Return to the source

I took myself off to the People's History Museum last week, to see their exhibition of election posters. Not just because I'm a massive nerd, but because it's a wonderful, unapologetically leftwing place. Going back occasionally is a way to recharge my batteries and cheer myself up.

The exhibition was fascinating: a lesson in how we've returned to the same arguments, over and over again. The Tories are still the party of the selfish rich. The workers are permanently exploited. The Liberals are still untrustworthy turncoats. Only the Labour Party has changed. It used to believe in things. Now its job is to soften the edges of Conservative Capitalism.

I took some photos: they're not very good because the museum lighting is low to protect the textiles and there's so much material that a good angle isn't always possible. Still, see them here, or click on these highlights for larger versions:

They're STILL using this. They keep saying 'the Labour recession' and 'the recession we inherited' despite the facts: the country wasn't in recession in the quarter before the election.

Labour instituted tuition fees, the scum. The Tories and Lib Dems have tripled them, despite campaigning to abolish them!

Deeply ironic.

One of my ancestors fought in the Irish Brigade during the Boer War. The anti-British Irish Brigade, that is. Later on he was the Dublin Commandant of the IRA and one of Michael Collins' closest allies. 

This is a much more honest Tory poster about Ireland. The Union-Jack chaps are famous conservatives. The lad in the shamrock is an Irish nationalist getting a buffing.

What can I say? Has the Daily Mail changed at all? Although given that its owner, Lord Rothermere, claims to be French to avoid tax, perhaps it wouldn't support 'tax the foreigner' these days.

Izzy Wizzy, Paul's Been Busy

My chiselling and devious MP, Mr. Paul Uppal, has been asking a lot of questions recently. Not, of course, useful questions. Instead, they're the kind of small-minded and rather unintelligent kind of questions you'd expect from a pompous multimillionaire with an inflated sense of his own importance.

Let's start with the very best one.

Can the Home Secretary do anything to address the issue of the internet, which is having the effect of radicalising young people on both sides of the political spectrum?

Wonderful. As you may know, part of my job is studying the effects and structures of what we rather quaintly call 'new media'. Uppal's question reminded of nobody so much as my father, who used to ask us to show him things on 'The Google'.

Theresa May is Secretary of State at the Home Office: she's paid to know a lot about this.

My hon. Friend has raised an extremely important issue, to which we need to pay close attention. It is much harder these days-precisely because of the internet-to ensure that young people do not find themselves exposed to these radicalising messages, and we have sadly seen some individuals radicalised by access to it. This is a matter that the Government take very seriously; we are talking with partners about it.

Oh dear. What a waffly non-answer which does nothing other than to tell us that she's as much at sea as poor little Uppal. I wonder what 'partners' you have who can stop people thinking about things?

Now Paul (and Theresa), let's slow down a little. The internet isn't an 'issue', it's a network. It's lots and lots of things. Most of them aren't radicalising anything. You may as well argue that the telegram network radicalised the suffragettes: it's just a tool for distribution of ideas (and porn). If anything's radicalising anyone, it's your government's massive crackdown on the poor, the young, the old, the regional, the working and the unemployed. Abroad, I'd have thought you'd be pleased at the citizens of various countries being radicalised. Unless, of course, you're just on the side of whoever is in charge wherever they are. I wouldn't put it past you.

Anyway, nul points for your grasp of the modern world. Come on Tories: sort out 'The Internet'.

(Readers may also like to read my esteemed and rightwing friend Mr. Carter Magna's take on this story and the others I'm about to rant about).

Moving on. Paul's obviously a cricket fan:

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport what progress he has made on making future home Ashes test matches available on free-to-air television.

A little off-message there, matey. Your friends deregulated broadcasting to open it up to highest-bidder, lowest-common denominator corporations, as part of your party's attack on the BBC. Now you want your favourite bits protected? Cheeky little hypocrite.

Following that, this outrageous opportunist clear scents the opportunity to whip up a lynch mob against those grasping evil bastards ruining our communities: the doctors. He's picked up on some cheap newspaper hysteria about doctors earning 'too much' and wants to expose The Dark Place's Plutocrat Physicians.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many GPs in Wolverhampton received over £100,000 from the NHS in the most recent 12 months for which figures are available.

Now, there's clearly a debate to be had about how much we pay our doctors (by the way: Ireland's doctors start on €250,000, roughly what UK ones retire on). But I'm not going to have it led by a man who has made millions of pounds in property speculation. What exactly has he contributed to the nation? Has he saved lives? Does he deal with the depressed, the hurt, the lame and the addicted day in, day out? What makes a man who shuffles rents worth hundreds of times more than a man or woman who spends his or her time up to the elbows in blood, urine, pooh and pain?

Also: I'm quite happy for doctors to earn a bit more. Should they be paid less than lawyers? I don't think so (and let's not forget that they do an awful lot of unpaid overtime). More to the point, the Prime Minister's recently departed spin doctor received a wage bill of £140000, and I didn't hear Uppal complain that he was getting more than the fat-cat actual doctors to whom he so strongly objects, nor to the fact that the tax payer was giving Coulson the salary of the Prime Minister he worked for and more than every other member of the Cabinet. I'm quite angry now. Can you tell?

Finally, what's Uppal's big idea for the year?

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills whether the Royal Mail has made an estimate of the savings which would accrue from reducing the number of postal deliveries to five per week.

To reduce postal deliveries. What a massive plonker. I'm torn between believing that he's just plain evil, and just plain stupid. Perhaps both. And yet he got elected. Those 600 people who form his majority should be ashamed. I argued with Rob Marris, the New Labour predecessor, quite a lot, but he definitely wasn't stupid and he worked his socks off for this place. Yet now we're stuck with a man who demonstrates all the political sophistication of a desiccated whelk and the work ethic of a lazy man on an extended holiday.

Isn't democracy grand?

Poor old Andrew

Mr Marr is rapidly declining mentally. Last week he uttered some rather confused and uninformed pearls of wisdom about blogging, this week he started a radio discussion of morality and politics by claiming that it was 'beyond issues of left and right'.

This is, of course, absolute balderdash. Both wings of politics have drawn on religious origins for their morality, then claimed that their ideological perspectives are moral. The soft left of the Labour Party claimed that it owed 'more to Methodism than to Marx', which was certainly true, while Blair allowed his neoliberal capitalist hodgepodge of ideas to be influenced by his belief in God (whom he occasionally seemed to confuse with voices in his head). (Incidentally, the Methodists and similar groups were great - they encouraged democracy inside and outside their chapels, trained thousands of workers as preachers and organised the working classes. Shame about the actual God bits).

The English Civil War, despite its unfortunate bouts of Catholic-massacring, was a leftwing religious event: God directly told the Parliamentarians that hereditary rule was evil. The result was a Republic which soon became an Iranian-style theocracy. If you read the Putney Debates, the Fifth Monarchists, the Ranters, the Diggers, the Levellers and most of the other groups during this time of astonishing ferment, you'll find God at the centre of their communist/socialist doctrines.

I'm from a different lefty perspective. For me, the abandonment of God is a moment of ethical and political liberation. In His place goes empathy towards your fellow humans, which to me means being very very very leftwing. As far as I can see, being rightwing is essentially denying empathy and promoting individualism: rightwingers are often religious in the classic Robinson Crusoe mould, in which self-help leads to God - from that flows selfishness and American politics.

Unfortunately, God isn't around to settle this one. The Old Testament God is clearly a Tory or New Labour interventionist - smiting, smiting, smiting. Always smiting the Palestinians and arming the Israelites - definitely a George Bush. The New Testament God is a bit different. Seems to be more about providing healthcare and being nice to everybody, though social services would have something to say about throwing His son out with the intention of having him crucified. A mixed report, one could say.

As for Marr - very poor indeed. He deserved this:

Who'd have thunk it?

According to a book by Gordon Brown's pet pollster, British people are a bit thick, and Labour Party members (probably all party activists), of which I'm one, are a bit weird!

Labour's 2010 election slogan – "a future fair for all" – was confusing. "Voters misunderstood, thinking that this might refer to some sort of futuristic theme park – a 'future fair'," Mattinson writes.

Basically, they are all a bit weird. I mean, what they had in common wasn't their political opinions – they covered the whole spectrum, from centre-left to far left – they weren't united by any ideology or political belief. 

No, it was that they were all slightly strange people ... strange personally, I mean. They were people who really did want to spend their evenings sitting in church halls or community centres agonising over quite arcane points of detail. 

And they weren't just doing it that night, but every night – the committee for this, the committee for that, the council, whatever. They were sort of lonely and socially odd.

I guess you do have to be a little it obsessive to care about participatory democracy rather than just hope it carries on without any help, and it can be time-consuming, but I'm a bit miffed by the arrogance of this rich cosmopolitan parasite. Activist keep the parties alive, raise the money, pick candidates, hear about voters' concerns… all things that the centralised marketing scum who run party HQ want to abandon. To them, party members are the annoying ticks who keep reminding them that beliefs and policies are more important than soundbites and acquiring free lunches and lucrative directorships. The bastards.


I don't think voters are thick either.


Unless, of course, it's possible that a pollster is just one rung up from an advertiser in the intelligence/values/trustworthiness stakes…

Genius

The banks have collapsed, the financial sector is in crisis and the seas are full of oil, thanks to deregulation, lack of oversight, contempt for the environment, the population and for democracy. Private security firms have murdered hundreds in Iraq and conducted torture on behalf of the CIA and MI5. I would say, broadly speaking, that capitalism has done a brilliant job of enriching the few and an even better one of destroying the planet and impoverishing billions.

So what's our Prime Minister going to do?

Lord Browne is being lined up to be a "super director" with the job of inserting private sector business practices into the heart of government.

Clearly, what government really, really needs is more 'private sector practice'. And who is Lord Browne?

You'll love this.

he left BP early in 2007 after lying in the high court and presiding over a string of high-profile accidents in America, including the Texas City refinery fire in which 15 people died. Browne, who was dubbed the Sun King in business circles after building BP into Britain's biggest company, continues to hold an array of senior positions in the world of business, culture and academia.

Clearly being a perjuring polluter responsible for killing people while he was CEO of BP is no bar to respect from the City. What a delightful few years we're in for.

Decades of discontent?

Good morning, readers.
I'll be quiet today - got two mega-meetings (one for each department in which I work), neither of which will be packed with excitement, adventure or really wild things.

I woke this morning to hear that the Prime Minister is promising massive cuts in public services 'lasting decades', but that 'everyone' is going to suffer equally.

A nanosecond's thought renders this unlikely. I can't help thinking that the multimillionaire class, of which Cameron and most of his cabinet are members, won't suffer in the slightest. They don't use the national health service, public transport, day-care centres for old people, respite care for disabled children, schools, libraries, job centres, Sure-Start nurseries and all the myriad things that this country has decided should be provided for by the government and paid for by us.

Instead, Cameron's plan, untrammelled by being in a coalition, is to institute what Naomi Klein called The Shock Doctrine. It's a 1970s idea: whenever you've got upheaval, take advantage of it to institute a very rightwing programme of abolishing government (apart from war-making departments: rightwingers like guns) for ideological reasons, while making it look like a solution to immediate problems. Environmental protection, financial regulation, child benefit, old folks' homes, libraries: these things are seen as fluffy luxuries by the hard-nosed rich who buy these services privately anyway.

This is essentially a coup.

We've saved capitalism by baling out the banks. Now they apparently want revenge. But who'll save the banks next time?

"A triumph of stupidity over common sense"

Messers CURTIS and ELTON, before they became Infected with the Curse of NOT BEING FUNNY, expressed all that is Good about Politickal Humour in their Televised Play, Blackadder the Third.

(With added Hollandish surtitles for your Convenience).

Not with a bang, but with a Twitter

It's both fun and sickening watching the end in real time, via journalists' Twitter feeds. Niall Paterson (a Sky hack and therefore a hack of the lowest kind) is literally peeking through the curtains at people changing into suits ready for an announcement, inbetween spinning for the Tories. It reminds me of an age ago, glued to the TV while Ceaucesçu was jeered, hounded out and eventually shot. There's no dignity afforded to the vanquished: the Sun-spoiled mob must have blood and rolling news channels must be filled. Not now, and not in the future - Cameron will have his turn.

What must the atmosphere be like in Downing Street. Government phones are switched off, party ones ignored. Eye contact is evaded, photos and desk junk hurled into cardboard boxes like Merrill Lynch bankers on their last day. Civil servants disappear, or become suddenly insolent and high-handed. Old rivalries are buried or, perhaps, flare up as blame is assigned. Less and less, I guess, is being said as a wave of miserable realisation breaks. This really is it. 13 years of highs and lows gone. What awaits those in the inner circle? They live for politics, high and low, principled and shabby. No more limos, civil servants, institutional dinners, urgent texts, but also no more placating bullshitters, sycophants and dependents, toadying to the undeservedly powerful. For some, a further lifetime of corruption as PR firms, corporate boards and lobbyists beckon, but they know that truly, they represent the past. Certainly opposition holds no joys - ex-governments spend the first year in opposition licking wounds, not energising themselves for the fight. What remains is the rediscovery -welcome or not - of real life. Taking buses, learning to e-mail, looking for work, talking to constituents, starting from the bottom again.

I genuinely hope that, liberated from the shackles of power he voluntarily assumed, Brown can leave politics to do great things. Neal said last week that he'd have loved to see Brown stop in the middle of the TV debates and announce 'Sod this. You two bicker. I'm off to run the IMF'. Now's his chance.

I remember 1997. Despite already hating Blair and distrusting Brown, I felt the hope, the sheer optimism that came with new faces, fresh ideas, honesty and openness (yes, I know, the irony is overwhelming). I'm so sad that so much talent was wasted in petty politics, authoritarianism, hopeless fawning to power (the US, money and celebrity, principally). Idealism ebbed away so quickly as those in power realised that power itself is not an end, yet failed to retain their ideals, failed to remain daring and radical (as the syndicalists predicted in the 1920s).

There's no such feeling today, even in Tory ranks. Hardcore Tories are simply relieved that their natural right to rule has been (partially): like the Republicans, they're democrats only when they've won. Old ideas are flooding back, whether it's uncaring free marketeering (yes, the same idea that's just bankrupted the country) or hunting.

It feels like the end of the 1930s. A tired, gloomy, listless fag-end period awaits. Except for me. I'm going to Norway, even if I have to lick toilets clean for a living.

That's all, folks!

Judging by the mood music on the post-election live blog, we're getting a Liberal-Conservative coalition, or alliance of some sort.

Lots of Labour politicians are against a deal with the Lib Dems. They argue that the mathematics is against Labour, that a deal would be unstable, or that 'the people have spoken'.

I think these people are insane, or cynical. If cynical, it's because they want the Tories and Lib Dems to inflict the massive cuts supposedly needed before a quick second election follows the inevitable collapse of the coalition, leading Labour to clean up. These idiots want a few months out of office to grab the leadership and cabinet jobs for themselves. They don't want to do anything radical with electoral reform because they're in safe seats.

I think they're insane. The only reason to be in politics is to be in power. There's no point having ideals unless you're ready to put them into action. Refusing even a few months in government suggests that you're tired and out of ideas, or that you prefer political manoeuvring over making life a little bit better for your citizens, however limited.

They need to rediscover conviction. If they have better ideas than the Tories, if they think they can do the country good, it's their duty to grab control of government and hold on as long as legally possible. I'd like to see the current Cabinet retire to the back benches and shut their faces: discredited, broken hacks all, obsessed with triangulation, personal fiefdoms and last decade's personality wars. Their job now is to seal the deal with the Lib Dems, then mutely vote Aye to every proposal put forward by a new generation of motivated, dedicated leftwing parliamentarians until the Tories are dead and the country renewed.

Brown, Balls, Straw, Mandelson, Blears, Harman - the lot: shut up and sit down.

Update - journalists seem to think that Labour has given up on talks with Lib Dems (and here). Luggage being removed from Downing Street, presumably Gordon's. It's all over. The Tory boot will be stamping on our faces for the foreseeable future. 

Screw the markets (redux)

The bond markets are joining the rightwing press in their attempted coup. They're going to ignore the UK's massive economy and downgrade its credit rating if the Liberals go with Labour, even though this could be a more stable partnership than Con-Lib.

This sounds ominous. A Lib-Lab pact would "almost guarantee" a downgrade of the UK's top-notch credit rating because both parties oppose early spending cuts to reduce the government deficit, according to analysts at BNP Paribas. They advised investors to sell the pound against the dollar.

"A Labour/Liberal government is the least-liked option by markets and would almost guarantee a downgrade of the UK sovereign," the analysts said. This is because "both parties agree that early expenditure cuts could harm the economy."

Taken to its logical conclusion, presumably the financial services sector would prefer us not to have elections at all. I'd rather devalue and export our way out of recession than rely on these vultures for a single pound.

Coup? What larks!

Morning all. How's your day shaping up? I'm invigilating an exam. In law. For one person. It's multiple choice. So I guess I'll use the next hour and a half to mark some dissertations. While being vigilant, of course.

I saw The Sun on the way in. The rightwing papers are excelling themselves in hysteria. A couple of days ago, The Sun was calling Brown a 'squatter' who needs to go. Now he has gone, it's shouting about 'chaos', 'running away' and stitch-ups, as are the other Tory papers. The Telegraph even calls it a coup!

This is the 'vast rightwing conspiracy' in full cry. They all like the First Past The Post system - until it delivers a constitutional method for the Labour Party to stay in power. Whether you voted Labour or not, the system is working. These papers are democratic, but only when it suits them. The Tories and their media friends are trying the full GW Bush election tactics: don't win, but get the juggernaut rolling anyway.

There's a roundup of the media coverage here and a picture gallery of front pages here: its viciousness and lack of concern for law and fact is horrifying.

So The Sun splash (headline: "GOING BROWN") began: "Downing Street squatter Gordon Brown finally turned his back on power last night - and left a trail of chaos behind him."

The Daily Mail called it "A SQUALID DAY FOR DEMOCRACY" and saw it as a cynical way for Labour to keep hold of power. As did the Daily Express with "THIS SHABBY STITCH-UP."

By far the best headline among the Tory-supporting press was the Daily Telegraph "A very Labour coup".

The big gun commentators at the Mail, such as Quentin Letts ("What a tarts' bazaar"), Richard Littlejohn ("a scandalous piece of party political self-interest") and Peter Oborne ("Yesterday was a revolting day for British democracy") were on fire.

Jeremy Clarkson in The Sun was also over-heated: "Gord riddance to the Scottish idiot," he wrote in a piece headlined: "THE END OF AN ERROR." Kelvin MacKenzie was generous to "psycho" Brown: "I believe he came into politics to do good. He may have failed but when he leaves he will not fill his wallet and besmirch the good name of No 10 in the manner of Tony Blair."

In case journalists have forgotten, the Tories polled 36%. The Unionists polled 1-2%, as did the BNP and UKIP (neither of which gained seats). So 60% voted for Labour, the Lib Dems, Sinn Fein, the SDLP, Plaid and the SNP. That, to me, says that Britain is liberal-left country and legitimises a liberal-left government.

It really is time to move to Norway.

Goodbye, Gordon

How do I feel about Gordon Brown's resignation as Prime Minister and party leader? Ambiguous, I think. When he and Blair took over the Labour Party, I already distrusted Blair, but hoped that Gordon's background in proper Scottish socialism would keep the party honest.

On that, I was totally wrong. As Chancellor, Brown seemed to see it as his duty to make the Labour Party safe for bankers, speculators and associated charlatans. Pension contribution holidays continued, regulation was almost abolished, tax rates on banks, hedge funds and speculators were slashed (hedge fund traders pay tax of 18%: their cleaners pay 20%). The eocnomy was run on the fantasy maths of the city while manufacturing was allowed to die. Brown supported every rightwing dream of the authoritarian Fabian faction - illegal wars, ID cards, nuclear weapons, the lot. He saved the economy after the crash, without a doubt, but he saved capitalism rather than saving us, because he long ago lost his ideological and moral compass.

And yet, and yet. There's a personal tragedy here. I don't care about the gibe that he was never elected as PM: nor was John Major or Margaret Thatcher. Nobody is, technically: he's elected as an MP and the biggest party chooses. The tragedy is the way in which an intelligent, passionate and committed man sold his soul for power, then found himself unable to wield that power effectively. The struggle to succeed broke him, distorted him, hollowed him out. Sometimes, we're told, he's a loving, jolly man in private. Perhaps, and perhaps he'd have won and governed well.

Let's not forget, too, that he suffered the misery of a dead child, yet had to continue in office and political life as though it had no effect. A few years ago, a Swedish prime minister took time off for depression. How sad that our own political system is so staggeringly immature that a period of mourning and recovery would have been depicted as weakness. Sad, too, that his near-blindness and partial deafness were points of mockery.

I'm sorry for him on a personal level, and I'm sad that a man with such potential wasted it all. The cliché is that all political careers end in failure. For poor Gordon, his started in the same way. He's both brilliant at small politics (you don't get to be PM without eating a lot of rubber chicken and burying plenty of daggers in friends' backs) and useless at big politics: tone deaf when it comes to public opinion (e.g. the 10p tax, and ID cards) and incapable of communicating effectively ('bigot-gate').

Will Britain and the world be better off without him? I wish it were so, but I see no heavyweight intellectual in the Labour Party - the Cabinet is a collection of bitter losers and degenerate children of Blair, obsessed with presentation and power, yet lacking principle. John McDonnell for PM!

Steve Bell's election morning cartoon

Why we need Proportional Representation

I think a basic requirement for a democracy is that the party distribution of elected members represents the votes cast. Although PR possibly breaks the constituency link which gives citizens an identifiable local representative, it needn't be the case.

Some people say that PR allows extremist parties in. Firstly - you can limit seats only to parties with 5% of the national vote, but more importantly, SO WHAT? The point of democracy is that you should get who you vote for. If your electorate is a stupid bunch of bigots, you get a bigoted government: unless you make a concerted effort to defeat them electorally and intellectually. If that doesn't work, you can always begin the armed struggle!

Someone clever has calculated the election results as they'd have been under PR and the intermediate system, Alternative Vote. The results are shocking. Blue = Tory scum, Red = Labour class traitors, Yellow = Liberal Democrat splitters, first green = Scottish National Party, second green = Plaid Cymru and the last column is 'others' (Northern Irish parties, Greens etc). Note that under any other system, we'd have a stable Labour-Lib Dem coalition today.

FPTP: TOTALS	307	258	57	6	3	19
AV: TOTALS	281	262	79	5	3	20
STV: TOTALS	246	207	162	13	4	18

Sun burned

This is from the Guardian's live election blog. It's worth repeating as a demonstration of the way certain elements of the media have deliberately discarded the notion of reporting new in favour of trying to distort the public sphere:

The Sun is looking a bit daft this morning. Alongside the headline "Fears for £ as Gord hijacks Lib talks" (on the print edition), its frontpage splash says markets are expected to dump the pound today following Gordon Brown's attempt to stop David Cameron forming a government.

DEFEATED Gordon Brown yesterday sparked fears of a City meltdown after trying to hijack a Tory-Lib Dem deal for a unity government.

His bid to rise from the dead by persuading the Lib Dems to prop him up raised the prospect of a stock market "Brown Monday".

If this is a Brown Monday, let's have more of them. As I write, the stock market is up 5%. And sterling is up 1.2% against the dollar.

Stuff the markets

I've been getting increasingly irate over the weekend by the sight and sound of bond market traders and bankers telling the media (and thus us) how our next government should spend our money. Politicians are (rightly) terrified of the markets, which pass judgement on political decisions by selling or investing in the currency and government-issued debt, which is how day-to-day state spending is financed.

The world's a more complex place than I'd like: the markets exist and to some extent are useful, but we're in danger of losing democracy, simply because some very rightwing people accountable to nobody are happy to bankrupt countries they don't like. They aren't 'rational actors' of the type deified in economics textbooks: they attack liberal and socialist governments.

Even if you think this is OK, remember this: the ratings agencies which are bankrupting Greece and may turn their attention to the UK are the very same people which told us that Enron, the Icelandic banks, credit defaults swaps and all the other insane financial instruments were absolutely fine. They're not just vicious, selfish capitalist scum, they're utterly incompetent.

Added to this is the fact that they're paid to cause short-term moves in the bond and currency rates (ruining a country's currency or bond yields is as profitable as boosting them) and you have a recipe for selfish destructiveness in the fiscal system. Who loses? Governments which need to pay pensions, build new hospitals or schools without waiting for the next tax year.

Let's remove them. Let's organise the IMF and World Bank to trade debt instruments between sovereign nations. Some of my readers know much more about this than I do: are there ways to circumvent these bastards?

A national hangover

How was the election for you? I gave up somewhere around 5 a.m. or so. I'm in an extremely bad mood and likely to remain so for the next five years: it looks like the Tories are going to form a minority government, tempered slightly by the knowledge that they can be defeated in Parliament at any point.

Gallingly, the Tories won The Dark Place by 691 votes. I'm scrutinising passers-by, wondering whether they're amongst this bunch of traitors. This city is a monument to the depredations of Conservatism, and now they've been invited back to deliver the coup de grace. Rob Marris cared for, and fought for, my university. A Tory MP won't give a damn.

What's astonishing about Paul Singh Uppal, the victorious Tory candidate here, is how little information is available about him. The Tory webpage is incredibly patronising: apparently we should vote for him because he supports Wolverhampton Wanderers (it doesn't say for how long, and he fought a seat in Birmingham last time) and he doesn't like crime! No policies, no career details (another page says he 'runs his own business' which doesn't help): he clearly has a lot to be ashamed of and I'd like to know what. I've sent him a list of questions - let's see if there's any reply. He makes a passing reference to being a fresher at Warwick university, but there's nothing substantial. He thinks the answer to a massive public sector deficit (caused by bailing out the bankers who've just paid for the Tory victory) should be: tax cuts for businesses despite repeatedly calling for more money to be spent on public services!

He also hates racial equality legislation and can't use apostrophes properly:

 The Race Relations Circus 

…the McCarthyistic mouth foaming utterances of the race relations industry, which through accusation alone can slay political careers and stifle well intentioned and principled debate. I say this because I have seen with my very own eyes the modus operandi of this circus, employing individuals to perpetuate this climate of political correctness. In reality this industry/business does dreadful damage to Britain’s race relations. It seems more concerned with securing it’s own funding streams and non jobs for it’s membership of zealots. The cost of this is all is so much more than financial, as we lose decent people and gag those who point to the emperor’s new clothes. 

Last night was a series of hammer blows as reactionary, frightening Tories defeated good and bad Labour and Liberal candidates alike. My beloved Plaid Cymru fared poorly, as did the SNP and the Lib Dems.

There are some bright spots: if the Tories can't win an outright majority in the midst of the worst depression for decades and the most unpopular prime minister ever, then they're in deep trouble. Mark thinks this is the last Tory administration - I'm not convinced but it's an intriguing prospect.

The Green victory in Brighton was a bonus too, though I wish she'd beaten a Tory instead of a Labour candidate. Actually, my emotional reaction to Labour defeats was a surprise. I despise the government so much that I thought a degree of sang-froid would be the order of the day. Instead, wave after wave of depression hit me. Not because I'll miss the New Labour faction which lobotomized the left, but because I know what will reward all these new Tory voters: more poverty for the poor, privatisation, deregulation, cuts in public services and a country which will become a playground for the unproductive rich, the tax-evaders who funded the Tory campaign and endless assaults on the BBC in the cause of Murdoch. Fewer medics, longer queues, worse schools for ordinary people, universities like mine attacked or even closed.

The Lib Dems might restrain the worst impulse of the Tories, but let's be clear: we're in for a miserable time, and our rulers will not care, because their purpose in life is to consolidate their own power and reinforce inequality to reward 'winners' in our disgusting and selfish economic system.

The other bright spot was the puncturing of the media bubble: the newspapers all chose candidates and plugged them relentlessly, and it made no difference at all. The Tories had the Murdoch press (The Sun, News of the World, The Times, The Sunday Times), the Financial Times, the Telegraph, the Sunday Telegraph, the Daily Mail, the Mail on Sunday, the Express and the Sunday Express. The Lib Dems had the Observer and the Guardian, while Labour had The Mirror and the Sunday Mirror. Despite all this, the Lib Dems gained 1% of the vote (and actually lost seats, thanks to our rotten system) and the Tories only gained 3-4%. So it's time for the media to shut up and stop being so self-aggrandising.

Apart from exhaustion, I'm utterly numb with despair. There's a progressive majority in this country, but we're going to get a reactionary government which openly despises the poor, the working-classes and progressive values. We're in for years of social darwinism, xenophobia and bigotry.

Shock Labour lead in Stumville South West

It's election day, for Liberal and Labour voters - Tories get to vote tomorrow.

Labour surged into a 100% share of the vote this morning, exit polls show. By 7.01, the voter had decisively swung behind Labour in this Labour-Tory marginal. When asked why, he replied 'because although Labour have betrayed the people on everything from illegal wars to civil liberties, they did bring in the minimum wage and Sure Start. And anyway, David Cameron is Sauron and I don't fancy working in Mordor'.

OK. The voter was me and nobody else had yet turned up. The Guardian's claiming an 8% lead for the Tories, which wouldn't quite give them a majority, but we'll see: national swings don't count for much in a constituency-based system. They may be doing better in their target marginals, which is bad news, and worse in their Lib Dem targets, which is good news.

The Tories look like getting 35% of the vote. If true, that's an awful result for them. Under Michael Howard, generally loathed, running against Blair (still inexplicable popular), they took 33%. If Cameron can't improve hugely on that, with his personal skills, apparent transformation of the party, in the middle of a massive depression and running against Gordon Brown, then he's an idiot. They should have had the result sewn up years ago. How have they blown it?

I didn't cast my vote for Labour with any enthusiasm. My local MP, Rob Marris, has been an excellent constituency representative and very good on university issues, but he's voted for every reactionary proposal New Labour has dreamed up. Yet again, it's a matter of voting for the 'least worst'. I actually would be very happy with a Lib Dem-Labour coalition: the Lib Dems would tame Labour's authoritarian, reactionary streak, and Labour would rein in the Lib Dems' concealed neoconservative economic policies. However, Rob gets my vote for his personal qualities too.

All the newspaper front pages are here.

I'm reading The Spirit Level at the moment, a social science book for the rest of us, which conclusively demonstrates that unequal societies are sick, violent and mentally ill. Not just the poor in unequal societies, but the rich are less healthy and happy too. I've learned a couple of things from it: I need to move to Norway, and that Cameron's Big Society is utter, utter bullshit. His tax policy - in the deepest recession for 70 years - is to cut taxes for the super-rich. This will make the UK more unequal, and therefore sicker and more violent. Drink and drug dependency will increase and quality of life will suffer. But hey: toffs will be able to rip apart foxes again.

Follow this link for a presentation of the most important graphs proving the points made in the book.

Place your X (-Factor) here

Today's newspapers are depressing: moronic, manipulative and arrogant (The Express: 'Only David Cameron Can Save Britain' FFS). The worst is The Sun, that racist, reactionary mouthpiece of Rupert Murdoch. Bored with mindlessly cheerleading for David Cameron and worried that it won't scare voters away from Brown and Clegg enough, they've turned to… reality TV.

Most depressingly of all: Cowell's on record claiming never to have voted. But in the minds of Murdoch and his executives, that doesn't matter. He's famous, and Sun readers know who he is. Therefore they should do what he says.

I give up. I'm also ashamed that I, and you, know who he is.

Bye bye England…

I've been mightily impressed by Plaid Cymru and the Scottish Nationalist Party during this electoral cycle, and they're clearly working well together.

So I have a cunning plan. Instead of aiming for complete independence for Scotland and Wales, they should campaign for English independence, then form a federal Republic without England (Northern Ireland can finally join the Republic of Ireland). Result: paradise. And the two nations together would trump England when it came to  deciding who got the United Nations Security Council seat. Then we'd see a much more mature world order.

There's no down side - other than for England, which would be stuck with a Tory majority for ever…

Gordon the Big Engine and Henry the Green Engine

Prompted by a mention on the radio yesterday, I dig out my old Rev. W. Awdry railway books, and discover that Gordon the Big Engine is competitive, surly, a dependable workhorse who hates to be beaten, and often the butt of jokes by flashier engines. He always gets through in the end, and is always at the heart of rescue operations.

Gordon's important position as the engine who usually pulls the Express has made him proud, pompous and arrogant, with good reason, too; he is the strongest engine on Sodor after all.Because of his rank in the social order of the North Western Railway, Gordon expects to get the important jobs and either sulks when he doesn't, or gets jealous of those who do. Sometimes, Gordon acts as a bully… Sometimes Gordon shows a kinder side and gives the younger engines advice, usually after he has had some mishap as a result of his foolhardiness. Some of his advice isn't exactly honest, though, as James and Sir Handel have discovered.

Amongst his rivals is Henry the Green Engine. Henry is vain, spiteful, patronising and snobbish, and winds Gordon up something rotten. He was owned by Sir Topham Hatt. He's painted green but burns coal, very inefficiently. Completely coincidentally, he looks like David Cameron.

Here's a moral tale about poor Gordon: