Manifestos – what’s their point?

With apologies to the songwriting team of Ray Evans and Jay Livingstone, who wrote Mona Lisa, as most excellently performed by Nat King Cole,

Manifesto, manifesto, MPs adore you…

Something’s been bugging me since 2010′s general election, and the formation of the coalition government.

Now, fair enough, many things have bothered many people, including the arguable destruction of the NHS, the abandonment by both government parties of various pledges, the callous attempt to dismantle the welfare state, an austerity programme that isn’t working and an ever-growing social division that has been created and deepened either by incompetence, apathy or cruelty.

Further, the apparent wilful unwillingness of the government to acknowledge the harm of its policies and the austerity programme in its current form goes beyond normal lack of decency and well into the realm of negligence.

But yes, while all of those are important… They’re for discussion on another day. That’s not what’s been bugging me, at a low level admittedly, for almost three years. Before I get to that though, let’s address some myths that seem to have arisen since May 2010, myths that say – for the main part – far more about ignorance than incompetence.

And it’s specifically ignorance (or possibly naiveté, I’ll grant you) about the constitutional arrangements for government in the UK I’m talking about.

1. No-one elected this government. To be precise, no-one elects any government in the United Kingdom. I haven’t had any part in electing any government in my lifetime. And nor have you. What you’ve done is helped elect an MP. What we do, individually, in constituencies all over the country (or up to four countries, if you want to argue the point) is elect members of Parliament, who may – not will – then go on to form a government. But the voters do not get to decide who’s in the government. The Prime Minister does that by selecting ministers. A backbench MP of the governing party is no more a member of the government than a backbencher of the main opposition party. Hell, the voters don’t even get to decide which is the governing party, which brings me on to myth 2.

2. The leader of the party with the biggest mandate gets to form the government Well, yes… and no. It’s only since the rise of the whips who can keep control of backbenchers’ votes (by threat and by favours granted, withheld and called in) that this even starts to apply. What’s needed to form a government is the ability to command a majority in the House of Commons. That’s it. The Monarch will ask whoever can do that to form a government. Usually, fair enough, it’s the leader of the Party with the greatest number of MPs, but it doesn’t have to be.

3. Governments are morally obliged to implement their manifestos once elected. Really? Does anyone believe this? Seriously? It’s impossible, literally impossible, for a government to bring into policy every one of their manifesto pledges. Even if the government had a landslide majority, there isn’t nearly enough parliamentary time to pass the legislation necessary, if – that is – the legislation is to be subjected to the right and proper scrutiny that all legislation should undergo on its way to the statute book.

And no matter how important the legislation is, I’d be wary of anyone who wanted to circumvent the usual processes of scrutiny, debate, amendment and the rest.

We’re getting closer to my concerns now, by the way…

4. The Lib Dems broke their promises! Well, yes, they did, and no they didn’t. They broke some but not one very big one, one stonking HUGE one.

Many friends, and some pundits, made the following comment after the 2010 election:

“I don’t know what was in people’s minds when they voted for the Lib Dems, but I bet it wasn’t to put the Tories into power!”

This astonished me then, and it astonishes me now. Surely only the very stupid, the very naive or the very ignorant weren’t aware that the Lib Dems had repeatedly said what they’d do in the event of a parliament in which no one party had a majority. They’d said on several occasions, in interview after interview, that they’d first seek to enter government – in the event of a hung parliament – with whichever other party had the biggest mandate.

Now, fair enough, the Lib Dems left themselves a tiny bit of wiggle room, as they didn’t say how they were measuring “mandate”: by total number of votes cast, or by number of MPs elected. It didn’t matter: in the event, the answer was the same in both cases – the Tories had the biggest mandate, by some way.

Not only that, it was very, very likely before the election that the Conservatives were going to be in that position: all the polls pointed to a hung parliament with the Tories having the most MPs. You don’t like that the Tories had the biggest mandate? Sorry, feel free to blame who you like for that, but please don’t be stupid enough to deny it.

5. The Lib Dems had no mandate to do what they’ve done Yes, the Lib Dems voted for (and did) things in government that they said they wouldn’t before election. You know what? They had every right to do so – the coalition agreement gave them that right. See above, but just for the record – there’s no obligation for a government to implement their manifesto. In fact, looking back over my lifetime, I can’t remember a single government that’s even managed to legislate for a majority of their manifesto, let alone all, or nearly all, of it.

6. The Lib Dems gave up everything and the Conservatives got everything they wanted. How can I put this? Ah yes, bollocks! I can think of at least half a dozen things the majority party of the government junked as a cost of going into government with the Lib Dems. Take a look at the 2010 Conservative Party manifesto and see how much of it made its way into the coalition agreement. Just for a start, the increase in the inheritance tax threshold to £1 million (which had been trailed as a central part of the Tory taxation plans) went the way of all things, as did various pledges regarding VAT, capital gains tax, no referendum on voting reform and a plan against the zombie apocalypse. (I may have made that last one up.)

7. The Lib Dems have no justification for doing what they did. Yeah, they do. They have the best one of all, and what’s more it has the advantage (strange for British political excuses) of being true. You ask Nick Clegg why he didn’t block Tory plans for this or that, even though it’s in direct contravention of the previously expressed policy of his party, and he’ll say one thing:

We didn’t win the election.

Often, he’ll clarify that by saying

We’ve got one in six MPs in the coalition; if we’d had more, we’d have had more power within the coalition, but we didn’t. And we don’t.

And you know what? He’s absolutely correct.

Now, one can certainly argue (and to my mind, quite convincingly) that what he did get for his party wasn’t worth it, that he prioritised the wrong things; that he should have sacrificed a vote on AV and fought for a guarantee about welfare; that he shouldn’t have bothered trying in vain for House of Lords reform, but devoted time and energy to preventing devastating NHS reform.

(I think you can argue against that, by the way, but I think you’d lose the argument. Convincingly.)

However, again, that’s an argument for another day.

But we’re now at the crux of what’s been bugging me, and it follows directly on from the above, from all of the above.

What is the purpose of a manifesto?

No, seriously.

A paper, written for Essex University after the 2010 election, went into huge details about the purposes of manifestos and how much they mean to the parties before an election.

“Manifestos are important. They reflect the parties’ enduring values and policy programmes…

Utter nonsense, and dangerous nonsense at that. Let’s strip away the polite fiction maintained with an air of complacency and look at how they’re regarded today, by pundits, by politicians and by the public.

Manifestos might, just might, have been the basis for policy once upon a time, in the long ago. Now, however, they’re more like a personal statement that a candidate writes on a job application, hoping that he won’t be asked too much about it, and praying he can remember why he put this bit in, or why he wrote that bit that way.

So, again, I ask… what’s their purpose: what’s the point of election manifestos?

When a government knows in advance that it won’t be able to translate all of their party pledges into government policy, their assurances into statute, what’s their point?

When a government can blatantly lie, using its “mandate” to justify policy because it was in the manifesto, even though it was the universally acknowledged least popular item in there… what’s their point?

When a party can abandon almost every pledge in their election manifesto and can excuse such abandonment with a simple “we didn’t win”, what’s their point?

The answer is obvious: they have no point.

Not in their current format.

Read that again – not in their current format.

The biggest problem with manifestos is not that we have no idea what will be dropped upon entering office, it’s that we don’t know what won’t be…

I’m far less concerned by what a government doesn’t do than by what it does.

So, taking the very neat idea that a couple of the parties used in recent elections, that of the pledges on a card, let’s take it further… Let’s propose the following:

The manifesto of a party seeking election to office in the UK is from now on split into three parts:

(I) The dealbreakers: these policies (limited to six items) WILL be in any government policy document/coalition agreement; these are the items that will be translated into statute. If another party has a contradictory item in their list of dealbreakers, those parties cannot form a coalition without a further election, at which point different dealbreakers can be put to the public vote.

(II) The aspirations: the intellectual backbone of the party’s agenda, limited to twenty separate points. These are the policies that the vast majority of the party’s supporters (and potential voters) would like enacted in a world where the party has a secure working majority and “events, dear boy, events” don’t get in the way. They’re the policies that a government should get through: a Tory party might have a reduction in regulation in here, a Labour party an increase in progressive taxation, the Lib Dems, another crack at reforming the voting system. But – and it’s an important but – everyone understands that if a coalition is formed, these are the things that may have to go by the wayside. These are the negotiable points for a coalition agreement.

(III) The wishlist: the policies that, with a fair wind, a strong working majority, a weak opposition, a lessening of international tension thus allowing concentration on domestic issues, a party (and its supporters) would like to have on the statute books at some point. They’re not urgent, though, and they play no part whatsoever in any coaltion agreement negotiations; they’re simply not on the table. The list is unlimited in length, since no-one genuinely expects more than a handful – if that – to make it into debate in the House of Commons, let alone into legislation.

So now the voters know where the parties stand, as do the pundits, as do other parties, as do the rank and file of the parties.

The battleground for hearts and minds is concentrated, first to the dealbreakers, then to the aspirations. Everyone knows on what grounds the election is fought and – crucially – what’s up for grabs in a coalition. Voters make their mark knowing that some policies are sacrosanct, while others may have to be postponed this time. Fewer secret deals, greater transparency.

The only people who could possibly object, with what they’d say were perfectly valid arguments against this, are the politicians themselves who’d undoubtedly hate to have their freedom curtailed; freedom, that is, to continue to abandon policies with no fanfare, to lie to their voters, supporters and the general public.

We’re in the twenty-first century. We’re told by government that no public institution should escape escape modernisation and reform, yet Parliament and the formation of governments is accomplished in a manner that a 19th Century politician would recognise with nary a raised eyebrow.

We’ve already changed how they behave in office (with amendments to ministerial codes, reform of expenses), but in doing so ignored how they got there.

It’s long beyond time that we looked at changing how governments are formed in the United Kingdom and what we expect them to do once in office.

This idiot

Let’s start with his actual words, the words spoken by George Galloway MP, the member of parliament for Bradford West in his video supporting Julian Assange:

Woman A met Julian Assange, invited him back to her flat, gave him dinner, went to bed with him, had consensual sex with him. Claims that she woke up to him having sex with her again. This is something which can happen, you know.

I mean not everybody needs to be asked prior to each insertion. Some people believe that when you go to bed with somebody, take off your clothes, and have sex with them and then fall asleep, you’re already in the sex game with them.

It might be really bad manners not to have tapped her on the shoulder and said, “do you mind if I do it again?”. It might be really sordid and bad sexual etiquette, but whatever else it is, it is not rape or you bankrupt the term rape of all meaning.

Hmm.

Well, having given this sincere and thoughtful consideration, the following sprung from brain to screen.

With apologies to Shakespeare’s THIS ENGLAND speech from Richard II, scene 2

THIS IDIOT
This royal pain in arse, this stupid man,
This preening, pompous fool, this head of dick,
This woeful shit, untrustworthy prick,
This ego reinforced by much bullshit,
Against veracity and word of truth,
So immature, this well of pus,
This piece of crap set against the world,
Who views rape as bad sexual etiquette,
Like sneezing or farting or not saying thanks,
Attracting scorn of more sensible folks,
This bullshit pol, this prick, this shit.
This Galloway.

“@” attacks

It’s been a while since I’ve been personally attacked for something I’ve written. No, I’ve not missed it, so please, don’t feel obliged to do so in response to this piece.

But if you do, in the comments box below, I can’t really say I haven’t asked for it here, can I?

Criticism of creative works, whether they are writings, cartoons, comedy, music, or any creative endeavour, comes with the package. If you’re not prepared to be criticised for your opinions and works, then don’t offer them to the world. There will always be those who agree with what you’ve created (no matter how good or bad the work) and always be those who dislike “it”, whatever “it” is.

I’ve written previously about the personal and misogynistic attacks Laurie Penny has faced over some of her pieces, and I’ve been sickened at those and other attacks at friends whose sole offence seems to be to provoke a reaction of “we don’t like you.”

However, notwithstanding my earlier comment that all creators invite criticism (good and bad) of their works, there’s a current unpleasant practice on Twitter that I think is worthy of comment.

Now if you write a column, or a blog, there is usually an opportunity at the venue of publication to comment upon that piece of writing. The very fact that opportunity exists invites people to do so. And, while the advice of “never read the comments” is always given, it’s a fact that precious few creators have the ability and willpower not to at least glance at them.

“Never read the comments” is perhaps the best advice for the Internet, apart from Wil Wheaton’s advice of “Don’t be a dick.” Sadly, it’s equally ignored by many.

But, if I can use an analogy, many people complain about a television programme offending them. The usual response is “don’t watch it then”, and it’s a fair response at that. Despite the oft-quoted counter of “I didn’t ask for this to be in my living room’, I’m sorry, but you did precisely that, by selecting that television programme to watch.

In the same way, if you go looking for criticism of your work, in some (but not all) ways, you forfeit the moral right to complain at what’s been written about the work. You don’t, however, ever forfeit the right to complain about personal attacks.

However – back to the tv example for a moment – so far, at least, my television has never switched channel mid-way through an episode of House MD to show, say, Keith Olbermann attacking me in full “rampaging bull elephant on heat” mode.

Neither, to take another example, has my internet browser suddenly alerted me with a pop up window showing me details of an Internet commenter ripping me, or something I’ve written, apart.

And then we have Twitter. Twitter is almost unique (Facebook has tags, but they’re somewhat different) in that anyone on Twitter, anyone at all, can attach an ‘@’ to your Twitter ID in a tweet and it will be brought to your attention. You can’t avoid it. It’s the way Twitter works.

So, let’s say Joe Oik from Cityville, Nebraska doesn’t like something I’ve written.

Fair enough, it happens.

He tweets the following:

Just read the latest column by Lee Barnett. God, the guy’s a dick. He should give up foisting this crap on the world. He’s fucking useless.

Fair enough, it’s unpleasant, and I would – I’d imagine – disagree with the broad sentiments of his views. And yes, if I or friends saw it, I or they might respond. We’d be idiots to, but hey, we’re entitled to be idiots just as much as anyone else online.

But I am, and they are, unlikely to see the tweet unless I or they undertake a vanity search on Twitter, or on Google, since Google have started showing tweets in their search results.

Contrast that with the following tweet:

Just read the latest column by @budgie. God, the guy’s a dick. He should give up foisting this crap on the world. He’s fucking useless.

Now, I’m going to see that tweet. I’m definitely going to see that tweet.

It’s going to be notified to me next time I go on Twitter. Depending upon how I access Twitter, I might even get a little icon lighting up highlighting the fact that someone has mentioned me. And, since I’m like everyone else, I’m kind of curious when someone mentions me.

So I’ll read the tweet.

Make no mistake, this doesn’t fall within “don’t read the comments.” This is the actual “I didn’t want this in my living room” as opposed to the falsity of that being applied to television.

Of course I’m going to read it. Because that was what was intended by the tweeter when he or she wrote it.

I was trying to think of any “innocent” reasons for including someone’s Twitter name, suitably @’d, in a nasty, criticising, tweet, and, with a couple of friends, I think I’ve identified two:

(1) the tweeter is new to Twitter, and doesn’t realise that every ‘@’ is notified to the subject.
(2) the tweeter is a fucking idiot.

(1) is possible. It is. People new to any form of communication make errors in etiquette, format, etc. Just think of how many people over the years have had to be told that writing in capitals denotes shouting. Or just who has has to be informed that “LOL” doesn’t mean “Lots of Love”.

So, (1) is possible. But I think it’s difficult to argue ignorance or naïveté when you’ve got 500+ tweets under your belt.

And (2) is more than possible. Paraphrasing the words of an old Labour MP when accused of being a stupid cunt, there are lot of stupid cunts around and they deserve some representation. And there are even more online.

But I’d venture to suggest that of all the offending tweets with which this piece is concerned, i.e. nasty tweets with an ‘@’ in them, maybe, maybe, 1% fall into this ‘innocent’ category.

Now, there are various ways of dealing with these tweets once they’re in your view, in your view I repeat through no effort of your own, in your view because they’ve been put there quite deliberately by someone whose only motive is to offend or, if you’re both cynical and forgiving, to bolster follower count by offending someone.

There’s what I call The Cathartic Response: Retweet the offending tweet without comment. Get it out of your system and just slap it out there for the world to see. It can’t ‘hurt’ you any more and it has the side-effect of letting your followers and fans know that someone’s been nasty to you. Who knows? Someone may… remonstrate with the tweeter and let them know that their’s is a minority view.

(I’m reminded of the tale of George Bernard Shaw, upon taking his bows at a first night to thunderous applause, and detecting one person booing. GBS is reputed to have responded “Personally, sir, I agree, but what are we two against the multitudes?” I don’t believe it. I think Shaw probably told him to fuck off.)

Then there’s the “I’ll show him” Response, where the creator point blank tells his followers to take on the tweeter. Though I have little sympathy for the tweeter, this is just plain stupid.

As is the Hit Back Just As Nastily Response, as exemplified by Giles Coren yesterday. Yes, it’s tempting, but it ends up with neither ‘side’ smelling of roses. I suspect that Coren’s tweet will become the new example of “tweet in haste, repent in leisure.”

The only sensible thing to do is… to do nothing. And that’s about as likely as no-one ever reading the comments on the Internet.

So you’re left with the not very sensible things to do.

Which is also unsatisfactory.

I don’t know the solution – I really don’t.

But here’s an idea. It’s novel, I know, and terribly old fashioned, but then in many ways, I’m a terribly old-fashioned bloke.

How about… just not doing it, people of Twitter? How about having the common courtesy not to ‘@’ someone if you’re taking a pop at them? How about just thinking a moment before hitting that “Send” button?

How about… just behaving like you’re not a dick?

Voting today? Why you should be…

There are local elections today in the UK, and a vote in London to decide who’ll be Mayor for the next four years.

And there are referenda in several cities about whether or not to have an elected Mayor, as opposed to just a council leader, the head of the party with the most councillors.

Here’s what Matthew Parris had to say in 2005. It was about the general election that month, but the arguments are essentially the same for every election, general or local. This was originally published in The Times, and yes, it’s now behind a pay wall. But it wasn’t then, and I think it’s important enough to reproduce in full.

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Seven bad, lazy reasons to vote on May 5

There is one and only one supreme and luminous reason for exercising your right to vote. But the rotten ones are numerous. Here are seven bad reasons for voting on May 5:

It’s your civic duty.
Our ancestors fought and died for the right to vote.
Governments need a mandate from voters.
Evil triumphs when good men do nothing.
If you don’t vote, you can’t complain.
Unless you vote you are lazy/apathetic/feeble/dim.
Voting is easy these days. You can do it by post.

It’s your duty
No it isn’t. How preposterous to use the language of civic responsibility like this. To make voting sound like picking up litter or taking a pooper scooper when you walk your dog, misrepresents the act of casting a vote. Voting is a solemn, considered and voluntary thing to do: you can choose; there should be no pressure. That you don’t have to dignifies the action.

Your grandfather fought for your democratic liberties
Well thanks, granddad, but we should not be blackmailed like this. Lost causes as well as good ones have their heroes and martyrs. Earlier generations fought and died for the Empire but when the time came to quit our colonies, we quit.

A government needs your mandate
But you can turn that on its head: “Don’t vote: it only encourages them.” Unless you, the voter, are personally persuaded that government action is needed and you can identify a party or candidate that you trust to take it, why swell the turnout in the vague belief that a big turnout in itself is somehow “good for democracy”? We vote for MPs, for parties, for manifestos and for governments; we do not vote for democracy.

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men should do nothing
Lord Acton was right, but a British general election is not a fight against evil. It is a choice between different ideas for the betterment of society.

I know few men or women in politics whom I would call evil and it is silly to characterise our democratic process in these terms.

If you don’t vote, you can’t complain
Why not? Some might retort that those who did vote a party into government are the ones who cannot complain later. The truth is that we are each of us free to find fault with our political masters, whether or not we voted for them, or voted at all. It is our right.

It’s lazy, feeble, apathetic or stupid not to use your vote
It might be. But until politicians consider the other possibility, they will miss what makes politics tick.

There are millions in Britain who do have the time, the energy, the intelligence, the interest, the sense of responsibility. They want to vote. But they are unconvinced or unattracted by any of the parties or people on offer. They take a conscious decision to abstain.

It is time that our political class respected that decision and asked itself whether it might be the problem, rather than the voters.

Some MPs talk as though it were the electorate which needs chivvying up, not them.

It’s no sweat to vote by post
This is an insulting argument. That something takes no effort is the worst reason for doing it.

Politicians cut the ground from under their own feet when they try to make it effortless to vote, slashing the price, as it were, of stock that they are finding hard to shift. They devalue their calling and underestimate their electorate if they think special give-away offers – postal voting, text message voting, voting from your own sofa by pressing the red interactive button on your television set – are the way to stir us. You stir people by showing them something worthwhile, not by showing them something easy.

Our politicians need to take care that campaigns to increase turnout amount to more than a sneaky attempt to validate themselves, to boost their own sense of self-worth.

So much for the bad reasons for voting on May 5. Am I, you may ask, in danger of arguing myself out of my own opening statement: that democracy matters? By no means. There is only one good reason to vote but it is the best reason on earth.

Voting changes things.

Elections matter. For better or for worse, your life and mine in Britain have been shaped by the general elections since the Second World War. The changes in national mood and direction — huge changes in the country that we see around us — have been dictated by forces, some of which are beyond our control; but the ideological temper of the government of the day has been at the forefront of these forces, and this is within our control.

People sometimes talk as though social and economic change were like the weather; as though change happens to us. It does not. We, the electorate, choose change. There really are forks in history’s road.

And just as choosing a new road does not bring any immediate change in the countryside, so choosing a government seldom makes a sharp difference at first. Change is gradual, halting and slow, but in the end a new journey brings you to a new place.

Look at some of those key elections since the end of the Second World War. If, in 1945, Winston Churchill and another Conservative Government had been returned, we would not have had the National Health Service. Sooner or later, some sort of medical help for the poorest would have been brought in by any government, but not the NHS as we know it.

That was what the British people were voting for in 1945, and we got it. We got – we chose – the nationalisation of British industry too. If the Tories had not been elected in 1951, that nationalisation would have continued towards a full-blooded socialism which, in the event, Britain never tried. We changed our mind.

If Edward Heath had not been elected in 1970 it is unlikely that Britain would have entered the Common Market when we did, and uncertain that we would have ever done so. Entry did not just happen: it was brought about by the absolute determination of one man. We the voters put him there.

Does anybody – friend or foe of Thatcherism – really think that Britain in 2005 would be or feel anything like the country we recognise today if the general election of 1979 had not brought Margaret Thatcher to power? The sale of council houses, the privatisation of state industry, the Falklands conflict, the shackling of the trades unions — the list is formidable.

That election presented a brutal but simple choice, as the voters recognised. A quarter of a century later, the choice is more subtle but I think that voters on May 5 will understand it well enough. It is not really about bringing in a Conservative government, although that is what the Tories must pretend. It is about the raising up or the humbling of a Labour Prime Minister.

The country is being asked to give the thumbs up, or the thumbs down, to the most presidential PM we have had. If you think that whether Tony Blair walks out of May 6 and into May 7 with a limp or with a swagger, will make no difference to the years ahead, you will live to revise that opinion.

Elections swing things. There are some who recognise this, who have views on which way things should be swung – and who still stay home on polling day. “What difference is my vote alone likely to make?” they ask.

The honest answer in most constituencies is “probably none”. But most – almost all – collective human effort is the same. In how much that we do is our own effort the critical, the make-or-break contribution? Does this stop us singing in a choir, contributing to a charity, joining a demonstration or supporting a football club? A desert dune moves so slowly that motion is almost imperceptible at first. It moves by the windborne propulsion of a billion individual particles of sand, separately and one by one, flying from the windward to the leeward. No individual particle makes a discernible difference. Yet the movement of the whole can bury pyramids.

In a vast democracy like ours, each of us is no more than a single piece of grit. But when we move together, history moves. So if you feel the wind, fly. It’s called voting.

Matthew Parris is a Times writer and columnist of the year

“where’s my fucking transporter?”

I’ve been thinking today about technology and how it’s made the world both bigger and smaller.

One of the phrases I dislike intensely is “the world’s so much closer now” because of the Internet, and satellite television, smart phones that can show you what’s happening in Times Square right now, despite you being in a coffee shop in Whetstone, North London.

It’s really not, you know. The world is still out there, hundreds, thousands and tens of thousands of miles away and it’s bonito coming to get you. If you want it, you still have to go find it. There are no Star Trek transporters and sure – if I want to travel to Times Square, I could (subject to flight availability) get there in about ten hours from now.

But I could have got there in ten hours ten years ago.

I know that I can dial on my phone (and how many of you automatically realised I meant my mobile phone rather than a land line?) and speak in seconds to a friend who’s 10,000 miles away. But I couldn’t be in his presence for well over twelve hours if I left right now.

The world isn’t at my fingertips. It’s at my device’s (whether that’s a tv, a smart phone, a PC) reach. My fingers aren’t that long.

And you know what? That’s ok for me.

But for thousands of people, whose relatives died in wars around the globe, and are buried in foreign parts, they’ve every right to ask, misquoting Warren Ellis

it’s the twenty-first century, where’s my fucking transporter?

And today, of all days, we should be ashamed for not being able to answer them.

The near future, in the recent past

Fascinating evening last night, spent in the company of friends, and also people whose combined brain-power could probably supply small cities if they put their minds to it.

It’s Internet Week Europe this week. Did you know that? That was just one, and one of the less important at that, facts I learned last night at Tomorrow’s World, an event put on in London by BERG, a small company, again staffed by very intelligent, very nice people.

As they put it on their site,

BERG is a design consultancy, working hands-on with companies to research and develop their technologies and strategy, primarily by finding opportunities in networks and physical things.

Thing is, to sum them up like that is a bit like summing up the current financial problems in Europe as “not exactly ideal”. True as far as it goes, but there’s far, far more to it (and them) than that. Take a stroll around their website – you’ll find something to reward you.

Last night’s event was a series of ten minute talks (well, ok, they were supposed to be ten minute talks, they turned out to be more like fifteen, not a minute wasted though) on the simple – deviously simple – topic of “The near-future of…”

There was a truly fascinating talk on “The near-future of toy design” by Alice Taylor of MakieLab, a presentation on “The near future of design” by Karsten Schmidt, a mind-changing (at least for me) talk by Fiona Romero of the National Maritime Museum on “the near future of citizen science” and a brief but superb lecture (and this was the only one where I felt like a student, listening to a master of the field) on “The Near-Future New Aesthetic” by James Bridle.

And that was just the first half.

Yeah.

During the break, managed to catch up properly with some friends, and others I haven’t seen for way too long, including Laurie Penny, of whom I wrote last week.

Now, if I was a member of parliament (heaven forbid) making a speech in the House of Commons, at this point, I’d have to to declare an ‘interest’, since the first two speakers after the break are both close friends.

Warren Ellis is a man I’ve known since just before our respective children (both now sixteen) were born. If I were to sum up just what this man’s done for me in terms of advice, help, kicks-up-the-arse when required and just generally being there when needed, I’d not finish writing for some days. But funnily enough, I’d never seen him deliver a talk, so was looking forward to his talk on “The near future of pop culture” enormously. He didn’t disappoint, though I don’t know how many others in the room even came close to appreciating his comments about his daughter’s views on pop and how not only are they different to his, not only should they be different from his, but how they barely speak the same ‘language’ about it. And yeah – Phil’s views on culture are so different from my own that they might be coming from two different species, not merely two different people of some 30 years’ difference in age.

Jamais Cascio is best described as a futurist – and his book, Hacking The Earth remains the only climate change book that’s hooked me from the first page until the last. He delivered a ten minute summary of his view on why geo-engineering matters, and how, if we are the gods of our planet, we’re of the Greek gods variety, complete with all the weaknesses thereof. He ended his comments with

“We’d better sort this out in the twenty-first century… or we’ll not be around for the twenty-second.

The final speaker, Russell Davies rounded up the evening with a talk about the near future of personal/public tech (or at least how it ended up) and the tack was truly interesting.

All around, an incredibly fascinating evening that’s had me thinking all bloody day about the subjects, the implications and the potential just waiting for all us out there if only we’re prepared to look for it.

I suspect I’ll return to this again soon… sometime in, if you’ll forgive me, the near future.

Questions and connections

One of my favourite guilty pleasures recently has come on a Monday evening on BBC FOUR, a quiz hosted by Victoria Coren, entitled Only Connect, in which, as the Wikipedia page has it,

In the series, teams compete in a tournament of finding connections between seemingly unrelated clues.

Here’s a small taster of it:

Now that only covers the first half of the show, and neither the “connecting wall” nor the “missing vowels” round (although the biggest puzzle about that final round is why it’s in the show; entertaining it is, but not really linked to “connections”).

I was delighted to discover the Only Connect app (click link to be taken to iTunes app store), but Only Connect is far from the first quiz on radio or Television to deal with connections.

For a start, there’s the wonderful television entitled Connections, more about soon, I promise. There’s a reason I’ll be talking about James Burke, but I’ll write more about that in a few days…

And then there’s Round Britain Quiz, where horribly convoluted questions are linked by something that might seem obscure but is, of course, immediately obvious once explained/realised.

On the BBC, in the UK, (and, I guess, probably on World Service and iPlayer as well) Round Britain Quiz has been running for several decades. As I say, it takes minor celebrities who represent various areas around the UK and gives them the most convoluted and contrived questions in order to get several answers, all linked by a theme.

Two examples follow here.

OK here’s one of them, one of the easier variety:

Three have vanished, one remains and three are gone, but still with us in a manner of speaking.

OK, I’ll pause while you think about that…

[pause...]

OK, got it?

The three that have “vanished” are The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, The Temple of Artemis and The Statue of Zeus.

The one that remains is The Great Pyramid at Giza.

The three that are gone but remain with us “in a manner of speaking” are…

• The Tomb of King Mausolus at Halicarnassus, which gave us the word MAUSOLEUM
• The Colossus of Rhodes, which gave us the word COLOSSUS, and
• The Lighthouse of Alexandria which gave us the word PHAROS, used to describe a lighthouse.

They are, of course, The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

Clever, huh?

Here’s another one that you probably won’t know, since it deals with UK politics, but it’s a better example of how tricky the questions can be and how every word in the question is important.

The first was a Scot who founded the party. The second was a Scot who split the party 31 years later. The third is a Scot noted for his prudence. Who are they and what’s the nominal connection that isn’t obvious, but is there all the same?

The three men are obvious, to anyone who knows their UK political history. It’s the “nominal connection that’s not obvious, but is there all the same” that’s the kicker.

The connection the question is looking for is that the men all have the same first name (nominal, remember), but didn’t use it in public life.

The party is the Labour Party.

(James) Keir Hardy (1856-1915) was one of those who formed the Labour Party.

31 years later, in August 1931, (James) Ramsay MacDonald (1866-1937) split the party, when he formed a coalition government that was chiefly supported by Conservatives and Liberals.

And (James) Gordon Brown, the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, was, of course, noted for his obsession with “prudence”.

All of them had the first name James, and none of them used it in public life…

As with many such things, the listener sometimes thinks, “well, I could do that…”

So I did – I sent in a question ad it was used in the following series.

Here’s the question:

Why would the reduction of what we can see of the moon and what Eskimos wear be signalled large in Canterbury, and be reported in a humorous volume?

OK, so what’s the answer?

No idea? Oh, good. That’s the plan.

You want to know the answer?

Naah – think a bit… now think a bit more…

Ok then, since you insist:

Answer:

• the reduction of what we can see of the moon is wane, yes?
• and that coat the Eskimos wear, that’s called a parka
• now “signalled large”… well, a large sign could be a banner, couldn’t it?
• and, of course, Canterbury, is in Kent.

Hmm: Wane, Parka, Banner, Kent.

Hmm even more: (Bruce) WAYNE, (Peter) PARKER, (Bruce) BANNER, and (Clark) KENT.

And by now, you’ll have realised the reason they’d have been in a humorous volume, or a COMIC BOOK.

I thangew.

More tomorrow.

Hold the inside page!

Muammar Gaddafi is dead. So is Phillip Tataglia. Moe Green. Stracci. Cuneo. All the heads of the five families.

Ok, forgive me the misquote from The Godfather, but the fuss/outrage over the choice of newspapers to put pictures of the beaten and bloodied corpse of the first of those listed above on their front pages continues to roll on, and everyone seems to have their opinions.

So I might as well give mine, in a slightly longer format than that allowed by the 140 characters of Twitter.

Everyone has their opinions, and like backsides, although everyone has them, not all are of equal weight, and airing them in public doesn’t necessarily benefit hugely these who own them.

I was about to suggest that it’s become one of those matters where people reach an instant opinion, and then it becomes almost embarrassing to say “you know what? Time and the strength of argument has changed my mind”, but today, I saw the Guardian’s readers editor has indeed changed his opinion. In Roy Greenslade’s column, he reports Chris Elliot as saying:

“On reflection – and having read the complaints – I feel less convinced about the way we used these photographs, although I still feel strongly that they are an important part of this story and should have been used.

The scale of the photo on the newspaper front page of 21 October and prominent picture use on the website took us too close to appearing to revel in the killing rather than reporting it.

And that is something that should feature in our deliberations the next time – and there will be a next time – such a situation arises.”

Greenslade, I have to say, hasn’t changed his mind at all. He says

“I didn’t see it that way then, and I don’t now. I remain convinced that it was a valid journalistic response to this most extraordinary of news stories to publish the picture and to publish it big on the front page.

I take on board the worries about revelling in the death (as in The Sun). But it would have been astonishing for newspapers to have failed to carry such a crucial news image.”

And then today, Matt Lucas waded into the argument, posting a blog entry – his first, and I give him full credit for choosing such a topic for his first entry – in which he argues that, simply, news media should not, as a matter of principle, revel in death. If death has occurred, then report it certainly, but not with horrific images repeated again and again on television, not with gruesome images on the front page where people have no choice but to see they as they pass newsagents, or in a supermarket.

Now, while I have some sympathy with the opinion aired, I’m afraid that Lucas, like many of those commentators who have shown disdain to newspapers recently, has entirely missed the central point.

He’s posted a whinge, a oh why isn’t the world like I want it to be? I’ll forgive him his resort to Godwin’s Law in his response to being queried, simply because I can’t believe he could possibly have known about it. However, that central point?

Newspapers are not in the business of not offending. They’re not in the business of being nice. They’re not in the business of caring whether nor caring if someone thinks their front page distasteful.

Newspapers are in the business of making money.

Simple as that. The only reason they stuck that photo on the front page was because they thought they’d make money doing so. Or, given that everyone else was doing it, they thought that their own circulation would go down if they didn’t do it.

I’m not aware of any advertisers pulling their adverts because of that front page. I’d be very surprised if any had. I’m not aware of any successful boycott campaign because of those pictures.

(On that specific area, a friend made the very sensible point that it’s unlikely that where some tabloids were concerned, it’s unlikely either of us would know that many people who bought the paper anyway. To which the only response can’t be, well then, the newspapers concerned wouldn’t give a shit about us anyway, would they?)

To the other argument, that’s it’s amusing that one half of Little Britain and Come Fly With Me is complaining about being offended by something a media organisation has done, I would argue that he would suggest that at least people have the choice whether or not to watch his television programmes; by putting those photos on the front page, the newspapers effectively removed the choice from the public as to whether or not they saw them.

Ok, defence over – I’m sure Lucas wouldn’t give a damn what I thought (it was to me that he said, after all, that my argument was comparable to saying that the Nazis were right because people voted for them.)

However, nowhere have I said that the newspapers were right. As a matter of fact, I think they were morally bankrupt, using those photos on the front page, or at all. Apart from anything else, they’ve left themselves wide open to a charge of hypocrisy the next time they say that seeing violent images causes the young to become more violent. They should be ashamed of themselves. And I’m sure they would be, had they a shred of understanding.

However, they don’t.

Newspapers are, as I said above, solely in the business of selling newspapers, of making revenue.

I would be astonished if for that week, or indeed the weeks following, there was a drop in newspaper revenues (materially beyond that decline affecting all newspapers as the Internet continues to bite into their market).

It’s been said before that a society gets the media that it deserves, and to a point, that’s true.

What’s certainly true is that as long as enough people choose to continue to buy a newspaper, and as long as enough advertisers choose to continue to advertise in that newspaper, the newspaper will receive no message other than “we like what you’re doing – more please!”

The demise of the News Of The World proved that as soon as enough people stop buying the newspaper, as soon as enough advertisers pull their advertising, the newspaper receives another message.

But for as long as the newspapers receive that first message, we’ll continue to see more images like that of Gaddafi on the front page, and that of a dead Michael Jackson on the front page, and horrifically detailed pictures of celebrities in the midst of tragedy on the front page, simply because there’s no financial reason for the newspapers not to put them there.

Cure for stupidity? Rinse at 30°.

Everyone has their stock of favourite phrases; like Pavlov’s canines, all it takes is the right circumstances, in most cases an appropriate feed line, and you’ll once again trot out the expected response.

I once worked with a man who, whenever he heard the word ‘assumption’, would respond with “assumption is the mother of all fuckups.” It might be true, but the 874th repetition tended to take the gloss off its importance.

I’m as guilty as anyone, and I know I’m guilty of it, which reduces my culpability not one iota.

All anyone has to say about comics is that a company doesn’t care about the quality of their comics, or that they’ve treated a creator badly, and I’ll respond once again with the reminder that comic book companies aren’t in business to make comic books, they’re in business to make money.

Yes, I know – trite. But true.

Anyone who’s worked for me over the years will have heard the following often enough:

The one thing I hate above all other things is people thinking we’re stupid. Either as a company, a department, or as individuals. The only thing worse than that… is us justifying that belief.



That one applies in life as well.

Doesn’t matter whether it’s what i call a stupid comic or stupid movie (one where the makers of either have assumed the reader/watcher is stupid) or a stupid argument, comprised of lazy thinking.

I was once called a “corporate whore”.

Seriously.

I was at a party, and someone was banging on about how any executive of a company was, by virtue of helping to run the company, inevitably selling themselves purely for the rewards offered, and was prepared to do anything to retain those rewards, inevitably unfairly exploiting those who worked (the implication being the staff were the only people who did honest work) for the company along the way.

And, driving over to friends last night, I found myself getting angry at this kind of lazy thinking again while listening to a talk radio station.

Now I know that there are numbered rules of the Internet, but I’ve come to think there are only two that really matter: (1) Wil Wheaton’s “Don’t be a dick.” and (2) “Never read the comments.”

I should apply the same to talk radio, but I find it fascinating and when it comes to serious issues, as a general rule LBC is better than most radio stations for screening out the idiots and letting intelligent debate occur.

Last night, the presenter was discussing the Occupy movement. I’m genuinely unsure where I stand on the issue. Many of the central arguments I sympathise with, but some of the solutions proposed are irritating, non-practical and, frankly, ignorant. On both sides, I hasten to add.

It’s as ignorant, in my opinion, to suggest that everyone attending and camping out at the various Occupy protests worldwide is a professional protester (thank you, Alan Sugar) or just there because it’s fun as it is to suggest that everyone working for a bank or financial institution is equally (or at all) responsible for the financial crisis.

However, what really upset me was the statement made by two callers, suggesting that if you didn’t agree with their viewpoint, it was because you’d been “brainwashed”.

To think this, or even worse, actually believe it, is lazy thinking at its worst.

It’s insulting to others and to yourself, as the inevitable consequence is that you can cheerfully abdicate the responsibility for arguing your case, and while it may – you think – provide a conclusive point, all their correspondent ends up believing is that you’ve run out of arguments.

Patriotism may be the last refuge of the scoundrel, as Samuel Johnson is reputed to have said. But an accusation of “you don’t agree with me because you’ve been brainwashed” isn’t the last resort of the brainless, just the lazy.

And it assumes that I’m too stupid to argue against it.

As I said earlier, I hate it when people believe I’m stupid.

I just hope I don’t justify the belief too often.

Saturday smiles

I have been serious the past few days, haven’t I?

But it’s Saturday today, a day for – hopefully – a bit of relaxation, calming down, and a smile or two.

Building on the previous entry about typos or, as I propose, the language of Tyop, I was delighted some time ago to discover a wonderful website entitled criggo.com. I’m ignorant as to the origin of the name for the site, but it’s hitrate is astonishing. It “reprints” genuine snippets of newspaper reports, much like the ‘cuttings’ section of The News Quiz.

Here are some of my favourite examples:

And, finally, the glorious, the wonderful…

The plan was that you smiled. I hope you did.