The Morality of Political Opportunism

When something appalling happens there is often a rush to find an explanation, something nice and easy that will return life to normal.  Thus the murderers of Jamie Bulger were driven to it by watching violent horror films, as was Michael Ryan who committed the Hungerford massacre.  Rapes are caused by the victim wearing short skirts and tight tops and entering dangerous situations.  Muggings by being in that part of town at that time of night.  

And a father kills his children because of the welfare state.

I have never been so pleased that I have never voted conservative or bought a copy of The Daily Mail or so ashamed of being English as I have been this week what with first the Mail, then closely after the Chancellor and the Prime Minister, stating and hinting that the reason Mick Philpott killed six of his children is because of the welfare state.  Let us be clear about this.  This is what they have said.  They have maintained that those children are dead and died horrifically because of child benefit.  They are, of course, wrong.  Those children are dead because an evil man set fire to their home as part of a custody dispute.  To use this as an argument against the welfare state is like using the Fred West murders as an argument against cowboy builders*.

*And if you find that essay into black humour inappropriate, then kindly consider the inappropriateness of using dead children as political ammunition

I note that some commentators are trying to distance themselves from this.  They are trying to claim that these killings highlight, in some way, issues about welfare payments.  But that is not what was said.  The Daily Mail stated and Osborne and Cameron hinted that there is a causal link between these deaths and the benefits system.  Do you get child benefit?  Then you’re a danger to your children.  What they have said is as simple as that.  Do they believe it?  Apparently not.  But they said it and therefore they can only have done so to shore up a political argument.

Think about it.  Consider it.  Be appalled at what has happened to us.  This dreadful tragedy occurs and the reaction is to use it as a way to popularise a controversial political policy.  Then wonder at the moral corruption that allows it.  It is truly despicable.  Those who looked to use the bombing of the Twin Towers as an opportunity to criticise the foreign policy of the USA were rightly excoriated.  So must those who do the same with this case.

It is sad that the right wing of this country has fallen into such moral depravity as to use the killing of children to make cheap political points but it is the case and anyone right of centre has the burden upon them to reverse this.  If you buy The Daily Mail you are complicit.  If you intend to vote Tory and have not contacted your MP/local party to complain about this behaviour you are complicit.

And may God forgive you.

Fighting Back: the Newcastle Labour Party Way

So back to the Civic Centre to view Newcastle’s Labour led council debate the budget which will, inter alia, close down a number of branch libraries and a couple of respite care homes, Newcastle City Pool and Turkish Baths.  As you may remember, I attended a previous meeting as recounted here.

Unable to get into the public gallery this time, I watched from the Banqueting Hall where a video link had been established.  This did actually have its advantages.  The camera not only showed the person speaking but the one behind them as well and so we were cheered by the sight of a tory councillor apparently spending the entire evening when not actually speaking engrossed in a book.  A labour councillor at one point seemed to receive what was, from his expression, disconcertingly odd news by text.  But that is by-the-by.

So what did we learn this time?  Well, the labour councillors are still blaming everyone else for all this but at least this time they are angry at what the Government wants them to do.  They are very angry.  They are incandescent with fury.  They are so angry that they are going to…

…do exactly what they’ve been told to and a bit more.

This is a new approach to defiance that had not previously occurred to me.  It would certainly have made the film 300 shorter (and world history probably somewhat different) if Leonidas and his Spartans had defied Xerxes and the Persian horde by escorting them into Greece, possibly waiting for them at Thermopylae holding up a little sign reading ‘Xerxes/Persians’.

NB That last picture is of Councillor Nick Forbes, the council leader.  The joke doesn’t really work if you don’t know that.*

*nor if its not actually funny.  Yes all right, pedants

When the labour councillors were not being angry, they were being sad.  One was so sad she was dressed in black, because she was in mourning for what she had to do you see, as she explained to us.  In fact she was so sad that she burst into tears.  Now I’m sure the gesture was well-meant and that the tears were genuine, but the harsh fact is that in politics gestures and tears are meaningless without action.

It was not all bad news.  The two respite care centres in Heaton have apparently been saved and that is brilliant, no question.  Unfortunately, at least two councillors (including Forbes) decided to sneer at us who had been campaigning for the libraries for, as they hinted heavily, putting our luvvie interests and hobbies over the plight of desperate children and their carers.

Now as someone who has extensive personal knowledge of the importance of respite care I could start announcing loudly how upset I am, how insulting such insinuations are to me, how callous etc etc.  I could even start crying.  But I won’t.  I just sigh and wish for an opportunity to tell these two councillors that the reason politicians are held in contempt is because they behave contemptibly.

The debate lasted for over four hours and labour councillor after labour councillor stood up to denounce the Coalition and, occasionally, us.  Then, at twenty to eleven on Wednesday the 6^th of March 2013 the budget proposals were approved in their entirety and a labour council settled back to do the Government’s work for it.

Actually, I lied.

I really could weep.

The Wearisome Writer

Terry ‘dreary’ Deary is in the news at the moment having made a number of remarkably stupid comments about libraries. 

He’s now in a sulk because he’s been called on them and seems to be backtracking a bit.

I’ve had my eye on that one for a while, ever since I discovered that he’s a Shakespeare sceptic – he reckons Will was too lower class to be a good playwright and thinks the plays were written by Christopher Marlowe after faking his own murder because that is so much more probable.  It’s all there in The Slimy Stuarts volume of the Horrible Histories.  My distaste for him deepened when I found out that when he was invited to open a local museum, he gracelessly gave a speech about how boring museums are.

It is of course because of the Horrible Histories that Deary’s pathetic pronouncements are news.  I have read a good few of them and, apart from the Shakespeare scepticism, liked them.  I enjoy the TV series as well – not least because Deary’s involvement is restricted to an occasional cameo.  However, there is a forgotten figure in all this.  One who I think is a major factor in the success of the books.  That is the illustrator.  He’s called Martin Brown

and the books would not work nearly as well without his contributions.

I do hope he gets a percentage of the royalties.

So, boo to Deary who stands revealed as the little bore we all avoid in the pub and here’s to Martin Brown and the makers, writers and performers of the TV series.

Let’s finish on a song:

Think locally, act noisily

Well that, unlike a Steven Poliakoff television series, was interesting.  A couple of nights ago I found myself at a council meeting for the first time. For why?  Well, a public petition against the library closures here in Newcastle had gathered over 2, 500 signatures thereby automatically triggering a debate in the chamber.  Now as a signatory of that and specific library petitions and as someone who, as my facebook friends are glumly aware, is keen on keeping libraries open, I thought I might attend.

It turned out I was not alone.

Now, it has often been pointed out that Newcastle Civic Centre bears a certain resemblance to a James Bond Villain Lair from the ‘60s

and I will not argue with that.  However, while James Bond Villain Lairs always seem to have plenty of space for minions, tanks of piranhas, rockets and, on one occasion, two nuclear submarines, the Newcastle Council Chamber has a surprisingly small public gallery.  Say fitting about fifty to sixty people. 

This turned out to be awkward as rather more turned up.  Say about one hundred.*

*And before anyone starts saying ‘that’s not very many’, may I point out that this was at 6 o’clock on a bitterly cold February evening and was also more than the original architects had ever planned for

Well, by virtue of being near the front, I got in but about forty to fifty people were left in the stairwell.  I offered to stand leaning against the wall but was firmly told by an official that I could not.  I asked why but answer came there none.  It was also apparent that there were empty seats at the back of the chamber, on the same level as the councillors.  At first we were told that they were for the disabled only until it was pointed out that there were abled people sitting there as well.  We were then told that it was a Health & Safety issue which does rather raise the question that if there is a strict H&S limit on the number of people allowed on the chamber floor, why has seating been provided for an unsafe number?  Mayhaps the council decides its postings by dint of musical chairs and so need a few maneuverable seats for the purpose?  I would not like to ask.

So it was, by the time the first of the public petitions were due to be debated, many of the people who wanted to hear could not get in.  One chap voiced his objections strongly, pointing out that there were forty people who couldn’t get in.  The Mayor, who was chairing the meeting, told him to be quiet.  He objected again and was again told to be quiet.  Now other members of the public began to shout queries about why couldn’t people use the chairs downstairs and despite being the Mayor telling us very firmly that this was not acceptable, the shouts continued.

So she ordered that the public gallery be cleared.

Nothing happened.

So she ordered it again.  Again, no one moved.  The couple of officials who were on the scene looked unhappy and I found myself trying to remember passive resistance techniques.  Sadly my dreams of being the new Rosa Parks were dashed when the Mayor then announced that the meeting was adjourned.

Then I booed.

I booed the Lord Mayor of the City of Newcastle upon Tyne.

For someone brought up on Trumpton, I’m still having difficulty processing this. 

In my defence though, I doubt the Mayor of Trumpton would have handled the meeting with such maladroitness.

Anyway, after about ten minutes, the meeting was opened again with a few people allowed to sit in the mysteriously unnecessary chairs on the chamber floor.  The Mayor gave us in the gallery a breathtakingly patronising and condescending ticking off for our appalling behaviour earlier.  We were naughty naughty members of the public and she was not going to put up with our shenanigans.  If I hadn’t still been in middle class culture shock for the boo, I’d have been tempted to make one of those sarcastic ‘whooo’ noises that teenagers do.  The chap who started it all off continued shouting that there were still people who could not get in and why could we not move to the banqueting hall which, apparently, has plenty of space.  He was told to shut up, then ignored and was finally persuaded away by an official.

Finally we got to the public petitions, the reason for the debate, the reason why the debate was happening and why so many people had turned up.

There were (and I can’t get hold of any official details of the meeting so forgive me if I’ve got this wrong) five of them.  Now, each one had to get a minimum of 2, 500 signatures to spark the debate.  So, that means an absolute minimum of  12, 500 signatures.  Even if you allow for a massive amount of duplicate signatures and casual signatures (‘yeah sure mate I’ll sign’) that is a lot of people.  Did it not occur to anyone that a fair number of those signatories might turn up for the debate?  By the reaction of the Mayor and councillors, apparently not.

Anyway, each petition was presented and debated.

It’s all the government’s fault.

That was all we got from the Labour councillors who spoke.  Well, apart from a severe finger-wagging from one councillor,* who seemed to be in charge of setting the budget, at those of us who signed the libraries petition for allegedly not reading it properly.  The implication seemed to be that we were the hopelessly naïve dupes of someone or other.  Way to ensure my vote Councillor!

*as stated I can’t get official details of the meeting and I don’t want to get her name wrong so I won’t give what I heard it as

I don’t know if council leader Nick Forbes, the T Dan Smith de nos jours, was present.  If he was, he didn’t speak.  I have read several interviews with him where he bemoans that his hands are tied, that he hates what he has to do but it is all because of the massive and disproportionate cut in the central government grant and until that meeting, I had a fair amount of sympathy for that position.

Not now.  While it would be unfair to say that the labour councillors present were revelling in the cuts, it is fair and accurate to say that they showed not one jot of regret or unhappiness at what they are planning.  At no point did anyone say anything along the lines of ‘we hate having to do this, but our hands are tied’, instead fingers were pointed at the opposition councillors, at the government, at us who had signed the petitions, but never at themselves.  I had not thought that my contempt for the Labour Party could go any lower after the invasion of Iraq, but the Newcastle Labour Party managed it.  Those who acknowledged the presence of the public at all did so tetchily or fearfully.  The rest kept their backs firmly against us.  I do not know what they believe their role to be, but it certainly does not seem to involve fighting for the interests of the people of Newcastle.  This city is under a second appalling attack by a foul Tory-led administration, and they are rolling over and letting it happen.

They may want to be seen as martyrs but they in fact collaborators.

And finally, because this is by far the longest blog I’ve ever written (I am happy to go into more details of what was said etc, ask in the comments if you're interested, I made notes), always remember this catechism:

We could afford the Olympics: we can afford libraries and respite homes

We could afford the Royal Jubilee: we can afford respite homes and libraries

We could afford a Royal Wedding and we can afford a Royal Christening: we can afford respite homes and libraries

We can afford Trident: we can afford libraries and respite homes

We can afford to become militarily involved in Mali: we can afford libraries and respite homes

                                                 and all together now

We can afford a tax cut for top earners: we can most certainly afford respite homes and libraries!

This is not an economic issue, it is a political one.

The First Supper

Here’s a first.

As the more alert of you will be aware, last Friday was Burns’ Night and that was a good thing, not least because for the first time I gave a Burns’ Night Supper.  If you’re not aware of this tradition, and it’s one that I suspect Burns himself would have mercilessly mocked, it consists of Scottish people dining on haggis, neeps and tatties (swede and potatoes) while someone recites Burns poetry and someone else plays bagpipes unless forcibly restrained.

Actually I quite like the sound of bagpipes.  Or a solitary bagpipe to be precise.  Mass pipe bands, less so.  My late father who delighted in his Scottish heritage would occasionally give me a record of the Argyll Regiment Pipe Band or some such and this put me off that particular musical niche for life.  Though with the glorious lack of taste that only a small child can muster, I did adore Scotch on the Rocks.

But these days, I prefer the solitary pipe, preferably lamenting something.

So, at the request of an Eastern European of my acquaintance who is interested in the ethnography of her adopted country, I put together a rather scratch Burns Night Supper.  I gave the Selkirk Grace* and poured out some whisky while some cove in a kilt recited an appropriate poem.  We missed out on the appallingly winsome sounding ‘Toast to the Lassies’ and ‘The Lassies Reply’ though I did find a youtube clip of an arch middle aged gentlemen giving the toast but as he was so remarkably fat** I was obliged to drown him out with a rousing chorus of ‘Who Ate All the Haggis’.

*Some have meat but cannae eat

And some have none but want it.

But we have meat and we can eat,

So may the Lord be thankit

**And I’ll never be asked to pose for a campaign about the dangers of over-dieting

And then it settled to an evening of Corries and Silly Wizard CDs interspersed with a blast of Paul McCartney’s Mull of Kintyre which my dining companion had adored as a six year old.  I refer you to my above comments about music appreciation among the under-10s.  This led to quite a lot more whisky.

And so it ended.

What did I learn?  That obtaining a haggis in central Newcastle is surprisingly hard given we’re only about 100 miles away from the border.  I mean, I know the Scots besieged the city but that was coming on for four and a half centuries ago and there is such a thing as holding a grudge for too long.  I learned that it is possible to steam a haggis, boil potatoes and then suedes when only one ring on your cooker works.  You boil the veg in the boiling water that’s steaming the haggis of course.  I found out that Burns really should not be recited in an English accent and finally, according to the radio the next day, I found out that I probably got the grace wrong.

Still, the haggis was nice.

A Christmas Tale

A Christmas tale for you:

A CHRISTMAS PRESENT

AND so it was, that Christmas Eve, that he was visited by three spirits.

            The first showed him his past. Showed him how happy he had been before disappointment and circumstance had soured him.  Showed him how many of those who had clustered about his childhood and young adulthood had made his life the easy and content one it had been.  Showed him how misfortune had been arbitrary and his bitterness unfounded.  Showed him that his success was the result of all those who had helped him along his way and how he was linked with all those he had shared his youthful years with, how he had not stood aloof and alone above them all.  Showed him how much he owed their kindness.

            The second spirit showed him the present.  Showered him with images of small and great kindnesses from high to low.  Showed his loathed wastrel relatives and cheating employees as human figures, not the simplistic caricatures that he had moulded of them in his mind.  This spirit foretold of the death of a child and showed him the orphans his people had created, the mewling miserable Want and the vicious spitting Ignorance.

            The third spoke not a single word, but took him forwards and showed him a lonely death, unmourned by any who knew him with squabbles over his inheritance and finally a neglected grave in a municipal cemetery, it’s green gravel slimy and noisome, the name on the stone almost, but not quite, illegible.

AND then he woke up.

            And it was Christmas Morning!  He had not missed it.  The spirits had done their work in one night.  And he rejoiced and promised to mend his ways.  And he turned on his computer and searched for a site that could deliver a prize goose that very day.

            There wasn’t one.

            And the good will chilled within him.  And he reminded himself that these were hard times.  He spoke to himself to the need to be realistic, to face up to the mess the last lot had left and of the unfortunate fact that hard times required hard policy.  And he realised that throwing money at a problem solves nothing and it was time that people stood on their own feet.  The memory of those who had helped him to his success faded to be replaced by his comforting assurance that his wealth was solely down to his own hard work.

            And still the good will chilled within him as he considered the fecklessness of those who had children they could not afford.  He rehearsed half remembered rows with his relatives, and recast them with himself as the misunderstood but nobly realistic hero.  He wondered when other peoples’ want and ignorance had become his problem.

            And the good will finally bled away as he considered the inevitability of his end and he told himself that while he might not be remembered with affection, he would be remembered with respect.

            And so chilled had his good will become that it spread to his heart and froze it so that it never could beat again.  Not once.

CHRISTMAS, as a rule, is not observed in Hell.  For sure some of the demons might put on paper hats, but their intention is more satirical than festive.  Presents are not swapped and good wishes, for rather obvious reasons, are not offered.  That would make a mockery of the whole thing.

            So it was, on his obsidian throne, Lucifer Morningstar sat and pondered.  Once the most beloved of the angels, before his rebellion and fall, he often became melancholy at this time of year.  But then he would shake out his leathern wings, give an arrogant flick to his left horn, making it ting, and continue ruling in Hell.

            This Christmas, however, seemed different.  He was finding it difficult to shake off his heavy inertia and get on with the torturing and punishing of the damnéd souls.  It all seemed so pointless.

            And then came a small still voice that only he could hear.  And after that came a golden glow that shone before his throne which faded to reveal the soul of a rich human who had let his arrogance and greed chill his heart to an absolute stop this very Christmas morn.

            And Lucifer Morningstar looked up to see the Celestial City that he alone in Hell could still perceive and whispered:

            ‘Thank you, it’s just what I wanted.’

‘A Christmas Present’ copyright © 2012 Alastair Chadwin

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

William Blake and Me

As those who have the misfortune to have spoken or otherwise been in contact with me in the last twenty-four hours may be aware, I have published a book.  It’s called The Fernal Files and you can get it here. 

While this is all very gratifying, it is essentially a self-published book and as anyone knows who paddles in the puddles of the literary life will know, self-published authors are the lowest form of life there is.  Several commentators on The Guardian website book section hold us in the deepest contempt.  And they have their reasons.  As I have said before, there is an also lot of rubbish fiction on the internet, I know, I’ve read some of and, God forgive me, written some as well.  Some self-publishers try to avoid this censure by calling themselves 'independent publishers' and fooling nobody.  Independent publisher is a mealy mouthed phrase like graphic novel in the comics world, used by people trying to hold onto the respect of their peers.  It rarely works. 

The unhappy aura of vanity publishing hangs over the self-publishing world as well*.  My worst ever reading experience (and I’ve read DH Lawrence) occurred when I was asked to look over a couple of vanity published books.  One was just dull, while the other, a sprawling fantasy, had trundled along its weary way for about fifty pages before the author suddenly announced that the preceding section actually belonged in a later novel, yet to be written, and then started again.  I did not join him.  Another reason is that, filled with unwarranted confidence in their skills, many self-publishers eschew such things as proof-reading and independent editing, which can make for a memorable, if not enjoyable, reading experience.  I have endeavoured to avoid such traps and got others to proof-read and edit my meretricious effort before inflicting it onto the public.

*The difference is subtle.  Basically, self-publishing is when the author does it him/herself, vanity publishing is when you pay a company to print it for you.

Amazon claim that you can be published in five minutes.  Far be it for me to doubt their tax avoiding word, but I cannot say that I found this to be the case.  It took about three to four hours.  Admittedly this included a trip to the bank to obtain a couple of highly obscure account numbers amazon required in order to pay me any royalties from the USA, as if, and the previewing does take a while to do, especially as you can’t jump around in the text so you have to go through the whole thing page by page.  Luckily my little effort is a novella.

So why do I open myself up to the sneers of the Guardianistas and the glum realisation that no-one really wants to read the bloody thing?  Sheer bloody arrogance plays a part.  The fact that the book is a novella told in the epistolatory form which I suspect would be a hard sell to any grown-up publisher is another factor.  But mainly it was because I have plans to grow this into a publishing operation and, like the scientist in a ‘50s horror film, I though it best to experiment first on myself.  Next year we shall be publishing a novel not written by me and so, in one leap, move up a tiny step of respectability from self-publisher to small publisher, maybe even to sunny uplands of small press.  And once you get there you can point to such luminaries as JL Carr and William Blake.

Anyway, must be away as there’s an angel in the garden wants a word.