Hell Patrol

Tombstone Highway

2012-01-27T10:58:00.001Z

balls to the wall

2011-12-02T13:10:00.001Z

(unfortunately, not about the execution of Ed Balls for being such a cunt)

2011-11-11T19:57:00.001Z

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill: Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres.
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables at home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain,
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.

born too late

2011-11-04T10:22:00.001Z

ghost movement

2011-10-28T16:49:00.001+01:00

steel tormentor

2011-09-23T19:54:00.001+01:00

bury me in smoke

2011-09-16T13:47:00.000+01:00

2011-08-12T19:08:00.000+01:00

Love In Vain

2011-07-29T10:55:00.001+01:00

all hail n kneel before me

2011-07-01T18:30:00.000+01:00

atom and evil

2011-06-10T20:16:00.001+01:00

Here Lies Love

2011-05-20T19:27:00.001+01:00

Bit of a deviation from the usual themes...

Gloria Lewis

2011-05-13T20:17:00.001+01:00

The Incomparable Mr Flannery

2011-04-28T21:38:00.000+01:00

Blackened Sunrise

2011-03-31T17:41:00.001+01:00

Blue Snow

2011-02-25T12:48:00.001Z

Stone Breaker

2011-01-31T19:10:00.000Z

Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand

2010-12-24T21:47:00.000Z

Starchild

2010-12-02T08:36:00.001Z

Laurence Binyon- For THe Fallen

2010-11-11T12:37:00.001Z

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres,
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years contemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.

Turn Up The Night

2010-10-01T11:36:00.000+01:00

Love In Vain

2010-09-17T19:21:00.001+01:00

That Woman's Gonna Break Your Heart

2010-08-13T07:58:00.001+01:00

Miss X

2010-07-30T12:46:00.000+01:00

Gates Of Babylon

2010-07-23T20:57:00.000+01:00

In League With Satan

2010-06-30T09:02:00.000+01:00

Devil On A Hog

2010-05-29T20:30:00.002+01:00

PS- I support David Laws & this is the best government of my lifetime.

I Can't Turn You Loose

2010-05-21T20:55:00.000+01:00

Dio- Challis

2010-05-07T20:40:00.000+01:00

A Farewell To Kings

2010-04-30T06:52:00.000+01:00

Wedding Bells

2010-03-31T21:27:00.002+01:00

How many people clicked through to the title in the hope it would be interesting, eh? You should have fucking known better.

Venus Blue

2010-02-28T20:31:00.000Z

Something contemporary for you this month.

You're Still On My Mind

2010-01-31T21:18:00.003Z

Please note that this is a cover- the original being by Luke McDaniel- whose work I have not yet heard, but probably will. It was through Elvis Costello's cover versions on Almost Blue that I got into Gram Parsons & through him the Byrds, so I might as well go all the way back.

Was also listening to a bit of Hank Williams earlier on.

Hope any passers-by like the enclosed.

Iron Resolution

2009-12-31T19:41:00.003Z

Usual shite it is then...

1. More exercise (cycling, swimming)
2a. More reading serious books
b. Magazines too
c. & blogs
3. Apply for decent jobs
4. Get a foot on the ladder instead of eternal renting like a cunt

Not going to "resolve" to leave the city or anything like that as it wouldn't happen. Doing reasonably ok on the weight front so no need for any more of that.

Iron Maiden

2009-12-24T19:03:00.002Z

Merry Christmas folks- nothing in particular to say, now or in the near future :)

Tons Of SHITE

2009-11-30T11:15:00.000Z

Lest We Forget

2009-11-08T15:32:00.004Z

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
We will remember them.

clutch

2009-11-06T11:26:00.001Z

Going to see Clutch tonight.

Neil Young & Crazy Horse- Powderfinger

2009-10-31T20:26:00.000Z

The Hell Patrol

2009-09-30T09:38:00.003+01:00

Still around, whatever my foes may wish- them as want to keep in contact with me & read regular updates please do go here

running around

2009-08-06T14:07:00.002+01:00

On holiday in the Dordogne & won't be back until the 15th.

Actually the bit I am most looking forward to is an overnight stay in Caen, which I chose as a stopping point because it brought back memories of studying William the Conqueror & was as good an excuse as any to get various books on about him from the library.

Holiday Reading (all re-reads, nothing I haven't seen before, though I did recently read Akenfield & Return to Akenfield which were fucking class)
Crome Yellow
Rasselas
Bad Science
Freakonomics
The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner
Does God Hate Women?

Better hope I don't get stranded somehow- the prospect of me spending years with only those books, my own mind & the ever-pressing need for survival in the wilds of France, then re-emerging, is a terrifying one :)

twitching

2009-07-31T19:24:00.002+01:00

Still having a "hiatus"- didn't want July to be a blank month though.

Does God Hate Women? Recommended book.
On about Afghan feminists resisting theocracy.

obligatory post on the environment etc

2009-05-21T22:32:00.004+01:00

I am, & have long been into protecting the environment (not sure if this makes me "green" though), & examples like this indicate why I do not, in general, take a statist approach to the matter.

Many, especially New Labour types (who are far more into statism & managerialism than protecting the environment), have the thought process "X is green, therefore the government needs to impose X now".

The problems with this are threefold.

1. The government doesn't actually know what is good for the environment half the time.
2. Nor does it care- meeting targets & having something to boast about, however meaningless in reality, come first.
3. The litany of government inefficiency, especially in this area, where they so often back the wrong horse, as also evinced by support for the Severn Barrage (to which I am certainly no friend), government subsidies for "biofuels" which are often worse than nothing, & the third runway shite which doesn't even pretend to be green.

This puts people off conservation altogether, which is unfair as New Labour hypocrisy hardly discredits the original aims, but is understandable.

You can disentangle selective action, which doesn't require cumbersome statism, from whatever authoritarianism this government dreams up & you'll actually find the former more effective. The best weapon is always the willing support of local people who want to live in clean areas & have good open spaces for their children to play in. (Of course, energy efficiency in the home & the workplace is already being taken up by individuals & companies who can see the financial gains to be had). They would welcome restrictions on pollution & emissions & other external factors if they had minimal impact on business being transacted & that.

Such policies can be imposed with a light touch & at the local level. Also to be encouraged is shite like local food production, farmers' markets & just about anything which involves local conservation groups & people volunteering to improve the quality of their local environment. At the same time, we should be listening to local people's concerns about mass new house building & eco towns (another daft government imposition) & aiming for a stable or slightly falling population by restricting immigration & the acceptance of an "ageing" society as nothing to be afraid of if handled properly.

On a philosophical level, my interest in the natural world started early. I grew up in a very grotty area of Stoke. A lot of the people I grew up amongst didn't have cars, & I am the only person I know who was regularly taken to the countryside as a child. So I delighted in the views, the tranquility & that sort of shite in a way that far too many don't, & I am an advocate of opening up the country to them through schools & by organisations so on which organise expeditions for those who may otherwise remain ignorant of what nature has to offer.

The difference between me & some types was really laid bare when a friend asked me "when I became interested in the environment" as if it were some hobby I'd taken up. In fact it was bred into me: I am not like the Islington luvvies who boast about how "green" they are, or the apparatchiks who can reel off how many targets they've imposed, but someone who has it in his bones.

I actually think Cameron & a lot of his team are the same, which is why I was interested to hear this from them. I don't quite agree, but I right see their point re: National Park bureaucracy & it is illuminating to see people who basically get it* taking such views.. In practical terms, I hope you see what I'm getting at, that a lighter touch & a working with people will work better than the Miliband way. I just hope he doesn't put too many people off the whole thing & lead them to scorn anything conservationist.

In reality we should have options like nuclear on the table & shouldn't be wedded to wind farms or anything else. It is my humble opinion that we can make more than a few efficiency savings, as households are starting to do, & reduce our need for more, more, more of the same.

A stable or slightly falling population also, to be achieved by "natural" means of letting our current fairly low fertility rates produce their effect.

The main thing is always to encourage delight in the natural world & a desire to protect it for future generations' enjoyment.

*Yes- I said that. But I still expect to be opposing them if they form a government.

Will Workhouse & Ozzy do the right thing?

2009-02-08T19:56:00.004Z

It has become my suspicion that half these "policy" announcements will end up coming to nothing. This recession is the perfect excuse for ditching what was always unrealistic bollocks & was in fact never going to happen. We start off with what looks like the first step to abandoning the governments's welfare "reforms".

I am familiar with these schemes as I have got mates who are long-term unemployed (they bear no resemblance at all to the caricatures). I count myself lucky in that I generally have a job, though I have done my time on the dole (thankfully never for long). They are sent on the most unbelievably shite "courses" & intimidated by companies, & end up 26 weeks later no closer to having a job. You can't put this on your CV as no employer would give a fuck: the schemes are useless.

Worse than useless, firstly as they are just make-work for Labour's client state of IT companies running the ID cards & other schemes, PFI recipients, quangocrats, admin staff in the DWP/HMRC, & other people who should not be receiving taxpayer's money as they provide no service.

Secondly, there are useful things the unemployed could be doing. I would begin with an admission that many are unlikely to find paid jobs for some time to come. Instead of wasting time & money forcing them to look for jobs which don't exist & shoving them from pillar to post, the government can back off & let individuals & non-state organisations take a role. Continue to pay benefits & exempt from the "job search" procedure those who can prove they are doing some form of voluntary work.

This, again, is a system which barely involves the state other than to pay that £60.50 (very little compared to what is currently & pointlessly spent). It saves money, & when work becomes available the ex-unemployed will be used to getting out of bed & doing things, keen to earn some money, & well qualified. I must state in my loudest possible tone of voice that there should be no coercion & no kind of extra payments: it should remain voluntary. I am not against some state funding, as the successful model of the Citizens' Advice Bureau (which retains its independence & impartiality very well) but be careful whenever it is proposed as we don't want politics.

A far better & cheaper system than anything Purnell could come up with & it also involves less government.

Now, this is interesting from the blue corner. They haven't actually gone as far as Labour. They are groping towards a realisation that the IHT cut was a bad idea. Yes, it made good politics, but that was in 2007 when house prices were rising. In this day & age it is fucking moronic to say that those clinging to jobs, made unemployed, or living in properties whose values decline steadily will have the "aspiration" to pass on a fortune in unearned wealth one day.

The old days are dead, I am glad to see the back of them, but the Tories seem to have failed to understand as much. Even if you think the IHT cut is fundamentally a good idea, surely you should wait until prices rise to 2007 levels (ie, a long time). It is a ridiculous policy from discredited days. I understand the politics, & I know it was popular, but that was in the days of the bubble, & the marginals & those seats the Tories are going for in a landslide do not contain high concentrations of people in expensive houses, especially now.

A lot of these people who are losing their jobs are not being put out of work directly because of the credit crunch: the credit crunch is just an excuse, in essence, to cut staff & in a lot of cases to mechanise & never replace jobs, especially unskilled jobs whose number declines rapidly (a severe social problem of the future but not one that is under discussion in this post). Likewise, unrealistic bollocks policies are being jettisoned because claiming they're now too expensive is more dignified than admitting they were always shite & would never have worked.

We'll live to see the end of ID cards, the third runway, Purnell's shite, & hopefully in tax we'll move away from idiotic attempts to encourage "aspiration" to things that will never happen & start repealing the burdens that are placed on the working man in his actual life rather than the one Clarksonites daydream of having when they win the lottery.

But maybe it would take more courage than Camoron/Ozzy posess to do the right thing. No one actually wanted the toss that Labour are getting rid of, but some powerful people will have to be faced down if the second part of my post is to be realised.

Liberalism, or the lack thereof

2009-01-24T19:40:00.005Z

Have been goaded back into blogging by this post by Mortimer, like. It was a bit cobbled together from various sources, but it's my first blogworthy post in weeks, so you'll be celebrating.

There is something which liberals often ignore, or act as if it weren’t true, but which is a fact that must be respected.

Liberalism is a meme…

Liberalism is not necessary or inevitable in human society. You may well argue, & I’d be in agreement, that it is necessary for a fully realised human society. But there are countries like Russia which have never been liberal, & in which a liberal culture has never seriously taken root as it has in the Anglosphere, so I wonder how they could begin to have shite like the Glorious Revolution, or set the preconditions for any advance towards liberalism.

As much as I think human rights should be universal, & despise the excuse-makers who want to deny Third World women & others the rights taken for granted here, I recognise that it is hard work convincing people of this.

A country in which everyone thinks that Jews should be exterminated, or that gays are the spawn of Satan, or that ethnic minorities are inferior will not have a liberal society & it sure as fuck will not have a liberal government. The same goes for a state permanently at war.
You can infer from this that the preconditions for liberalism must be in place before liberalism can exist, which is why I’m sceptical about military interventions in countries like Iraq. But I think this is something with a much wider significance than the extremes I identified.

I am led to certain counterintuitive conclusions, such as a support for immigration restrictions, which I arrived at after a long & agonising thinking, but I decided that a country with a burgeoning population, many of whom are from profoundly illiberal backgrounds, will not be one in which the values I hold dear can thrive. This is just one of the many ways in which my views differ from those of libertarians: in short, a hands off policy may not be the best way to encourage liberalism.

There are also “right-wing liberals” (no sniggering at the back) like David Davis (no sniggering at the back). It is an interesting phenomenon. They are not libertarians, they have a thinking & an internal logic of their own. I lean more to the left, but I understand them. You also get figures like Churchill in this category, as whatever he was I’d hesitate to call him a traditional Tory.

In order for authority not to be constantly on our backs, there needs to be something between the individual & the state, which I would define as civic society, voluntary associations, individuals willing to organise against crime & disorder, & flourishing localism.
I know there is a lot of parochialism in this country, but that is the opposite of an outward-looking localism (no contradiction in terms, that).

People are xenophobic because they are ignorant, insular & have no idea who they are & in what context they exist, & they are in that state precisely because they do not belong to a little platoon. It is possible & profoundly a good thing to have a local loyalty & look outwards. You can be a free trader who goes to a farmers’ market enthusiastically, & what have you.

When there is insularity, you have to look hard at the reasons. People do not learn English because ESOL is not taken seriously & there is no serious attempt at integration, thanks largely to well-meaning policies enacted by those who call themselves liberals, but are in reality just flabby-minded twat-enablers.

Areas like my estate are virtually all white, whereas there are some districts of the city dominated by Asians, & while some of this is due to choice it has a lot more to do with the council building vast estates & housing white tenants on them, while social housing in areas which are already Asian tends to be allocated to recent immigrants. This is compounded by the government's policy on the housing of asylum seekers, who are unecessarily burdened by restrictions on their work & other stupidity imposed by New Labour (which is one thing people never seem to pick up on when they bemoan immigrants becoming ghettoised: like so many other problems, the state fosters it). In particular, you would not believe how much the state dominates the lives of those who are waiting for their asylum claims to be dealt with, to their detriment & ours.

I am into shite like civic pride & cooperation between individuals & communities on a voluntary basis, & the reason I value the “little platoons” is that, basically, I support a small state because I don’t think there will be chaos without the government watching over us incessantly. Most people will get on with building their own lives & working hard for themselves & for others. As for the few who transgress by committing crimes & what have you, they should be the ones who are punished, rather than persecuting us all as New Labour do.

Just tread carefully, as always...

meme (silly)

2009-01-22T13:59:00.002Z

My Political Views
I am a left social libertarian
Left: 4.01, Libertarian: 3.61

Political Spectrum Quiz

My Foreign Policy Views
Score: -1.09

Political Spectrum Quiz

My Culture War Stance
Score: -2.81

Political Spectrum Quiz

Hazel Blears talks bollocks

2009-01-03T16:42:00.005Z

Firstly, can we stop all this piss about a Lib/Lab pact? I would be bitterly against it & view it as a disaster for a party I might end up voting for to support the Labour cunts, but more importantly, I don't think it will ever happen & there is indeed no evidence that anyone is considering it, so you can just stop your spouting.

Secondly, if Blears wants to know what the white working class think, I'm white, & proudly working-class, & if she can stop talking on my behalf for long enough to listen I'll add a bit of value.

As usual, when fuckwits like Phil Woolas start mouthing off about this mythical force called the white working class, they are trying to hide the fact that they've been in government for 11 years, resolutely ignoring the concerns of working-class people of all races. The problem is that education is shite, job prospects are shite, & housing is shite. They are shite because this government is obsessed with "aspiration" when there's actually fuck all there to aspire to, leaving us all rushing to buy houses we can't afford, buy to let landlords drawing a salary from the taxpayer for housing people & still not able to pay their mortgages because they were too fucking thick to consider that the good times wouldn't last forever.

When our economic nakedness is exposed, & New Labour's political failings likewise, all they can do is blame other people. How are immigrants to blame, then, for the lack of manufacturing industry, the shortage of skilled jobs, or the scarcity of social housing? You could have no immigrants & these problems would still exist. Yes, I do think the numbers coming into this country are too high, actually, but I'd rather put the blame for our woes on cunts like James Workhouse Purnell & John Fucking Hutton nursing their schoolgirl crushes on the City of London, failure to encourage the real economy, piss-poor leadership, & obsession with vilifying & intimidating the most vulnerable people in the country... not to mention everyone else.

Worse, this isn't a liberal economy, using market mechanisms to improve the lot of the worst off, which is what I would support. It is an "economy" based on unreasonable worship of the super-rich, house prices & debt to mask the lack of any substance, just as politically they use authoritarianism & dog-whistle shite to hide their uselessness. So they strangle innovative small businesses with cack-handed policies, while large corporations & the public sector consolidate their stranglehold, & when it comes crashing down around them their only response is to dig even deeper. Are we still "celebrating" then?

No, the very worst thing of all is this repetition of the phrase "the white working class". All politicians & sections of the media are to blame for this. As I vaguely sort-of lean leftwards, I give the BBC & Guardian luvvies an easier ride than they probably deserve, but at times like this they prove what total fucking mongs they actually are. Alongside the Hate Mail & the Scum, from whom I'd expect no better, they say things that are deeply fucking personally offensive to me. The narrative about the white working class is as follows, expressed by some dickhead with an old school tie, & precisely zero experience of doing a real job or being on the rock & roll. (New Labour prefer to consult the expertise of investment bankers, rather than low-paid workers or the unemployed, in their welfare "reforms" because we all know that bankers know what to do with our money, & these precious risk takers should be encouraged...)

"You live on a shite estate in Stoke & have a shite job, like your parents. We infer the following conclusions:

1. You are an ignorant, bigoted twat. There is no prospect of you being anything else, because the white working class are all the same as each other, lumpen scum. We'll speak on your behalf, us & our luvvie mates we fagged for at public school.
2. It is perfectly acceptable, in fact desirable, for you to be an ignorant, bigoted twat. Prejudice & stupidity should not be challenged, they should be pandered to by us. We expect less of you because you're an oik & shouldn't be held to the same standards as us (you'd never match us anyway)".

You wonder why I'm pissed off when the likes of Blears (who actually is from a normal background, but obviously forgot it long ago) treat me like this?

Are the "white working class" really as stupid as its self-styled tribunes think? Well, the American experience seems to suggest otherwise.* What about the heroic working-class autodidacts, many of whom never went to school at all but who got together to educate themselves & each other? These are the people who built the working men's clubs, the friendly societies, the unions, the Labour party & the whole idea of the working man getting a seat at the table, but now we're told we might as well not bother to try bettering ourselves, just sink into a morass of celebrity shite & pointlessness.

Why the fuck bother to wake up tomorrow if this is the sort of country we live in, & seemingly the only change on the horizon is Camoron?

* I am pleased to see I was proven right (I can now admit to having been right nervous until we made sure) & also, Obama is exceeding my expectations.

Sense at last, sense at last. Thank God Almighty, some sense at last.

2008-12-04T16:40:00.004Z

Amongst all the deep-fried bollocks served up by fuckwits over the Baby P's case, L. Cornish of Cambridge atones for the errors made by his letter-writing colleague, M. Clarke of Leigh-on-Sea (whom I fisked in the attached link)

"If carers of children on the "at risk" register were required to bring the child to a designated point, such as a surgery or clinic, once a week, then the onus would not be on overstretched, frequently young, possibly frightened social workers spending precious time having to knock on unanswered doors, or where there might be the threat of danger either to themselves or to the carer. Failure to bring the child would result in immediate action by the local authority, either problem-solving, practical help, or more drastic action"

This is an excellent policy which should be implemented.

Additionally, all parents whose children are on the register should automatically by given a breakdown of how this situation came about. They can appeal, but should be warned that if they get people sniffing around an even worse outcome may result for them (as with incapacity benefit/DLA claimants who appeal for a higher rate).

Let us also promote contraception for those in this country & abroad cannot sustain families, & allow that abortion may be a regrettable necessity.

UPDATE
Well, I've read a lot of commentary, done a fair bit of thinking, & engaged in discusssions so now I'll say a bit more.

This by Bruce Anderson was quite interesting. Anderson is far too broad-brush: he certainly doesn't know as many single parents as I do, or he'd realise that most do a hard job very well & most are not "underclass": the word, like chav, describes a way of life rather than a socioeconomic position.

I am not for berating social workers. They can't satisfy the Clarksonites whatever they do, & if they took more children into care the Daily Wail would be talking shite about political correctness, the nanny state, etc. These mongs have the audacity to moan when their "philosophy" of parents' absolute right to do anything is taken to its logical conclusion.

We should face up to the fact that not all families are happy & that libertarianism is not viable given what goes on in some households (see this excellent Letters From A Tory post & the subsequent debate). There are some deeply inadequate "parents" out there & often children will need to be protected from them. You'd have to go to fairly fucking extreme lengths for the state to be a better option, but it does happen.

But he does have a point about recruitment of new social workers & how it should be conducted. There are too many graduate twats in all areas of management who assume the whole world is like them, & consequently have no idea how to handle those who aren't. Far better to have people who've actually done a day's work in their lives & know what it's all about.

Alistair Darling: twat

2008-11-23T19:30:00.003Z

Seriously, who's ever going to be taken in by this?

I would welcome not only a cut in VAT but its abolition, as it is an iniquitous tax which hits the poor hardest & distorts prices to well above market levels, all to the detriment of the working class. It is an "indirect" tax which obscures the fact that even those who do no work or are in extremely low-paid, untaxed jobs are still handing large chunks of their income to the exchequer, recycling money pointlessly as the tax credits system does.

But Darling isn't against it on principle, he just wants a 2-year "holiday" at what will still be an obscenely high rate, in the blind hope that it will win him an election.

Additionally, there is the fact that this is just another pre-Christmas giveaway, a shopping list of anyone who is vaguely pissed off & the bestowing of "help" in whatever gives a superficial impression of working, when this country is corrupt, drunk on debt, & any attempt to dodge this will only make the hangover far worse.

A nation does not grow rich through fuckwits selling each other houses & spending money they don't have on pointless consumer shite aimed at impressing their fellow cunts. You cannot have a submerged population working at Gap & Pizza Hut, on benefits, in the public sector... & an overclass of lawyers, footballers & city boys. It is no way for society or the economy to function & that is horribly apparent now.

In reality, we need a sound economy with a role for manufacturing, high technology, & other forms of real-economy skilled employment. We need to get people back to work & stop using immigration & unskilled casual jobs to disguise the failures of the education system & the real economy. For decades, businessmen, governments, unions & management have taken the easy road to a fast buck rather than grapple with the issues & take the straight & narrow path to true prosperity with which we can all be satisfied.

The complacency of the postwar years, in which all of the above did the wrong thing consistently (perhaps most of all management, who are still unimaginable fuckwits in the public & private sectors) led to a great mess which was obvious by the early 1970s & led us into Thatcherism. The pain of the 80s was deeper than it had to be because there was never a culture of enterprise & self-reliance amongst the majority of the working class, especially in areas of the north, Wales, & Scotland, where even in the years of "prosperity" the old attitudes basically went unchallenged.

Accordingly we failed to improve on outmoded heavy industry & tried to replace it with woo. This has been accelerated since 1997 & has brought us to this pass. We could have had a recession-proof economy based on self-reliant individuals, but management & government preferred not to bother & to assume the good times would go on forever. I elaborate in another entry...

But Darling is a fully-fledged part of this mong consensus, & a firm believer in managerialist government & an "economy" based on house prices, debt, large corporations in the service "industry", the city, & a bloated state. Undoubtedly all of the above should have some role, but they are not sufficient. Regrettably, Darling, like his fellow shitheads, has not encouraged a skilled, high technology economy with high levels of self-employment, especially amongst those traditionally lacking in a culture of self-agency, who have always basically been dependent even when they worked.

No one at the top was clever enough.

Part of this is down to the uniquely shite situation in which the top graduates enter occupations such as the city, the law, & politics, all of which have been emphasised well above their actual level of importance to the nation. They should have entered the real economy & become industrialists, innovative small businessmen, educators, researchers, scientists, medics & people of cultural importance rather than fucking around with shite we've got too much of already. You can hardly wonder at the fact that we don't have an educated, skilled culture in which people do useful work & reap its rewards & are thereby made happy, can you?

People speculate that the increasingly desperate high-street chains are about to close, & I for one would not go into mourning were that to happen, as you will recall from earlier. But only if it were replaced with something better. We didn't replace heavy industry with something better, though other countries with more sensible organisation like Germany did & showed it could be a success. But we have got an opportunity. I observe that some from the City are leaving to work in teaching, & very welcome they will be (if they are good). Hopefully this will become more widespread & the top graduates will not be beating a path to certain firms of questionable, limited importance to the economy & society.

Whatever, it is indisputable that this "idea" from Darling is wank & whoever is impressed with the Supreme Leader on these grounds is a cunt who should be given a thorough kicking & forever excluded from respectable company.

Thought for the day

2008-11-23T10:24:00.003Z

Recent stories involving Boris Johnson, most notably this (but several others come to mind), have reaffirmed my belief that Boris, once actually in office, has ditched the Clarksonite rhetoric of old as soon as he realises that it simply won't work in governing a large, complicated city like London.

It's all very well & good mouthing off in a newspaper or down the pub, but in real life his policies are closer to Livingstone's than the shite he spouted in the Hellograph. He may be a lot of things but he isn't stupid, & like Camoron he will at least offer vaguely competent, pragmatic government (though not as good as other could have done, partly because he still has that tinge of ideology).

The likes of Munira Mirza seem to have been seen off fairly conclusively, & the "libertarians" who supported him have gone back to their fantasies & realised there's no chance of getting one of their number elected because it would be hopelessly unpopular & a failure if it were ever to be tried.

This is why I don't live in fear of a Conservative government, & would prefer it to New Labour, though I'd hardly be overjoyed.

Seriously now.

2008-11-11T11:09:00.003Z

I've heard the arguments, but I think no "politics" today.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them.

Update

2008-10-26T15:43:00.002Z

You will recall the letter which I wrote to my councillors. They have yet to respond. I will post any responses here, taking care to preserve their anonymity, & if I don't do so you can assume that they've ignored me (unless I die or something, obviously, in which case that would be the reason for not posting).

If you want to keep up with my thought, I left a comment at Tory Home, which I didn't think was blogworthy but which you may like to read here.

stream of consciousness shite

2008-10-25T17:28:00.002+01:00

In which I reveal what a fucking dreadful idea it is to turn a comment into apost when the two should really be different things.

The observation which I made at To Miss With Love (which, it would seem, the entire universe is reading these days) bears repeating.

I was thinking just yesterday that Keir Hardie & Clement Attlee would turn in their graves if they could see the celebrity shite, & the disgusting "culture" that prevails amongst people.Their idea was that the working man is the equal of the priviliged sections of society, & they fought for him to have control over his life & enough freedom from drudgery so that he could enjoy high culture & generally have a dignified, purposeful existence rather than being a drone.

People would get together to patch up their lack of formal education, knowing they were as worthy as the elite even if they had been born at the bottom. The original working men's clubs refused to serve alcohol, & were frequented by those who didn't want to spend their lives at the bottom & knew life could be better. This was indeed a noble aim.

The tradition of working-class self-organisation in trade unions &mutual aid societies is long & noble. The original Asquithian reforms, which introduced a sort of welfare state whilst remaining well within the bounds of classical liberalism (yes, you heard me) were never meant to supplant these. The original Labour party were related to the Liberals & were not especially socialist in fact: they, after all, arose from a working-class organisation which was opposed to the state. Some, such as the Fabians, wanted to replace one hegemony with another, but others were more libertarian.

The libertarians have brought this to my attention, & they have a lot of valid points, but they go to inappropriate lengths in my humble opinion. As noble as mutual aid was, & as much as it should never have been snuffed out, it wasn't enough & wouldn't be enough now, so the state needs to play some form of role. I agree, less & better government than we now have should be the order of the day. But whatever the wishful thinkers may claim, some things, such as environmental protection, need organised state action if they are going to be brought about. A humble government knowing its place as our servant rather than our master (ie. not a New Labour government) would not menace us.

Whatever people's perspective should satisfy no one that people would rather watch utter shite like Big Brother than fight to better their own lot in life & that of others."They" have got us where they want us & we actually enjoy being drones & totally impotent in our lives.No one can be happy with a life, especially not the original Labour Party, whose aspirations are rubbed into the dirt every day.

But having said all that, I have the hope that in 50 years' time, people will rise above all this & finally come into their own. I hold all these views because I am left-wing (yes, Charlotte Gore, if you're reading) , & it is a logical consequence of my values to think this way. I am not a socialist, but I admire the people & the principles which brought the Labour party into being & if they were here now they would be shedding tears over the betrayal of the people.

This is why I think as much as any Tory that literacy is essential. I think "discipline" can get too punitive in the wrong hands & shouldn't be an end in itself as learning is what they are there for. But we must never lose sight of the fact that only a well-educated person can know a free life.

Stoke city council are cunts

2008-10-17T13:51:00.005+01:00

Or will be if this utter shite goes through.

This is fucking well not what the city needs, especially in what looks to be the early stages of a recession. What we need is decent manufacturing jobs, a research facility, or other opportunities for skilled unemployment, & some kind of training for the ludicrous numbers of unemployed who are tolerated in the city.

In my own 23 year long life, I have witnessed in the area in which I grew up the construction of KFC, McDonald's, ASDA, Next, Matalan, Carphone Warehouse, none of which are remotely necessary. The sort of mass-market fuckwits who consume this shite can quite easily go to the city centre, can't they?

I wouldn't be in the least bit surprised if many of the above named, & these new shops to be built, closed down over the next few years, & why build them in the first place instead of trying to attract decent employers to offer real jobs? We realise now that the City of London, house prices & debt won't sustain an economy, so why fuck around with shite like this? Why not concentrate on stopping the exodus of professionals to Manchester & Birmingham & get the real jobs here?

Worse, the demolition of the Coachmakers would be an act of breathtaking vandalism, typical of the fucking twats running the council. I can personally verify that it's an excellent pub which I visit whenever I go to the city, & so can many other satisfied drinkers. Anyone in posession of tastebuds & a brain, fleeing the Wetherspoons cunts, will now have to crowd into one or two pubs, which arr rammed as it is.

They should throw this shite out, but only for the right reasons, having a vision of a city that can finally stand tall & not be sneered at by the usual cunts.

Letter to my councillors, more to follow!

2008-10-17T12:54:00.002+01:00

Dear Councillors,

I am a resident of your ward, & hope that you will be voting against the East West Centre when it comes up for planning permission.

You will be aware, from the recent building in this ward, that we already have enough shops in the city to satisfy any reasonable person. We need proper investment to provide decent jobs in manufacturing & other skilled employment & some kind of worthwhile training for the scandalous numbers of unemployed who are left stranded on benefits by lack of any proper opportunity.

Additionally, the demolition of the Coachmakers Arms will have a terrible effect on the city, as the many people (several of whom live in [the ward]) who value real ale & want to have a decent drink in the city centre will have to go to an even smaller number of pubs than are currently available, which are overcrowded even now. At a time when most pubs are suffering, real ale pubs continue to thrive, as they offer quality rather than the same generic idiocy as everyone else. Why close down one of the few successful, valuable pubs of the city for even more shops, when the ones we have hardly attract any custom, & these people from Birmingham & Manchester are never going to materialise?

I did not vote in the May elections as I did not consider any of the candidates inspiring, but I will certainly consider giving my support for anyone who stands up for concerned residents who want the area to thrive rather than going down the road of more warehouses & more retail when we should be attracting high-tech investment to give residents real hope for the future.

Yours faithfully,
[real name & address]

My post replete with foul language to come later :)

PS-
I know I sound like a cunt, but my instincts are actually far more cuntish than this, so restraining myself to that extent is a triumph :)

Has McCain had it? I hope so...

2008-10-12T17:27:00.005+01:00

Began life as a comment on a Letters From A Tory post. & this blog is, indeed, still on (a sort of) hiatus.

The problem McCain has got is that the electorate is, & has always been, far more sophisticated & intelligent than he gives it credit for.

He himself does not believe in creationism or climate change “scepticism”, but he quite shamelessly picked a running mate to push those buttons, assuming that people in small towns would lap it up & it was in short his best road to power. But, again, they are cleverer than he thinks they are, so he has backfired.

This Lysenkoism is the main problem I have with the GOP, which is why I don't oppose the Tories half as much, & I never really had a problem with Ronald Reagan, but I despise anti-intellectualism. Any reasonable person would see the child of an immigrant, brought up by a single mother, who has achieved what Obama has achieved as a remarkable success story. You can of course differ from his policy positions, but he has done a lot & should be respected, as McCain does in his honest moments (which are few & far between these last few months).

I also don't accept this about his "inexperience", since he is clearly very intelligent, & he makes mistakes now when it doesn't matter but has learnt his lessons now & won't go wrong in government (he won't inspire me, & will probably be somewhat managerialist, but you don't need to be an enthusiast to vote for him... or more accurately, against McCain/Palin). He has got the temperament to listen closely to expert advice from civil servants, whose job it is to be utter experts on their field of specialism, & master the complicated briefs they give to him much like Bill Clinton did. He has proven himself to be much cleverer & more open-minded than Bush, McCain or Palin, so he's pretty much covered himself even if he was inexperienced, though I think he's done a lot in what is a relatively short life.

The sort of utter shite that fuckers like Guiliani (who, in what is a recurring trait, blatantly doesn't believe a word of it) were spouting should repel anyone who cares for excellence. I speak as someone who was never an enormous academic success & whom those who live for other people's approval wouldn't regard as having a good career. But I respect achievers, especially businessmen & pioneering scientists, so why can't you instead of sneering at them?

The right often like to talk about dumbing down, but many strands of the right are among the worst offenders, by their support for rampant commercialism (which is actually an insult to principled libertarians), deliberately cheapened shite like Fox News & the other shite Murdoch comes out with, & the tendency of many to always put ideology first, & a search for scientific truth be damned. (Palin being the incarnation of this).

The cynical smears about terrorism & what have you worked for Richard Nixon, but America has moved on. They weren’t the good old days, they were a living hell. A campaign based on “fear, uncertainty and doubt” won’t get as far. People know McSame has got nothing to offer, which is why he resorts to scaremongering, but it isn't going anywhere.

Because if McCain starts appealing to people’s need for security, he might find that that ends up driving people into Obama’s arms as they realise that Bush has not only done nothing to keep them safe, he has made their lives more dangerous & generally worse, & McSame offers more of that.

This campaign is being fought on the issues & this is the main reason why Republicans, whose views are repellant to the silent majority of Americans, are losing. They will deservedly suffer for their sellout to the religious right, who spit in the face of genuine conservatism (cf: Huckabee). They sold their souls to what they wrongly believe to be the reactionary, stupid majority & thereby show their contempt for real Americans, who are reacting angrily.