniac like Wayland would obey the government(s) of Earth is another matter, and might have contributed a plot point or two.)
That's not to say that the characters who HAVE characters aren't interesting, fun and well-acted.
Noomi Rapace's soulful Dr Elizabeth Shaw (probably not the Doctor Who companion played by Caroline John in the early Seventies, but you never know) is a credible (if occasionally credulous) replacement heroine for Warrant Office Ellen Ripley without being a retread of Sigourny Weaver's career-defining character. Idris Elba (if we overlook his sudden moment of Captain Basil Space-Exposition, described above) is terrifically laconic throughout. Charlize Theron underplays in just the right way, playing the emotionally shut-down Ms Vickers so that we just might believe she's another robot. She deserved a better exit than the perfunctory squished-by-falling-spaceship that she got. Guy Pearce... wears an awful lot of latex. (Seriously, were there supposed to be flashbacks? Did he beg to be in the movie? Was John Hurt not available this time round?)
Of all of them, Fassbender's David is the most interesting. And a movie that was much more about him and much less about whatever it was "Prometheus" was supposed to be about would have been a better watch.
(Alex noticed, incidentally, that the androids are, in sequence, Ash, Bishop, Call and now David. We look forward to Eugene in the next instalment.)
It's never entirely clear what's motivating him. Obviously, the superimposed plot of "Alien" requires him to have a secret agenda, orders from Wayland (not-Yutani) that compromise his loyalty to the crew.
And there is a sense that, like HAL from "2001", his homicidal and seemingly irrational behaviour is caused by a programming conflict.
But then at other times, he definitely appears to demonstrate self-awareness.
In what probably ought to be the most important moment of the film, he almost admits it to Dr Shaw when he asks: "Don't we all want to kill our parents?" That's a very disturbing thing to think, but also very profound when looked at on an evolutionary timescale. From a certain point of view, every successful new species must supplant its forefathers.
(Actually, that's not quite true – what happens is you inherit an evolutionary niche if your predecessor species is out-evolved by its PREDATORS. But that's a different crossover franchise.)
This then should be the engine that drives the movie's story – humans threaten to supplant Makers, androids threaten to supplant humans.
Unlike other ideas, this one isn't just touched on and dropped. It remains underdeveloped, but – like a will-o-the-wisp – pops up again in different guises throughout. Dr Shaw's inability to have children – and the implied personal failure connected with that – is then inverted when her unexpected pregnancy is a literal monster (and there's some kind of perverse maternal bond going on there when, at the end, the squid-thing saves her). Ms Vickers confronts Wayland with the bitter accusation: "The king has his reign and it ends."
(Wayland, of course, does not want to be a king. He wants to be a god.)
It all comes down to the two questions at the end, Wayland and Shaw each trying to persuade David to ask one thing of the awakened Maker they've found: "Who are you?" and "What do you want?" Oh no, hang on, that's "Babylon 5".
The questions are (I paraphrase) "How do I live forever?" and "Why do you want to kill us?"
In probably the film's most fatal flaw, Ridley choose not to let god get to answer.
It's very reminiscent of the let-down at the end of Doctor Who's "The Impossible Planet"/"The Satan Pit" story (yes, "Quatermass and the Pit" AGAIN!) where the audience deserved a confrontation between the Doctor and the Devil and instead what we got was David Tennant pulling faces because the Devil had already scarpered.
Of course, the fact that only David (the android, not Tennant) speaks the Maker's language (and we the audience get no help from omnipotent subtitling either) means that we do not know which question he chooses to put. Or if he puts either question. For all we know, what he actually says is, "These people are here to kill you and by the way your mother smells of elderberries."
Perhaps reducing the Maker to a dumb beast IS some kind of "blind watchmaker" statement about "creators". Nevertheless, leaving god without a voice leaves the film without a punch-line. When it's ALL been about the WHY, you can't just miss that out, or worse declare it as "wait for the sequel". It means that even the Alien has better motivation than these gods, and all IT wants to do is eat you or mate with you. Or possibly both at once.
In the end, "Prometheus" is a "Modern Prometheus", a Frankenstein's Monster bolted together from bits of dead philosophers and the leftovers from a thirty-five-year-old better movie. And no stolen fire to animate it.
And whoever thought that finishing with a shot of the most rubbish version of the Alien yet would be a surprise "twist" wants shooting.
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Day 4153: Five by Five. Or by ME, actually.
Tuesday:
Auntie Caron has come up with one of those Internet Me-me-me-s thingies that you find on the Wibbly Wobbly Web. "If you have a blog," she asks, "what were you writing about this time in previous years?"
Auntie Jennie has already had a go, so I will too.
How things have changed! Five years ago I was very, very young and little and not even recognised as most famousest Blogger of the Year yet! Also the government were VERY unpopular and the economy was in TATTERS. Oh well; not everything changes.
Let's head backwards in time... [vworp... vworp... vworp....]
2011: In the aftermath of losing the AV referendum, some words about the Conservatories' OWN plans for constitutional change: elected police commissioners.
"I mean, our coalition partners couldn't be MONSTROUS HYPOCRITES could they."
(also, some DOCTOR WOO.)
2010: Emotions run high on the forming of the Coalition.
"'…and I for one welcome our new Liberal Deputy Overlord!' Kent Brockman, Springfield News"
(also, some DOCTOR WOO.)
2009: A review of the then-new Star Trek by J J Abrams. And an opportunity for a cute photo of ME in Star Fleet Uniform!
"Red Shirt! That's GOOD isn't it?"
(also, a DOCTOR WOO flashback.)
2008: When Cardinal O'Connor compares ATHEISTS to NAZIS, the Militant Atheist Baby Elephant gets BIBLICAL with a FISKING.
"Wrong, wrong, wrong. And all the more IRONIC because he was SUPPOSEDLY on air to big-up the speech he made to say: why don't we talk to the atheists..."
(also, guess what, some DOCTOR WOO.)
2007: Remember the days when Mr Frown was shiny and new and elected Prime Monster? No, neither do I. A Bill to exempt MPs from Freedom of Information comes up in the House of Commons and too few Liberal Heroes stand up to be counted against the LAB-SERVATIVE Alliance.
"You have to hand it to Mr Frown… and that is exactly what the Labour have done!"
(also... oh, you know the drill by now!)
2006: Whoops, overshot! Argh! Lord Blairimort! Panic! Panic!
1657: Oops, leaned a bit heavily on the go-backwards-forwards-quickly button, there. Now, who is this fragrant METROSEXUAL approaching... Stone Me! It's the Lord Protector! What I need now is a "Republic" tee-shirt and a copy of Mr Conrad's book on the ENglish Civil War. I KNEW those would come in handy!
.
Auntie Caron has come up with one of those Internet Me-me-me-s thingies that you find on the Wibbly Wobbly Web. "If you have a blog," she asks, "what were you writing about this time in previous years?"
Auntie Jennie has already had a go, so I will too.
How things have changed! Five years ago I was very, very young and little and not even recognised as most famousest Blogger of the Year yet! Also the government were VERY unpopular and the economy was in TATTERS. Oh well; not everything changes.
Let's head backwards in time... [vworp... vworp... vworp....]
2011: In the aftermath of losing the AV referendum, some words about the Conservatories' OWN plans for constitutional change: elected police commissioners.
"I mean, our coalition partners couldn't be MONSTROUS HYPOCRITES could they."
(also, some DOCTOR WOO.)
2010: Emotions run high on the forming of the Coalition.
"'…and I for one welcome our new Liberal Deputy Overlord!' Kent Brockman, Springfield News"
(also, some DOCTOR WOO.)
2009: A review of the then-new Star Trek by J J Abrams. And an opportunity for a cute photo of ME in Star Fleet Uniform!
"Red Shirt! That's GOOD isn't it?"
(also, a DOCTOR WOO flashback.)
2008: When Cardinal O'Connor compares ATHEISTS to NAZIS, the Militant Atheist Baby Elephant gets BIBLICAL with a FISKING.
"Wrong, wrong, wrong. And all the more IRONIC because he was SUPPOSEDLY on air to big-up the speech he made to say: why don't we talk to the atheists..."
(also, guess what, some DOCTOR WOO.)
2007: Remember the days when Mr Frown was shiny and new and elected Prime Monster? No, neither do I. A Bill to exempt MPs from Freedom of Information comes up in the House of Commons and too few Liberal Heroes stand up to be counted against the LAB-SERVATIVE Alliance.
"You have to hand it to Mr Frown… and that is exactly what the Labour have done!"
(also... oh, you know the drill by now!)
2006: Whoops, overshot! Argh! Lord Blairimort! Panic! Panic!
1657: Oops, leaned a bit heavily on the go-backwards-forwards-quickly button, there. Now, who is this fragrant METROSEXUAL approaching... Stone Me! It's the Lord Protector! What I need now is a "Republic" tee-shirt and a copy of Mr Conrad's book on the ENglish Civil War. I KNEW those would come in handy!
.
Friday, May 11, 2012
Day 4147: From Rose Garden to Glorious Make Tractor Factory – How the Coalition Failed
Wednesday:
When the Coalition was formed, in the sunshine of Mr Balloon and Cap'n Clegg's Downing St bromance, hopes of genuine renewal were high.
In spite of the economic calamity, we would disassemble Hard Labour's authoritarian apparatus of big government. I.D.iot cards, databases, targets and Whitehall micro-management would go, freeing up funds for frontline services. More freedom, more delivery.
But this week, Mrs the Queen's speech, while not quite as bad as COLD SICK, has gone down like TEPID TEA.
Where did it all go wrong?
I point the fluffy foot of BLAME straight at the Prime Monster and Chancellor.
Of course it's EASY to see how Master Gideon has fluffed this up, with his playing political tactics instead of having a strategic vision.
It started with the AV referendum, when – for entirely selfish, stupid, short-term reasons – the Conservatories decided to put the full weight of all their money into giving the Lib Dems a bloody nose. Selfish because they believe that they can only win an outright majority without a Coalition under the First Pass the Port voting system. But actually STUPID because they are actually TRAPPED in a "coalition" with their right wing NUTTERS. In the long term this makes it HARDER for them to be re-elected, as all the studies show a consistent DECLINE in "two-party" voting making coalitions MORE likely in future. And they will have FEWER options in the Coalition dance if they are chained to the Frothy-Phobics.
A more proportional system would, obviously, see a SMALLER centre-right Conservatory Party and a more substantial showing for a far right UKPnuts. Which looks BAD for the Conservatories in the SHORT TERM. But Hard Labour would probably break up too and we'd see more Greens and proper socialists. (Not to mention a FAIR share of Liberals – 16% of 600 is 96 seats, whereas with 23% we got, er, 57 seats.) In the LONGER TERM, though, this could allow the MODERATE Conservatories to evolve towards the sort of position that Ms Angular Meercat enjoys in Germany, able to form governments through coalitions with a choice of Liberals, UKPnutters or the more Blairite Social Democrats from the former Labour. We've even seen Blue-Green alliances on the Continent.
By averting this possibility, and by mightily fluffing off the Liberal progressive vote, Master Gideon has actually made it more likely that the Conservatories will be FROZEN OUT of power for the Twenty-First Century, by a succession of Labour and Liberal-Labour Coalition governments.
So, good strategy there.
Furthermore, the Conservatories turning their fire on US, and in particular the vicious campaign against Cap'n Clegg personally, meant that the Liberal Democrats had pretty much NO CHOICE but to move to DIFFERENTIATION.
It's unclear how successful this has been for us, but it's obviously undone half a decade of trying to DETOXIFY the Conservatory Brand because now the only policies solely associated with the Conservatories are the NASTY PARTY POLICIES.
This came to a head in the so-called "omnishambles Budget".
For TACTICAL reasons, Master Gideon HAD to cut the 50p rate in this budget if he was going to do it at all. He couldn't possibly do it in the emergency budget when the Coalition came to power; it would have flatly contradicted the whole fiscal consolidation message. Nor could he do it last year, too soon after the Strategic Spending Review. But leaving it until any closer to the election in 2015 would mean that it would still be a live political issue for the election campaign. No, this was the ONLY year he could do it and hope that the fuss would die away before the electorate could punish him for it at a General Election.
That was, obviously, why the Conservatories were GAGGING for this ONE policy in all of their Budget negotiations, and how the Liberal Democrats were able to leverage such a HUGE tax cut for the lower and middle-income earners PLUS the "tycoon tax" tightening of loopholes (which has been so traduced by self-interested millionaires saying how they just can't afford to give to charity without receiving a massive tax bung for the privilege).
For the TACTIC of getting started on cutting taxes for the super-rich, Master Gideon SACRIFICED the STRATEGY of tax fairness.
And wheels came flying off in all directions.
This sort of "government in crisis" narrative has a momentum of its own, as we have seen in the past when Mr Major Minor's government was self-destructing or when Mr Frown's administration was tearing itself apart. Even Mr Miliband's big humiliation in Bradford was not enough to deflect the press from their FEEDING FRENZY for long. Hence we see headlines about hundred-million pound U-Turns and an air of panting anticipation around the latest Leveson revelations in the hope of more red meat to feed the Fleet Street spin machine.
Even potentially good news stories ("New Jobs Created by Deputy Prime Monster's Job Creation Scheme" – actual story) manage to come out painted bad ("Employment scheme may cost up to £200,000 per job" – actual headline). Yes, they MAY cost up to £200,000 a job. OR as LITTLE as £4000 a job. Actually, average costs of the scheme, about the same as Hard Labour schemes cost, with room for some improvement. But who is being "shocked" by these costs? Why it's Hard Labour's Margret Hedgehog. Cynical politics by the Queen Mother of Barking, there, (plus ça bleedin' change) but who left the goal open for Hard Labour opportunism? We did!
Under the circumstances, "relaunches" only FUEL the notion that the Government is falling to bits.
What is called for is a profound period of CALM and COMPETENCE, something that the Westminster bubble is ILL-DESIGNED to provide.
(And bringing forward all the "who's in and who's out" hysteria of a reshuffle not only smacks of PANIC but increases the chances of COCK-UP by dropping someone inexperienced into a new job AND giving Sir Humphrey another chance to shovel some dirt past them as they learn the ropes.)
So much for Master Gideon's fluffy foot in this; the REAL culprit is of course the Prime Monster Mr Balloon himself.
I once said that the Coalition had the chance to be the making of Mr Balloon. It's a chance he's tossed away with both hands.
If you don't want to look WEAK, you shouldn't go crawling to your backbenchers begging to kiss fluffy bottom! If you don't want to look OUT OF TOUCH then you can't waste your time caring more about what some CRAZY WOMAN thinks of you than the whole of rest of the country. And if you don't want to look like you're NOT UP TO THE JOB then you don't go whinging to the Daily Hate Mail that you can't get the policies you want!
A STRONG Prime Monster would have used the Liberal Democrats as a BULWARK against the ever-more petulant demands of his right wing. A STRONG Prime Monster could have PUT THEM IN THEIR PLACE.
By BLENDING the policies of Liberals and Conservatories, as we did in the Coalition and the Rose Garden, you can achieve a SYNTHESIS that is greater than the sum of its parts and demonstrates a government VISION that give confidence that we know what we're doing and WHY we're doing it. And better still, the Prime Monster gets to claim credit for EVERYTHING.
INSTEAD, the GAME PLAYING by his Chancer cum Political Grand Vizier, Master Gideon, and Mr Balloon's own COWARDICE has left Government policy looking like it's DIVIDED between wins for the Liberal Democrats and wins for the Tory Right, leaving NO WINS AT ALL for the Prime Monster in the middle.
A CLASSIC example is the "Daft Draft Communications Bill". An opportunity to unite Liberal and Conservatory values by rolling back intrusive RIPA powers, end spy-on-the-citizen local government intrusion and bring back some traditional British justice was SQUANDERED in a rushed attempt to win some Daily-Hate-Mail-friendly headlines by letting the security-fetishists in the Home Office have their head over blocking internet rudery and cracking down on communications between those "potential terrorists and paedos" as the Home Office calls them or, you know, ordinary innocent citizens to you and me.
The Prime Monster needed to be a BRIDGE between Liberal Democrats and Conservatories. Instead we're now seeing "I could be a proper Evil Tory if it we're for those Pesky Lib Dems" type headlines.
Burning your bridges is FOOLISH at the best of times. It's DOUBLE FOOLISH with NOBS ON when you're STANDING ON THE BRIDGE at the time!
You can't say that the Liberal Democrats didn't TRY to make this work. Cap'n Clegg in particular has worked tirelessly to present a common front on most Coalition policies, and taken endless flack for it.
(Because obviously it's TEH FUNNY to call the man a "stooge" for holding to his principles of working together for the best of the country, and "spineless" for sticking to his belief that maybe we all ought to try getting along. At least no one's suggested nailing him to a tree, yet! Why Mr Milipede what are you doing, washing your hands?)
The BEST of this Coalition – a tax cut for millions, the pupil premium, the green investment bank – has all come from the Liberal Democrats. But it's a FAILURE of this Coalition that I can say that. The BEST of the Coalition OUGHT to have come from BOTH Parties together.
So, unless the economy comes good, that's going to make things AWKWARD for the next three years.
Meanwhile, here is Mr Danny Alexander with a musical message for Europe Day (hat tip, Mr Whyte.)
.
When the Coalition was formed, in the sunshine of Mr Balloon and Cap'n Clegg's Downing St bromance, hopes of genuine renewal were high.
In spite of the economic calamity, we would disassemble Hard Labour's authoritarian apparatus of big government. I.D.iot cards, databases, targets and Whitehall micro-management would go, freeing up funds for frontline services. More freedom, more delivery.
But this week, Mrs the Queen's speech, while not quite as bad as COLD SICK, has gone down like TEPID TEA.
Where did it all go wrong?
I point the fluffy foot of BLAME straight at the Prime Monster and Chancellor.
Of course it's EASY to see how Master Gideon has fluffed this up, with his playing political tactics instead of having a strategic vision.
It started with the AV referendum, when – for entirely selfish, stupid, short-term reasons – the Conservatories decided to put the full weight of all their money into giving the Lib Dems a bloody nose. Selfish because they believe that they can only win an outright majority without a Coalition under the First Pass the Port voting system. But actually STUPID because they are actually TRAPPED in a "coalition" with their right wing NUTTERS. In the long term this makes it HARDER for them to be re-elected, as all the studies show a consistent DECLINE in "two-party" voting making coalitions MORE likely in future. And they will have FEWER options in the Coalition dance if they are chained to the Frothy-Phobics.
A more proportional system would, obviously, see a SMALLER centre-right Conservatory Party and a more substantial showing for a far right UKPnuts. Which looks BAD for the Conservatories in the SHORT TERM. But Hard Labour would probably break up too and we'd see more Greens and proper socialists. (Not to mention a FAIR share of Liberals – 16% of 600 is 96 seats, whereas with 23% we got, er, 57 seats.) In the LONGER TERM, though, this could allow the MODERATE Conservatories to evolve towards the sort of position that Ms Angular Meercat enjoys in Germany, able to form governments through coalitions with a choice of Liberals, UKPnutters or the more Blairite Social Democrats from the former Labour. We've even seen Blue-Green alliances on the Continent.
By averting this possibility, and by mightily fluffing off the Liberal progressive vote, Master Gideon has actually made it more likely that the Conservatories will be FROZEN OUT of power for the Twenty-First Century, by a succession of Labour and Liberal-Labour Coalition governments.
So, good strategy there.
Furthermore, the Conservatories turning their fire on US, and in particular the vicious campaign against Cap'n Clegg personally, meant that the Liberal Democrats had pretty much NO CHOICE but to move to DIFFERENTIATION.
It's unclear how successful this has been for us, but it's obviously undone half a decade of trying to DETOXIFY the Conservatory Brand because now the only policies solely associated with the Conservatories are the NASTY PARTY POLICIES.
This came to a head in the so-called "omnishambles Budget".
For TACTICAL reasons, Master Gideon HAD to cut the 50p rate in this budget if he was going to do it at all. He couldn't possibly do it in the emergency budget when the Coalition came to power; it would have flatly contradicted the whole fiscal consolidation message. Nor could he do it last year, too soon after the Strategic Spending Review. But leaving it until any closer to the election in 2015 would mean that it would still be a live political issue for the election campaign. No, this was the ONLY year he could do it and hope that the fuss would die away before the electorate could punish him for it at a General Election.
That was, obviously, why the Conservatories were GAGGING for this ONE policy in all of their Budget negotiations, and how the Liberal Democrats were able to leverage such a HUGE tax cut for the lower and middle-income earners PLUS the "tycoon tax" tightening of loopholes (which has been so traduced by self-interested millionaires saying how they just can't afford to give to charity without receiving a massive tax bung for the privilege).
For the TACTIC of getting started on cutting taxes for the super-rich, Master Gideon SACRIFICED the STRATEGY of tax fairness.
And wheels came flying off in all directions.
This sort of "government in crisis" narrative has a momentum of its own, as we have seen in the past when Mr Major Minor's government was self-destructing or when Mr Frown's administration was tearing itself apart. Even Mr Miliband's big humiliation in Bradford was not enough to deflect the press from their FEEDING FRENZY for long. Hence we see headlines about hundred-million pound U-Turns and an air of panting anticipation around the latest Leveson revelations in the hope of more red meat to feed the Fleet Street spin machine.
Even potentially good news stories ("New Jobs Created by Deputy Prime Monster's Job Creation Scheme" – actual story) manage to come out painted bad ("Employment scheme may cost up to £200,000 per job" – actual headline). Yes, they MAY cost up to £200,000 a job. OR as LITTLE as £4000 a job. Actually, average costs of the scheme, about the same as Hard Labour schemes cost, with room for some improvement. But who is being "shocked" by these costs? Why it's Hard Labour's Margret Hedgehog. Cynical politics by the Queen Mother of Barking, there, (plus ça bleedin' change) but who left the goal open for Hard Labour opportunism? We did!
Under the circumstances, "relaunches" only FUEL the notion that the Government is falling to bits.
What is called for is a profound period of CALM and COMPETENCE, something that the Westminster bubble is ILL-DESIGNED to provide.
(And bringing forward all the "who's in and who's out" hysteria of a reshuffle not only smacks of PANIC but increases the chances of COCK-UP by dropping someone inexperienced into a new job AND giving Sir Humphrey another chance to shovel some dirt past them as they learn the ropes.)
So much for Master Gideon's fluffy foot in this; the REAL culprit is of course the Prime Monster Mr Balloon himself.
I once said that the Coalition had the chance to be the making of Mr Balloon. It's a chance he's tossed away with both hands.
If you don't want to look WEAK, you shouldn't go crawling to your backbenchers begging to kiss fluffy bottom! If you don't want to look OUT OF TOUCH then you can't waste your time caring more about what some CRAZY WOMAN thinks of you than the whole of rest of the country. And if you don't want to look like you're NOT UP TO THE JOB then you don't go whinging to the Daily Hate Mail that you can't get the policies you want!
A STRONG Prime Monster would have used the Liberal Democrats as a BULWARK against the ever-more petulant demands of his right wing. A STRONG Prime Monster could have PUT THEM IN THEIR PLACE.
By BLENDING the policies of Liberals and Conservatories, as we did in the Coalition and the Rose Garden, you can achieve a SYNTHESIS that is greater than the sum of its parts and demonstrates a government VISION that give confidence that we know what we're doing and WHY we're doing it. And better still, the Prime Monster gets to claim credit for EVERYTHING.
INSTEAD, the GAME PLAYING by his Chancer cum Political Grand Vizier, Master Gideon, and Mr Balloon's own COWARDICE has left Government policy looking like it's DIVIDED between wins for the Liberal Democrats and wins for the Tory Right, leaving NO WINS AT ALL for the Prime Monster in the middle.
A CLASSIC example is the "
The Prime Monster needed to be a BRIDGE between Liberal Democrats and Conservatories. Instead we're now seeing "I could be a proper Evil Tory if it we're for those Pesky Lib Dems" type headlines.
Burning your bridges is FOOLISH at the best of times. It's DOUBLE FOOLISH with NOBS ON when you're STANDING ON THE BRIDGE at the time!
You can't say that the Liberal Democrats didn't TRY to make this work. Cap'n Clegg in particular has worked tirelessly to present a common front on most Coalition policies, and taken endless flack for it.
(Because obviously it's TEH FUNNY to call the man a "stooge" for holding to his principles of working together for the best of the country, and "spineless" for sticking to his belief that maybe we all ought to try getting along. At least no one's suggested nailing him to a tree, yet! Why Mr Milipede what are you doing, washing your hands?)
The BEST of this Coalition – a tax cut for millions, the pupil premium, the green investment bank – has all come from the Liberal Democrats. But it's a FAILURE of this Coalition that I can say that. The BEST of the Coalition OUGHT to have come from BOTH Parties together.
So, unless the economy comes good, that's going to make things AWKWARD for the next three years.
Meanwhile, here is Mr Danny Alexander with a musical message for Europe Day (hat tip, Mr Whyte.)
.
Wednesday, May 09, 2012
Day 4146: Upgraded Underpants
Tuesday:
Whenever I hear "exploding underpants"* it's hard not to think of Bojo the Clown, whose re-election as Lord Mayor of London Town has inspired some of the more FRUITY Conservatories to come out fighting for more "traditional" Conservatory policies.
Which is ODD 'cos Bojo's nine-point-plan puts LOTS of emphasis on investment for jobs and growth (points 3, 4, 5, 6 and 8. And probably 7 too. And maybe 9.) and distinctly NONE on cutting immigration "to help the working class (i.e. BNP-voting) poor", 'cos Bojo may be BONKERS but he's not STUPID. He just tries hard to LOOK stupid!
London's economy, the most powerful and only GROWING part of Great Britain, RELIES on immigration and on diversity, on the energy and innovation and culture that comes with everything from Brick Lane to gay-daddies getting married. And Bojo KNOWS that.
The idea that the Coalition Parties each just lost loads of Councillors because the Coalition is not Conservatory ENOUGH is just LAUGHABLE.
Quite apart from anything else, we KNEW when we signed up for this Coalition that it was going to be HORRIBLE, that we'd been handed a CHALICE that was not just POISONED but bought on HIRE PURCHASE with the BAILIFFS on the way round! Of COURSE we were going to get roughed up because it's the Government's JOB to take the BLAME. I've said before that we chose the long and painful but ultimately safer path out of the depression, rather than the wild borrow and gamble approach. But that's not going to make things any easier along the way.
But if you really WANT simplistic analysis, then CLEARLY it's because the Coalition policies are TOO MUCH CONSERVATORY, not too little.
Look, the Liberal Democrats are widely seen as losing votes because we've become TOO CONSERVATORY.
And you can trace the moment that the fluffy bottom fell out of the Conservatories' polling figures to... Master Gideon's top-rate-of-tax-cutting Budget, when suddenly the Conservatories looked TOO CONSERVATORY too!
The unravelling of the Budget was all about the spin that it was a tax cut for the rich paid for by hitting pasties, grannies and charities. And, ironically, conservatories.
For some Conservatories it is time to play the "Personal Incredulity Fallacy". THEY have a personal bug about "gay marriage", or Equal Marriage as we call it in the real world, and House of Lords Club reform so they ASSUME that the voters have a bug about Equal Marriage and House of Lords Club reform.
Rather than, say, Mr Landslide's "ever so popular" NHS reforms or Mr Gove's "widely lauded as uncontroversial" Free Schools or Mr Drunken-Swerve's "not in any way likely to have caused a fuss" slashing of Welfare Payments (the cuts hitting hundreds of thousands of families in the month before polling).
Sadly, imposing your personal fantasies on the electorate will not get you elected.
But never mind that. And let's put to one side the fact that most Conservatory Home readers would almost literally die of horror at the thought of an Alternative Queen. And let's look at those Conservatory Home Alternative Queen's Speech Bills in full:
1. British Bill of Rights Bill
Funny how Conservatory's say "no one is interested in Civil Rights" when it's Equal Marriage and say "nothing could be more vital" when it's their own Little Englander hobby-horse.
It is unbelievably difficult not to smell the XENOPHOBIA all over this one. "We want to send bad people to bad places and we don't care if bad things happen to them even if they turn out not to have been bad people after all, and now nasty foreigners are saying we ought to stick to the list of HUMAN RIGHTS even if it was US that wrote it, wahh!".
Which part of FUNDAMENTAL HUMAN RIGHTS do these people not understand? It can't be FUNDAMENT. And it can't be MENTAL. Cos they've demonstrated plenty of BOTH.
2. Promotion of Competition Bill
a) Water companies to compete on what appears to be a Railtrack basis with the pipes owned by a separate company. Not a recipe for disaster at all, then.
b) More banking competition, including breaking up RBS. Don't swoon; this bit is actually good.
3. Rail Improvements Bill
Scrap HS2 and tackle bottlenecks and reduce overcrowding instead. Tricky one this, as we should really look at the evidence and decide which is the better investment of limited resources. If they could back up their case with some facts, this might be convincing.
(For some reason, also includes high speed broadband roll out – why not in the competition bill?)
4. Make Prison Work Bill
(Are we saying prison DOESN'T work? Are we admitting Mr "Something of the Night" Howard was wrong?)
Solution, basically, export the problem. Repatriate non-British citizens and make 'em serve sentence abroad (assuming we CAN, and that's not a recipe for "foreign murderer/rapist/paedo released early in foreign jail outrage" type headlines) + send mentally ill to social services (who we're sure will cope and that's not a recipe for "loony murderer/rapist/paedo strikes again in not in prison outrage").
5. Fairness to British Taxpayers Bill
(i.e. Hand the Foreigners the Bill Bill)
a) Charge an "entry fee" for foreign road users to cover "wear and tear" of British roads
You can see how this appeals to the "it's not fair" mentality of the little-Englander. And fortunately, as a nation of traders there's no way that a hike in the cost of transporting goods INTO Britain could possibly be passed on to consumers here. Er.
b) Charge an "entry fee" for foreign tourists for entrance to British attractions e.g. museums
Fortunately, Britain has no massive tourist industry that generates important foreign currency income, so adding an extra disincentive to visit Britain will do no harm to the economy there either. Er.
c) Charge foreign people who get sick for use of NHS
Actually this happens already but "enforce" it by putting an statutory obligation on trust Trusts to collect – because they don't "trust" then to collect! Nice. And there's nothing like refusing to treat people with communicable diseases for keeping those epidemics out there in the population.
6. Affordable Energy Bill
Translation: "cut subsidies for generation by more expensive means" means "cut subsidy for green renewables" therefore placing more reliance on imported energy (i.e. LESS affordable energy bills).
Or fracking. Hilariously, injecting water into shale rock to force gas (and earthquakes) out was SO wildly economically UNVIABLE that no one even considered doing it until the price of oil and gas went through the roof.
7. Anti-congestion bill
Make councils let cars drive faster.
8. Double EU referendum bill
OK, now we're getting to the real fun.
Part One: hold a referendum to pre-determine (bind the hands of) the Government's negotiating position in renegotiation of a treaty with the other 26 EU members that is NOT up for grabs.
Part Two: then hold a second referendum to agree to the outcome.
How many ways can this POSSIBLY go wrong?
How do you even HOLD a referendum on a negotiating position? What's the question going to be? "Do you agree that the Prime Monster should go to Europe to demand the Abolishing of the Common Agricultural Policy, the Repeal of the Social Chapter, the Sinking of the Spanish fishing fleet, the Bulldozing of Strasburg, the Introduction of Driving on the Left Continent-wide and the Compulsory Imposition of Dairy Milk as the European Chocolate Standard, but we're willing to cave on all of that so long as you let us measure beer and milk in pints, tick one box Yes or No"?
Are the "Yes" campaign supposed to become the "No" campaign if the negotiations go fluffy-bottom up?
Will ANYONE on the other side of the Channel even take this seriously? Ms Angular Meercat is already telling Greece off for "getting their election wrong".
Note also that the wording pre-supposes that we WILL be repatriating powers, the referendum will just determine what and how much. This is called "begging the question".
9. Education (Choice and Opportunity) Bill
Private companies to provide schools on a fee-paying basis. No chance THAT could be portrayed as "privatising our schools" is there. Oh, because it IS.
And it certainly couldn't be portrayed as turning the clock back FIFTY YEARS. Which to be fair would only make Mr "Boro" Gove's British Empire history lessons TWO decades out of date instead of SEVEN.
Admission by academic achievement (which in no way favours those able to afford tutoring, er).
A "percentage" of profits to be reinvested. So that'll be a percentage lower that 100%, I guess.
No mention of removing Eton and Harrow's status as "charities" though.
10. University Standards Bill
aka The Waahh, Vince Cable got his way over the head of OFFA so we want to abolish it Bill.
11. Double Devolution Bill
Tax-raising powers (and hence blame) to be sent to Scotland. Fair enough. English votes for English laws. Riiiiight.
Funny how Conservatories say "No one is interested in Constitutional Reform" when it's the House of Lords Club and not when it's their own Little Englander hobby-horse.
12. Finance Act (don't we get one of those anyway?)
Putting the "you're 'aving a laff" into the Laffer Curve.
The next budget should "increase" the amount that rich people pay by, er, cutting the top rate of tax from 45% to 40% and cutting the rate of capital gains tax to from 28% to 20%.
Didn't that just work out SO WELL in the Budget. See above. And also your current poll rating (-10% in a month).
Admittedly, it might be that YOU see the need to differentiate from US as much as WE Liberal Democrats want to disassociate ourselves from the nastier ideas that YOU have. In which case, we will keep our tax cuts for the least well off and you are welcome to be the Party of tax cuts for the super-rich. Good luck with that!
13. Trade Union Members' Bill
Further neuter Britain's remaining Trades Unions by requiring 50% turnouts in strike ballots. You know, just about one and a half times the turnout that turned out so 'enthusiastically' to give a 'massive' popular mandate (not a gay-marriage euphemism) to that 'popular new old-style Tory hope' Bojo the Clown.
Oh, and slice off Labour's funding by giving the Unions the "option" of donating the political levy to good causes instead. Why not just have them buy Lottery Tickets?
Next step, what, house arrests for Mark Serwatka and Bob Crow? I know they're ANNOYING but... didn't we used to live in a DEMOCRACY?
14. Electoral Integrity (Yes, We Have None) Bill
Requiring everyone to turn up at the polling station in person – with I.D! – if they want their vote. Like THAT'S not going to deter anybody from voting. Like THAT'S not going to disenfranchise anybody. And what would be the chances that it's easier for the well-heeled to get to the polling station and they're more likely to have passport/driving licence/credit card I.D. to hand. Our democracy is pretty robust and widely trusted as it is.
And it's I.D.iot Cards again. AGAIN! Not content with learning ALL the wrong lessons from the most disgusting Replutocrat malpractices of the US of Americaland, you want to adopt the NEW fluffing LABOUR playbook too!
Examples of voting fraud are shocking BECAUSE they are so few and far between. They need to be tackled, but the way to tackle them is by having council officers CHECK people who want a postal vote by going to MEET them. Whereas this is a rather naked attempt to put people off voting altogether.
And finally...
15. House of Lords Reform (Now We're Really Taking the Piss) Bill
Having based their entire article on the unsupported assertion that we should not at a time of economic woe be considering legislating for reform the House of Lords, they conclude by proposing... legislating to BLOCK reform of the House of Lords, and to waste everyone's time and even more money by prancing naked round the issues yet again, this time with a Royal Commission, like the business of reforming the Lords hasn't been Commissioned to DEATH in the ONE HUNDRED YEARS since we started.
Anyone signing up for this LIED in their 2010 manifesto and should be required to RESIGN their seat IMMEDIATELY.
In conclusion, Popular Conservatoryism is an OXYMORON. By which I mean a member of the Bullingdon Club.
But as the Conservatory Homeboys themselves put it:
"Popular Conservatoryism is pro-poor and broad-based"
By which they mean FAT-ARSED and in favour of MORE poor people.
It's important to remember that the Coalition was supposed to be about finding solutions through GOVERNING.
We CAN'T just pass laws to make problems go away. We don't believe that works! We're not Hard Labour! Their insane machismo of pushing more and more LEGISLATION through the House of Commons like lard through a mangle solved NOTHING (except for a temporary assuaging of Lord Blairimort's addictive craving for a new Press Release every five minutes).
What Mr Dr Vince is doing DAY to DAY in the Department for Business is FAR MORE IMPORTANT than any number of "Willies, look at the size of my waving of, Bill" bills in Mrs the Queen's Speech.
Mr Milipede has some cheek when he says that people want "answers not excuses" from the Coalition.
"Excuses" from Hard Labour for the economic shambles precipitated on their watch so far: the bankers, Europe, the bankers, America, the Tories (don't help them), the bankers, world economic conditions, the bankers, the Crimson Pirate Life Assurance Company, and the bankers.
"Answers" from Hard Labour: ...
But never mind that because we hold ourselves to a higher standard than Mr Opportunist and his Bandwagon of Merry Persons.
Why HAVE we failed to deliver so far? Isn't it because the Conservatories have had us sticking TOO RIGIDLY to the Plan A for Austerity when we SHOULD have been TESTING the outcomes and ADJUSTING as we went? That's EVIDENCE-BASED policy making.
We should look at Cap'n Clegg's schemes to bring forward infrastructure investment and the youth programme, and at Mr Dr Vince's plans for more apprenticeships and support for British winners as the RIGHT way to respond to the deepening crisis.
In short: LESS Conservatory DOGMA; MORE Liberal Democrat FLEXIBLE RESPONSE.
*I know, I know it's a "terrorist atrocity" in the making but, seriously, how can ANYONE think that HUMILIATING THEMSELVES by trying and failing to blow off their rude bits in the cause of murdering a lot of people is going to get them anything but the POINT and LAUGH treatment in any imaginary afterlife they might, well, imagine?
I genuinely think that massive amounts of DERISORY LAUGHTER is a better way to counter these numpties than the sort of massive security overkill that makes them think they're important.
.
Whenever I hear "exploding underpants"* it's hard not to think of Bojo the Clown, whose re-election as Lord Mayor of London Town has inspired some of the more FRUITY Conservatories to come out fighting for more "traditional" Conservatory policies.
Which is ODD 'cos Bojo's nine-point-plan puts LOTS of emphasis on investment for jobs and growth (points 3, 4, 5, 6 and 8. And probably 7 too. And maybe 9.) and distinctly NONE on cutting immigration "to help the working class (i.e. BNP-voting) poor", 'cos Bojo may be BONKERS but he's not STUPID. He just tries hard to LOOK stupid!
London's economy, the most powerful and only GROWING part of Great Britain, RELIES on immigration and on diversity, on the energy and innovation and culture that comes with everything from Brick Lane to gay-daddies getting married. And Bojo KNOWS that.
The idea that the Coalition Parties each just lost loads of Councillors because the Coalition is not Conservatory ENOUGH is just LAUGHABLE.
Quite apart from anything else, we KNEW when we signed up for this Coalition that it was going to be HORRIBLE, that we'd been handed a CHALICE that was not just POISONED but bought on HIRE PURCHASE with the BAILIFFS on the way round! Of COURSE we were going to get roughed up because it's the Government's JOB to take the BLAME. I've said before that we chose the long and painful but ultimately safer path out of the depression, rather than the wild borrow and gamble approach. But that's not going to make things any easier along the way.
But if you really WANT simplistic analysis, then CLEARLY it's because the Coalition policies are TOO MUCH CONSERVATORY, not too little.
Look, the Liberal Democrats are widely seen as losing votes because we've become TOO CONSERVATORY.
And you can trace the moment that the fluffy bottom fell out of the Conservatories' polling figures to... Master Gideon's top-rate-of-tax-cutting Budget, when suddenly the Conservatories looked TOO CONSERVATORY too!
The unravelling of the Budget was all about the spin that it was a tax cut for the rich paid for by hitting pasties, grannies and charities. And, ironically, conservatories.
For some Conservatories it is time to play the "Personal Incredulity Fallacy". THEY have a personal bug about "gay marriage", or Equal Marriage as we call it in the real world, and House of Lords Club reform so they ASSUME that the voters have a bug about Equal Marriage and House of Lords Club reform.
Rather than, say, Mr Landslide's "ever so popular" NHS reforms or Mr Gove's "widely lauded as uncontroversial" Free Schools or Mr Drunken-Swerve's "not in any way likely to have caused a fuss" slashing of Welfare Payments (the cuts hitting hundreds of thousands of families in the month before polling).
Sadly, imposing your personal fantasies on the electorate will not get you elected.
But never mind that. And let's put to one side the fact that most Conservatory Home readers would almost literally die of horror at the thought of an Alternative Queen. And let's look at those Conservatory Home Alternative Queen's Speech Bills in full:
1. British Bill of Rights Bill
Funny how Conservatory's say "no one is interested in Civil Rights" when it's Equal Marriage and say "nothing could be more vital" when it's their own Little Englander hobby-horse.
It is unbelievably difficult not to smell the XENOPHOBIA all over this one. "We want to send bad people to bad places and we don't care if bad things happen to them even if they turn out not to have been bad people after all, and now nasty foreigners are saying we ought to stick to the list of HUMAN RIGHTS even if it was US that wrote it, wahh!".
Which part of FUNDAMENTAL HUMAN RIGHTS do these people not understand? It can't be FUNDAMENT. And it can't be MENTAL. Cos they've demonstrated plenty of BOTH.
2. Promotion of Competition Bill
a) Water companies to compete on what appears to be a Railtrack basis with the pipes owned by a separate company. Not a recipe for disaster at all, then.
b) More banking competition, including breaking up RBS. Don't swoon; this bit is actually good.
3. Rail Improvements Bill
Scrap HS2 and tackle bottlenecks and reduce overcrowding instead. Tricky one this, as we should really look at the evidence and decide which is the better investment of limited resources. If they could back up their case with some facts, this might be convincing.
(For some reason, also includes high speed broadband roll out – why not in the competition bill?)
4. Make Prison Work Bill
(Are we saying prison DOESN'T work? Are we admitting Mr "Something of the Night" Howard was wrong?)
Solution, basically, export the problem. Repatriate non-British citizens and make 'em serve sentence abroad (assuming we CAN, and that's not a recipe for "foreign murderer/rapist/paedo released early in foreign jail outrage" type headlines) + send mentally ill to social services (who we're sure will cope and that's not a recipe for "loony murderer/rapist/paedo strikes again in not in prison outrage").
5. Fairness to British Taxpayers Bill
(i.e. Hand the Foreigners the Bill Bill)
a) Charge an "entry fee" for foreign road users to cover "wear and tear" of British roads
You can see how this appeals to the "it's not fair" mentality of the little-Englander. And fortunately, as a nation of traders there's no way that a hike in the cost of transporting goods INTO Britain could possibly be passed on to consumers here. Er.
b) Charge an "entry fee" for foreign tourists for entrance to British attractions e.g. museums
Fortunately, Britain has no massive tourist industry that generates important foreign currency income, so adding an extra disincentive to visit Britain will do no harm to the economy there either. Er.
c) Charge foreign people who get sick for use of NHS
Actually this happens already but "enforce" it by putting an statutory obligation on trust Trusts to collect – because they don't "trust" then to collect! Nice. And there's nothing like refusing to treat people with communicable diseases for keeping those epidemics out there in the population.
6. Affordable Energy Bill
Translation: "cut subsidies for generation by more expensive means" means "cut subsidy for green renewables" therefore placing more reliance on imported energy (i.e. LESS affordable energy bills).
Or fracking. Hilariously, injecting water into shale rock to force gas (and earthquakes) out was SO wildly economically UNVIABLE that no one even considered doing it until the price of oil and gas went through the roof.
7. Anti-congestion bill
Make councils let cars drive faster.
8. Double EU referendum bill
OK, now we're getting to the real fun.
Part One: hold a referendum to pre-determine (bind the hands of) the Government's negotiating position in renegotiation of a treaty with the other 26 EU members that is NOT up for grabs.
Part Two: then hold a second referendum to agree to the outcome.
How many ways can this POSSIBLY go wrong?
How do you even HOLD a referendum on a negotiating position? What's the question going to be? "Do you agree that the Prime Monster should go to Europe to demand the Abolishing of the Common Agricultural Policy, the Repeal of the Social Chapter, the Sinking of the Spanish fishing fleet, the Bulldozing of Strasburg, the Introduction of Driving on the Left Continent-wide and the Compulsory Imposition of Dairy Milk as the European Chocolate Standard, but we're willing to cave on all of that so long as you let us measure beer and milk in pints, tick one box Yes or No"?
Are the "Yes" campaign supposed to become the "No" campaign if the negotiations go fluffy-bottom up?
Will ANYONE on the other side of the Channel even take this seriously? Ms Angular Meercat is already telling Greece off for "getting their election wrong".
Note also that the wording pre-supposes that we WILL be repatriating powers, the referendum will just determine what and how much. This is called "begging the question".
9. Education (Choice and Opportunity) Bill
Private companies to provide schools on a fee-paying basis. No chance THAT could be portrayed as "privatising our schools" is there. Oh, because it IS.
And it certainly couldn't be portrayed as turning the clock back FIFTY YEARS. Which to be fair would only make Mr "Boro" Gove's British Empire history lessons TWO decades out of date instead of SEVEN.
Admission by academic achievement (which in no way favours those able to afford tutoring, er).
A "percentage" of profits to be reinvested. So that'll be a percentage lower that 100%, I guess.
No mention of removing Eton and Harrow's status as "charities" though.
10. University Standards Bill
aka The Waahh, Vince Cable got his way over the head of OFFA so we want to abolish it Bill.
11. Double Devolution Bill
Tax-raising powers (and hence blame) to be sent to Scotland. Fair enough. English votes for English laws. Riiiiight.
Funny how Conservatories say "No one is interested in Constitutional Reform" when it's the House of Lords Club and not when it's their own Little Englander hobby-horse.
12. Finance Act (don't we get one of those anyway?)
Putting the "you're 'aving a laff" into the Laffer Curve.
The next budget should "increase" the amount that rich people pay by, er, cutting the top rate of tax from 45% to 40% and cutting the rate of capital gains tax to from 28% to 20%.
Didn't that just work out SO WELL in the Budget. See above. And also your current poll rating (-10% in a month).
Admittedly, it might be that YOU see the need to differentiate from US as much as WE Liberal Democrats want to disassociate ourselves from the nastier ideas that YOU have. In which case, we will keep our tax cuts for the least well off and you are welcome to be the Party of tax cuts for the super-rich. Good luck with that!
13. Trade Union Members' Bill
Further neuter Britain's remaining Trades Unions by requiring 50% turnouts in strike ballots. You know, just about one and a half times the turnout that turned out so 'enthusiastically' to give a 'massive' popular mandate (not a gay-marriage euphemism) to that 'popular new old-style Tory hope' Bojo the Clown.
Oh, and slice off Labour's funding by giving the Unions the "option" of donating the political levy to good causes instead. Why not just have them buy Lottery Tickets?
Next step, what, house arrests for Mark Serwatka and Bob Crow? I know they're ANNOYING but... didn't we used to live in a DEMOCRACY?
14. Electoral Integrity (Yes, We Have None) Bill
Requiring everyone to turn up at the polling station in person – with I.D! – if they want their vote. Like THAT'S not going to deter anybody from voting. Like THAT'S not going to disenfranchise anybody. And what would be the chances that it's easier for the well-heeled to get to the polling station and they're more likely to have passport/driving licence/credit card I.D. to hand. Our democracy is pretty robust and widely trusted as it is.
And it's I.D.iot Cards again. AGAIN! Not content with learning ALL the wrong lessons from the most disgusting Replutocrat malpractices of the US of Americaland, you want to adopt the NEW fluffing LABOUR playbook too!
Examples of voting fraud are shocking BECAUSE they are so few and far between. They need to be tackled, but the way to tackle them is by having council officers CHECK people who want a postal vote by going to MEET them. Whereas this is a rather naked attempt to put people off voting altogether.
And finally...
15. House of Lords Reform (Now We're Really Taking the Piss) Bill
Having based their entire article on the unsupported assertion that we should not at a time of economic woe be considering legislating for reform the House of Lords, they conclude by proposing... legislating to BLOCK reform of the House of Lords, and to waste everyone's time and even more money by prancing naked round the issues yet again, this time with a Royal Commission, like the business of reforming the Lords hasn't been Commissioned to DEATH in the ONE HUNDRED YEARS since we started.
Anyone signing up for this LIED in their 2010 manifesto and should be required to RESIGN their seat IMMEDIATELY.
In conclusion, Popular Conservatoryism is an OXYMORON. By which I mean a member of the Bullingdon Club.
But as the Conservatory Homeboys themselves put it:
"Popular Conservatoryism is pro-poor and broad-based"
By which they mean FAT-ARSED and in favour of MORE poor people.
It's important to remember that the Coalition was supposed to be about finding solutions through GOVERNING.
We CAN'T just pass laws to make problems go away. We don't believe that works! We're not Hard Labour! Their insane machismo of pushing more and more LEGISLATION through the House of Commons like lard through a mangle solved NOTHING (except for a temporary assuaging of Lord Blairimort's addictive craving for a new Press Release every five minutes).
What Mr Dr Vince is doing DAY to DAY in the Department for Business is FAR MORE IMPORTANT than any number of "Willies, look at the size of my waving of, Bill" bills in Mrs the Queen's Speech.
Mr Milipede has some cheek when he says that people want "answers not excuses" from the Coalition.
"Excuses" from Hard Labour for the economic shambles precipitated on their watch so far: the bankers, Europe, the bankers, America, the Tories (don't help them), the bankers, world economic conditions, the bankers, the Crimson Pirate Life Assurance Company, and the bankers.
"Answers" from Hard Labour: ...
But never mind that because we hold ourselves to a higher standard than Mr Opportunist and his Bandwagon of Merry Persons.
Why HAVE we failed to deliver so far? Isn't it because the Conservatories have had us sticking TOO RIGIDLY to the Plan A for Austerity when we SHOULD have been TESTING the outcomes and ADJUSTING as we went? That's EVIDENCE-BASED policy making.
We should look at Cap'n Clegg's schemes to bring forward infrastructure investment and the youth programme, and at Mr Dr Vince's plans for more apprenticeships and support for British winners as the RIGHT way to respond to the deepening crisis.
In short: LESS Conservatory DOGMA; MORE Liberal Democrat FLEXIBLE RESPONSE.
*I know, I know it's a "terrorist atrocity" in the making but, seriously, how can ANYONE think that HUMILIATING THEMSELVES by trying and failing to blow off their rude bits in the cause of murdering a lot of people is going to get them anything but the POINT and LAUGH treatment in any imaginary afterlife they might, well, imagine?
I genuinely think that massive amounts of DERISORY LAUGHTER is a better way to counter these numpties than the sort of massive security overkill that makes them think they're important.
.
Friday, May 04, 2012
Day 4142: Election Flop – Mr Balloon turns to Porn
Friday:
Top Secret Government Strategy (for Tories who have yet to get with the programme)
Step 1: Denude Westminster Government of as much power as possible – localise it, federalise it, devolve it, whatever.
Step 2: Install House of Lords Club with enough teeth and mandate to stop future government ever undoing this.
Step 3: Lose 2015 election, see Hard Labour stuck powerless in Whitehall taking the blame for a decade while we get back to what we're GOOD at – running local councils and actually making people's lives BETTER!
Seriously, though, the Liberal Democrats exist to BE IN POWER.
Locally or nationally, if we're going to liberate people from poverty, ignorance and conformity, we've got to be in power. Otherwise, like me, you're just BLOGGING.
And all the evidence shows that where we ARE in power, we deliver the services that people want AND value for money. So that's why it's disappointing when we take a drubbing.
This morning, Mr Paul Cornell, an otherwise noble writer of Doctor Who, tweeted:
Which I'm afraid merely serves as a reminder that Labour are TORIES with added SANCTIMONIOUS SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS.
Hard Labour, of course, are the Party SO "addicted" to power that they installed a lying, warmongering megalomaniac with a god complex as Prime Monster. And then were so GRUBBY to keep their incompetent mitts on the levers of government that they let a cowardly bullying economic-illiterate with known telephone related tantrum issues take over without any input from the people.
(No, don't say you didn't know Lord Blairimort was EVIL – Daddy Alex was warning you of it on election night 1997, and frankly it was OBVIOUS from 1994 when he was willing to use the death of a little boy, Jamie Bulger, for political leverage. And don't say you didn't know Mr Frown wasn't up to the job – there isn't anyone in W1 who didn't hear the slanging matches through the walls of 10 and 11 Downing Street.)
Hard Labour THEMSELVES admit that they have to ask their supporters to wear a CLOTHES PEG to hide the STENCH and vote Labour in spite of it.
THAT'S what REALLY being addicted to power looks like. Liberal Democrats can remain PROUD of their Party's achievements and their Party's candidates!
As a GOOD CHRISTIAN, though, I am sure Mr Cornell is familiar with Matthew 7.5.
Hard Labour and their APOLOGISTS like to remind us that we had a CHOICE to go into power with the TORIES. And this is TRUE – we had a choice of the BLUE Tories or the RED Tories. (And the RED Tories were more interested in taking their ball away and having a leadership contest than attending to the GOOD OF THE COUNTRY.)
They love to GLOAT that entering the Coalition has lost us a third of our support because of our "treason" – as though it might have NOTHING to do with us having to deal with the fallout from what happened ON HARD LABOUR'S WATCH, namely the WORST ECONOMIC COLLAPSE since the Great Depression. (Gosh it's SO BORING that that just hasn't GONE AWAY, isn't it – except in Labour's FANTASY economics.)
As Mr Ed Davey said on the Newsnight Show last night: "It's been Ninety Years since we had any Mid-Tem Blues!" So let's ENJOY 'em while we CAN!
But before Hard Labour's supporters get TOO carried away with their total, brilliant success ((c) the "infamous minister of justice", Jack "Man 'O" Straw, er...), it's worth remembering that TURNOUT in these elections was an APPALLING 32%. (An INDICTMENT of us ALL! Go read Auntie Jennie for more.) So Hard Labour's 39% of the vote is actually only 12% of the POSSIBLE vote – and that's FEWER people turning out to support Mr Milipede than showed up to back Mr Frown when he was annihilated at the last general election.
If anything, this is a massive victory for... our voters not turning up.
(And you know, with a double-dip recession and string of Conservatory cock-up and corruption scandals, who can blame 'em. This is no endorsement of the Coalition, but Labour benefits from our ABSENCE not their own strength.)
Anyway, in an effort to move on from the FLACCID election results, Mr Balloon (do you remember when he was RE-LAUNCH KING? See for example, diaries here, here and here. Old habits die hard, it seems.) is going to a conference to look at PORN.
No! It's not what you think.
Apparently, he wants to make it HARDER for people. (To see it, that is!)
Daddy Alex wants to call this more Conservatory WILLY-WAVING. I give him a very firm stare!
Look, even if backdoor methods of banning things that are legal wasn't stupid, illiberal and very unlikely to work, does he REALLY think that this is going to stop the moderately determined horny teenager getting his – or even her – hands on anything on the Internet?
And THIS is why we need Liberal Democrats in GOVERNMENT. To SAY, "Hang on, Mr Balloon, this is STOOPID!"
May the Fourth Be With You!
.
Top Secret Government Strategy (for Tories who have yet to get with the programme)
Step 1: Denude Westminster Government of as much power as possible – localise it, federalise it, devolve it, whatever.
Step 2: Install House of Lords Club with enough teeth and mandate to stop future government ever undoing this.
Step 3: Lose 2015 election, see Hard Labour stuck powerless in Whitehall taking the blame for a decade while we get back to what we're GOOD at – running local councils and actually making people's lives BETTER!
Seriously, though, the Liberal Democrats exist to BE IN POWER.
Locally or nationally, if we're going to liberate people from poverty, ignorance and conformity, we've got to be in power. Otherwise, like me, you're just BLOGGING.
And all the evidence shows that where we ARE in power, we deliver the services that people want AND value for money. So that's why it's disappointing when we take a drubbing.
This morning, Mr Paul Cornell, an otherwise noble writer of Doctor Who, tweeted:
"...How addicted are the Lib Dems to power, that they'll ride it until it kills them?"
Which I'm afraid merely serves as a reminder that Labour are TORIES with added SANCTIMONIOUS SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS.
Hard Labour, of course, are the Party SO "addicted" to power that they installed a lying, warmongering megalomaniac with a god complex as Prime Monster. And then were so GRUBBY to keep their incompetent mitts on the levers of government that they let a cowardly bullying economic-illiterate with known telephone related tantrum issues take over without any input from the people.
(No, don't say you didn't know Lord Blairimort was EVIL – Daddy Alex was warning you of it on election night 1997, and frankly it was OBVIOUS from 1994 when he was willing to use the death of a little boy, Jamie Bulger, for political leverage. And don't say you didn't know Mr Frown wasn't up to the job – there isn't anyone in W1 who didn't hear the slanging matches through the walls of 10 and 11 Downing Street.)
Hard Labour THEMSELVES admit that they have to ask their supporters to wear a CLOTHES PEG to hide the STENCH and vote Labour in spite of it.
THAT'S what REALLY being addicted to power looks like. Liberal Democrats can remain PROUD of their Party's achievements and their Party's candidates!
As a GOOD CHRISTIAN, though, I am sure Mr Cornell is familiar with Matthew 7.5.
Hard Labour and their APOLOGISTS like to remind us that we had a CHOICE to go into power with the TORIES. And this is TRUE – we had a choice of the BLUE Tories or the RED Tories. (And the RED Tories were more interested in taking their ball away and having a leadership contest than attending to the GOOD OF THE COUNTRY.)
They love to GLOAT that entering the Coalition has lost us a third of our support because of our "treason" – as though it might have NOTHING to do with us having to deal with the fallout from what happened ON HARD LABOUR'S WATCH, namely the WORST ECONOMIC COLLAPSE since the Great Depression. (Gosh it's SO BORING that that just hasn't GONE AWAY, isn't it – except in Labour's FANTASY economics.)
As Mr Ed Davey said on the Newsnight Show last night: "It's been Ninety Years since we had any Mid-Tem Blues!" So let's ENJOY 'em while we CAN!
But before Hard Labour's supporters get TOO carried away with their total, brilliant success ((c) the "infamous minister of justice", Jack "Man 'O" Straw, er...), it's worth remembering that TURNOUT in these elections was an APPALLING 32%. (An INDICTMENT of us ALL! Go read Auntie Jennie for more.) So Hard Labour's 39% of the vote is actually only 12% of the POSSIBLE vote – and that's FEWER people turning out to support Mr Milipede than showed up to back Mr Frown when he was annihilated at the last general election.
If anything, this is a massive victory for... our voters not turning up.
(And you know, with a double-dip recession and string of Conservatory cock-up and corruption scandals, who can blame 'em. This is no endorsement of the Coalition, but Labour benefits from our ABSENCE not their own strength.)
Anyway, in an effort to move on from the FLACCID election results, Mr Balloon (do you remember when he was RE-LAUNCH KING? See for example, diaries here, here and here. Old habits die hard, it seems.) is going to a conference to look at PORN.
No! It's not what you think.
Apparently, he wants to make it HARDER for people. (To see it, that is!)
Daddy Alex wants to call this more Conservatory WILLY-WAVING. I give him a very firm stare!
Look, even if backdoor methods of banning things that are legal wasn't stupid, illiberal and very unlikely to work, does he REALLY think that this is going to stop the moderately determined horny teenager getting his – or even her – hands on anything on the Internet?
And THIS is why we need Liberal Democrats in GOVERNMENT. To SAY, "Hang on, Mr Balloon, this is STOOPID!"
PS:
May the Fourth Be With You!
.
Wednesday, May 02, 2012
Day 4140: Brian Paddick and the Liberal Democrats: A Vote You Can Be PROUD Of
Thursday:
What do you WANT in London?
A single policy of an unaffordable fare-cut bribe OR a shiny new million-pound bus?
Wouldn't you rather have a DELIVERABLE low fares policy AND a plan to turn all of London's buses and taxis ELECTRIC for greener, cleaner air!
Do you want a BRAGGING war over who can put more police on the street?
Wouldn't you rather have an EXPERIENCED leader who PIONEERED techniques rebuilding TRUST between public and police AND who pledges to CUT OUT the HARASSMENT of stop-and-search and END the scandal of the POLICE being WASTED on trivial cannabis arrests!
Do you more of the same old failure to invest in affordable housing (while granting planning permission for huge skyscrapers) OR more of the same old failure to invest in affordable housing (while granting planning permission for huge skyscrapers)?
Wouldn't you rather have a REAL commitment to working London-wide to restart PROPER council house building to replace the lost housing stock coupled with IMAGINATIVE plans to bring empty houses back into use AND finding new living space above shops and businesses.
Wouldn't you rather have a PLAN to make London not just an AFFORDABLE place to live but a BETTER place to live, with pedestrianized zones between Oxford Street and Trafalgar Square, with more spent on the PARKS across London and more SPORTS and more ARTS and MORE TREES everywhere!
Wouldn't you rather have someone who'll give young people have SOMEWHERE OF THEIR OWN to go so they don't have to hang about on the streets so they don't risk falling victim to GANG culture AND who'll invest in education and apprenticeships and advice to see that young people have a FUTURE.
Some people are thinking of voting for Bojo the Clown because they think he is HARMLESS. Or, as the Hitchhiker's Guide might have it, MOSTLY HARMLESS. Well, we can do a LOT BETTER than "harmless".
Some people are thinking of voting for Ken because... er... well, even Hard Labour admit that they're reduced to the old CLOTHES PEG strategy – you've got to vote Ken or else Mr Balloon won't understand that he's got to be punished for not having fixed the economic devastation that Labour wrought yet. Er, or something. Well, we can do a lot better than THAT too!
Some people are even thinking of voting for Jenny Jones because even though they think her policies are WOO they would rather feel WARM and FLUFFY than actually vote for what they want. People with an ACTUAL commitment to green policies (or even Green PARTY policies, which are not ALWAYS the same or as effective), good for you; but people protest-voting Green to spite Cap'n Clegg over tuition fees earn my fluffy contempt. (Pod Delusion, it is YOU I am looking at!)
If you think that the Liberal Democrats don't deliver for you – when the UNFAIR electoral system meant we got FEWER seats in Parliament, we STILL delivered ALL FOUR promises on the front of our manifesto.
If you think that we break our promises – we managed to turn Hard Labour's Student Loans into a Graduate Tax that was FAIRER and MORE GENEROUS than EITHER the Conservatories OR Hard Labour wanted or would have delivered. New graduates now pay LESS each month than they would have done under Hard Labour.
And if you think that we're "traitors" just because we backed the other Party that had the larger number of votes and the larger number of seats and the larger DEMOCRATIC MANDATE rather than support a Party that had just spent thirteen years trampling over EVERYTHING we believe in about CIVIL LIBERTIES and INTERNATIONAL LAW – then you should probably ADMIT you we're going to vote for the AUTHORITARIAN, ECONOMICALLY-ILLITERATE, WARMONGERING CRIMINALS anyway, weren't you.
Who's REALLY on your side these days? Let's look at the EVIDENCE.
Times are tough for everyone, but LOCALLY it's only Liberal Democrat councils that have kept open SURE START schemes and LIBRARIES.: unlike those Conservatory vandals' and Hard Labour hypocrites' councils, not one Lib Dem-run council has closed a library. And NATIONALLY it's the Liberal Democrats who have CUT TAXES for the lowest earners and focussed the PUPIL PREMIUM on a better start for the least well off.
I don't care how much tax Ken's been avoiding; I don't care how much Bojo earns moonlighting for the Tell-lies-o-graph. But THEY care or they wouldn't have tried to keep it HIDDEN from you.
There's a BETTER WAY than that.
Hard Labour and the Conservatories are JUST LIKE EACH OTHER, telling you you must vote for them so that the other feller doesn't get in. Well you know what, you don't have to vote for EITHER of them – vote for the REAL alternative and then NEITHER of the other fellers will get in!
I don't want to vote for a clown OR a caricature.
And I don't have to.
I can vote for Brian Paddick and the Liberal Democrats. And I can be PROUD of it.
.
What do you WANT in London?
A single policy of an unaffordable fare-cut bribe OR a shiny new million-pound bus?
Wouldn't you rather have a DELIVERABLE low fares policy AND a plan to turn all of London's buses and taxis ELECTRIC for greener, cleaner air!
Do you want a BRAGGING war over who can put more police on the street?
Wouldn't you rather have an EXPERIENCED leader who PIONEERED techniques rebuilding TRUST between public and police AND who pledges to CUT OUT the HARASSMENT of stop-and-search and END the scandal of the POLICE being WASTED on trivial cannabis arrests!
Do you more of the same old failure to invest in affordable housing (while granting planning permission for huge skyscrapers) OR more of the same old failure to invest in affordable housing (while granting planning permission for huge skyscrapers)?
Wouldn't you rather have a REAL commitment to working London-wide to restart PROPER council house building to replace the lost housing stock coupled with IMAGINATIVE plans to bring empty houses back into use AND finding new living space above shops and businesses.
Wouldn't you rather have a PLAN to make London not just an AFFORDABLE place to live but a BETTER place to live, with pedestrianized zones between Oxford Street and Trafalgar Square, with more spent on the PARKS across London and more SPORTS and more ARTS and MORE TREES everywhere!
Wouldn't you rather have someone who'll give young people have SOMEWHERE OF THEIR OWN to go so they don't have to hang about on the streets so they don't risk falling victim to GANG culture AND who'll invest in education and apprenticeships and advice to see that young people have a FUTURE.
Some people are thinking of voting for Bojo the Clown because they think he is HARMLESS. Or, as the Hitchhiker's Guide might have it, MOSTLY HARMLESS. Well, we can do a LOT BETTER than "harmless".
Some people are thinking of voting for Ken because... er... well, even Hard Labour admit that they're reduced to the old CLOTHES PEG strategy – you've got to vote Ken or else Mr Balloon won't understand that he's got to be punished for not having fixed the economic devastation that Labour wrought yet. Er, or something. Well, we can do a lot better than THAT too!
Some people are even thinking of voting for Jenny Jones because even though they think her policies are WOO they would rather feel WARM and FLUFFY than actually vote for what they want. People with an ACTUAL commitment to green policies (or even Green PARTY policies, which are not ALWAYS the same or as effective), good for you; but people protest-voting Green to spite Cap'n Clegg over tuition fees earn my fluffy contempt. (Pod Delusion, it is YOU I am looking at!)
If you think that the Liberal Democrats don't deliver for you – when the UNFAIR electoral system meant we got FEWER seats in Parliament, we STILL delivered ALL FOUR promises on the front of our manifesto.
If you think that we break our promises – we managed to turn Hard Labour's Student Loans into a Graduate Tax that was FAIRER and MORE GENEROUS than EITHER the Conservatories OR Hard Labour wanted or would have delivered. New graduates now pay LESS each month than they would have done under Hard Labour.
And if you think that we're "traitors" just because we backed the other Party that had the larger number of votes and the larger number of seats and the larger DEMOCRATIC MANDATE rather than support a Party that had just spent thirteen years trampling over EVERYTHING we believe in about CIVIL LIBERTIES and INTERNATIONAL LAW – then you should probably ADMIT you we're going to vote for the AUTHORITARIAN, ECONOMICALLY-ILLITERATE, WARMONGERING CRIMINALS anyway, weren't you.
Who's REALLY on your side these days? Let's look at the EVIDENCE.
Times are tough for everyone, but LOCALLY it's only Liberal Democrat councils that have kept open SURE START schemes and LIBRARIES.: unlike those Conservatory vandals' and Hard Labour hypocrites' councils, not one Lib Dem-run council has closed a library. And NATIONALLY it's the Liberal Democrats who have CUT TAXES for the lowest earners and focussed the PUPIL PREMIUM on a better start for the least well off.
I don't care how much tax Ken's been avoiding; I don't care how much Bojo earns moonlighting for the Tell-lies-o-graph. But THEY care or they wouldn't have tried to keep it HIDDEN from you.
There's a BETTER WAY than that.
Hard Labour and the Conservatories are JUST LIKE EACH OTHER, telling you you must vote for them so that the other feller doesn't get in. Well you know what, you don't have to vote for EITHER of them – vote for the REAL alternative and then NEITHER of the other fellers will get in!
I don't want to vote for a clown OR a caricature.
And I don't have to.
I can vote for Brian Paddick and the Liberal Democrats. And I can be PROUD of it.
.
Thursday, April 26, 2012
Day 4133: Driving into a Hole
Wednesday:
Top story on the BBC: an unnamed driver – known only as "Master Gideon" – has crashed his car into the Paris Metro. Apparently he misread the signs.
OK, look it's NO GOOD pretending this is good news. We're in a recession again.
The difference between the expected +0.1% growth and the surprise -0.2% contraction is pretty tiny. But that's just saying that the economy would have been pretty dire even if we HAD avoided a second recession on a technicality.
This is NOT the outcome we wanted. We should admit that and ask what we could do better.
The Chancer of the Exchequer, Master Gideon Oboe – henceforth to be known as the Double-Dipsh— no, I can't say that! – has already had a BAD MONTH because of the Budget, because actually it DID slap more taxes on the rich and the very, very rich and they've been finding all sorts of ways to whinge about it.
It's funny how we're told to cut less and tax a little more right up to the point where we DO that and then it's pasty-tax this and conservatory-tax that and cathedral-tax the other.
(And it's REALLY helpful when you can get CHARITIES to front up your demands for tax loopholes. Of course, some people might say that if you need a tax break in order to give money to charity, you don't deserve to call yourself a philanthropist. Even if the charity in question is the Birmingham Opera Company, who I am sure bring great joy to the least well-off through their Pas des Deux-es.
(Look, with charity donations, like PENSION CONTRIBUTIONS, there's a case for saying that they come out of your BEFORE-TAX income, fair enough. So if I've been persuaded by the Party that the amount you put in your pension should have a cap, then it seems only CONSISTENT that they should say the same for the charity giving.)
In part the badness of the news is PSYCHOLOGICAL: just the WORD "recession" is enough to dent confidence and slow our chances of growth and recovery.
OF COURSE it hurts POLITICALLY. It lets Hard Labour weep their crocodile tears and crow about "wrong choices".
But we should not let that put us off taking a SERIOUS look at our choices and reassessing whether they ARE bad or not.
And you KNOW how much I HATE it when Ms Nadine "Mad Nad" Dories might have a POINT.
But "remorse, contrition and compassion" are EXACTLY the qualities that we should be showing. They are what I had HOPED would make the difference between this administration and the governments of Queen Maggie and Mr Major-Minor.
The predictions of growth that have repeatedly proved so over-optimistic are based on the way that the economy – nationally and globally – has bounced back from previous recent recessions (1972, 1980, 1991, 2001). But in some ways, the REASON for those bounce-backs was CAUSE of this recession: we were pouring on more of the old problem, racking up ever-more DEBT.
The Bank of England relaxed lending laws at the start of the Seventies, triggering a house price boom that helped us over the Oil Shock; our own North Sea Oil, i.e. the flogging off a previously-undiscovered asset, reducing the Nation's net savings, rescued us from the early-Eighties recession; leaving the EMU and the subsequent devaluation and inflation lifted us out of the Nineties property crash, again at the expense of a lot of National wealth, and of course a huge burst of cheap borrowing forestalled the dot.com collapse in the early Two-Thousands.
This time around, it's that very borrowing that has finally caught up with us and CAUSED the crash. We can't at the same time take the action to stop it happening again AND let it happen again to get us out of the hole.
Essentially, we've been storing this cataclysm up for four decades, and the models really aren't ready for it.
Another big drag on growth is the renewed (or never-went-away) CREDIT CRUNCH.
I've said before, many times, how if you lend more money it has a magical multiplying effect that boosts economic growth; and that if you reduce lending then it reverses the process, sucking growth right back out again.
The banks are having to build up much bigger reserves against losses to meet the new regulations that the Coalition have put on them. In simple terms, this means they need more money IN and not as much OUT.
It's why, for example, the Halifax-that-we-own have raised their mortgage interest rate even though the base rate remains frozen at an all-time low. They're gouging an extra margin from borrowers to build their own balance sheet. But at the same time cutting people's spending power, taking money AWAY from activity that could help growth.
It's the same problem that we had with the VAT rise last year – money is burnt up in interest (or tax) instead of being spent on making things.
Thirdly, there is the simple factor of TIME. Almost ALL of the levers that Gideon the Chancer can pull take a VERY long time to affect the economy. There's a BIG rise in the personal allowance coming in – it's been announced for ages but it's only going to go into your pay packet this month. Too late for the first quarter growth figures. The EVEN BIGGER tax cut announced in this year's budget won't get to you until NEXT year.
That VAT rise last year had a big impact, pumping up inflation, and it's only a year later that the inflation figure is starting to come down (subject to the ongoing energy crisis and soaring food prices). Once you've done something like that it's TOO LATE to change your mind. Sure, you can chop and change the VAT rate all the time, as Labour propose, but that causes no end of problems and costs for businesses who have to reprint all their price lists and reprogram all their accounting software.
In a way, it ought to be impossible to blame the Coalition… YET. Because the cuts have barely started. We hardly cut at all in 2010, and 2011 was merely the beginning. Except for the VAT rise, really, the impact has not yet arrived.
The most terrifying aspect of this though is that most of the cuts are STILL TO COME. The plan is, as it always was, to keep spending the SAME in cash, and allow inflation to do all the dirty work. Then any real growth above inflation would give the Coalition more room to manoeuver, slackening off on the spending controls, reducing the bite of the extra taxes. But the growth hasn't arrived. So the screws continue to tighten.
Well, there IS always that possibility. But I still don't think so.
Hard Labour's solution was – and still is – more stimulus, paid for by more borrowing, to try and kick-start the economy. They'll point to Americaland where President Barry O DID do more stimulus (spending coupled with a package of tax cuts) and the outcome appears to be an economy that might just come good in time for his November re-election.
(Of course that is SIMPLISTIC – the US economy has a different economic mix, with more manufacturing and much less finance and they are much less closely tied to Europe, but on the other fluffy foot have much, much worse borrowing to start with – but it's a crude enough comparison to be worth considering.)
The American example shows that more stimulus COULD have worked.
What it doesn't show is that it WOULD have worked.
If a patient has a massive heart attack, you can get them back on their feet with a massive injection of adrenaline.
They'll bounce up and run around for a bit at first, but of course IT WILL KILL THEM.
And in a lot of ways this is exactly what Mr Alistair Dalek DID do with his VAT cut and Quantum of Easing. He injected the economy with a massive dose of cheap money and the so-called growth was bought, almost literally pound for pound, by borrowing it from the future.
Hard Labour's MASSIVE ECONOMIC GAMBLE was – or would have been – to KEEP pumping borrowed growth into the economy in the hope that a genuine recovery would come along in time to save them.
Essentially, keep the patient running around and keep your fingers crossed that their heart starts again on its own before they DIE.
The PROBLEM with this approach – and it's a FUNDAMENTAL problem – is that all you've done (so far) is create a massive PONZI scheme: you are generating growth at the front door but only by pumping in borrowed money at the back door.
What is ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL is that once you HAVE got an economy that looks like it's growing is THEN you do the HARD WORK to fix the broken bits of your system: cut your spending; run a huge budget surplus to repay your borrowing; rebalance your economy in favour of wealth-generating and away from government spending.
And based on their history there is NO EVIDENCE that Hard Labour would be willing to DO that work. They would just repeat the DISASTER of their last government and fund a spending binge on the never-never.
(There's also a secondary problem with Labour's methods – to be effective, you need to give your stimulus of borrowed money to the PRIVATE SECTOR, to manufacturing, construction, mining or farming – including wind farming. Basically, things that GENERATE more cash than you put in. It's called INVESTMENT. The evidence shows that what Hard Labour's SPIN MACHINE calls "investment" actually means spending the money on more public sector workers instead. That may result in a better society in the long run, but it doesn't solve the immediate problem and arguably makes it worse in the short term by adding more costs to other already-hard-pressed workers.)
Whether the gamble succeeds or fails depends on how long people can be persuaded to keep lending you the money.
If you're lucky then you get away with it. Enough growth in genuine economic activity – not just recirculating government money – and you can pay for the extra borrowing to cover you through the "actually fixing the economy" phase.
But if you're unlucky, if the manufacturing and service sectors don't come up with the goods before it becomes too expensive for you to carry on borrowing, then never mind GREECE... the next stop for the economy is YEMEN.
On coming into power, in the climate of turmoil on the money markets, on seeing the Treasury's books, on receiving the infamous "there's no money left" note from Liam Byrne, with the spectre of a potential Greek collapse hanging over us... all of these factors persuaded the incoming Coalition that the time before the borrowing dried up was LESS rather than MORE, and that the chances of the GAMBLE paying off were not worth the risk.
Does that mean that we missed the chance of a short cut out of the pain of a trashed economy?
Yes, it does.
But we ALSO avoided the downside risk of a toxic combination of spiralling national debt, escalating interest rates, out-of-control inflation and STILL no growth – the kind of mix that's destroying the Eurozone at the moment.
This is BAD but it's a LONG, LONG way from as bad as it could be.
The government managed to hit its annual borrowing target – in part thanks to that VAT rise.
Yes we "only" added a hundred and twenty six billion squids to the national debt last year. But that's eleven billion squids fewer than in the year before, despite rising inflation. The gap is closing.
And the pound continues to STRENGTHEN against the DOLLAR and the EURO, showing that the markets believe our economy is SAFER and STRONGER than either the Americaland or the Euroland economies, in spite of growth over there while we're still bouncing along the fluffy bottom. People want to invest their money HERE, and that's a good thing.
Well step one is DON'T PANIC!
Own up to the fact we've NOT solved the problems of the economy yet. They were pretty massive but we thought we could do it. We SAID we could do it. But (at least so far) we HAVEN'T.
But that's NOT a reason to flail about wildly adopting "Plan B", "Plan C" or "Plan 9 from Outer Spads" at random.
We should look at what we ARE doing. Does it look RIGHT? If not, can we fix that? Who is being hit hardest? Is that fair? Can they take the cost? Can we give more help to those in need?
In this immediate set of figures, it appears that the driver of this contraction is the construction industry. And this is ANNOYING because it's one place where the government COULD reasonably borrow to invest: buying new home building and road and rail infrastructure NOW helps keep builders in employment AND prepares the way for when the recovery comes. And the assets that they build can return an "economic rent" – if they're houses a literal rent – that covers the cost of borrowing so it DOESN'T damage the economy.
And to be fair the Coalition ARE doing SOME of this. But clearly not enough and/or not quickly enough.
Planning laws and general NIMBY-ism are a real brake on bringing forward these projects. Obviously High Speed 2 is going to take a geological aeon before it breaks ground, but just think of all the objections to new windmills or new housing estates, too. Having said that, I bet you most MPs could name one or two "off the shelf" projects in their constituency just waiting for funding – that's a place we should be looking to nudge a bit harder.
Less construction isn't the whole of the story. There's just not any growth in any other areas to make up for it either. Remember Mr Dr Vince's leaked letter – we need to sharpen our strategy for growth, boost investment and back Britain.
Unclenching the credit crunch is going to be necessary if not vital. Captain Clegg made a speech about access to finance today.
But we also need a revival of OPTIMISM.
It's not all bad news. The rise in commodity prices means that some things that were not economically viable before now look profitable. That's what happened with North Sea Oil in the Seventies. This provides new OPPORTUNITIES. Some of them are GOOD (like mining space asteroids); some of them are, er, NOT SO GOOD (like Fracking Blackpool).
But what is KEY is that people are now starting to CONSIDER these opportunities.
People are willing to make PLANS – however outrageous or barmy they may seem.
THAT is what's needed for recovery, the start of the upswing, a sign of hope.
.
Top story on the BBC: an unnamed driver – known only as "Master Gideon" – has crashed his car into the Paris Metro. Apparently he misread the signs.
OK, look it's NO GOOD pretending this is good news. We're in a recession again.
The difference between the expected +0.1% growth and the surprise -0.2% contraction is pretty tiny. But that's just saying that the economy would have been pretty dire even if we HAD avoided a second recession on a technicality.
This is NOT the outcome we wanted. We should admit that and ask what we could do better.
The Chancer of the Exchequer, Master Gideon Oboe – henceforth to be known as the Double-Dipsh— no, I can't say that! – has already had a BAD MONTH because of the Budget, because actually it DID slap more taxes on the rich and the very, very rich and they've been finding all sorts of ways to whinge about it.
It's funny how we're told to cut less and tax a little more right up to the point where we DO that and then it's pasty-tax this and conservatory-tax that and cathedral-tax the other.
(And it's REALLY helpful when you can get CHARITIES to front up your demands for tax loopholes. Of course, some people might say that if you need a tax break in order to give money to charity, you don't deserve to call yourself a philanthropist. Even if the charity in question is the Birmingham Opera Company, who I am sure bring great joy to the least well-off through their Pas des Deux-es.
(Look, with charity donations, like PENSION CONTRIBUTIONS, there's a case for saying that they come out of your BEFORE-TAX income, fair enough. So if I've been persuaded by the Party that the amount you put in your pension should have a cap, then it seems only CONSISTENT that they should say the same for the charity giving.)
In part the badness of the news is PSYCHOLOGICAL: just the WORD "recession" is enough to dent confidence and slow our chances of growth and recovery.
OF COURSE it hurts POLITICALLY. It lets Hard Labour weep their crocodile tears and crow about "wrong choices".
But we should not let that put us off taking a SERIOUS look at our choices and reassessing whether they ARE bad or not.
And you KNOW how much I HATE it when Ms Nadine "Mad Nad" Dories might have a POINT.
But "remorse, contrition and compassion" are EXACTLY the qualities that we should be showing. They are what I had HOPED would make the difference between this administration and the governments of Queen Maggie and Mr Major-Minor.
Why isn't it working?
The predictions of growth that have repeatedly proved so over-optimistic are based on the way that the economy – nationally and globally – has bounced back from previous recent recessions (1972, 1980, 1991, 2001). But in some ways, the REASON for those bounce-backs was CAUSE of this recession: we were pouring on more of the old problem, racking up ever-more DEBT.
The Bank of England relaxed lending laws at the start of the Seventies, triggering a house price boom that helped us over the Oil Shock; our own North Sea Oil, i.e. the flogging off a previously-undiscovered asset, reducing the Nation's net savings, rescued us from the early-Eighties recession; leaving the EMU and the subsequent devaluation and inflation lifted us out of the Nineties property crash, again at the expense of a lot of National wealth, and of course a huge burst of cheap borrowing forestalled the dot.com collapse in the early Two-Thousands.
This time around, it's that very borrowing that has finally caught up with us and CAUSED the crash. We can't at the same time take the action to stop it happening again AND let it happen again to get us out of the hole.
Essentially, we've been storing this cataclysm up for four decades, and the models really aren't ready for it.
Another big drag on growth is the renewed (or never-went-away) CREDIT CRUNCH.
I've said before, many times, how if you lend more money it has a magical multiplying effect that boosts economic growth; and that if you reduce lending then it reverses the process, sucking growth right back out again.
The banks are having to build up much bigger reserves against losses to meet the new regulations that the Coalition have put on them. In simple terms, this means they need more money IN and not as much OUT.
It's why, for example, the Halifax-that-we-own have raised their mortgage interest rate even though the base rate remains frozen at an all-time low. They're gouging an extra margin from borrowers to build their own balance sheet. But at the same time cutting people's spending power, taking money AWAY from activity that could help growth.
It's the same problem that we had with the VAT rise last year – money is burnt up in interest (or tax) instead of being spent on making things.
Thirdly, there is the simple factor of TIME. Almost ALL of the levers that Gideon the Chancer can pull take a VERY long time to affect the economy. There's a BIG rise in the personal allowance coming in – it's been announced for ages but it's only going to go into your pay packet this month. Too late for the first quarter growth figures. The EVEN BIGGER tax cut announced in this year's budget won't get to you until NEXT year.
That VAT rise last year had a big impact, pumping up inflation, and it's only a year later that the inflation figure is starting to come down (subject to the ongoing energy crisis and soaring food prices). Once you've done something like that it's TOO LATE to change your mind. Sure, you can chop and change the VAT rate all the time, as Labour propose, but that causes no end of problems and costs for businesses who have to reprint all their price lists and reprogram all their accounting software.
In a way, it ought to be impossible to blame the Coalition… YET. Because the cuts have barely started. We hardly cut at all in 2010, and 2011 was merely the beginning. Except for the VAT rise, really, the impact has not yet arrived.
The most terrifying aspect of this though is that most of the cuts are STILL TO COME. The plan is, as it always was, to keep spending the SAME in cash, and allow inflation to do all the dirty work. Then any real growth above inflation would give the Coalition more room to manoeuver, slackening off on the spending controls, reducing the bite of the extra taxes. But the growth hasn't arrived. So the screws continue to tighten.
Could Hard Labour have been RIGHT?
Well, there IS always that possibility. But I still don't think so.
Hard Labour's solution was – and still is – more stimulus, paid for by more borrowing, to try and kick-start the economy. They'll point to Americaland where President Barry O DID do more stimulus (spending coupled with a package of tax cuts) and the outcome appears to be an economy that might just come good in time for his November re-election.
(Of course that is SIMPLISTIC – the US economy has a different economic mix, with more manufacturing and much less finance and they are much less closely tied to Europe, but on the other fluffy foot have much, much worse borrowing to start with – but it's a crude enough comparison to be worth considering.)
The American example shows that more stimulus COULD have worked.
What it doesn't show is that it WOULD have worked.
If a patient has a massive heart attack, you can get them back on their feet with a massive injection of adrenaline.
They'll bounce up and run around for a bit at first, but of course IT WILL KILL THEM.
And in a lot of ways this is exactly what Mr Alistair Dalek DID do with his VAT cut and Quantum of Easing. He injected the economy with a massive dose of cheap money and the so-called growth was bought, almost literally pound for pound, by borrowing it from the future.
Hard Labour's MASSIVE ECONOMIC GAMBLE was – or would have been – to KEEP pumping borrowed growth into the economy in the hope that a genuine recovery would come along in time to save them.
Essentially, keep the patient running around and keep your fingers crossed that their heart starts again on its own before they DIE.
The PROBLEM with this approach – and it's a FUNDAMENTAL problem – is that all you've done (so far) is create a massive PONZI scheme: you are generating growth at the front door but only by pumping in borrowed money at the back door.
What is ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL is that once you HAVE got an economy that looks like it's growing is THEN you do the HARD WORK to fix the broken bits of your system: cut your spending; run a huge budget surplus to repay your borrowing; rebalance your economy in favour of wealth-generating and away from government spending.
And based on their history there is NO EVIDENCE that Hard Labour would be willing to DO that work. They would just repeat the DISASTER of their last government and fund a spending binge on the never-never.
(There's also a secondary problem with Labour's methods – to be effective, you need to give your stimulus of borrowed money to the PRIVATE SECTOR, to manufacturing, construction, mining or farming – including wind farming. Basically, things that GENERATE more cash than you put in. It's called INVESTMENT. The evidence shows that what Hard Labour's SPIN MACHINE calls "investment" actually means spending the money on more public sector workers instead. That may result in a better society in the long run, but it doesn't solve the immediate problem and arguably makes it worse in the short term by adding more costs to other already-hard-pressed workers.)
Whether the gamble succeeds or fails depends on how long people can be persuaded to keep lending you the money.
If you're lucky then you get away with it. Enough growth in genuine economic activity – not just recirculating government money – and you can pay for the extra borrowing to cover you through the "actually fixing the economy" phase.
But if you're unlucky, if the manufacturing and service sectors don't come up with the goods before it becomes too expensive for you to carry on borrowing, then never mind GREECE... the next stop for the economy is YEMEN.
On coming into power, in the climate of turmoil on the money markets, on seeing the Treasury's books, on receiving the infamous "there's no money left" note from Liam Byrne, with the spectre of a potential Greek collapse hanging over us... all of these factors persuaded the incoming Coalition that the time before the borrowing dried up was LESS rather than MORE, and that the chances of the GAMBLE paying off were not worth the risk.
Does that mean that we missed the chance of a short cut out of the pain of a trashed economy?
Yes, it does.
But we ALSO avoided the downside risk of a toxic combination of spiralling national debt, escalating interest rates, out-of-control inflation and STILL no growth – the kind of mix that's destroying the Eurozone at the moment.
This is BAD but it's a LONG, LONG way from as bad as it could be.
The government managed to hit its annual borrowing target – in part thanks to that VAT rise.
Yes we "only" added a hundred and twenty six billion squids to the national debt last year. But that's eleven billion squids fewer than in the year before, despite rising inflation. The gap is closing.
And the pound continues to STRENGTHEN against the DOLLAR and the EURO, showing that the markets believe our economy is SAFER and STRONGER than either the Americaland or the Euroland economies, in spite of growth over there while we're still bouncing along the fluffy bottom. People want to invest their money HERE, and that's a good thing.
What should we DO about it?
Well step one is DON'T PANIC!
Own up to the fact we've NOT solved the problems of the economy yet. They were pretty massive but we thought we could do it. We SAID we could do it. But (at least so far) we HAVEN'T.
But that's NOT a reason to flail about wildly adopting "Plan B", "Plan C" or "Plan 9 from Outer Spads" at random.
We should look at what we ARE doing. Does it look RIGHT? If not, can we fix that? Who is being hit hardest? Is that fair? Can they take the cost? Can we give more help to those in need?
In this immediate set of figures, it appears that the driver of this contraction is the construction industry. And this is ANNOYING because it's one place where the government COULD reasonably borrow to invest: buying new home building and road and rail infrastructure NOW helps keep builders in employment AND prepares the way for when the recovery comes. And the assets that they build can return an "economic rent" – if they're houses a literal rent – that covers the cost of borrowing so it DOESN'T damage the economy.
And to be fair the Coalition ARE doing SOME of this. But clearly not enough and/or not quickly enough.
Planning laws and general NIMBY-ism are a real brake on bringing forward these projects. Obviously High Speed 2 is going to take a geological aeon before it breaks ground, but just think of all the objections to new windmills or new housing estates, too. Having said that, I bet you most MPs could name one or two "off the shelf" projects in their constituency just waiting for funding – that's a place we should be looking to nudge a bit harder.
Less construction isn't the whole of the story. There's just not any growth in any other areas to make up for it either. Remember Mr Dr Vince's leaked letter – we need to sharpen our strategy for growth, boost investment and back Britain.
Unclenching the credit crunch is going to be necessary if not vital. Captain Clegg made a speech about access to finance today.
But we also need a revival of OPTIMISM.
It's not all bad news. The rise in commodity prices means that some things that were not economically viable before now look profitable. That's what happened with North Sea Oil in the Seventies. This provides new OPPORTUNITIES. Some of them are GOOD (like mining space asteroids); some of them are, er, NOT SO GOOD (like Fracking Blackpool).
But what is KEY is that people are now starting to CONSIDER these opportunities.
People are willing to make PLANS – however outrageous or barmy they may seem.
THAT is what's needed for recovery, the start of the upswing, a sign of hope.
.
Monday, April 23, 2012
Day 4131: When is a Referendum NOT a Referendum?
Monday:
Surprisingly, the answer is NOT "when it's AJAR" because it's actually the OPPOSITE of ajar, it's a DELAYING TACTIC designed to hold the door to democracy CLOSED just that little bit longer.
The people who are AGAINST a democratically elected House of Lords KNOW that no one in their right minds would vote "NO" to Lords reform. So it is CLEAR that they are angling to SHIFT the debate OFF the simple, central fact: "if you're going to make laws over me I have a RIGHT to a say in whether your fluffy bottom gets a shiny red seat!"
We can ALREADY get a FLAVOUR of the sort of "NO" campaign that the anti-democrats want to run from the murmurings on the WEIRDER wings of the Conservatory Party. They want to portray it as PR by the "backdoor", a "sneaky" rerun of the AV choice that they claim was "already rejected". It was NOT. Mr Mark Reckons punctures these LIES.
NO ONE voted to reject a proportional system, 'cos AV ain't proportional, and the "No" campaign SAID SO last year.
You can bet your last bean that having FORCED a public vote, they will then play the "this is an EXPENSIVE WASTE of time when there are more important things to do" card that worked so well for them in their vicious and deceitful anti-AV propaganda.
The TRUTH is that there is NOTHING more important than sorting out HOW we make the decisions about running the county. It doesn't matter whether you think that the most important thing is HEALTH or EDUCATION or TAX or FOREIGN POLICY or POLICE or PUBLIC NUDITY – the decisions about how to deal with ALL of those are made by the people we elect. Or in the case of the House of Lords Club, the people we DON'T elect! Which means getting how we elect them right has to be sorted FIRST.
The UNGODLY alliance between the WACKY-WING of the Tories and the closet-conservative REACTIONARIES in the Hard Labour party is based on their old fashioned sense of ENTITLEMENT.
They just cannot get over the idea that PEOPLE have a RIGHT to say how they are governed. That the "social contract" between people and government has OBLIGATIONS on THEIR side too.
They don't like the COALITION because it's an example of how Governments ought to work: messy, certainly, but with policies being argued out IN PUBLIC and with the public able to see what's being decided.
And they don't like the idea of an ELECTED House of Lords because it's the last bastion of "we know better than you" against actually having to do what their BOSSES, you me and everyone else in Great Britain, actually tell them to do!
Mr Milipede – presumably as part of an ongoing bid to plagiarise EVERY television comedy going – calls this sort of government an "OMNI-SHAMBLES" because policies are being found wanting and rejected.
I guess Mr Milipede preferred the "good old days" of New Labour when policies would go wrong, but the Government would use their massive, gerrymandered majority to RAM THEM THROUGH ANYWAY.
Oh yes, how well we remember those TRIUMPHS of STRONG government: the 10p Tax debacle; the NHS database bully-balls-up; the almost entirely circular education policy that abolished one sort of academy before creating another; the classic I.D.iot card exercise in burning money; or everybody's favourite, the murderous and illegal invasion of a country that was no threat to us at all based on a LIE by the Prime Monster.
The word "OMNI-SHAMBLES" – lest Mr Milipede forget – is uttered by a character widely believed to be NOT-IN-ANY-WAY based on Mr Alistair Henchman of Dodgy Dossier infamy.
If THAT's "strong government" I'm all in FAVOUR of a House of Lords with a bit more MANDATE to say "not in our name!"
The case for an ELECTED House of Lords, and for a PROPORTIONALLY ELECTED elected House of Lords, is pretty much UNANSWERABLE. So much so that ALL the Parties elected to the House of Commons said that's what they would do at the last election.
An appointed chamber means PATRONAGE. It means CRONYISM. There is NO SUCH THING as an "independent" appointments commission – shame on you, Lord Steel – someone is ALWAYS going to "know someone". Being a "close personal friend" of the Prime Monster – or the "independent" head of the commission – is not a better reason for getting a free pass into the legislature than your great-great granny being a "close personal friend" of the monarch.
We're told we will lose an "expert" house. Well expertise can be highly overrated. You may be a brilliant neurosurgeon, but how many days of the week is the House of Lords legislating on neurosurgery, eh? We want brilliant GENERALISTS, not brilliant SPECIALISTS. Saying you're a great expert in ONE field is as good as saying you're as IGNORANT as the rest of us ABOUT ALMOST EVERYTHING ELSE!
But fine, if you believe that your expertise makes you better qualified to make laws, go right ahead and use it as one of your selling point when you STAND FOR ELECTION. If you're right, it will help you win.
We didn't need a referendum to enact the Parliament Act in 1911. We didn't need a referendum to enact the Parliament Act in 1949. We don't need one now.
It seems ASTONISHING that people who CLAIM to be defending "the way that these things work" seem so anxious to RIDE ROUGHSHOD over, well, the way these things work. Surely it's difficult to defend the status quo of an unwritten constitution when you keep MAKING IT UP as you go along! And that they now want to waste MILLIONS of POUNDS of YOUR money, charging you for the PRIVILEGE of having a say over whether you should have a say... it beggars belief as well as the exchequer.
Let's just accept that it's the TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY now and probably time to move on from an EIGHTEENTH CENTAURY Parliament. You were ALL elected on a manifesto pledge to do this, so pass the bill and let's get on and elect ALL* the people who make our laws.
*To a certain value of "all"! 80% for fluff's sake...!
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Surprisingly, the answer is NOT "when it's AJAR" because it's actually the OPPOSITE of ajar, it's a DELAYING TACTIC designed to hold the door to democracy CLOSED just that little bit longer.
The people who are AGAINST a democratically elected House of Lords KNOW that no one in their right minds would vote "NO" to Lords reform. So it is CLEAR that they are angling to SHIFT the debate OFF the simple, central fact: "if you're going to make laws over me I have a RIGHT to a say in whether your fluffy bottom gets a shiny red seat!"
We can ALREADY get a FLAVOUR of the sort of "NO" campaign that the anti-democrats want to run from the murmurings on the WEIRDER wings of the Conservatory Party. They want to portray it as PR by the "backdoor", a "sneaky" rerun of the AV choice that they claim was "already rejected". It was NOT. Mr Mark Reckons punctures these LIES.
NO ONE voted to reject a proportional system, 'cos AV ain't proportional, and the "No" campaign SAID SO last year.
You can bet your last bean that having FORCED a public vote, they will then play the "this is an EXPENSIVE WASTE of time when there are more important things to do" card that worked so well for them in their vicious and deceitful anti-AV propaganda.
The TRUTH is that there is NOTHING more important than sorting out HOW we make the decisions about running the county. It doesn't matter whether you think that the most important thing is HEALTH or EDUCATION or TAX or FOREIGN POLICY or POLICE or PUBLIC NUDITY – the decisions about how to deal with ALL of those are made by the people we elect. Or in the case of the House of Lords Club, the people we DON'T elect! Which means getting how we elect them right has to be sorted FIRST.
The UNGODLY alliance between the WACKY-WING of the Tories and the closet-conservative REACTIONARIES in the Hard Labour party is based on their old fashioned sense of ENTITLEMENT.
They just cannot get over the idea that PEOPLE have a RIGHT to say how they are governed. That the "social contract" between people and government has OBLIGATIONS on THEIR side too.
They don't like the COALITION because it's an example of how Governments ought to work: messy, certainly, but with policies being argued out IN PUBLIC and with the public able to see what's being decided.
And they don't like the idea of an ELECTED House of Lords because it's the last bastion of "we know better than you" against actually having to do what their BOSSES, you me and everyone else in Great Britain, actually tell them to do!
Mr Milipede – presumably as part of an ongoing bid to plagiarise EVERY television comedy going – calls this sort of government an "OMNI-SHAMBLES" because policies are being found wanting and rejected.
I guess Mr Milipede preferred the "good old days" of New Labour when policies would go wrong, but the Government would use their massive, gerrymandered majority to RAM THEM THROUGH ANYWAY.
Oh yes, how well we remember those TRIUMPHS of STRONG government: the 10p Tax debacle; the NHS database bully-balls-up; the almost entirely circular education policy that abolished one sort of academy before creating another; the classic I.D.iot card exercise in burning money; or everybody's favourite, the murderous and illegal invasion of a country that was no threat to us at all based on a LIE by the Prime Monster.
The word "OMNI-SHAMBLES" – lest Mr Milipede forget – is uttered by a character widely believed to be NOT-IN-ANY-WAY based on Mr Alistair Henchman of Dodgy Dossier infamy.
If THAT's "strong government" I'm all in FAVOUR of a House of Lords with a bit more MANDATE to say "not in our name!"
The case for an ELECTED House of Lords, and for a PROPORTIONALLY ELECTED elected House of Lords, is pretty much UNANSWERABLE. So much so that ALL the Parties elected to the House of Commons said that's what they would do at the last election.
An appointed chamber means PATRONAGE. It means CRONYISM. There is NO SUCH THING as an "independent" appointments commission – shame on you, Lord Steel – someone is ALWAYS going to "know someone". Being a "close personal friend" of the Prime Monster – or the "independent" head of the commission – is not a better reason for getting a free pass into the legislature than your great-great granny being a "close personal friend" of the monarch.
We're told we will lose an "expert" house. Well expertise can be highly overrated. You may be a brilliant neurosurgeon, but how many days of the week is the House of Lords legislating on neurosurgery, eh? We want brilliant GENERALISTS, not brilliant SPECIALISTS. Saying you're a great expert in ONE field is as good as saying you're as IGNORANT as the rest of us ABOUT ALMOST EVERYTHING ELSE!
But fine, if you believe that your expertise makes you better qualified to make laws, go right ahead and use it as one of your selling point when you STAND FOR ELECTION. If you're right, it will help you win.
We didn't need a referendum to enact the Parliament Act in 1911. We didn't need a referendum to enact the Parliament Act in 1949. We don't need one now.
It seems ASTONISHING that people who CLAIM to be defending "the way that these things work" seem so anxious to RIDE ROUGHSHOD over, well, the way these things work. Surely it's difficult to defend the status quo of an unwritten constitution when you keep MAKING IT UP as you go along! And that they now want to waste MILLIONS of POUNDS of YOUR money, charging you for the PRIVILEGE of having a say over whether you should have a say... it beggars belief as well as the exchequer.
Let's just accept that it's the TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY now and probably time to move on from an EIGHTEENTH CENTAURY Parliament. You were ALL elected on a manifesto pledge to do this, so pass the bill and let's get on and elect ALL* the people who make our laws.
*To a certain value of "all"! 80% for fluff's sake...!
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