hello all my faithful readers, erm.
this is a note to say that we’ve now changed identity and moved to a new url.
come check http://whosestreets.wordpress.com
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25 January 2009 • 23:34 0
telly’s broken!
Expect a massive increase in blogging and general creative productivity!
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16 January 2009 • 19:09 0
Faaacking Cants!
Class consciousness is alive and well amongst our rulers – sorry, I mean elected representatives – in Parliament.
As if bailing out their mates in the financial sector wasn’t brazen enough, now ministers are poised to exempt MPs and peers from having to publish details of their expenses.
Next week’s move, announced yesterday by leader of the Commons Harriet ‘Starvin’ Harman, reverses hard fought victories won by journalists and campaigners to force MPs to reveal the details of their expenses under Freedom of Information rules.
Details to be disclosed included claims for office staffing and equipment, furnishings, maintenance, travel, rent and even mortgage payments.
With the introduction of the new rules, members of both houses of Parliament will now be the only paid public officials who will not have to disclose full details of their expenses.
According to reports, Harman pressed for the changes to the rules after being lobbied by the Tories’ backbench 1922 Committee and the parliamentary Labour Party Committee.
Although, in theory, MPs are supposed to represent the interests of their constituents, they have shown time and time again that they are first and foremost interested in looking after themselves as a class.
Recently, David Cameron had to abandon plans to force Tory front benchers to give up their second (and third, and fourth) jobs, after realising the potential for a fierce backlash from his own party.
Conservative MPs are, of course, notorious for cynically lining their own pockets through whatever means necessary – a habit that has, unfortunately, spread throughout the entire Commons in the last couple of decades.
One Tory claimed, unconvincingly, that he and his colleagues needed to moonlight from their day jobs as representatives of the people in order to maintain their ‘middle class’ lifestyles.
Also recently, the government reformed tax rules to make the cut off point for the top rate of tax just above the rate of pay for a cabinet minister.
Consider the idea that politicians represent anyone beyond themselves and those who can enrich them comprehensively refuted.
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• 01:24 0
The Mace of Power!!!!
Rebel Labour MP John McDonnell shocked the world of parliamentary columnists today. Apopleptic with rage over the government’s unilateral decision over the new Heathrow runway, the MP for Hayes and Harlington grabbed the gilt silver mace off the central table in the commons, then carried it away and laid it to rest on the back benches.
The speaker promptly invoked some archaic ritual to ban McDonnell, whose constituency includes parts of Heathrow Airport, from the house for five days.
John Snow’s blog wondered whether the outburst really warranted such a harsh penalty. It’s all down to the historic rituals and traditions of Parliament, which are in themselves rather like the rituals and traditions of mid-range English public schools. Indeed, I bet McDonnell feels as though he has been suspended from school for a trivial but highly totemic breach of procedure – like stealing the school mascot.
Parliament’s mace is the symbol of the British sovereign, in both senses of the term. Constitutionally, all power resides in the monarch, ie the Queen. But in effect all power is exercised by the government through their majority of parliament; the Queen is in the rather envious position of being able reign without having to rule.
Due to complicated reasons of English history and the English tendency toward conservatism we never got to have a real republic in the UK, so the mace represents the power of the monarch devolved to parliament. Parliament can’t properly sit without the mace. Every morning when parliament opens the Serjeant at Arms brings the mace in, and every evening she takes it away again when they shut. It is hugely symbolic; it is the power of parliament.
So McDonnell was actually making quite a bold statement. In picking up the mace and carrying it to the labour backbenches he was actually questioning the government’s legitimacy. The symbolism of his protest suggests that he feels the government is no longer worthy of its control of the sovereign constitutional power of the state.
I took a look at McDonnell’s blog. I can’t understand why this guy is a Labour MP, as he seems to disagree with everything New Labour stand for. Still, it’s nice to see someone in Parliament who has a conscience, rather than the slick-fuck snakeoil salesman types that have become the new ‘political class’.
Unfortunately, the media have a way of deliberately ignoring those who present radical views, so I’m not too optimistic we’ll see that much more of McDonnell in the future.
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14 January 2009 • 22:23 0
January blues
Faaackin ‘ell! The Global Financial Fuck Up continues apace. While I haven’t bothered writing for a long time, rest assured that I have been keeping abreast of developments.
Two years ago who would have thought that the government would have taken control of such a massive chunk of the banking system? Who would have thought that businesses would be shedding jobs by the thousand every day? Who would have thought Woolworths, Land of Leather and Zavvi would have disappeared from our high streets altogether?
Actually it was all completely predictable, except anyone who made such predictions was shouted down by a chorus of neolib talking heads all over the media spectrum.
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