Let’s make it 100%
10% of Tory MPs have announced plans to retire at next UK election | Politics | The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/may/24/10-of-tory-mps-have-announced-plans-to-retire-at-next-uk-election
politics
I don’t argue with people John Brown would have shot
As I kick around plans for a near future story about an independent minded neighbourhood fighting corporate and political corruption, it’s becoming clear that the idealism will need a robust defence. This report on the John Brown Gun Clubs protecting people targeted by the far right in the USA has given me some ideas.
We need to boycott this government
Yet another attack on free speech by this Tory government. I bet most of the Free Speech Absolutists, who are so eager for the freedom to be bigoted, are silent on this.
UK anti-boycott bill is attack on freedom of expression, say civil society groups | Protest | The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/may/12/uk-anti-boycott-bill-is-attack-on-freedom-of-expression-say-civil-society-groups
Voter ID: Conservative MPs gave weak justification for law that could stop people voting
Given that the new voter ID laws exclude younger and ethnic minority voters, it could be argued that voter ID is voter fraud.
This Marx fella might have been on to something
Take a quick dive into a Japanese academic’s interpretation of Marx’s lesser known work and notes as a prescient understanding of environmental issues.
The yolk’s on you: a brief history of throwing food and drink on people as protest
Throwing food at reactionary politicians, fascists and fascist wannabes has a long history. Tomato juice on terfs is just the latest iteration.
Growth is a false god
Both of Britain’s biggest political parties are dedicated to ‘growth’ and the lie that it will benefit everyone.
I don’t want to live in one of the world’s richest countries if most of that wealth is siphoned to greedy scum at the top, we have an appalling wealth gap, and poverty is worse than it was half a century ago. We’d be better off if we deported the billionaires to Rwanda and gave their houses to the occupants of the small boats our (incredibly rich) Prime Minister targets.
Anarchy and Anxiety
After Christmas Day’s trashy novel, I’m back to reading the nonfiction I brought with me.
As I kick around ideas for a possible serial story, I’m researching alternative ways to run a society. I think the principles of anarchy will provide a few elements of that- there’ll definitely have been a bottom up restructuring to give the setting a certain wild freedom.
Anarchy in Action is the first book I’ve chosen to read on the subject. It was written in the early 70s, with an updating introduction from the 80s, which makes its optimism depressing. Five decades on, many of the problems it addresses still exist, or have become even worse.
I’m a product of the culture the book rails against, so obviously I can’t summon up the faith the author has in the efficacy of his belief system. I can see how giving the people more autonomy and freedom could generate solutions to some, if not all, of our problems, and that is what I will be examining in the planned series if/when it gets started.
One thing that keeps throwing me about the book is its description of anarchy as a libertarian principle. After all the toss spouted by the folks who call themselves Libertarian, would a contemporary anarchist want to use the word to describe themselves?
The other book I’m alternating with Anarchy in Action is Unfuck Your Anxiety, which I got as part of a recent Humble bundle.
The last few years (decade?) have been stressful, to say the least. A bit of anxiety arising from it would be expected. But I feel I’ve had issues for longer. Nothing as serious as panic attacks, but extended periods of self doubt, social anxiety and the sort of inertia that arise from them.
I haven’t reached any of the sections on overcoming anxiety yet. I’m hoping to find some pointers to combating the fears that hold me back from applying for jobs I could easily do, or talking to new people. It may be trite to reduce this to a desire to get paid more and a laid more, but there’s no denying that either of those things would have a positive effect on my mood to complement any other work done to reduce anxiety.
I’m open to suggestions of other works on political theory and practical self-help that might expand my knowledge and resources. Put them in the comments, please.
Rebelling
After Pride over the Bank Holiday weekend, this last one was more focused on Anger. Are we working our way through the seven sins? Next week, maybe I’ll just stay in bed for Saturday and Sunday. A big feast the one after.
I can’t wait for Lust to turn up.
Extinction Rebellion was in town from Friday to today, closing a section of Deansgate to traffic, and making it civilised. I visited, and took photos, on Friday and Saturday. It actually upset me, in a strange way, because it reminded me of the Reclaim The Streets demos I participated in in the 90s. We didn’t see the change we called for then until fairly recently, and then only slow and flawed. We don’t have two decades to wait for things to get done about climate change.
Also on Friday was August’s Critical Mass. But I’d walked in, so I just took some photos.
Saturday saw my second visit to Extinction Rebellion, and the Stop The Coup demo, which started out in Cathedral Gardens, and made its way to Albert Square, despite starting in very heavy rain.
Then it was down to Platt Fields for something not angry- the Festival of Manchester. I got some nice photos, then there was more heavy rain, so I abandoned it early.
It’s going to be a busy Autumn, and I’ll try to get to as many of these demos as possible, getting photos and video when I do.
Not my MEPs
Going through an old hard drive yesterday, I came across the files for the “Nick Griffin is NOT my MEP” design I did when that disgusting little racist toad slimed his way to a seat in the European Parliament. It seemed appropriate to update the design.
Ann Widdecombe is NOT my MEP and Nigel Farage is NOT my MEP, are available on a variety of items- from T shirts to tea cups- in my Redbubble shop.
Vote me!
I’m standing for council in May’s elections. Today, I collected the necessary signatures to register. Then Wendy and I stopped to make short videos. Here’s the first of them.
Northern Gorehouse: Vampires and Zombies and Brexit
The ‘Brexit novel’ is a thing, but they tend to be literary works, which aren’t really my thing. I would like to make the case for Northern Gorehouse being not only a fun alternative, but also one of the first to be published
The novel was finished in April or May of 2017, but it didn’t feel right to release it so soon after the Arena bombing, given the violent ending of the story. So it came out for Halloween of that year.
The book was written as an action horror story. The ability to map the stupid politics of the last few years onto it is a bonus. Indeed, the B word is only mentioned once in the story, right at the beginning, to establish the run down state of the nation, and show how the vampires have come in to take advantage of it.
Vampires as a stand in for capitalists and the ruling elite is not a new metaphor, but as I’ve established it’s post Brexit, I’m going to call them the disaster capitalists who caused, and benefit from, all the pain. Being vampires, they, of course, take advantage of the homeless the country has abandoned. And have corrupt servants in the political system, covering up for them, and pushing policies that aid them. Again, not new tropes in vampire fiction, but ones that map perfectly well onto the Brexit theme.
Of course, the political allegory was never the main aim of the story, and it’s harder to map metaphor onto it once the action really starts. The zombies are created by the vampires but (spoiler) it’s an accident. In a true Brexit allegory, they would be a deliberate method for distracting people at street level and keeping them away from turning on the elite.
Similarly, the fact that vampires exist wouldn’t be such a shock in a more pointed Brexit take. Everyone would have at least an inkling they were there, but their bought politicians and the media would be demanding that people look the other way.
Since I wrote the book, I’ve discovered another character who wasn’t included- the Brave Warrior claiming to be from a long line of vampire hunters, who has actually betrayed the people they pretend to be protecting, for reasons that don’t make any sense. There’s no Lexit Van Helsing in Northern Gorehouse.
I think you should read my accidental Brexit novel. If nothing else, you can pretend the vampires are Farage, Gove, Johnson et al. (It won’t be any stretch at all with Rees Mogg.)
Lexit means…?
I’ve been arguing Brexit with a Lexiteer (or whatever they call themselves), and it drove me to write this little rant. I can’t understand how someone on the Left can be such a noisy cheerleader for this-
The referendum was called by a Right wing Prime Minister, to appease the Right wing of his party, lest they defect to an even more Right wing single issue party.
The Leave campaign was funded by dodgy businessmen who saw exit from the EU as a way to decimate workers’ rights and consumer protections so they could make more profits. It also offered the chance to escape proposed EU rules cracking down on tax avoidance.
Labour Leave was funded by the same people.
The Leave campaign traded in lies and anti-EU tropes established by decades of propaganda in the Right wing press.
Despite the billions in free publicity pre-loaded into the campaign by the papers’ propaganda, and all manner of cheating, Leave only managed to win by a narrow margin.
So a new Right wing PM, with an authoritarian streak and a history of attacking immigrants, took this narrow victory, and used it to justify major constitutional change. She drew the team to plan it from her Right wing party, and always bent to the demands of the same Right wing members her predecessor had been pandering to, no matter how impossible they were. Meanwhile, the Far Right, buoyed up by the victory a bit of bullying won them, threatened riots if they didn’t get their demands met in negotiations.
We’re now in a position where the Right wing PM is basing the decisions she’ll allow to be made on Brexit on the demands of the same narrow band of Right wingers her predecessor was afraid of. She’s going to do whatever she thinks will save her party from disintegration, rather than what will work out best for the country.
Yet, still, the Socialist Leaver will go out of their way to insult anyone who dares point out any of these facts, because they believe that, somehow, this Right wing project will lead to a Left wing utopia. Never mind the long term damage this will do to the communities they claim to stand with, or the huge steps backwards for all their other ideals. They’ll betray those to give a victory to the ‘neoliberal bosses club’ they claim to hate.
There are reasons I have no sympathy for Lexiters’ claims they have anyone else’s interests at heart, or even any coherent policies.
Citizen of Nowhere
Okay, I’m well over a year late with this one, but the idea came to me last night. Proclaim yourself a Citizen of Nowhere, as coined in a speech by Theresa May, in college sweatshirt style.
Proud Saboteur
So, we’re going to have an election, because Theresa May expects things to get much worse as the Brexit debacle rolls on. She’s terrified that the incompetents she’s put in charge of negotiations will deliver a disaster, taking her down with them (and the rest of the country as well, of course, but she doesn’t really care about most of us).
I listened to her announcement of the election (twice, because I’m some sort of masochist). It was six minutes of blaming everyone else for her party’s failures. And then, on the front page of the Daily Mail this morning, the bile we’ve come to expect from the rag, labelling everyone who doesn’t do exactly what Chairman May demands a saboteur.
If that’s what she, and they, want to call sensible, decent people who have serious and well founded misgivings about this whole farce then I’m going to embrace it. I’m a proud saboteur.
The design’s available on clothes, mugs and stickers from Redbubble
Here’s a mocked up view of what it’ll look like on a T-shirt-
Update Now available in blue as well, ideal for white T-shirts etc.
An email to Jo Johnson
I’m a little late to this one, but here’s the email I just sent to Jo Johnson, Minister of State for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation.
Dear Jo Johnson MP,
I am concerned that the Digital Economy Bill will help copyright trolls threaten ordinary Internet users. The offences in the Bill should be made narrower so they do not include so many new people. Minor copyright infringement should not be punishable by 10 years in prison.
As a writer, I want to be fairly paid for the works I create. I do not want to punish anyone who is inspired by my work, whether they’re telling others about it- and potentially growing my fanbase- or creating fanfic or having fun with my ideas. As it stands, it appears the Bill could punish fans, one of the greatest resources a creator can have, excessively, up to potentially putting them in prison.
I urge you to change the Bill so that it will explicitly exclude low value copyright infringements and only be aimed at persistent and malicious offenders. Don’t punish the fans, go after the genuine pirates.
Sincerely
Ian Pattinson
Go to this page to send your own.
Marching Against May and Trump
These are from the demo, before the march, really. Video may be coming later in the week, depending upon what I got.
A letter to my MP
I should have sent a letter (well, email, using writetothem.com/) to my MP about Brexit sooner. It was going to be much longer, going on about why we should be running away from any deals or association with Trump, but I felt that might get incoherent, given how appalling his first week and a bit has been.
Dear Rebecca Long-Bailey,
I urge you to vote against the Bill to trigger article 50. Leaving the EU would be disastrous for the country.
A slim majority of voters wanted to leave the EU. I doubt they wanted to destroy the country’s economy to do so, or put us at risk of rushing to do deals with the vile Trump administration. If our relationship with our neighbours must be renegotiated, it must be done by more competent and braver people than our current Government.
Yours sincerely,
Ian Pattinson
There will likely be more letters, and on many diverse subjects, to follow.
Theresa May Doesn’t Know Me
They find your patriotism distasteful, your concerns about immigration parochial, your views about crime illiberal, your attachment to your job security inconvenient.
They find the fact that more than seventeen million voters decided to leave the European Union simply bewildering.
Because if you’re well off and comfortable, Britain is a different country and these concerns are not your concerns. It’s easy to dismiss them – easy to say that all you want from government is for it to get out of the way.
Now, I am neither comfortable nor well off, but I’m probably one of the people Theresa May thinks she’s attacking here. So let’s clear a few things up.
I fear the xenophobia and immigrant blaming that passes for patriotism in the Tory party and UKIP. My distaste may well be expressed in ways that could be read as sneering, but that’s because stirring up racism to hide your own failings deserves contempt.
If you want to see sneering at true patriotism, just take a look further down the Prime Minister’s speech.
But we will never again – in any future conflict – let those activist, left-wing human rights lawyers harangue and harass the bravest of the brave – the men and women of Britain’s Armed Forces.
I’d say that holding the country and its representatives to the standards we claim to stand for- standards Tories would probably tell you we invented- is the essence of patriotism. This harassment and haranguing is principled people bravely striving to stop torture and murder being done in our name. And for that, they get sneered at by a certain type of well off and comfortable politician who’s confident that they’ll never be punished for putting troops in situations where they could act like monsters.
Let’s have a grown up conversation about immigration. Let’s talk about how the arrival of new people in certain areas has exacerbated existing problems, shown up weaknesses created by cuts and poor provision of services. Or how some of these newcomers have trouble settling in and some communities are actively hostile toward them. Let’s not have that tired old refrain from politicians and commentators of “We’re not allowed to talk about immigration!” when that’s all they ever do, at length, and particularly when they want to get the subject away from the many ways the Government has failed us.
Unless May’s making a play for the ‘bring back hanging’ brigade, I haven’t a clue what she’s talking about on crime.
I worry about my job security too. But I know I’m in more danger from a Brexit and austerity fuelled depression than from being undercut by an immigrant who’ll take less than the minimum wage I’m currently on.
I’m not bewildered that a small majority of people voted for Brexit. I’m disappointed. And I’m simultaneously angry at, and sorry for, all those people who voted out. They’re not going to get what they voted for, and they shafted the rest of us just so they couldn’t get it.
Again, I’m neither well off nor comfortable. And I live in a very different Britain to the one Theresa May sees and wants to appeal to. I can agree with her on one thing. I want her government to get out of the way. The sooner they’re gone, the better.
Brexit Blues
Oh well, that’s us fucked, then.
In the short term, it’s possible I’ll be a tiny bit better off, because the largest single day drop in the value of sterling now makes my few American book sales worth more. Of course, that’s going to be a tiny consolation when the inevitable slash and burn budget does its best to take away what’s left of everything that’s good about this country.
Almost immediately, the Brexiteers were saying that they hadn’t really promised all those things they promised. Which is nice.
Some people who voted Leave are trying to tell the rest of us that they didn’t mean it, really, and they’d take it all back if they only could. It’s hard to be angry at such stupidity.
The section of the Labour Party that lost the last two elections think that this is a great time to get Jeremy Corbyn out of the way, so they can start work on losing the snap election they hope will be called for November.
If anyone wants to set up a Kickstarter or Patreon that will ensure David Cameron doesn’t go a week without getting at least one email or letter that’s just a picture of a pig, I will try to scrape together some money to back it.
And if any Brexiteer wants to sneer and call me a bad loser, I’ll know that, if the tables were turned, they would have spent the day throwing the biggest toddler tantrum ever, whilst claiming that MI5 had stolen the result in some pencil based conspiracy.