Rise Up

There are only three things in the world that I hate, and one of them is this piece of news.

Even with a degree in politics (and philosophy, but the less said about that the better), I only feel comfortable taking a strong political stance when the question seems mind-numbingly obvious. Questions like: Should MPs get a pay rise? There's a head-scratcher; should MPs, who have consistently proven themselves to be untrustworthy and incompetent, have their pay raised above £70,000 during the most savage spending cuts we've ever seen? Wait, let me get my calculator and a pot of coffee, this one's going to take quite some FUCK OFF.

In the background of all this is of course the expenses scandal, from John Prescott using taxpayer's money to repair his toilet seat twice, to John Prescott spending £4,800 a year on food at public expense. As a result, the task of deciding how much MPs should be paid has been handed to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority, which means that our elected representatives can have their taxpayer-funded cake and eat it too; MPs can go to the press or that bastion of democratic debate Question Time, and announce that they abhor the prospect of a pay rise, while conceding that they have no power over the decision so would have no choice but to reluctantly accept the pay rise anyway. They can score electoral points with their rhetoric, while holding a giant novelty cheque obnoxiously behind their back. It's win-win.

It's a complete false dichotomy that our MPs are to either abuse a system of parliamentary expenses or have a pay rise. As is the idea that without increased pay, they'll have no choice but to take on other jobs and business interests. Here's a novel idea: Pay them the same as other public servants, don't let them have any other employment and don't let them fiddle expenses. You know, like a normal fucking job. 

To be fair to MPs, they probably don't all sit on their arse all day. Unlike, oh I dunno, the Queen, who was recently given a 5% pay rise for doing fuck nothing and making that face. I don't think all MPs are crooks, and I'm sure some of them are genuinely there to make things better for people, such as... well I can't think of any now you put me on the spot. I do, however, think that they're disproportionately wealthy, that they're weird and creepy and that, most importantly, they should be working for us and not the other way round. And if they really need a second home closer to Westminster? Two words: Capsule hotel. 

Neverending Tory

There are only three things in the world that I hate, and here are three more of them.

I've now finished the politics part of my degree, and can confidently answer the seemingly complex question: What is politics? It's a bunch of cunts being cunts. But apparently you can't write that in an exam. This week saw these three instances of cunts being cunts:

3. Nigel Farage made the fatal mistake of opening his stupid mouth, and from the saliva-filled black hole of self-awareness came the accusation that the Scottish protesters were "yobbo fascist scum." These protesters had besieged the UKIP idiot in Edinburgh's Canons' Gait pub, which is incidentally where I first saw the brilliant Robin Ince perform. In fairness to Nigel Farage, it can't be easy constantly refuting claims that your party is racist when all its candidates keep getting caught doing Nazi salutes and denying the Holocaust and being racist. But as its website so speedily asserts, UKIP is a "non-racist party", so who cares about all the pesky evidence to the fucking contrary? With all that in mind, you'd have thought the cunt from Kent would think twice before throwing around the accusation of fascism. The hypocrisy of Nigel Farage, a man so mindlessly nationalistic that his policies include a five-year freeze on immigration, calling the Scottish nationalists "fascists" is simply laughable. Haha.

2. You'd have thought self-awareness couldn't plummet much lower than that. But this is British politics, so it definitely can. An anonymous source close to the Prime Minister has apparently described Tory activists as "mad, swivel-eyed loons." This angered Tory activists, who totally disproved the remarks by demanding a "full-scale inquiry", their loon eyes swiveling like mad.

1.  Surely self-awareness can't sink any lower? Oh wait, here comes Philip Hammond. The creepy fucking children's nightmare complained that gay marriage upsets too many people. Why can't those selfish gays stop their fight for equality and just think about all the Tories they're upsetting?! Look Philip Hammond, gay marriage is definitely going to become legal despite your party's best efforts. Why would you keep reasserting your bigotry? Just shut up; you'd be doing a favour to yourself, your party and most importantly, me.

Thanks for reading, I'll leave you with the Catch 22 song from which this blog takes its name. And talking of third wave ska, Greece should have won Eurovision. Hey, do you think Nigel Farage was secretly watching?

Electioneering

There are only three things in the world that I hate, and one of them is party political literature.

So there are local elections on Thursday, as you can tell by the widespread sigh of no one giving a fuck. And with elections, come campaign material, an insufferable concoction of lies and boring. I received this letter a few days ago.

"I wanted to write to you personally."


Followed by a generic letter.


And a scanned-in signature.


Obviously I don't expect candidates to write to everyone individually, that would be ridiculous. What I hate is the fact that Momotaz Rahim has claimed to have written to me personally, when obviously she hasn't. She thinks I'm stupid, that I'll look at the letter and go, "how lovely of her to write this for me personally!" If she'd actually written it to me personally she'd have left out the shit about roads and pavements. It's as if she doesn't know me at all.


To be fair, she doesn't say she has written to me personally, just that she wanted to, but you know. If that line wasn't there the letter would be absolutely fine, and it would go straight in the bin rather than the scanner. But she had to insult my intelligence by claiming to be writing to me personally. Needless to say, I won't be voting for her.


And while I'm here, I feel I should complain about a TV show. In the latest episode of HBO's new series Girls, (I know, you don't watch it because you're too busy writing Facebook statuses) there was a scene in which a character was tweeting.

But the only tweets showing in her timeline are her own. Which suggests that she doesn't follow anyone. Except she does, it says she follows a massive 902 people. So apparently none of those 902 people have tweeted for at least 13 hours, which seems ridiculously unlikely. And that's not her profile, that's her Home tab, so the timeline should be showing the tweets of everyone she follows. 


Disappointing, HBO, disappointing.


Thanks for reading this blog, which I wrote for you personally. It's named after a Radiohead song, and I'll leave you with the brilliant reggae cover by Easy Star All-Stars, enjoy!

Party Politics

As you know, I love everything in the world, with the exception of three things. One of those things that I love is the New Statesman magazine.

I have a subscription to it, because it's great, particularly Laurie Penny, Mehdi Hasan and of course Mark Watson. But occasionally there are articles in there that piss me off. Or just make me go 'what?'. Here are 4 things that this week's issue have made me think about.

1. This article by Lord Falconer annoyed me. He argues that we should vote No to AV because this defeat will cause the Lib Dems to leave the coalition. Now, I'd be very happy to see an end to the coalition government, but I'd be much happier to see the introduction of a better voting system. In fact, what Falconer is doing here is, at best, misunderstanding the significance of electoral reform. However this seems unlikely, considering he was Lord Chancellor/Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs for 4 years. This leads me to believe that what he's actually doing is putting the interest of his party before the interest of the people. To Charles Falconer, party politics is more important than democracy. We all know that AV is far from perfect, but it's a step in the right direction and it's better than what we're stuck with at the moment. Falconer wants to deny us this democratic enhancement, which we've been waiting for since long before his government reneged on such a promise about 15 years ago, just so he can see the Lib Dems defeated. This is a weird, selfish, short-term attitude. Don't get me wrong, I hate the coalition, I just think that people's votes actually meaning something is more important than Lib Dem baiting, which I'm getting bored of. Remember that it was the current electoral system that gave us this government in the first place. If you want to change it, you need to change the system.

2. Eek, that was a bit too much political-grandstanding for my liking. Let's turn the page in the New Statesman to the interview with comedian Frank Skinner which I can't show you because it isn't online, hence why I buy the magazine. Frank Skinner talks about being catholic, and mentions that when he was on tour with transvestite comedian Eddie Izzard, Izzard said to him, 'let's make a pact - I'll talk about being a transvestite and you talk about catholicism,' to which Skinner replied, 'no, because people in the modern world are much more accepting of transvestism than any kind of religious belief.' It's important to say that Frank Skinner is not saying that this is a bad thing. But the thing is, I don't think it's true. It should be the case though. Because transvestism is a tolerant practice, unlike a lot of religion. Skinner goes on to answer this question: 'How do you feel about the catholic church's hostility to gay and woman priests?' He replies, 'it's like it is with friends - often, there are things about them that you don't like but all the good stuff about them keeps them back...Catholics should be ahead of the game in liberating oppressed groups, not 500 years late.' Personally, I don't think it's 'like it is with friends' at all. Of course our friends do things that might annoy us (mine don't, mine are all perfect), but these are tiny things. So we might say, 'yeah he supports West Ham, but you know what? He's my friend, and we all have our foibles, and I still accept him.' We do not go, 'yeah he oppresses minorities and halts social progress and contributes massively to the spreading of aids and defends the abuse of children, but you know what? He's my friend, and we all have our foibles, and I still accept him. Ruined my wedding though.' At least he acknowledges that catholicism is '500 years late' in liberating oppressed groups, but it seems that being '500 years late' in liberating oppressed groups is an integral part of catholicism, built right into its foundations. I struggle to work out what this 'good stuff' is.

3. Oops, that turned into more ranting. Let's turn the page again... ooh, a bit about the Japanese earthquake. The thing that confused me about this was the phrase, 'the Japanese are an extraordinarily resilient people.' What, like, all of them? Generalisations like this confuse me. Of course, it's a great compliment to the Japanese people, and my thoughts are obviously with them. But I'm sure there's at least one Japanese person who isn't extraordinarily resilient. They might be more, I don't know, whatever the opposite of resilient is. I'll look it up. Apparently it's 'inflexible.' Yes, I can imagine there are at least a handful of inflexible Japanese people. But seriously, it's just that kind of hyperbole that journalists tend to use that makes me go, 'what?'. It's a very broad generalisation, and seems to be acceptable because its a positive thing to say. About an entire nation. If it was negative, it would not be acceptable. A journalist wouldn't write, 'the Japanese are an extraordinarily angry people', or, 'those French, what a bunch of cunts.' Well, unless they wrote for The Daily Mail obviously. (Which reminds me, read this.) It got me thinking about offensiveness, which is something I think about all the time. I'm not easily offended at all; my view is that people should be able to say what they want, as long as they're making a valid point. I'm a massive comedy geek and some of my favourite comedians use material that some may find offensive, but they use it to actually say something, to actually put across a valid idea. Some of my least favourite comedians use material that some may find offensive, but for no purpose, other than to be offensive, and that isn't enough. But anyway, occasionally I'll go on Facebook (that's always my first mistake) and see status updates cheering on the Yids, the affectionate nickname given to Tottenham Hotspur FC. I'm jewish, but only by race, not by belief, I hate religion, blah blah blah. And while this doesn't offend me, it does make me uncomfortable to see what is essentially a derogatory term for a people being thrown about by football fans who (hopefully) don't know what it means. I'm not saying this should stop, it's just interesting that it's acceptable in the mainstream, when equivalent words such as paki and nigger are, quite rightly, not.

4. Sorry, that also turned into more lefty blathering. I genuinely don't mean to do that. This blogs all gone a bit wrong. To reward you for your patience, here is a fantastic photo from the New Statesman:

I love the way it looks like Obama was mid-speech when Clinton burst in doing a Fonzie-style 'aaay!'

Anyway, thanks for reading this blog. It was named after a song by the brilliantly genred swing-core band Catch-it Kebabs. I will leave you with that song, enjoy!