Day 4301: Facing the FPC Questions

Wednesday:


As you might know by now, I am standing for election to the Party's Federal Policy Committee, but this isn't just about me, it's also about what you want from your FPC and your Party policy generally.

Standing for election should be about answering a lot of your questions about me and what I would do on the FPC. So I'm very pleased to say that Jennie Rigg has put together a list of decent challenging questions for every candidate to answer that will hopefully give you more idea of what we stand for and what we all might do.

You can read the replies of other candidates who are standing over at Jennie's blog, here. Meanwhile, here are the questions and the answers that I gave:

1. Which of the following activities do you consider the most dangerous and why?
- taking a single ecstasy tablet
- taking an advanced motorcycle riding test
- giving birth

This is a question about banning things, and I'd say that while I consider all these activities to be dangerous the Government should be in the business of informing people of the dangers and helping them minimise the risks rather than banning any of them.

But I realise that that is doing the politician thing of telling you what your question ought to be, so here is the thing politicians don't do which is trying to answer the question as put.

My gut reaction says this is a "trick" question (no offence) and that the "surprise" answer will be that giving birth turns out to be the most dangerous whereas the only one we legislate against, taking ecstasy, is the least dangerous.

But policy shouldn't be decided based on gut reactions or trick questions, so I would need to look the evidence.

A very brief search with Google reveals that the UK has an average maternal fatality rate of 8.6 per 100,000, which would be approximate 62 deaths based on 2011 birth statistics of 723,000.

http://www.nhs.uk/news/2012/04april/Pages/midwife-numbers-london-pregnancy-deaths.aspx

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/vsob1/parents--country-of-birth--england-and-wales/2011/sb-parents--country-of-birth--2011.html#tab-Live-births-to-UK-and-non-UK-born-women

That would compare with reported ecstasy-related deaths of 40-70. Except, as this useful piece from Mark Easton explains, mentioning ecstasy in relation to a death is not the same as saying ecstasy caused that death.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markeaston/2009/02/ecstasy_risks.html


Both of which are tiny compared to the approximately five thousand motorcyclists killed or seriously injured on the roads each year. (I haven't found specific figures relating to taking the advanced motorcycling test).

Of course "dangerous" is much more broadly defined than merely the risk of fatality, so the risks of other effects would need to be identified and some way of comparing them decided (how, for example, do you compare possible brain damage against the economic impact of raising a child, say?).

Also, is it even a fair comparison? Childbirth is the conclusion to a (usually) nine-month pregnancy (with all its own associated risks), whereas taking a single tablet should be no more than an evening's duration, and a motorcycle test shouldn't take more than a couple of hours. A more fair comparison might take into account different patterns of ecstasy use – the single tablet, the occasional party-goers, the regular weekend user and so on.

I'd also want to know how to factor in the benefit versus the risks of the activity: for example, taking the advanced motorcycle test may be a risk in itself, but the rate of motorcycle accidents tends to be lower among people who have passed the advanced test. The risk of not taking the test may actually be greater than the risk of taking it.

This of course is also important in considering drug usage, for example the pain relief available from marijuana or opiates may very well be a greater benefit than the risk of harm from the drug. The long-term effects of MDMA (ecstasy) remain unknown, though some studies show possible medical use in alleviating mild psychiatric disorders and also some pain relief.

2. What four pledges would you put on the front of the next Lib Dem manifesto?

In fact I put five suggestions on my FPC manifesto:

Freedom from Poverty – a citizens' income that would help those in work and out.

Freedom from Ignorance – develop a "Pupil Premium II" perhaps with the money from charitable status of Public Schools.

Freedom from Conformity – addressing the Court system that can't seem to take a joke.

Freedom for Growth – breaking up RBS and Lloyds to make community-scale lenders for small business and jobs.

Freedom for the Future – investing in green renewables to achieve energy independence by 2050.

I don't think it would be entirely fair to make that statement in the manifesto and then make a different one to you, so I'll stick with my five if that's okay.

3. A genie appears and tells you that you can remove one law and make one law; what would you remove from the statute book and what would you add to the statute book?

I can only remove one law?

It would have to be RIPA (the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act), Labour's snooper's charter which gave the power to jobsworths up and down the country to spy on citizens. In practical terms, without RIPA we wouldn't be having the present difficulty over communications monitoring and interception. But morally, RIPA is the architecture of a system for Governments to control citizens. NO Liberal Government should tolerate it remaining on the statute.

As for what law I would add, well if I knew what one law would make it possible for Stephen Gough, (the Naked Rambler) to be released from prison without getting immediately re-arrested then it would be that, because the fact that this man is basically in perpetual imprisonment without having broken any law at all, merely for having a different attitude to nudity, is a running sore on any claim that this county has to be civilised.

Since I don't know what that law would be, though, I suppose I will settle instead for a law that if you sell someone software (whether that's a book or a video or a computer program) then they have the right to control how they use that software – the main aims being that if someone wants to read a Kindle ebook on a Kobo reader, they can; if someone wants to watch a DVD without having intrusive and insulting copyright warnings forced on them first, they can; and if they want to use software they've bought without having to agree to an "end user agreement" (imposed after you've handed over the money), then they can.

4. What balance should the committee give to the views of the leadership, the parliamentary panels and the membership in setting policy priorities?

The policy committee should clearly serve the membership first. We are being elected to present certain views as representatives of the Party members.

That isn't to say that we should routinely pick fights with the Leadership. One of the strongest reasons I have for supporting the coalition, and one of the biggest disappointments with the behaviour of our Conservative Partners, is a belief in cooperation and compromise. I prefer arriving at a synthesis rather than loggerheads.

5. How would you change the party’s procedures on gathering and analysing evidence when formulating policy?

The Party sends a lot of internal communications explaining why we've just done something. It seems it would be more productive to try and be pre-emptive: send out communications about debates that are coming up before they happen and gather feedback from the Party membership in advance of decisions rather than trying to manage the response after the fact.

The Internet provides much wider opportunities to "crowd source" ideas and evidence than we have had before and we should consider online consultative sessions and working groups.

I support Richard Morris's ideas for widening involvement at Conference through online attendance and by making the Party more democratically responsive to the members.

6. Which is more important - freedom from ignorance, poverty or conformity?

For me, the most important is freedom from conformity. I would hate to live in a world where we all have to make the same choices, or where those choices are imposed upon us.

But at the same time I am aware that I am hugely privileged having benefited enormously from a generous education and now being in a well-paid job, my own freedom from ignorance and poverty has been (I hope) assured.

That's why it's right that the preamble mentions all three as a foundation for freedom and we should act where possible to support all of them. (And possibly more freedoms: freedom from pain, some might say, would be one you could add.)

7. Are you a member of any (S)AOs or other pressure groups which might give us an insight into your policy priorities?

I am (usually, when I remember) a member of LGBT+ and a sometime member of the Green Liberal Democrats.

I don't believe in factions, particularly not ones that accept the media narrative of a left/right axis that has never had very much to do with Liberal politics. If elected, I would want to scrutinise all policies independently and then make up my own mind, rather than voting with a "slate".

That said, I'm open to ideas from anyone – I'm just not going to be tribal about it. For example, I have a lot of sympathy with the Social Liberal Forum's pamphlet "Plan C" – particularly when it comes to trials and evidence based response to policy. On the other hand, I've also read the Orange Book.

8. Which external bodies would you like to see audit the manifesto to see if our policies are workable?

The economics of the manifesto should be audited by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, as already happens.

I would like to see Liberty audit the Civil Liberties implications (and the actions of the Coalition).

I would like to see the Plain English Campaign audit the language to make sure we are saying what we mean in a simple and easily understood fashion.

If there was an external Green body that I trusted, then I'd like to see an environmental impact audit too (but I think the external Green bodies are all too politicised).

It might also be useful if an "end of term report" could be produced for our MPs in association with someone like They Work For You, provided that such a report could properly reflect the amount of constituency case work, and work on committees in addition to time in the chamber of the House.

9. What proposals do you have to improve the process of negotiating policy priorities for a coalition agreement in the event of another hung parliament?

I think that we need to make it very clear to the media (and the City) that one of the causes of weakness in the Coalition agreement was the pressure that all Parties were under to arrive at an agreement very quickly. If at all possible we should lay out a timetable that would see at least one and maybe two weeks set aside after the date of the general election for the business of forming a Government, should a second balanced Parliament be the will of the British People.

Having said that, I think that the procedure of the Liberal Democrats in the 2010 negotiations was pretty near exemplary. Certainly we made mistakes – the largest being that the negotiating team failed to reflect the strength with which the Party wanted to keep the tuition fee pledge.

However, far more of the Coalition's problems arise from the failure of the Conservatives to give their Party members and particularly their Parliamentary Party any ownership over the process, which has resulted in them largely feeling sold down the river by David Cameron and under no obligation to keep the promises that he made on their behalf.

Labour too have behaved in extremely bad faith both during and after the coalition process, repeatedly blaming us for failing to deliver policies which we could not have delivered from Opposition or even in coalition with Labour, and of course blocking policies which they purport to be in favour of in order to score political victories.

As a result, it might be necessary to make a condition of any future coalition agreement that the coalition partner conduct a vote of support for the agreement (at least of their Parliamentary Party).

10. If elected, how do you plan to engage with the wider party?

Where possible, at least within the Chatham House Rules, I want to blog about the policies considered using Millennium's diary. I'm happy to lay out my own position on issues that come up and I will try to represent other views fairly (if anonymously).

Also, through blogging and meeting other Party members, I've built up a wide circle of friends from across the Party, both geographically and politically. I would hope to reach out to them sharing what I think is going on in return for their ideas and feedback on how policy is shaped and in turn that they could talk to their own friends and contacts.

11. (was 29 on Jennie's list). Are you standing for any other committees, if so which ones, and if elected to more than one how do you plan to divide your time?

I'm only standing for FPC.

I don't believe that people should stand for more than one committee. The Party is full of good people who want to contribute, and I think that it's important that we maximise the number of people who are able to take part. One person, no matter how good they are, occupying two elected seats is stopping another good person from coming through.

Day 4299: FREEDOM FROM POVERTY - A Real Alternative to Welfare

Monday:


Chancellor George Osborne has announced that he wants to cut TEN BILLION POUNDS from the welfare budget.

I will pause while you throw up.

Right, back with me? OK, here's a reminder of the BACKGROUND. The Government's total spending is, very roughly, SEVEN HUNDRED BILLION pounds every year.

The total amount spent on what we call "benefits" in the United Kingdom is in the region of TWO HUNDRED BILLION pounds per year.

It's the BIGGEST "BIG TICKET" item in the Budget. So you can see why it's such a TEMPTING TARGET for a rapacious fiscal shark like Master Gideon.

(See table D4 of the OBR's report on the 2012 budget [pfd])

Remember, the NEXT biggest item, at about ONE HUNDRED BILLION pounds, is the NHS which is currently granted SACRED COW status, so he cannot find his cuts there.

After that comes Education (FIFTY billions) under the personal protection of the Deputy Prime Monster and Defence (THIRTY billions) under the protection of a battalion of right-wing Tory Tanks. Nor can he afford to cut the TWENTY-FIVE billion allocated to Scotland with Mr Slippery Salmon's independence referendum coming up.

But it's not THAT easy to cut the welfare bill either.

The Conservatories and their allies in the press have contrived an atmosphere where the word "benefits" is practically synonymous with the word "undeserving", cultivating the idea that there are SWATHES of the country where people sit at home in their PJs rolling about in money while the poor mugs go out to toil.

But that's REALLY not where the welfare money goes. (See IFS analysis [pdf])

About 40% of the welfare bill is PENSIONS. The Government is ALWAYS going on about how pensioners DESERVE their money, and the TRIPLE LOCK means that that 40% is SACROSANCT!

Then about 20% is IN WORK benefits for people on low pay. Remember we are supposed to be all about REWARDING – grit your teeth for this phrase – "hardworking families". So you cannot really gouge that either. About HALF of that (i.e. 10% of the total) is Housing Benefit, which is one of the most important benefits and can make the difference between families being about to afford to work or not. The downside is that it mainly goes to LANDLORDS, rather than the families in need; this is the price we pay for having ridiculously inflated House prices.

The OTHER half is the price we pay for having the minimum wage set below the level where people can survive on it, subsidising low paid jobs for the benefit of employers. There's a serious question that cutting those in work benefits would destabilise the jobs market massively increasing unemployment. But there's got to be SOMETHING wrong with a system (set up by a LABOUR Government, no less) where the Government subsidises employers to pay less than the living wage, essentially allowing companies to increase their profits at the taxpayers' expense.

Another 20% of benefits are for having children (child benefit and child tax credit). For all the fulminating in the Daily Hate Mail end of the press about FECKLESS SINGLE MOTHERS TM, we've already seen what happens if you try tinkering with Child Benefit and the Chancellor might as well write his political suicide note on the same headed paper as try THAT again!

So that's a good 80% of benefits going to people who for various reasons the Government won't or can't upset. That money, like in BULLSEYE, is safe. To half of them you've promised perpetual increases; and the other half you are relying on to keep the economy afloat!

So it comes down to the 15% which goes to the sick and disabled. Nothing quite so "sick" as cutting benefits to the disabled, you might very well think, and frankly with people already DYING this is where we need Captain Clegg to stick to his promise that up with this we will not put.

And only about a measly 3% goes to yer actual UNEMPLOYED people. Gideon could abolish Job Seekers Allowance entirely, and still fall well short of his target.

(That, incidentally, leaves 2% change, most of which is Winter Fuel Allowance and free TV licences, also for the elderly.)

If, like Master Gideon, you are scheming to carve out another TEN BILLION (i.e. a whole 5% of the amount we spend), then it begins to look very VERY hard to FIND that kind of money.

The message of this is that we really need to think VERY MUCH MORE RADICALLY.

The idea that I'd like us to THINK about is the CITIZENS' INCOME.

It's important to understand that while this idea has a LOT of GOOD points going for it, there are some pretty serious drawbacks too and that's why it needs careful THOUGHT.

In its simplest form, the Citizens' Income is a fixed payment to every adult in the country and a flat tax rate on all income.

The ADVANTAGES are simplicity and universality. Instead of a complex mix of means-tested and universal benefits, everyone receives the same Citizens' Income. Because it is universal, it improves take-up so that the benefit is more likely to reach those most in need. Because it is simple, people are not put off by forms. Because there is no withdrawal or taper of the benefit, everyone who is able to work and chooses to do so is better off for doing so. Because it favours neither couples nor individuals, couples are not worse off for staying together but nor are they penalised for splitting up. Because everyone gets the same amount, there is less grumbling about "undeserving". Because we all share in the national income, we are all, to coin a phrase, in it together.

As a smaller advantage, the bureaucracy to organise this exists already largely with HM Revenue and Customs and/or the Treasury's tax credits department. You would, in theory, be able to abolish the whole Government Department, Mr Iain Drunken-Swerve's DWP (Department of Worship and Prayer). Having said that, cutbacks have left HM Revenue and Customs very understaffed, and so we might be better served by retaining DWP staff as part of the new unified tax authority.

The DISADVANTAGES are: firstly, that the unified tax rate has to be set quite high to make the figures balance and this looks like a tax rise (particularly since it would combine the 20% income tax and 12% national insurance bands) – actually most people on lower incomes are better off, but it LOOKS like a tax rise; secondly, although MOST benefit recipients would receive more, there is a disproportionate LOSS of income for certain sections of the community, for example those large families who receive Housing Benefit; thirdly, the flat tax rate, unless set very high, will be an effective tax CUT for those on the highest incomes (although you could retain a 45% top rate to avoid this problem at the expense of slightly less simplicity).

I'm going to work through a bit of MATHS here which you might want to skip over, but it's important to "show my workings" and show how close it all comes to adding up.

The office of National Statistics says that there are 29.56 million people IN WORK in the United Kingdom. With an average salary of about £26,000, that makes a TOTAL EARNED INCOME of more than SEVEN HUNDRED and SEVENTY-FOUR billion pounds.

A single flat rate of tax of 40% (replacing income tax and national insurance for all employees) would therefore raise THREE HUNDRED and NINE point SIX billion pounds.

At the moment, Income Tax and National Insurance together raise roughly TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY BILLION pounds (See table D3 of the OBR's report on the 2012 budget [pfd]) and, as above, benefits cost around TWO HUNDRED BILLION. This means that the taxes on income raise an excess of FIFTY BILLIONS which is spent on all the other things that Government spends money on. In order to keep up government spending, we should retain this excess. Therefore we have TWO HUNDRED and FIFTY-NINE point SIX billion pounds to distribute.

Given that the population of the UK is 62.6 million (and excluding approximately 10.8 million who are under 18) that would be roughly equal to FIVE THOUSAND POUNDS for EVERY ADULT IN THE COUNTRY.

Currently, the Liberal Democrats are pursuing fairer taxes by raising the personal allowance to £10,000. Under this Citizens' Income scheme, EVERYONE earning less than about £30,000 would be better off. In particular, and as opposed to raising the personal allowance, EVERYONE NOT EARNING ENOUGH TO PAY TAX would be better off.

Here's the BIGGEST PROBLEM then: five thousand pounds per year is LESS than the current basic State Pension and so almost certainly a NON-STARTER. However, it MIGHT be possible to have a higher Citizens' Income IF we were to retain the EMPLOYER'S element of national insurance.

So, the main things to think about before we were to consider a Citizens' Income would be:
• what would be considered a fair rate for the unified tax rate, and should we retain the top rate of tax so as not to be giving the biggest tax cut to the people with the highest incomes?
• what is a reasonable level for the Citizens' Income, if the minimum we could set it at is the current state pension rate – or the targeted £140 per week pension – should we be aiming at more than that?
• what would an impact assessment of the withdrawal of housing benefit say, and would be possible or desirable to retain some element of housing benefit?
• should we retain Employer's National Insurance (which Conservatories describe as the "Jobs Tax")? Might we have to to make the books balance?

A Liberal economic plan should also be looking at how to make sure that employers pay a FAIR wage, through proper enforcement of minimum wage and working time directive legislation, so that people do not NEED State subsidies.

If we COULD make this work, I think this would be an EXCITING and RADICAL departure from Labour's idea of welfare being a Government that graciously gives to those they deem the deserving poor towards a COMMON WEALTH where rather than grudgingly giving to the needy we all share in the nation's prosperity, combining the great Liberal traditions of EQUAL HELP for all and Government TRUSTING PEOPLE and empowering them get on with their own lives.

Day 4298: Richard Flowers for Federal Policy Committee

Sunday:

We have the lists of who has been nominated for the Federal Elections 2012, and to start with congratulations to Mr Tim Farron for being returned to the Party Presidency unopposed.

There are SIXTY confirmed (and maybe three more) people standing for the Federal Policy Committee, including a number of people I admire and think would be good. And one of them is me, Richard Flowers.

So am I vain or insane to want to do this? I hope neither.

What I want to do, the main contributions I hope I could make, are to start with a little base-level competence about the economy and liberal philosophy. There are limits to what governments can do economically, and the ongoing recession and fall out from the crash further constrain us, but that should be a reason to be more imaginative in our solutions not less.

This is a rich country but our prosperity is poorly distributed, with too many people, especially young people, out of work; while too many people in work work too long hours; and far too few people derive the lion’s share of the national growth.

So that leads to the second thing that I believe FPC needs: new, bold, big ideas. We are going to have to stand up and say that there is a third alternative model to rival those of Labour’s borrow and spend and the Conservatives’ cut and cut. A Liberal economy that looks to the future, to the individual, to Internet and creativity and increases every person’s ability to profit from their own ideas and hard work, without dependence on capital investors. The big ideas of the Twentieth Century – free trade, the Welfare State, the NHS – were Liberal ideas. We need the big ideas of the Twenty-First Century to be Liberal ideas too.

And finally, I’m a very ordinary member in a very ordinary constituency and I want to see a reconnection between the membership and the leadership, to burst that Whitehall bubble. At Conference in Brighton I was worried that there are developing two worlds, what I call the Danny Alexander world, where we are in government and getting Liberal policies into action, and the Linda Jack world, where everything is terrible and everyone hates us for supporting Tory cuts. Neither of these worlds are completely true, but neither of them are totally false either. We need to bring these two worlds back together.


How can YOU help?

Well, if you are a voting representative, then I would be very grateful if you would give me your first preference. And if you know any voting reps, and could put in a good word. In a field as wide as this, the first preferences are going to be especially important, to make sure that I can stay in the contest to later rounds of transfers.

Secondly, any rebroadcasting of Millennium’s diary or the Facebook page “Richard Flowers for Federal Policy Committee”, on Facebook or Twitter or link-blogging, will be very useful in spreading the ideas that I’m talking about.

And thirdly, if there’s anything you think I should be talking about or any questions you want to ask then please do write to me, either in comments here or by e-mailing millennium[at]waitrose.com or by phone on 07889 145 104.

And very best of luck to everyone who has put themselves forwards.

Day 4297: BOND GOLD: From Russia With Love

Saturday:

From Russia With Love (1963)

Staring Mr Sean Connery as Ian Fleming’s James Bond

The One With: The fight on the Orient Express (fighting fish!)

Beautiful direction from Terence Young, some lovely clean establishing shots such as the introduction to Istanbul with a view of the Blue Mosque, and beautiful sweeping John Barry soundtrack, especially his pounding Orient Express theme and of course the “alternate” Bond theme “007”, carry us away on an Oriental Mystery Tour.

What a lot of people say is that “From Russia With Love” is a great spy film, but not that great a Bond film. But Daddy Alex points out that the first quarter of an hour or so are in fact a CRACKING Bond movie: the pre-title mini-adventure, the title sequence which really gets it right this time, both discovering Maurice Binder’s style of projecting the credits onto women’s bodies (even though it isn’t actually Maurice binder this time) and the music that combines the “exotic” themes of Eastern Europe with the Monty Norman James Bond theme without the handbrake turn of Dr No’s calypso; then there’s the introduction of Kronsteen (Vladek Sheybal) and Rosa Klebb (Lotte Lenya), the lizard and toad of SpECTRE; then the visit to SpECTRE Island; and only THEN do we get the REAL Mr Bond in a charming scene with M and the new Q (Desmond Llewelyn).

Oddly, “From Russia…” is already SUBVERTING the James Bond tropes, often BEFORE they’re even established. That pre-title adventure is actually GRANT’S adventure and sees Bond “killed”; the “gadget” scene is SpECTRE’s lethal training ground rather than Q’s rather more sedate laboratory. In this context, the Bond/Q relationship – joking and friendly, rather than acerbic – seems a deliberate reversal rather than not yet having been established. (It won’t be until the next movie, when Llewelyn waspishly takes Connery to task in character, that everyone realises that OF COURSE Q would despise this man who spends his life destroying everything Q creates.)

It’s very brave of Connery to appear with the exaggerated make-up of the first sequence, it’s enough to make him look slightly… off, so that the reveal that it’s a mask and a training exercise for Grant comes as an “oh that’s what’s going on” rather than a total cheat.

But speaking of brave, Lotte Lenya as Rosa Klebb is quite awesome. Her first scene, with the faceless cat-fancier (Blofeld, the titles admit) sees her fawning and crawling, the defector who knows she’s not to be trusted. But as soon as she’s out of his presence, she completely dominates any scene that she is in.

More subtly, Robert Shaw as the anti-Bond Donald “Red” Grant, is carefully woven through the film. In fact, it’s possible to watch “From Russia…” without taking in the significance of the little cut-aways to Grant – watch out particularly to catch him loitering outside the meeting between Rosa Klebb and Tatiana – but once you notice him you realise just how carefully he is masterminding everything that occurs. The difference between “Dr No” and “From Russia…” is that where the first film is very much a sequence of set-pieces, the second is a sequence of set-pieces where you can SEE Grant setting them up in advance.

For example, Bond arrives in Istanbul and is met by one of Kerim Bey’s sons (Neville Jackson – “The Androids of Tara’s” Prince Reynart). They are tailed to Kerim Bey’s headquarters by Bulgarians working for the Russians. “It’s an understanding we have”, explains the chauffeur. But after Bond’s meeting, we – though not Bond – see that the Bulgarian’s Citroen has been hijacked by Grant, who now tails Bond to his hotel. Later, Grant drops the Citroen outside the Russian Embassy, where the commissionaire discovers one of the Bulgarian agents dead.

Now in itself that’s just a shock moment set-piece. But it’s also a clever reference to the scene in “Dr No” where Bond leaves a dead body outside Government House with the quip “See that he doesn’t get away”; thus we’re establishing Grant’s Bond-ish credentials. But on top of that, it’s the murder of the Bulgarian that triggers the Russian limpet-mine attack on Kerim Bey, and in turn the escalation of the fight between the Bulgarians and Kerim’s Gypsy allies, and the assassination of Krilencu. In fact the whole middle third of the film.

(British vanity puts the limpet-mine attack down to Bond’s arrival, and they later link it to the return of Kerim’s old enemy Krilencu. So they never properly pause to investigate why the truce is so unexpectedly broken, and so fail to detect SpECTRE’s hidden hand – or tentacle – behind events.)

That that middle third of the film is a gorgeous travelogue and a complete distraction from the main business of stealing the LEKTOR decoder is glossed over almost entirely by the quiet understated charisma of Pedro Armendáriz as Ali Kerim Bey, head of section T, Turkey. Cheerfully staffing the secret service in Istanbul with members of his extensive family, while referring to keeping his mistress satisfied as “another day down the salt mines”, his honour and good humour are the backbone of “From Russia With Love”. All the more astonishing when you learn that Mr Armendáriz was suffering from terminal cancer throughout the filming (and took his own life shortly afterwards), it makes his on-screen death, murdered by Grant, all the more poignant.

Favourite line of the movie, Kerim to the bound and gagged Russian spy Benz: Did you know I have had a particularly fascinating life. Would you like to hear about it?

Benz: Mmmm

Kerim (surprised and delighted): Oh, you would?!

You do have to say it’s not a terribly FEMINIST movie, though. Whether it is the way this film’s Bond Girl Tatiana (Daniela Bianchi) declines from assertive Russian signals officer to passive Westernised trophy wife, or the frankly bizarre scene with Kerim’s mistress where she seems to exist only as an object to desire him, or the overt lesbian = evil coding of Rosa Klebb it’s rather too much about “putting women in their place”. Even Klebb, as we observed earlier, has to be odiously subservient to Blofeld. Which is a shame after the surprising strong showing for the women of Dr No.

(Given “that thing that’s going to happen with Pussy Galore at the end of the next movie”, we did think that there was a case for “From Russia…” being a better THIRD movie, and playing on Bond’s growing reputation as Britain’s premier gigolo. Which would make Fiona Vulpe’s line in “Thunderball” even more of a payoff. But we will have to wait to see those in turn.)

SpECTRE are even more ingeniously woven into the plot of Fleming’s novel here than they were in Dr No, though in both cases they serve to magnify something that could be almost mundane into something really very special.

Grant is defeated by a combination of Bond’s tenacity, Q’s gadgetry and his own greed (if he hadn’t stolen the cash from Bond’s pocket, Bond would not have known Grant would be susceptible to the gold sovereigns in the Q-case), and that is remarkably satisfying. As is Kronsteen’s well-deserved comeuppance. (“What is Bond compared to Kronsteen,” he wheezes in an attempt to shift the blame when the plan has failed. Well, he’s the man who beat your fool proof scheme, you moron! No wonder Blofeld has him offed.)

Walter Gotell, who would later create M’s opposite number, General Gogol of the KGB, here appears as chief SpECTRE henchman, Morzeny. Clearly he’s SUPPOSED to be the same character who is in charge on SpECTRE Island, AND dealing out the death kicks on Blofeld’s yacht in Venice AND in charge of the SpECTRE speed boats that pursue Bond and Tatiana in the Adriatic. But it’s terribly tempting to think that SpECTRE just have a half-a-dozen clones of the head of Russian intelligence working for them.

Bond Quips #3: (after Bulgarian killer Krilencu is shot escaping through the most outrageous Bond-film product-placement until Moonraker: a billboard for Henry and Cubby;s own movie starring Anita Eckberg) “She should have kept her mouth shut”

Bond Quips #4: (on the death of poison-boot-wielding Rosa Klebb) “She’s had her kicks”

Other things to watch out for: The use of cigarettes to suggest sexual knowledge. At the start of the film, when Bond is called in from his picnic with Sylvia Trench, he uses a carphone to speak to Moneypenny. Here the film contrasts Sylvia who clearly wants Bond in a sexual way, with Penny who has a more worldly “been there, done that” attitude. What is striking is that, very unusually, Moneypenny is seen toying with a cigarette, as if it is a symbol of her greater knowledge.

This is mirrored at the end of the film when we see Tatiana smoking for the first time only once they have got safely away to Venice, implying Bond has finally “fulfilled” her as a woman. Note also, that she discards her cigarette – the symbol of her sexual awakening – when Rosa Klebb turns up and takes charge over her again.

The Bottom Line: Bond on the brink of becoming super-human, nevertheless tells a tale of spy intrigue, blood feuds and cross and double-cross. Probably the best fight-on-a-train scene ever!

Day 4296: BOND GOLD: Dr No

Friday:

It is the Fiftieth Anniversary of the release of the first JAMES BOND film, "Dr No". It's also the fiftieth anniversary of the first Beatles single too. And it is also also Ms Cathy Gale's BIRTHDAY. So it is OFFICIALLY fifty years since the day the SIXTIES started.

To celebrate this, and the forthcoming NEW James Bond film about the phone hacking scandal "Sky Fail", ALL of my top twenty-five favourite Bond films have been released in a new blu-ray box. (Except for the "other" Casino Royale and the "other" Thunderball. And "Skyfall" is currently represented by a GAP!)

You KNOW what this means though... twenty-two days to watch twenty-two Bond films! Excellent! And what could POSSIBLY go WRONG!

Dr No (1962)

Starring Mr Sean Connery as Ian Flemming's James Bond

The One With: Ursula Andress in THAT bikini. That bloke with the metal hands.

The picture LOOKS beautiful, from the "Le Cercle" club where Sylvia Trench first introduces us to "the line": "Bond, James Bond", to the highways of Kingston Jamaica, and that's really Connery there in the car, no back-projection for the first car chase (not something that can be said about that hearse following him on the mountainside). Jack Lord exudes cool as Felix Leiter, but Connery still blows him off the screen so you can see why he wouldn't be back to do that again.

Daddy Alex particularly remarks on the way that the movie makes no concessions at all to coming in halfway through the book series, with M casually referring to Bond's berretta jamming on his last mission ("From Russia With Love" resulting in him being kicked by Rosa Klebb's poison boot-knife), and later telling Bond and Moneypenny to "skip the usual repartee". This isn't just skipping the "origin story" but expecting you to have done the reading. And all the better for it.

(Actually, this IS an origin story... but it's SpECTRE's origin story, not Bonds!)

Also, Major Boothroyd calls Britain's top assassin "a woman". No wonder HE'S not back for the sequel!

The plot, such as it is, is no more than a series of set pieces. Bond's investigation is perfunctory at best, since pretty much everyone he meets is working for Dr No already, and Professor Dent might as well be wearing a tee-shirt saying "I've got a Guilty Secret, please shoot me!". But each follows logically from the last and the pace and charisma keep the excitement mounting, so who cares!

The film escalates through Bond's series of encounters with Dr No's organisation, with Bond suavely taking everything from fluffy spiders to femmes fatales in his stride until we get to Dr No's island of Crab Key where things start to get a bit hairy. Finally, he confronts Dr No himself in the electrifying dinner scene. And then the movie slightly loses its way for ten minutes before the climax in Dr No's private nuclear reactor.

The book sees the evil Doctor put Bond into his Deathtrap Dungeon. For laughs, mainly. It seems like the filmmakers thought that this might be a bit silly. Or they didn't have faith in their ability to do the giant octopus attack at the end. So instead we get Mr Bond sort of escaping through the oversized air-conditioning, which for some reason has some lite deathtrappage built in. And fortunately he escapes the far end just in time to catch the one guy who works the nuclear furnace exploder controls on his way back from a late toilet break. Which is handy.

Oh, and the movie avoids all mention of GUANO. But the source of Dr No's power is STILL his undoing as, instead of being buried in bird poo, he is boiled-in-the-bag by his own reactor. Icky!

There're a LOT of women in it, which is unusual for a Bond. To be fair, a lot of them are there to stare AT Bond and go "sigh". But Miss Taro (Zena Marshall) and the unnamed photographer "Freelance" (Marguerite LeWars) are both strong pro-active women; as, for that matter, are Miss Moneypenny and Miss Trench. There are a lot of minor roles – Strangways secretary; the woman who takes the message from the radio operator to the comptroller of signals – that would just be omitted from any later film. It's completely unsentimental about killing women too – the secretary getting the same treatment as her boss. A particular favourite moment though is the woman Bond approaches at the harbour when looking for Quarrel. "Him!" she says and points. It's a completely charming moment.

The recurring motif of copper everywhere in Dr No's fortress base is both elegant and reminds of electricity and ultimately Dr No's nuclear reactor again. Odd that it's not aluminium, given that they've swapped the guano for a bauxite (or aluminium ore) mine. But I suppose copper is more visually distinctive. It does make Dr No's guest suite one of the WEIRDEST hotels anywhere – number three has the en suite, the adjoining bedrooms, the coffee bar; number twelve has the manacles and the inlet from the sea and the giant crabs(!) Ken Adam gets to do at least one signature set – the room where Professor Dent receives his instructions from Dr No's disembodied voice. The reactor room set is rather functional though. Though you've gotta love an "Abandon Area" sign that lights up when the reactor's going to blow!

Bond Quips #1: (on delivering the body of one of Dr No's agents to Government House) Sergeant, see that he doesn't get away.

Bond Quips #2: (reflecting on the crashed hearse) I think they were on the way to a funeral.

Other things to watch out for: Pussfeller's nightclub where the cosmopolitan crowd are all dancing with partners of the same skin tone to get around the American censor's rather twitchy attitude to mixed race couples.

Bottom Line: This is ALL about Connery. From the moment he delivers "the Line" he on a trajectory to superstardom that no toppling can prevent. What a magnificent bad-word!



Now check out this interview with the rather wonderful Ms Moneypenny. Can't SHE by the next James Bond when Mr Craig is done?

Day 4295: Wealth is the Enemy of Growth

Thursday:

Returning from his holiday, Captain Clegg talked to the Grauniad and mentioned a WEALTH TAX.

You'd think this would be entirely UNCONTROVERSIAL. It's Party policy after all, and we've talked Mansion Tax enough for everyone to know that.

But BOTH other Parties ATTACKED him.

Predictably, the Conservatory right called it "politics of envy", then warned that it might "drive wealth creators away".

Meanwhile Hard Labour sneered disingenuously that if he wants to tax the wealthy he shouldn't have voted to cut the top rate of income tax.

But we're NOT talking tax on INCOME. We're talking tax on WEALTH.


Mr Milipede has already been called to task over his DODGY MATHS and FALSELY accusing Mr Balloon of getting a £40,000 cheque from the treasury.

(Because that's how tax works in New One Nation Hard Labour's heads – ALL your money goes into the Treasury and then Mr Bully Balls decides how much he will generously allow you to have back.)

And it's very interesting that Mr Milipede OBSESSES with the top rate of INCOME tax. And IGNORES or RUBBISHES the actually more important question of WEALTH taxes.

People who are WEALTHY (that is have lots of ASSETS, whether that is money in the bank or estates in Oxfordshire or another small Picasso) do not necessarily have a lot of INCOME.

If the house is paid for, and the kids school fees are covered by the trust fund and there's money in the bank to pay for the next holiday... you don't have to EARN money, and so you don't pay tax. Oh, you might have to pay a bit VAT but by and large you can arrange matters to avoid most of the unpleasantnesses of Inheritance or Capital Gains Taxes.

People who are WEALTHY are NOT necessarily "WEALTH CREATORS" either. If you don't have to work, you don't have to build a business or employ people or invest in anything. Largely you can sit on your pile of dosh and cream off the rents from your properties. (Literally rent if it's buildings, but it could also be dividends from shares.)

Jobs and growth are "created" by small businesses. This has always been the case.

Oh we all LIKE the idea of WEALTH, of being, as Lord Mandy so memorably put it, intensely relaxed about becoming filthy rich, We'd love to have so much money that we don't need to work. It's why the Lottery and Downton Abby remain so popular. But at the same time, we all secretly know that it's totally PARASITIC.

If you are WEALTHY already – like, say, those good COMMUNISTS, the Milipedes – then you don't NEED to EARN lots of money. No, you can afford to take unpaid internships, getting on the inside track, and the old boy network paves your way up the greasy pole (to well and truly mix that metaphor).

But economic GROWTH, at least in a CAPITALIST society, depends on money being INVESTED to earn a PROFIT. That way your society has more money at end of the year than it did at the start. And then you reinvest it again.

WEALTH, on the other fluffy foot, means taking money OUT of the economy and parking it in a piggy bank. Or "house" as we usually call them in Great Britain, what with the ridiculous runaway house price inflation we've contracted, with the full collusion of every government and pretty much every homeowner. After all, when you're spending SO MUCH money on a house you REALLY don't want the value to go DOWN.

Wealth is about EXTRACTING productive capital from the economy. It actively harms growth.


That is why Captain Clegg is COMPLETELY right to say we want to move tax OFF the income of working people, and ON to the wealth of the well-heeled. It's not JUST about FAIRNESS – though obviously it IS more fair – but also about rewarding the people who are ADDING to the Growth while at the same time getting hold of some of that locked-away money and putting it back to work for the benefit of all of us.
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Day 4292: When I say break up the banks I mean REALLY break up the banks!

Monday:

Hard Labour's Mr Milipede has called for the "break up" of the banks. More accurately, he's called for no more than the implementation of last year's Vickers and Tarts report.

Not that the Coalition's WATERED DOWN Vicker's proposals are GOOD, but Hard Labour's proposal is TIMID, and leaves a HUGE OPPORTUNITY for Liberal Democrats to lead REAL RADICAL REFORM.

WE SHOULD break up the banks but NOT JUST into "high street" and "casino". We should take these ENORMOUS institutions, particularly the two that we OWN and turn them into LOTS of SMALL local and regional banks.

I wanted to say this in the "Growth and Jobs" debate at the Brighton Conference just past. I put in a card but sadly I didn't get called. Sadly, because the debate was largely side-tracked into a false debate between the leadership and Liberal Left's amendment. I don't think that that debate was helped any by having so many of the speakers against the amendment be MP's; when it came to a vote it seemed very few people – passionate though they are – actually favour breaking the Coalition's fiscal mandate agreement. It would have been HEALTHIER for the Party to see some "ordinary" members taking to the stage to speak against the amendment. I know I would have done, given the chance.

However what I really wanted to contribute was support for the policy of better access to local banking and credit for small business. Largely what I'd have said was this:

The banks are very big, international institutions. But jobs and growth in the UK have always, historically, come from small and medium sized local businesses. This is a FUNDAMENTAL MISMATCH in SCALE.

Small and medium sized businesses are the REAL "wealth creators" and often they're not ACTUALLY WEALTHY (a distinction that the Conservatories prefer to blur – but I'll talk about the need to tax WEALTH rather than WEALTH CREATION in a different diary) and not being wealthy means that these businesses, and the people who work to make them work need to BORROW.

And we know that small and medium businesses are the ones finding it HARDEST to get investment from the big banks. That's why Vince is having to set up HIS OWN bank just to try and uncrunch the credit to their businesses.

We can't expect Vince to do all the heavy lifting by himself though. That's why we need MORE banks. That's also why we need them to be SMALLER, LOCAL banks where they have the knowledge to help and support local businesses.

Hard Labour's solution to FAILING Banks, Mr Alistair Dalek's solution, was to bung them together into EVEN BIGGER banks. Even bigger FAILURES.

We all know that "banks too big to fail" were really just "TOO BIG".

The answer to the risk of bank lending is NOT to make them store up money like dragon's treasure. That's what we're doing, but it's what is stoppering up the flow of money to business.

Instead we should spread the risk about so that it becomes SMALLER and more MANAGEABLE. Small banks might be at greater risk if local businesses do badly, but small banks are SMALL ENOUGH TO SAVE.

I'm not saying get rid of ALL the International Banks. On the contrary, we need banks at all different scales. But policies of acquisitions and mergers, and laisez faire attitude to COMPETITION have seen big banks gobble up small ones, leaving us with a virtual CARTEL. (And if we're going to convince the Conservatories about this, remind them that more banks means more COMPETITION which is supposed to be GOOD for the consumer. They're supposed to like that sort of thing.)

Making banks SMALL is GOOD LIBERALISM: it protects people from BULLYING by putting them on a more even footing with their bank AND it encourages LOCALISM by giving the small bank bankers an incentive to invest in their community.



(I'm going to try writing a few "big policy idea" pieces in the near future for the fairly obvious reason that the FEDERAL POLICY COMMITTEE elections have come around again.

If you want to see the Party discussing big, radical policies again, please do encourage any voting reps to vote for me – that's Richard Flowers, rather than Millennium Elephant.

And if there are any big ideas you think I should be covering, or even any radical small ideas, please comment or e-mail me!)

Day 4276: DOCTOR WHO: A Town Called THIS IS A METAPHOR

Saturday:

Jokes we wish we'd thought of a fortnight ago: a PARLIAMENT of the Daleks could also be a DIET of the Daleks, and THAT is why those New Paradigm bottoms have gotten smaller!

Oh, never mind.

Here's Daddy Richard's review of Doctor Woo and the Gunfighter. Note: Singular.

There will be spoilers.

If you'd stopped me halfway through watching this episode and asked me what I thought of it... I'd have refused to answer. But what I'd have been thinking was that it was good. Really good. Sadly, for me, the ending rather let it down with pat cliché.

There are two scenes in particular which are absolutely electric: the first where the Doctor loses it, tosses Kahler-Jex over the town boundary, leaving him at the mercy of the cyborg Gunslinger, and pulls a gun on him to keep him there, where Amy gets to deliver the possibly-series-defining line "This is what happens when you travel alone too long"; and the second was the "look me in the eye; end my life" talking down of bravo Dockery (Sean Benedict) by the Doctor, using only his words to persuade the young man that violence was never the way.

It's just a shame that the two scenes were so closely juxtaposed because they were completely at odds with each other. In the former, the Doctor is at his most wrathful, furious at what Jex has made him confront about himself and the consequences of his actions; in the second he's at his most Doctor-ish, doing the right thing even though it's the hard thing, determined to make people better. It's not that both of these personae are not contained within the Doctor's complex character. What was missing was a sense of why the Doctor has performed this emotional volte face.

It isn't what Amy says to him that turns him around. It ought to be, but – and actually I think it's a nice touch – his response is much more "Yeah, yeah, okay mom". It could have been the death of the Marshal, Isaac (Ben Browder, excellent but underused), but that comes across more as him being dumbfounded, lost for once for words. It could even have been one of those so-interesting conversations between Jex and the Doctor where the clever Kahler forces the Doctor to consider himself and his own questionable moral statue.

There needed to be a transformative moment when the Doctor admits, if only to himself, that Amy is right this time. And it's missing.

In a similar way, there seemed to be a missing scene where the Doctor explained why painting Jex's facemark on other people was a good idea. Bearing in mind, at this point the Gunslinger has declared his intention to come into the town and slaughter everyone until he gets Jex, why then provide him with plenty of potentially valid targets? Isn't this asking him to shoot first and not care that he's killed the wrong person again later? Of course, we later discover that the Gunslinger's compassion actually won't let him kill innocent people even to get his revenge. But at the point he's doling out the facepaint, the Doctor can't know that.

Like on several occasions this season, it seems that something has survived from an earlier draft when the necessary exposition has been pruned to fit the blockbuster to the forty-five minute slot.

But, to return to the point, there are, of course, three wars we are talking about here, and they're all metaphors for each other: the American Civil War; the Kahler Civil War; and the Time War.

Superficially, you can see why Dr Kahler-Jex, an affecting multi-faceted performance from Adrian Scarborough, would get the Doctor's back up: he's a scientist who has experimented on his own kind to create cyborg war machines with the aim of bringing a terrible war to an end. If that's not screaming Davros at you then you need to review your "Genesis of the Daleks". But, of course, he also gets under the Doctor's skin by being a (another) dark reflection of the Doctor himself – he ended the war but at terrible cost, and is now "the only survivor" trying to make a difference to the lives of others.

It's an ambiguity that the episode dances down nicely for a long time, but it falls off with the conclusion where Jex does "the only honourable thing" and blows himself up. As with the Doctor's moral handbrake turn, this isn't so much out of character as a reversal missing a necessary explanation. And if you're going to paint a character so closely as an analogue of the Doctor, do you really want to suggest that the only moral action he can take is suicide? Even if you do believe that some crimes are too big to be forgiven, where does that leave the Doctor after double-genocide?

And there's actually a better answer to be found in the episode.

Jex recounts the Kahler belief that the afterlife is a Sisyphean climb bearing the burden of the souls you've harmed.

The interesting point of this philosophy, of course, is that it directly refutes what the Doctor says about victims – the Daleks' victims, the Master's victims, all the rest. The burden of all the people who died because of the Doctor's mercy is not the Doctor's to bear; that weight falls upon the perpetrators of those actions, on the Daleks, on the Master, on Jex himself. What the Doctor is actually doing is trying to lay off his true burden, which is the weight of all those Daleks that he did kill.

But surely the opportunity was there for the Doctor to reply to Jex that after you're dead is no good; no, justice demands that you bear those souls while you are still alive.

Assuming that there can even be justice after war.

In a subtle and world-weary performance from Ben Browder, he manages to suggest that the Marshal has a secret past of his own, and that he's putting everyone's past behind them because it is charity not justice which is necessary if you're going to reconstruct after a war like the US Civil War.

I suppose it's inevitable that a Western would be another episode to laud the "noble warrior".

Jex, you'll notice, is a doctor, a healer, and so he perverted his gifts by using them to create the cyborg warriors. Obviously he has to die.

(And look! He keeps recordings of his victims screaming as he operates – because clearly he knows how to cure cholera but hasn't heard of anaesthesia. Really, that's a cheap trick to make him look "evil".)

Kahler-Tek of course was a soldier (and presumably made the choice to kill people before becoming a controlled cyborg, as well as doing so again after breaking his control programming). As a cyborg his "gifts" are "greater powers to kill". But since that's what he uses his powers for, that means his killing spree should be measured against "honour".

This can't be right, and even the gunslinger himself admits at the end that he's probably been a bit of a dick about this whole revenge thing.

It's supposed to be a "twist" that it's the naughty doctor who's the monster and the cyborg is the victim. But you know what, that guy who's a murderous vigilante – actually, he is a monster too.

The "cyborg as victim" trope has a long history as a metaphor for "war changes you". Everyone who comes back from war bears the scars, on the inside, if not the outside, and the cyborg externalises that in a very literal way, saying "look, they turned me into a weapon". It preys on our ancient fears of bodily violation while at the same time being a walking symbol of mutilation. (Doctor Who has a long and ignoble tradition of equating bodily imperfection with moral evil, from Magnus Greel to Sharaz Jek, and starting with the Daleks themselves, of course – coming so soon after the Paralympics this all might be in slightly poor taste.)

Oh, and if we're in the business of saying that it's wrong, evil even, taking away someone's self-will, turning them into a weapon, sending them out to destroy the enemy (even if it's to save your friends)... didn't the Doctor do that to a Dalek two weeks ago? The difference being, of course, the Dalek didn't volunteer. And the Dalek died. Er...

To me, the differences between Jex and the gunslinger are ones of scale, not of kind. But no one even suggests this, that going round killing people for the personal pleasure of revenge might be a bad thing to do, and the episode presents his fate as reward rather than penance.

Basically, he's got what he wanted – Jex and all the others dead – and it's left him unsatisfied. For which the Doctor gives him a pat on the head and a shiny star.

Really, the ending of this story should not have allowed the Gunslinger to get away with it. If Jex had to die, it would have been more honest for the story to have let Kahler-Tek take his final revenge, and then for the Doctor to have told him: "All those souls that Jex had to bear... they're you're burden now. See if you can figure out a way to earn their forgiveness. "

The biggest crime of disconnection, though, is that "A Town Called Mercy" does not feel as though it resolves the situation regarding the murder of Solomon that occurred in the previous episode (whether or not caused by the Dalek nanoswarm in the episode before that). Without actually alluding to it, it makes the series appear to say "Putting someone in the path of missiles is fine, but putting them in the path of a vigilante cyborg is a bit off". That's contradictory at best.

(Not that that's really writer Toby Whitehouse's fault, and on the whole I find his take on Doctor Who vastly more acceptable than the "Carry On Assassinating" version we got from School of Saward last week. No, the flaw is that we have to put the pieces together ourselves because the script editor, sorry "head writer", has chosen to make everything stand alone. I have to say, Chibnall may have an alarmingly different ethical stance, but at least he appear to have one; Moffat seems not to have even noticed that this episode needs to be stood up as a rebuke to the preceding one.)

Alex, insightfully, spots another, more worrying parallel: with the West's current preference for peppering enemy states with indiscriminate drone missiles rather than risking the lives of our soldiers. An old-fashioned kind of morality would see the Gunslinger as more noble because he can at least look his victims in the eyes before killing them. In a reversal of this, the difference between "Dinosaurs on a Spaceship" and "A Town Called Mercy" is that that while the latter sees the Doctor getting his hands dirty and so raises its moral outrage, the former doesn't even notice that a crime has occurred. Blowing someone up with missiles "doesn't count"; it's the video-game-isation of death.

Visually, "A Town Called Mercy" had a near dream-like quality. Westerns have almost always existed on the fringes of reality anyway, but somehow the bright sunlight – more alien to Doctor Who than any Dalek – gave this a feeling of the unreal. With the town boundary marked by a literal line in the sand, a line that the Doctor steps over – something he'll do so many more ways this episode – it was a surprise that this didn't turn out to be a realm of the Dream Lord, out to teach the Doctor a lesson about going too far.

(It would even have been a creditable excuse for the presence yet again of Amy and Rory, if they're "just a dream" too. Especially with them "on the way to the Day of the Dead" foreshadow, foreshadow!)

The Guardian seems thoroughly delighted that this was all really, really real, but to me naming the town "Mercy" for a story about the quality of mercy was a bit on the sledgehammer side.

The Gunslinger was an okay piece of design, possibly a little familiar to anyone whose seen any Red Dwarf or The Terminator or read any Judge Dredd, though his teleporting walk was inspired, not so much jumping from place to place as carrying his own heat haze with him to walk out of.

The direction, all Spaghetti Western by way of Back to the Future Three – yes, we saw that lightning bolt strike the clock tower, although the over-keen undertaker measuring Matt up for a pinewood suit made me think "Carry on Cowboy" instead – made excellent use of the location, and made Matt look great in all the clichés of the genre. And though they might be clichés, they're good clichés.

Nice use of the running joke about the Doctor speaking every language in the Universe, with his temporary equine companion. And isn't "A Horse Called Susan" good enough to be an episode title on its own?

Oh, and can anyone explain why an episode that otherwise looks this good appears to open with the world's clunkiest robot? (Yes, we're later told the Kahler are ingenious and can cobble together anything from anything, and that is clearly what has happened, but...) Is it just so we can have the Gunslinger hunting down and killing the BBC One ident?

Next Time...The World's been invaded by little black boxes. Rory's in his pants and Chibnall is back in the driving seat. Anticipate the villain to be Dusty Bin in "The Power of Three, Two, One". Or, you know, not.

Day 4269: DOCTOR WHO: One Million Years P.C.

Saturday:

On the shiny new DVD of "Vengeance on Varos" there's an (unbroadcast) French and Saunders sketch, using the "Trial of a Time Lord" set, in which the duo appear in costume as aliens from Planet Siluria. Oh, how fans laughed at the ignorance of the Not-We not getting that the Silurians come, not from "Siluria", but the alien planet... Earth!

So, the Doctor's postcard from "Siluria" at the end of "Dinosaur Writes a Space Script" is a gag about another gag, itself a gag about "Trial" which, in turn, makes Mr Chibnall gag. And the wheel turns full circle...

A teenage Mr Chibnall dreams of the day he can write Doctor Who PROPERLY.

With Big Guns.

And Knob Jokes.

Mr Christopher Chibnall first made a name for himself by appearing on the telly being quite rude about "The Trial of a Time Lord" to the then current writers of Doctor Who.

And some might argue that his entire subsequent career has been a case of "Well, if you think that you can do any better..." and largely demonstrating that he can't. Given that the writers he was berating were Pip and Jane Baker, you can see where in my esteem league Le Chibnall usually resides. Two diabolical seasons of Torchwood, one dreadful one of Camelot and the unspeakable "The Hungry Earth"/"Cold Blood" have all contrived to place him there. "42", I will concede, was a brighter spot amid the gloom.

So, you can imagine my quandary when assessing this episode.

On the one hand, he does appear to have actually constructed it well: given a shopping list by Moffat of "dinosaurs" and "spaceship" he's made the fact that this is a spaceship that has dinosaurs on it central to the plot: it motivates the villainous Solomon and drives the conflict with the Doctor. And he's actually got a very good in-series reason for combining those elements by making this the Silurians' very own Ark in Space (and always good for sucking up to the boss, as it's said to be Mr Moffat's favourite story).

But on the other hand we get a series of crude innuendos – the Doctor's psychic paper getting a honk-honk ringtone when Nefertiti (yes, that Nefertiti) presses her advances; the big game hunter flourishing a stun rifle and boasting of the size of his weapon; and Mark Williams as Rory's dad, Brian, mustering all the dignity he can to respond to the question "What have you got in your trousers" with "only my balls". I swear, at that point I very nearly began to implode with embarrassment.

It's not that the jokes aren't funny – though they aren't – or even the generally disparaging attitude to women – because Chibnall tossing in an aside about gender politics isn't funny either – it's the cringing inappropriateness, like your dad suddenly making knob jokes. At a children's party.

Jenny seems to have had similar difficulty with the episode's ambiguities, labelling it "passable", while Simon was much more willing to give it credit as a comedy romp.

And I'm reluctant to mark it down for the cringe-worthy moments, because there is much here to enjoy, not least the eponymous dinosaurs, finally redeeming "Invasion of the Dinosaurs" with some lovely CG renderings and excellent models – bonus marks for Ankylosaurs, Alex's favourite dino. The fight with the raptors was exciting and well-staged – and let's say they're Utahraptors which really are person-sized, rather than the infamously turkey-size veloceraptors. The pterosaur attack was nicely done, too; lovely moment where the Doctor tells the Williamses that "they're not kestrels" just after I'd remarked that "that pterodactyl's getting a bit close", even if it was yet another return to Bad Wolf Bay, a location that is becoming as ubiquitous as the Temple of Peace in Cardiff.

I do like the idea of powering the ship with waves. It might even work, if the water is somehow collecting the kinetic energy from planets as the ship orbits and releasing it for use it in flight. Although the idea of a basically tidal power system being constructed by the Silurians ought to be unlikely if you remember that their reason for launching the ship in the first place is that in their time the Earth has no moon, and so no tides.

On the subject of technology, though, I'm afraid Solomon's robot sidekicks didn't do it for me. Their bickering dialogue was, I felt, neither clever enough nor funny enough to be worthy of the talents of Mitchell and Webb. And the fact they suddenly couldn't shot the broad side of a triceratops was enough to break the suspension of disbelief. (They should have made a joke of it and had them miss Brian when ordered to shoot him at point blank range.)

But I liked the rest of the guest cast. Riann Steele as the Egyptian Queen, once we got past Chibnall's cack-handed reprise of Moffat's equally cack-handed "Amy throws herself at the Doctor" scene, demonstrated steely competence (pardon my pun) while Rupert Graves as big game hunter Riddell (does Chibnall not know that Allan Quatermain is well out of copyright?) gave the role both barrels and was clearly having a whale of a time playing what M would no doubt call a sexist misogynist dinosaur (pardon my pun again). Personally I'd have thrown in a world-weary "Oh, all right" on being made to use stun guns on the dinosaurs, and I'd rather have reversed the positioning in the final shot of Riddell and Nefertiti so that she is the Queen of the African veldt and he is her nubile tent-slave, but if you can't have all the gender politics you want I'll settle for Amy demonstrating that she's the equal of the Doctor and then saying she's worth two men.

The scenes where Amy gets to be Doctor with Nefertiti and Riddell as her companions gave something back to the character that had been taken away last week. It was good to make use of her history with the Silurians too to help her figure out what's going on (although, as Alex said at the time, those carefully sculpted-to-fit masks make it painfully clear that they've only got two actors who can "do" Homo Reptilia). The "show me the difference between then and now" was a reasonable shorthand for a proper Doctor-ish investigation (better, actually, than Mr Sonic-Waver manages these days) though it did leave me feeling "Yeah, but in the sixty-five plus million years this things been up there, there may have been more than one thing that's changed...". Also, it doesn't half make it obvious how the mobile phone would have short-circuited a lot of "classic" era Doctor Who.

And to be fair, there were lovely moments for Rory and for his dad too: the Williams boys bonding over the things they keep in their pockets; Rory getting to be a nurse; and the moment of Brian sitting with a sandwich gazing out at the Earth. Brian's postcards from all over the world, having overcome his fear of travel, were a happy return to the idea that the Doctor makes people better.

Although the whole business of the Silurians programming their ship with "from the same genetic path" rather than "is Silurian" that meant Rory and his dad could between them fly the spaceship raised "contrived" to new levels. Sure, you can post-facto justify by saying the TARDIS recognised the ship and worked out what would be needed, and hence chose to pick up the Ponds from a time when they had a parent and child to hand, but really... wouldn't you choose to pick up Amy and River in that case, at least one of whom actually can fly a spaceship?

There's also the question of Rory's age – apparently he's thirty-one now (and too old for a Christmas list).

However, his (misprinted) hospital I.D. back in "The Eleventh Hour" was dated 1990 which many take to be his year of birth, so if he's thirty-one "now" then the year is 2021, and the Ponds are just back from waving to themselves in "The Hungry Earth". (Presumably this is the 2021 where both of them still exist.)

Given that "The Big Bang" firmly establishes Amy's wedding day as 20 June 2010, and hence the events of "The Eleventh Hour" as 2008 for grown-up Amy and 1996 for seven-year-old Amelia then, by reversing the calculation, Amy is twenty-one in season five/thirty. Rory's been at school with Amy since childhood, as seen in "Let's Kill Hitler", and can't be more than a year older or younger than her. (A birthday in 1990 would see him six when she is seven, which is consistent.)

But even if Rory's two years older, so twenty-three when not dead in season five, it's difficult to see how eight years could have elapsed for the Ponds (and if he's younger, it's even more). Particularly given Amy's complaint that "it's been ten months this time". Of course there could have been many, many unseen visits in the meantime, but still.

Having said that, the ten months could be indicative of the Doctor's feelings towards the Ponds having cooled – a possible connection to the Daleks "deducting love" last week.

And, in that vein, I do find interesting the Doctor's current choice of companions. He denies to Amy that Nefertiti and Riddell are "the new Ponds", and in a way this is true, because he's clearly picked new travelling companions who have a moral compass somewhat South of "Twenty-First Century".

Does the Doctor have a problem with mercy now, following his decision to give Amy his protection from the Daleks' nanoswarm?

There's been a lot of comment on the Doctor's treatment of Solomon. (Though I notice that no one at all seems concerned that he murdered the Mitchell-and-Webb-bots almost in passing. Honestly, does no one watch "The Measure of a Man" any more? They clearly pass the Turing Test, so they're alive. It's as bad his dismal treatment of Drathro – never mind the monkey-racism; the Doctor never seems to give a fig for synthetic lifeforms!)

I did quite like what we saw of David Bradley's Solomon, his scenes with Mat Smith crackling with energy. Alex particularly liked the first time we saw him standing, weirdly gaunt between the two hulking robots – he looked (appropriately enough) like a drawing of an evil old wizard come to life. But I don't think he was given enough time to develop into a truly memorable villain. You kind of need a reason to secretly root for a really good baddy, but all Solomon's moments were unlovely, whether shooting the Trike or threatening Nefertiti with his bladed crutch, and it rendered him rather shallow, which in turn made the Doctor's despatching him seem somewhat over the top.

A deal of the speculation has suggested that there'll be a Moffat "everyone lives" moment later in the series when it is revealed that the Doctor got Solomon off the ship before the missiles hit. In just that way that he couldn't when it was Adric.

I've also wondered if the Doctor's rather heavy emphasis on the missiles locking on to the Silurians' signalling device wasn't supposed to be giving him a chance of the "Just chuck this out the window, mate" variety.

But mostly, it seems, the Doctor just murders him.

What happened to "The Man Who Never Would?" Regeneration aside, this is the guy who wanted to take the Master off for cuddles and counselling after slaughtering half the Earth. This is the guy who couldn't bring himself to execute Davros, or to destroy the Daleks at their creation.

The case that seems to keep being brought up is the Graff Vynda-K, who is exploded by his own bomb after the Doctor slips it into his pocket at the climax of "The Ribos Operation". Well, the thing is, that's poetic justice there – the Graff left the Doctor with the bomb because of a prophecy that "All but one would die", so giving the bomb back to him is in-story apt. It's fairy-tale logic – do as you would be done by, or be exploded as you would explode. There's no such aptness to Solomon's execution. The Doctor could, quite easily, have offered him the choice to get off his ship and face the consequences or stay on it and try to avoid the missiles – and that would have been very Doctorish.

Nor does he seem exceptionally wrathful. The Doctor's not beyond meting out punishment when he's really pissed off.

The massacre of the Silurians (about whom the Doctor has deep-seated and on-going guilt issues) and the slaughter of an innocent Triceratops right in front of him, added to the objectification and abuse of his friend Nefertiti, might all combine to put him into one of his "good men don't need rules" moods, much as the Family of Blood push him too far in, well, "The Family of Blood".

But we need to see that on screen. We know that Matt is as capable as Davy T of delivering the towering rage of the Time Lord, so someone between the script writer and the director forgot to tell him to turn it on.

And nobody calls him on it either. Ever since he contemplated a wounded caveman and a rock back in "The Forest of Fear", it's been implied that the Doctor, as a Time Lord, needs human companionship to help him with "human-scale" morality. Tom Baker's Doctor contrasted walking in eternity with Sarah's human (read "mortal") concerns. When the fifth Doctor used the Movellans' virus to destroy a force of Daleks, it took Tegan's departure to show him the error of his ways. It featured strongly in the seventh Doctor's era, particularly once they got into the New Adventures. And even more recently, when he destroyed the Racnoss and again when he was going to leave Pompeii to its fate, Donna was there to remind him that that's a bit off. This week: nothing.

So the episode appears to say that it's okay to kill people just for being "bad". And I accept that some people, many people, do think that that is true. It's just that the Doctor is unequivocally not one of them.

Given who is writing this, and added to all the inappropriate humour, it reminds me all too much of the morality of Torchwood. Particularly (ironically) its humourless first season, which equated "adult" with sex, violence and swearing.

If this were a one-off (yes, I know what Moffat says), then I'd put it down to Chibnall having all the moral sensitivity of Eric Saward on a bad day. But given the events on the Asylum last week and given that I know that next week's episode is called "A Town Called Mercy", I wonder, I speculate, is Moffat trying to do a character-based arc – possibly to demonstrate that he can - where the Doctor is shown to be lacking and needs to go find himself a companion. (Again.)

Next Time...The Doctor's brain has crashed and he's dreaming he's in the Wild West with Farscape's Ben Browder. Sigh, Ben Browder. Or possibly Mr Pritchard from Upstairs Downstairs. Can Kryten compile a dove virus in time to cure him in "Gunmen of the Apocalypse"... hang on, I think I'm getting confused...

Day 4262: DOCTOR WHO: Daleks versus Predator

Saturday:


After watching Dr Woo in my luxury London flat – the "Asylum of the Daddies", I call it. "It's a Madhouse! A Madhouse!" – we put AVP in the DVD.

Under the icy surface, our heroes penetrate the alien ziggurat, with its diagonal walls and secret doors and, surrounded by the skeletal remains of the last people who got in there, they soon discover the shocking secret of the alien life form and its "eggs". But worse is to come when they realise that the Predator has been locked in there with them. And he's wearing a bow tie...

More spoilers follow...

What makes a "good Dalek story"? There are good stories that have Daleks in them, and there are stories that good for the Daleks.

"Dalek", for example, I would – controversially – suggest is not that good a story. With even a Cyberman or a Sontaran marching up through that base, it's just not that interesting. But it is a really good story for the Daleks.

"Day of the Daleks", on the other hand, it would possibly be less contentious to say is considered quite a good story about time travel that happens to have Daleks in it for no good reason, and would, arguably, be just as good with "ordinary" fascists in the twenty-second century.

Stories like "Genesis of the Daleks" and "Remembrance of the Daleks" manage to be both; they are good stories themselves and manage to be about the Daleks.

So what about "Asylum of the Daleks", the first time Steven Moffat has written just for them (as opposed to their presence in the mixed bag of the Pandorica)?

On the face of it, there are a lot of Daleks in it. Not quite the every Dalek ever – unless you're playing with the freeze-frame and the Dalek bingo card – but substantial numbers of the blighters, and most especially in the Russell T Dalek model that appears to have substantially outdone the New Paradigm in the popularity stakes. (The revised paint jobs on the Drone and Strategist – i.e. Red and Blue Daleks – plus what looks like a remodelling of their unfortunate rear-ends has also gone some way towards assuaging the hate that the "Victory" brand Daleks picked up.)

We did manage to spot the old Special Weapons Dalek from "Remembrance of..." and the spinning Dalek perceived by Amy as a ballerina (referencing the ballerina in Oswin's music box) looked to be a black-domed Imperial Guard/Supreme from "Evil of...". We also noticed a black Dalek Sec casing, making us wonder just how many Dalek Secs there have been, each leader of the Cult of Skaro in turn being deemed potty and sent to the Asylum.

There was also a rather sad-looking Paradigm model hanging about at the back, making us think of this page from Mechmaster's highly-recommended and totally unofficial Dalek comic strip.

But do those Daleks actually do anything? Or are they, as Alex points out, a McGuffin to get the Doctor into this week's haunted funhouse? (Andrew correctly identifies one of Moffat's tropes is his habit of establishing a memorable setting and then just using it as "spooky backdrop" rather than a meaningful part of his story-telling. But I'll come back to some thoughts about the "Asylum" in a bit.)

The true horror moments of the episode fall to the Dalek Puppets, particularly the sight of eyestalks bursting from people's foreheads: reminiscent of the Alien Chestburster; though also, I thought, a callback to the "door in the forehead" technology seen in "The Long Game", which turned out to be of Dalek origin in the end too. The Puppets seem to be the latest iteration in the Roboman/Dalek Duplicate series, though with added Auton in the Dalek gun sticking through the palm.

Meanwhile the emotional beats of the story focus, on the one hand, on the mysterious girl-from-the-future in her virtual-reality bubble (that's another Moffat trope, of course), and, on the other hand, on some "serious" stuff about the Pond's abrupt marriage breakdown and repair.

The situation with the Ponds is Moffat playing emotional "Duck Amok"; he can repaint the characters and their landscape any way he likes, so what does it matter if they're suddenly totally out of character? Amy seems to have thrown out all of the positive developments of last season that saw her evolve into an actually likeable person, and is behaving selfishly and manipulatively. She punishes Rory for a blow to her own self-image and how she assumes he'll react without even telling him why or giving him the opportunity to prove her wrong. (And of course the blow had to be gynaecological or it wouldn't be Moffat playing; in the Moffat-verse woman = womb + sarcasm.) Rory (except when pouting sarcastically into mirrors) has turned into the victim of an abusive relationship, complete with "comedy" violence (because actually it's not funny to repeatedly have one person slap another person).

(You would have thought that, given a five-part mini-episode mini-series leading up to "Asylum of the Daleks" aka "Pond Life" – geddit! – that they could have established in a series of increasingly painful vignettes the growing estrangement as Rory senses something is wrong and Amy won't or can't open up to him. But no, we get Ood-on-the-loo hilarity and Mata Hari hijinks – assuming you find lobotomising and brainwashing an alien to be a slave hilarious and reducing a complex historical figure to a sexual stereotype and a willy gag hijinksy – and everything is fine around the breakfast table until a sudden swerve in the final minute. Maybe Chibnall didn't get the memo. If only there were someone to take the lead role in the writing, some writer who could lead the others, someone... oh, you get the picture...)

And yet this all feels contrived, bolted on, an excuse to tug at the heart-strings and arrive at a reconciliation. Surely it would make more sense that, as the nanogenes "deduct love and add hate", that this story should actually cause the Pond's relationship difficulties, not resolve them. Rory's clumsy suggestion that he loves Amy more than she loves him could – given her past – hit her in a vulnerable point that precipitates a rift. Of course that runs entirely counter to what I suppose we must call the "sit-com" side of Moffat's (multifaceted) writing, which starts from misunderstanding but seeks to resolve it, often through the medium of embarrassment. Although a big snog will do. (And witness the Doctor's embarrassment at Amy and Rory's big snog.)

So if the "emotional core" of the story is actually surplus to requirements, then what is really really going on underneath? Well, aside from the usual Moffat ponderings on memory and reality and how the former informs, even creates, the latter, what we have is an exploration of Dalek culture. Starting with the revelation that they have one.

We see the Parliament of the Daleks. We hear of the Daleks' idea of beauty. And their idea of madness. And the things that scare them.

All in all it treats them seriously as an alien culture, admittedly one that represents everything the Doctor and by extension ourselves would be disgusted by.

It addresses the Daleks' response to the Doctor; how they keep running up against him and how, like germs becoming anti-biotic resistant, they're becoming stronger as a result – a better consideration of their "evolution" than "Evolution of the Daleks" (and with better "human-Daleks" too, albeit ones in fetish-wear for some reason No wait, she's a women, it’s the Moffat-verse, so…). And it addresses his response to them: "I've tried to stop".

The Parliament of the Daleks is not, as far too many people have leapt to assume, a sign that they are democratic now, any more than the Roman Senate or the English Parliament under King Charles the First made Rome or pre-Commonwealth England democracies. Nor does the presence of a Dalek Prime Minister imply the absence of a Dalek Emperor. Rather the contrary, actually, as ministers serve monarchs, usually. Both "City of the Daleks" and "The Eternity Clock" assert that the New Paradigm Empire does have an Emperor, if you'll take computer games as evidence. And it's a nice retcon of John Peel's use of "Dalek Prime", if we absolutely have to hold our noses and take the existence of Skaro as acceptance of "War of the Daleks".

(Nice-looking Skaro, in passing. The Dalek City was not quite as good as the Citadel on CGI Gallifrey, trying slightly too hard to look like the 'Sixties models from "The Dead Planet" and "The Evil of the Daleks", and all the red dust made ruined Skaro look like ruined Gallifrey which was ironic. And possibly the point. Nice giant Dalek statue, though.)

The Daleks are shown to be clever in this story. Not just setting traps for the Doctor, but also manipulating and deceiving him, arriving at a lateral-thinking solution to their problem of the Asylum and also getting the Doctor to solve their real problem by fooling him into thinking he's solving a shared (and completely different) threat.

Because the idea that this Empire, the thousands of Daleks that we see and that's just the Parliament, and there are a dozen other ships in just this fleet, the idea that they are threatened by the dusty, damaged, deranged dustbins that we see when we get inside the Asylum is simply not credible. So there must be something else. The most obvious candidate for that something else – there is another which I will come back to – is of course Oswin: a Dalek that thinks it's a human being. And/or a Dalek that thinks it's a human being that is close to taking complete control over the Asylum's systems.

The so-called twist with Oswin – that is to say the in-episode "twist", that reveals she's a Dalek (as opposed to the "But isn't she Jenna-Louise Coleman?" meta-twist) – seemed pretty obvious to me. And to the Doctor too. He's already homing in on the key question – where do you get the milk – while still on the Daleks' Parliamentary Saucer. (I like that the Supreme comes rushing in to cut off that line of questioning before the Doctor gets too close to the truth; another sign that the Daleks are double-dealing here, and another pointer to their cunning.) It does make you wonder how much of this is seventh-Doctor-style plans within plans. In fact, going back to Skaro – which, of course, the Seventh Doctor did reduce to a vaporised cinder, no matter what "War of the Daleks" might think; though since both Daleks and Doctor have time travel, they can still visit it in its post-"The Evil of the Daleks" ruined state – but if it was that easy to catch the Doctor in a trap then they'd have got him long, long ago. Which means he knew it was a trap and sprang it anyway to find out what they were after this time.

But the Daleks win. More even than "Victory of the Daleks" (which was more "Scraping an Escape of the Daleks"), here they absolutely, definitely win. The Dalek Empire survives and prospers. Even if you take their statements at face value, they get exactly what they wanted, an end to the threat of the Asylum, however it threatened them. And if you are convinced that they are lying, then the Doctor – apparently – does not see through them and gives them what they really wanted too.

Possibly.

Because if what they wanted was the death of Oswin, all, even more than I've already suggested, may not be as it seems.

Now, of course, not recognising Jenna-Louise Coleman from Eve, but having read all the press announcements a few months back, it wasn't until the closing credits that I "got" the "surprise". And I must confess it left me feeling perplexed, derailing the episode. This is backwards story-telling, where we are presented with an ending before we can understand it, breaking the fourth wall not just with a sly shy glance to camera, but by foregrounding the serial nature of the series and putting the emphasis on the fact that we won't get an explanation until Christmas.

I guess we need to add a new line to the Lawrence Miles' "Moffat Times Table":

"The Girl Who Waited"





X

"My Reality is Just a Dream"





=

"The Girl Who Waited in a Virtual Reality Dream!"







I suppose the most obvious unanswered question must be: after the Doctor gave his protection from the nanoswarm to Amy, did Oswin use the nanogenes, with their ability to alter remembrance and perception, permanently to graft herself onto his memory?

Because, for all his other faults, Steven Moffat is not the kind of writer who sets up a peril of that kind and then forgets the pay-off. (A proper explanation in series five of who exploded the TARDIS and why seems to have eluded him, but normally he can be relied upon to tie off his plot points. If not necessarily in the right order.) If the Daleks, who really aren't stupid, thought that the Doctor needed protection, then he needed protection. If he could have avoided the nanoswarm with a Time Lord handwave, then he would have given Amy the wrist device straight away as soon as she lost hers, not slipped it to her later, so he thinks he needs it too.

So is this how Jenna-Louise will, in the future, become his companion? Will he perceive her presence like a techno-ghost? That would be awkward for splitting up the team, a staple of all Doctor Who adventures. Perhaps she'll alter his perception of someone already present, a kind of cross between a "Faction Paradox"-type Shift and "Quantum Leap".

Probably not; that would all be far too interesting.

Alex was cultivating the happy illusion that it was all a massive bluff, launching the "perfect" companion for the Doctor as yet another perky "spunky" white girl-of-a-certain-age and then pulling a "but she's a Dalek" switch on us.

Alas, I fear that that would be too bold too, and that, by the pricking of my thumbs, something timey-wimey this way comes. The commonest suggestions being (a) the "Charley Pollard" option: the Doctor rescues Oswin from inevitable destiny resulting in cosmic temporal shenanigans; (b) the "River Song" option: this is Oswin's end but the Doctor's beginning (the fact that she says "we've never met" being got over by a "River Song lies" gambit); (c) the "Martha Jones" option; they're identical cousins; (d) the "reverse Gwen Cooper" option: Oswin comes from an "old Cardiff family" or equivalent and the Doctor travels with an ancestor (also works for "Scottish descendent of Pompeian soothsayer").


A lot of the contradictions about the Asylum can be resolved if we assume the Daleks are lying. Yes, unreliable narrator tropes in a Steven Moffat story, what will he think of next? In fact, the Daleks don't even need to lie that much; they just let the Doctor supply the exposition and don't correct him.

"What do you know of the Dalek Asylum?" he's asked.

"Legend speaks of..." he starts. Of course, "legend" also described the Doctor as a goblin trickster who a good wizard trapped in the Pandorica. For that matter, "legend" says that the Doctor died at Lake Silencio. So "legend" is up there with Moffat when it comes to "Rule 1".

An "asylum" was a place of safety before it was a mental institution. What if it still is? What if the Asylum is not where Daleks are sent, but the place to which they escape? The Asylum is where Daleks go when they want to escape from the War. The Dalek War of Daleks versus everything. The idea of a protective forcefield controlled from the planet, one that the Dalek fleet can neither penetrate nor shut off, then makes rather more sense. It's not there to keep the inmates in; it's there to keep the Dalek Empire out!

You could even explain how these Daleks survived the Time War and the Bad Wolf: they survived because they'd opted out. Rose ended the Time War, but these guys weren't in the Time War anymore.

If we take Amy's altered perceptions in the Asylum as being representative then the Daleks in there think of themselves as people.

Of course, they're still Daleks. They react to the presence of other lifeforms by panicking and trying to shoot them. But they've withdrawn from war.

Notice how the most extreme examples – in what Oswin describes as "intensive care" – have all had their gunsticks removed. But there aren't any warders in this Asylum, so the only people who could have removed the weapons are themselves. These are the Daleks who've met the Doctor... and become pacifists. That's about as mad as you can go if you're a Dalek. They press about the Doctor reaching out with their sucker arms, and he thinks that they're trying to squish him "Dalek"-style, but does it not strike you that they're not so much making half-hearted efforts to kill him as trying to "touch his robe"?

That would make the Asylum the most dangerous thing to the Dalek Empire ever. It would make it Peace.

Of course, it would also make the whole story a great deal more tragic if that were the case. It would mean that the Doctor provoked one Dalek into self-destruction so he could murder ten to twenty more Daleks and eventually allow the really evil Daleks to blow up a whole planet-full of not-quite-so-evil-verging-on-the-might-stand-a-chance-of-redemption Daleks.

So, really, who "suckered" who?

It would seem that the power of the Daleks is that, as icons, they are able to harness Moffat's strengths as a writer and rise above his shortcomings.

The devious plots-within-plots style that is the Grand Moff's signature serves them well, giving them a depth of deviousness not seen since the Whittaker serials of the 'Sixties.

That need to throw in idea after idea after idea that makes Moffat such a creative goldmine but so unfocussed sometimes, here sketches in a broader more vivid Empire without getting bogged down in unnecessary detail. It's not quite Robert Holmes, but its closer to having a big picture view of them than anyone else has.

And you can't undermine the Daleks with sit-com characterisation that demands everyone be constantly barbed and witty because the Daleks don't have characterisation. (Kudos again to Nick Briggs for what he can do with inflection and a ring modulator, though.)

So this is a good story for the Daleks. It may even be a good Dalek story.

Next Time...News that the Doctor's new companions are actually an Egyptian Queen and Allan Quatermain has both Big Finish Productions and Alan Moore going "But...!" News that Mitchell and Webb are voicing the Robots has viewers assuming one is a PC and the other is a Peach. And Samuel L Jackson was distinctly heard to say: "Get these Mother****ing Chibnalls off this Mother****ing Series!" Or something like that.

.