Watch: How Republicans stoke up racial hatred
An excellent package by Rachel Maddow on MSNBC
‘Black people are coming for you white people’
Watch (12m)
What music and political tribes have in common
It’s the early noughties and we’re in the middle of a Great Rock Recession. After the Britpop days of plenty, indie fans are stuck on a stodgy gruel of Travis and Starsailor. ‘Quiet is the new Loud’ and that sound you don’t hear is the kids yawning themselves to death.
With such scant exciting, homemade music, the New Musical Express – that dogged tribune of indie culture – gazed across the Atlantic and started to embrace the explosion of R&B and hip hop. They wrote reverently about Timbaland & Missy Elliott, made The Neptunes the epitome of cool and even gave Destiny’s Child their front cover for a week.
Sadly, the NME’s experiment in open-minded eclecticism was short-lived; sales dwindled and the paper couldn’t afford to offend its musically conservative readership for any longer. It wasn’t long before the magazine reverted to type; excitedly announcing a ‘New Rock Revolution’ and chasing skinny trustafarians around the sidewalks of New York.
The mistake the NME made was in believing it could break the stubborn insularity of its audience.
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David Davis calls it the ‘Brokeback coalition’
The scale of Conservative rightwing frustration at David Cameron’s coalition government has been graphically illustrated in unguarded comments by the man he beat for the party leadership.
David Davis, once Mr Cameron’s shadow home secretary, approvingly repeated a barb that he attributed to another senior Tory who described the David Cameron-Nick Clegg partnership as the “Brokeback coalition”.
He also lampooned the flagship Big Society policy as “Blairite dressing” and suggested that the Tory leadership was more concerned with appeasing the Liberal Democrats than its own party.
Mr Davis made his remarks to businessmen, including former colleagues from Tate & Lyle, during a private lunch at the Boot and Flogger wine bar in Southwark, London, on Thursday within earshot of everyone at the establishment.
He was speaking in a personal capacity, but his remarks reflect deep unhappiness among Tory rightwingers who fear that Mr Cameron is ignoring his own party to keep the coalition together.
A jury should decide the cause of Ian Tomlinson’s death
This is, or rather was, Sarah Campbell – and had she not committed suicide at the age of 18, while incarcerated in Styal women’s prison, she would now be 26 years old.
Campbell was a heroin abuser with a history of depression and she took her own life by way of an overdose of what were believed to be prescription drugs after serving a mere three days of a two and half year sentence for manslaughter.
However, it is not the circumstances of her death but the events that led to her conviction that bear serious consideration here.
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Top earning Tory: ban protests to save money
Here is Steve O’Connell:
The point I’m making here is in the new era of very difficult financial choices are we able to continue with the luxury of demonstrations going forward in a very liberal manner with a small ‘l’ and commit the costs that we have in the past? I don’t believe we can afford to go forward in that way.
O’Connell is a Tory Assembly Member and former banker who gets paid: £43,861 as a Croydon councillor, £53,439 for sitting on the London Assembly and £21,211 as chairman of the Metropolitan Police Authority’s finance and resource committee.
That’s over £118k annually out of the public purse, making him Britain’s highest-paid councillor.
Britain’s second highest paid councillor is also a Conservative. Brian Coleman is on £118,499 a year: £38,177 as a Barnet councillor and cabinet member (up from about £27,000 last year), £53,439 for sitting in the Assembly and £26,883 as chairman of London’s fire service.
Steve O’Connell told the Metropolitan Police Authority (via Adam Bienkov at Tory Troll):
Should we not actually be considering whether we can continue offering the [policing] service to these demonstrations? Should we not have a situation where we get to the stage where if the funding isn’t there to provide the service, we should be having a conversation with the organisers where we say “you cannot have your event because we do not have the resources to fund it”?
In the past controversial plays have had to be shut down because the police did not want to bear the costs of policing the protests.
With Boris increasingly displaying authoritarianism – banning Democracy village and threatening motorcycle protesters – it looks increasingly like the Tories aren’t as enthusiastic about civil liberties as they’ve claimed.
The Big Society exists, just not where the Tories want
I doubt David Cameron was watching Channel 4 last night, away as he is in America. But his aides ought to save the 4OD link for him.
I’m talking about Undercover Boss, which followed Kevan Collins – Chief Executive of Tower Hamlets Council – as he became “Colin” and met people doing frontline services in his borough.
It was remarkable.
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Wanted: a good poster for the Yes-to-AV campaign
contribution by Guy Aitchison
The AV referendum campaign has begun in earnest. Labour MP Tom Harris – one of the loudest opponents of reform – has produced this poster:
As predicted, the message is very anti-politics playing on the idea that reform will hand power to politicians and take it away from ordinary people. The gall of it is quite astonishing.
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Update: Goat now on Facebook conf. call
An unnamed goat has stormed ahead in Facebook fans stakes by comprehensively bleating the government’s Spending Challenge website yesterday.
Prime Minister David Cameron recently launched a collaboration with Facebook, to much fanfare, to encourage FB users to suggest ideas to cut government spending on a special page.
Despite the media blitz, and a special video stunt discussion with Mark Zuckerberg on YouTube, the Spending Challenge page on Facebook has a paltry 81 followers.
In contrast, the goat, who might be named Billy (but the lefties who adopted it couldn’t decide on a name and soon started accusing each other of betrayal), managed to attract over 500 fans in just one day.
The goat was unavailable for comment, but spokesperson Clifford Singer from the Other Taxpayers Alliance said: “Billy [the name's not decided yet dammit! - ed] passionately believes the government should focus on growing the economy not cutting spending.”
Update: Goat on conference call with Mark Zuckerberg!
Peter Tatchell, Nick Griffin and his foul-mouthed sidekick
Yesterday human rights activist and campaigner Peter Tatchell threw himself in front of BNP leader Nick Griffin at the Westminster BBC studios, while Griffin spoke to the press about his letter of invitation to the Queen’s garden party – which had been withdrawn.
Tatchell called Griffin “a gutless coward” and pressured him to apologise for the BNP’s history of anti-semitism, homophobia and Islamophobic views, before Griffin left the site and two of his bodyguards pulled Tatchell away.
One of Griffin’s entourage may seem familiar to the eagle eyed: Tony Gladwin (wearing blue) was once the British National Party Parliamentary candidate for Southend West.
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Alternative Vote question revealed
The coalition government on Thursday published the wording of a referendum due next May on changing procedures for voting in general elections.
Voters will be asked:
Do you want the United Kingdom to adopt the ‘alternative vote’ system instead of the current ‘first past the post’ system for electing Members of Parliament to the House of Commons?
The question is included in the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill which will also cut the size of the House of Commons to 600 from 650 members.
The bill will in addition establish boundary reviews to create more equally sized constituencies.
A separate bill, also published on Thursday, will fix the terms of parliaments to five years. It will mean prime ministers no longer have the power to call for a dissolution of a parliament before the end of its maximum five-year term.
Update: The Electoral Reform Society today issued a press release welcoming the publication of a clear Yes/No question for the proposed Alternative Vote (AV) referendum.
Ashley Dé from the Electoral Reform Society said:
We’ve now got a clear question for a clear choice between the politics of the past and a better alternative. Our politicians use AV for electing their own. As this bill reaches parliament we trust they won’t try to deny voters the same opportunity.
History won’t look kindly on mischief makers who could still stand in the way of the coming national debate. The future of our voting system should rest in the hands of voters next May.
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