B(loody) P(etrol)

As BP continue to try and turn the Gulf of Mexico into a toxic shithole, here's what got Greenpeace's goat 25 years ago.

Have we moved forward since then?

And bitterandrew is a funny man.

Ride - Rapido x 2

Ride - Interview on Rapido - No.1 pwd: c4ctusm0uth

Ride - Interview on Rapido - No.2 pwd: c4ctusm0uth

Privately Educated Public Spending Cuts

"Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"

What is it with all you 'get out and vote' twonks?

This is what you have elected! 18 millionaires in a cabinet of 23 people.

How, in any way, shape or form, is that a representation of any class of British society other than the ruling one for fuck sake? It certainly isn't a random sample from the streets of Smalltown England.

So when you enter the booth what goes through your mind? "I'll vote for Ordinary Dave. He's a down-to-earth kind of fella" or perhaps you see your particular values and ideals more broadly associated with party dogma, Lib Dem say? Maybe your family have a long tradition with one party and you don't give it much thought?

Because whatever it was, you voted for a bunch of people for whom these sorts of cuts will have absolutely no impact whatsoever! They're millionaires stupid! And their mates! And their mates too!

Little Georgie Osborne telling us how the new government are, "Rolling up our sleeves, getting on with the job, working together in the national interest, delivering on our promises, getting a grip." T'riffic.

What he really means of course is, "The previous members of the ruling class bailed out the banks, we would've done the same. They ran the economy a particular way, we would've done the same. They got involved in two wars, we would've done the same. They would've made you pay the price for capitalism's crisis and now we will do the same."

Good job Britain! (And by 'Britain' I actually mean central and southern England.)

Zig Zag Jul 1978 - The Flamin' Groovies & 2.3

One Has Granted You Permission

Deputy PM Nick Clegg (still looks funny writing it) has announced a radical revamp of Blighty democracy. He is going to introduce the permission slip.

Obviously he isn't but somehow that is all it appears to amount to. Ordinary Dave, Oxford graduate and distant aristocrat, had a good old chin-wag with Ordinary Nick, Cambridge graduate and distant aristocrat, and they decided to give some rights back to the plebs. They decided, because they are in charge, to drop a whole load of the Orwellian New Labour shit.

Now I am not opposed to scrapping all the Orwellian New Labour shit but what irked me was the following:

"I'm talking about the most significant programme of empowerment by a British government since the great enfranchisement of the 19th century. The biggest shakeup of our democracy since 1832, when the Great Reform Act redrew the boundaries of British democracy, for the first time extending the franchise beyond the landed classes," he said.

Do you see? The people who we pay for and who allegedly work for us are "empowering us". They are giving "power" to us. How fickle democracy is that the people elected were pretty much always going to be in charge anyway. Hence Nick's confident spouting off. There speaks a man who knows he is never going to have to worry because of his class.

In 1832, much to the Tories disapproval, the system was made a little less corrupt. Now, 180 years later, maybe Nick is trying to make it a tiny bit more less corrupt and passing it off as the Big Society.

The BBC's House of Commons graphs had a couple of interesting entries:



Graph number 1 illustrates that 33% of current MP's attended a private school as opposed to 7% of the school population in England.

While graph 2 shows that where 90% of MPs have attended university, as opposed to 31% in the general population, a staggering 33% of those attended either Oxford or Cambridge.

Ordinary Dave and Ordinary Nick. Born to it and anything but ordinary.

Another Time

Another Time

For us like any other fugitive,
Like the numberless flowers that cannot number
And all the beasts that need not remember,
It is today in which we live.

So many try to say Not Now,
So many have forgotten how
To say I Am, and would be
Lost, if they could, in history.

Bowing, for instance, with such old-world grace
To a proper flag in a proper place,
Muttering like ancients as they stump upstairs
Of Mine and His or Ours and Theirs.

Just as if time were what they used to will
When it was gifted with possession still,
Just as if they were wrong
In no more wishing to belong.

No wonder then so many die of grief,
So many are so lonely as they die;
No one has yet believed or liked a lie,
Another time has other lives to live.

W H Auden

Zig Zag Jul 1978 - Doll By Doll & The Only Ones

Oh Dear, Oh Dear, Oh Dear

What General Election Result?

Looks like I really did overdo it with that first leaders debate. No posts for nearly a week. I think the shambles of the UK election result is, apart from highlighting what an utterly un-democratic system FPTP has always been, overshadowing the real news story of the moment: the EU bail-out fund. Sure the UK election is mildly diverting in its panto pretence of intrigue behind closed doors but ultimately you will still only have elected the captain(s) of the not-so-good ship Britain as she rides the rough and stormy seas of global capitalism. Whoever gets in will barely be able to steer the ship mind you. Its maiden voyage, started around the time of the Industrial Revolution, is essentially a one-way cruise following the capitalist course. There's no need for detours or alternate routes. As a result, the eventual government will be taking a particularly keen interest in the ongoing financial war against Greece. What appears to be happening is a bail out scheme similar to the ones that individual nations proscribed to save their banks but on a Europe wide scale, with enough money to prop up countries. When you start to view our global influence in those terms - shitting it about whether Moodys are going to downgrade our credit rating - then our governments complete irrelevance begins to take form. They can throw money and more money at the problem but if the financial markets don't buy the bluff and their oh-so-sought-after confidence remains low then Greece is fucked. And then they will look for the next scalp. Portugal maybe. Because I bet you that someone, somewhere is making money at this. But here in the UK we've got an election to resolve. A hung parliament doesn't exactly inspire confidence in the money guys. Gordon's resigned in what looks to be a concession to a possible Labour-Lib Dem pact. Nick Clegg has been meeting Dave Cameron for tea and tiffin. All the while they recite the mantra of the scared, "We will do whatever it takes to form a strong and stable government." Note: stable. Over in Greece they continue to watch their wages and pensions being cut while taxes and prices rise. Austerity measures to drastically reduce the public spending deficit. You know, like the public spending deficit that our 'strong, stable' government has to reduce. Before the credit ratings agencies open a wound and the investors catch the scent of our blood.

What General Election?

Apparently there's an election going on. I can't say I have paid much attention to it. It must have been watching that first 'leaders debate' that did it. I OD'd on indifference to mainstream politics in one sitting and now I am going cold turkey.

The whole sorry charade would be funny if it weren't so banal and predictable.

If you don't live in a marginal then feel free not to leave the sofa. Try not to get too mesmerised by Dave's "change" mantra or allow yourself to be drawn in by Gordon's "trust in me". Mustn't forget the other blokes "we're different from them". Of course they are. Convince yourself, if you do vote, that you really are making a difference and that your party, whoever they may be, will make everything alright. Oh, and remember to have your political voice heard in another five years time... (Council elections notwithstanding of course)