They sickens you

Apropos of nothing, here's a 1992 Steve Bell cartoon which I have long loved (click to enlarge).

He drew it for the Guardian two days after the 1992 election in which John Major (John Major!) won a majority with far fewer MPs but the largest popular vote in British electoral history. Gramsci must have been turning in his grave… The cartoon exactly captures the shocked numbness I felt after the result. The poll tax was the worst imposition on the public since the Peasant's Revolt, and caused a widespread insurrection, and yet the bloody Labour Party couldn't scrape a victory against the party that instituted it.

The image references a Russian socialist cartoon from 1900, and an American version from 1911, after which it became a favourite on the left:

I remember the '92 election horribly clearly. I spent the Easter holiday in Rheims, on a desperate attempt to learn enough spoken French to scrape through the A-level. The sojourn consisted of horribly embarrassing exchanges with a family who had little interest in helping a withdrawn and incompetent visitor. It didn't help, either, that the le pére of the house was a gendarme who would wave his gun about muttering about les negres every time a black person's face appeared on the television which lived on the dining table. Two weeks of this, interspersed with classes in town in which my fellow learners muttered darkly about the prospects of a Labour victory (the apocalypse, apparently). Couldn't talk to the French because the non-racists were too busy laughing – and rightly so – at my shamefully bad French, couldn't talk to the British lot because they were vile Tory scum. 

I thought differently, having been accused of being a 'bloody Guardian reader' by my headmaster. I wasn't, but rapidly became one. I also joined the youth wing of Militant too, mostly for the annoyance factor. Getting the papers delivered to school guaranteed a weekly row which I quietly enjoyed. Not that it made much difference: several sixth-formers drove around the nearest council estate when the election result became clear, waving banknotes out of the window at the poor. Occasionally I Google people with whom I was at school, in the hope that they're dead, or in prison. One appeared on Newsnight recently talking about charity work, which must have required a massive personality transplant. Could be worse: my older colleagues with Oxbridge degrees know pretty much all the current political establishment. Ugh. 

I was just depressed. As a teenage Trot I knew that Kinnochio was a disastrous capitalist running-dog, but it was pretty obvious that we were in for many more years of corruption, poverty, misery and war. And I was right: 1992 was the first year I noticed the emergence of one T. Blair as shadow home secretary, already attacking people like Goebbels for not being tough enough on lawnorder… So it went. Having decided that a population which voted for Major must actually want economic deprivation, nuclear holocaust, the Daily Mail and all the other awful things of that period, the Labour Party decided to double down on the Tory model. Goodbye civil liberties, goodbye the public good, goodbye cohesive communities looking out for each other, goodbye diplomacy, goodbye civic society… Hello lobbying, wars, league tables, personal enrichment, corporate mega-greed, ATOS and pervasive surveillance. 

People occasionally ask me things like 'when did you get so gloomy'?, and the answer is 1992, when I started reading newspapers and paying attention. Anyway, I'm not cynical. Cynics stop caring. I'm depressed about everything that's happening because I do still care. 

There was one good thing about that trip to France. Sneaking into a bar underage (as if they cared) I saw my first music video. It was dark brown and angry and insistent – and a whole new world opened up.



Apologies for being so grumpy today. I've actually had a lovely time, working on my Foucault-Doctor Who-Trek paper with my co-writer, who managed not to tear my work up in disgust. Quite a result!

A Spotter's Guide to Conservatism

Have the Conservatives changed? Here are some old Steve Bell cartoons. You may want to click on them to enlarge

While listening to Tories eulogize Thatcher today, remember how ruthlessly they defenestrated her when the gloss wore off

Here's Bell's summary of Denis Thatcher's views: now official Conservative Party policy if you listen to Osborne, Camron, Gove et al. 

Satire then: reality now with some councils giving out Asda vouchers instead of emergency loans.

'And still you vote for us'. True then, true now. 

Dirty old town…

What is it about Birmingham that makes fat, bearded artists hate it so much? Edward Burne-Jones 'claimed he didn't know he had a soul until he left Birmingham', and said 'I can't think it matters at all how I paint or what I am if I ever had the baseness to be born in such a hole': he called it 'blackguard, button-making, blundering, beastly, brutal, bellowing, blustering, bearish, boiler-bursting, beggarly, black Birmm'. (All quotes from Fiona MacCarthy's magnificent - and massive - new biography of the Victorian medievalist artist.

Monsieur L'Artiste

Edward Burne-Jones

Over a hundred years later, Steve Bell, my favourite cartoonist, has a similarly dismissive approach - he recalled that after a year teaching art there, he resolved to a) never teach again and b) never visit Birmingham ever again (he'd 'rather live in a blocked toilet than live in fookin' Birmingham'. Since then, he's consistently drawn Birmingham as a network of dystopian flyovers and canals littered with dead dogs, floating paws-up. (Link above leads to full-size version).

Is Birmingham so bad? Yes, it's suffered the depredations of heavy industry, political oppression, the Luftwaffe, local planners, economic insanity and the cynical short-termism of property developers (if you think the Bullring complex is decent urban design, you're mad), but I rather like it. There are some decent pubs, identifiable 'quarters' that aren't the fantasy of some 'regeneration consultant', and an interesting identity which derives from a fascinating history. OK, it's ugly, damp and knackered - but from here in The Dark Place, it's the Shining City on the Hill.

Bring on the Penguins

It's the 30th birthday of Steve Bell's If…, his nasty, bitter, brilliant Guardian cartoon strip. I collect the books. Highlights for me are his policemen (corrupt bullies with a neat turn of phrase, all called Gerald 'Badger' Courage), his self-parody Monsieur L'Artiste, and most of all, the penguin family: Prince Philip of Greece (who'd 'do anything for a piece of fish'), Gloria, Cousin King Penguin and various others: Falkland Island refugees who mutate frequently: bigoted Tories one day, welfare-scrounging lowlife another, entrepreneurs the next, and quite often right-on lefty troublemakers.

Hurrah for Steve Bell.

Here's a selection:

On the banking bailout

The Albatrosses are the Argentinians

Full Marx

Steve Bell - genius cartoonist - has excelled himself today with his take on Cameron's economic philosophy:

Sailing into choppy waters

It's the Comprehensive Spending Review today, in which the Tory and Liberal Democrat government institute nakedly reactionary social and economic measures under the guise of dealing with the deficit. The poor, the weak and the hardworking will suffer. The rich and their businesses will not. Organisations like the BBC are being punished for their (relative) independence and for offering an alternative to the world of Fox News, while Murdoch and his friends will be rewarded for their loyalty.

Are massive cuts in welfare, environmental protection, education, housing, transport, the arts etc. justified? Not if you ask Nobel Prizewinner for Economics, Joseph Stiglitz. He, like virtually all expert economists and most government, thinks we should be boosting the economy, not sacking millions of people.

Still, what does he know? Abolishing the state worked brilliantly for Chile under the Pinochet dictatorship (as long as you don't look too closely). Until it didn't.

Frisk him, Judge

Steve Bell, as always, encapsulates the Saville Report perfectly:

Ask not for whom Bell tolls

Steve Bell, my absolute favourite cartoonist, has finally collected his work into one web archive - go there now if you're prepared to lose the rest of the day.

Here's his bitter response to the undeserved and unexpected Tory election win of 1992 - click for a larger image. Bell's put the big signature on the web version, so some detail is obscured. The bottom tier reads 'we are outrageous' and the bin reads 'but still you vote for us'. Think on…

Steve Bell: genius

(Nicked from the NSPCC's adverts)

Kneel before Steve Bell

As usual, Bell captures the horror of the Tories' hypocrisy perfectly. He's one of the justifications for The Guardian's existence.

He's on the phone…

Steve Bell has something to say about the News of the World phone hacking scandal. None of it is exactly secret - Private Eye has tracked this stuff for years, and all newspapers get involved. There is, and Bell hits it on the head, a huge amount of collusion between politicians, the civil service, the police and the media - why else would the Prime Minister, David Cameron and pretty much everybody you read about be at the wedding of the Sun's editor? There is an establishment, and it's in the open. There's no conspiracy - they all have the common aim of remaining in charge.

(click for a larger version or see it here).

Community payback

Steve Bell really is the new Gillray or Cruikshank. Today he imagines our leaders treating themselves as they treat poor people who nick another £10 from the social security…

Seumas Milne nails these bastards completely.

I buried this suggestion in an earlier post. Here's the version I just sent as a letter to the Guardian:

I have a solution for housing MPs which will reduce the opportunity for sleaze and produce social benefits.

Each MP will be loaned a council flat in London as their second home, preferably in the worst-built, highest-crime, least-maintained estate available. They will be offered the same facility in their constituency, though if they already own a home there, moving will not be required. Once the flat is furnished (and maintained) at reasonable expense, no further money will be provided. Living amongst the poorest citizens will keep the MP honest, remind them of their vocation, dissuade them from acquiring expensive white goods, encourage them to consider the most pressing social issues, and will surely lead rapidly to pressure on local authorities and agencies to improve living conditions for the people we consign to such places.

Pigs in pools

I'm loving this MPs sleaze story. Every news broadcast finds another red-faced cheat saying 'the system's totally rotten'. They all agree that it's totally rotten and has been for years. It's obviously a complete coincidence that they've realised it's open to corruption in the same week that a national newspaper paid some thief a lot of money for the details. Very brave.

I'm also enjoying it because the details reveal that the class structure is alive and well. All the New Labour class traitors are behaving like the 80s yuppies they so admire: John Prescott charged the taxpayer for some beams to make his house look more Fake Tudor. Others claimed for designer goods and posher houses. The dear old Tories, meanwhile, lived up to their image of Lords of the Manor by claiming for chandeliers and, my personal favourite, Douglas 'Viscount Hailsham' Hogg's MOAT maintenance. Isn't that wonderful? Presumably their are also claims for mantraps, armour-polishing, drawbridge oiling and jousting equipment. Michael 'Marquess of Lothian' Ancram, a millionaire many times over, charged the taxpayer for maintaining his swimming pool heater.

Other highlights:

Sir Michael Spicer - thousands for trimming his helipad.

James Arbuthnot - swimming pool cleaning paid for by us, despite the fact that he managed to pay for a £2 million house without even needing a mortgage.

David Davis: £5,700 on a 'portico' (essential to his work for the nation).

Essentially, the Tories appear to feel that their expenses are a kind of National Trust fund: they get a second, third or fourth stately home, and we get to pay for it.

(Paul Flynn, the honest, decent Welsh Labour MP, is similarly outraged).

You all know that I think Hazel Blears is the epitome of everything that went wrong with the left. It appears that Steve Bell agrees (click here for the original):

Bankers, the lot of them

The greedy bastards who bankrupted us while raking in billions to stash offshore are threatening to leave the country because taxes have been increased to pay for bailing the banks out - Steve Bell nails these destructive, selfish gits:

This is infuriating - Cameron's announcing 'the age of austerity' as though government waste has ruined us all. It hasn't. Saving the banks (Tories all) has sunk us, but Cameron's desperate not to mention his commitment to finance capitalism. It's such lazy, reactionary politics to blame big government for shortfalls - very Reaganite 1980s. We all like schools, decent hospitals and state pensions - let's be proud of paying for them.

Personally I'd have protected depositors and allowed the institutions to crash, but Brown et al decided this wouldn't be good for the economy. If goverment cutbacks are required: ID cards, nuclear weapons, the armed services in general, Department for Business (fewer businesses - fewer bureaucrats required to kiss their arses), properly nationalise trains rather than pay extortionate subsidies to franchises.