I’m back, and Boris is Mayor

This blog hasnt been as regular as I would have liked. Oh well, life gets in the way.

Anyways, perhaps it is time for rethink of subject matter to make it more interesting. From now on I think I may include the odd post purely on political/social theory (that is, my political and social theories). This is more the way I want things to go. At least I’ll still have something to write about if their is nothing interesting in the news.

I also want to include more humorous, personal stuff. Dunno what yet, as I’m not sure what aspects of my life are appropriate for general publication. We shall see…

And yet today there are interesting things in the newz! Boris is our mayor! For fuck’s sake, it depresses me that a majority of voters thought that he was a good choice. It is clear that he is in fact an over-educated, upper class buffoon, and I have yet to meet anyone who disagrees with this evaluation. I personally blame all those rich fuckers in North West London who turned out in force to vote against the congestion charge, who are doubtlessly also over educated, upper/middle class twats. Next person I meet who admits to voting Tory might just get a slap.

Look at him. Just look. What a cunt. What an irredeemable cunt!

Filed under: London Mayor , boris, general, London, London Mayor

alternative Mayoral candidates #2

This is the rather sexy Matt O’Connor, candidate for the English Democrats. To me he looks less like a prospective mayor and more like a camp funky house DJ from Essex – the kind you see on the CDJs down your local Illusions Nitespot. What is not so clear in this photo but is more obvious in the printed election materials is that he’s actually sporting some rather fetching blonde highlights.

Nevertheless, despite his slightly gay appearance, Matty is no lightweight campaigner. According to his website he is a “Designer, Author, Social Entrepreneur and Political Campaigner,” and the “founding father” of Fathers for justice (how many grandchildren does that give him?).

O’Connor’s election video is actually pretty stylish, at least compared to the Christian effort below. Despite his Jonathan Ross-esque vocal affectations, fast edits, chiaroscuro lighting and a prominent soundtrack give a cinematic glamour and urgency to his political rhetoric.

And what rhetoric it is, in perhaps the most derogatory, sophistical sense. He claims to remember England as it used to be, “a green and pleasant land where children were safe; a country that gave the world the English language, democracy and the Magna Carta.” Mr O’Connor has a long memory, Magna Carta was issued in 1215. One also wonders where else in the world he thinks the English language could have possible come from.

Matt actually has some interesting things to say about surveillance and the curtailment of civil liberties. He sees these as running counter to English notions of liberty and individual human rights. Unfortunately pegging such issues to ignorant nationalism does little to state their case. People like O’Connor discredit the libertarian movement.

Matt also has a massive chip on his shoulder about Scottish devolution, claiming that English voters subsidise cushty social policies north of the border. If what he says is true, this is another interesting area for debate. But O’Connor’s simplistic nationalism again mars the discussion, he spends more than half the video – remember, a party election broadcast for the London elections – whinging about the issue. Some of his campaign imagery verges on racism, according to fellow blogger ourkingdom.

It is difficult to see how the English democrats could position themselves as viable candidates in a city so multicultural as London. I am mixed race, while I’m happy to call myself British I would hesitate to call myself English, which I see more as an ethnic group. English branded things simply don’t have any appeal to me. Some 30% of Londoners are drawn from ethnic minority groups; what these people want is a candidate that promotes unity, rather than division. Matt O’Connor may have tasted fame with Fathers for Justice, he’s unlikely to with the English Democrats.

Filed under: London Mayor, Uncategorized , english nationalism, fathers for justice, London, London Mayor, politics

alternative Mayoral candidates #1

This is Alan Craig, councillor for Newham and candidate for The Christian Choice, a joint political venture from the Christian Peoples Alliance and the Christian Party. Frightening…

Alan promises to promote marriage and stable families as a long term solution to youth crime, educational underachievement and poverty. He also seems quite opposed to the construction of a so called ‘mega-mosque’ in West Ham that I’d never actually heard of.

According to Alan it is a terrible scandal. His Youtube video accuses the backers, an Islamic group called Tablighi Jamaat, of various seditious and treacherous activities, such as printing glossy pr brochures and failing to observe council planning laws.

He shows himself up as a bigot early on with his hasty translation of ‘jihad’ as ‘military service’. A quick Wikipedia search showed it to mean something more like ’struggle’ or ’striving’. In modern standard Arabic, the entry continues, jihad is one of the correct terms for a struggle for any cause, violent or not, religious or secular. The same terminology is applied to women’s liberation movements in the Arab world.

Like most UK Christians, Alan has all the presence of a cardboard cut out, and the rhetorical skills to match. In his party election broadcast he laments the “enormous sense of distrust that pervades

London” and attacks as its cause what he calls the “aggressive secularisation” of our political leaders and a market driven culture of greed. I don’t where he’s been for the last 10 years, but the sanctimonious Christian prattlings of Tony Blair, George Bush et al seem to have passed him by.

Alan seeks answers in the Bible, that well known handbook of town planning and local government administration. “It’s all about care,” he says, “Combatting poverty, respect for the elderly and unborn alike.” The spectre of London women having to go to Watford for an abortion looms…

Alan is big on Christian values and restoring traditional notions of family. To that effect he backs the work of churches in the community and generously promises £1000 to every couple getting married in the capital. In fact, it seems Alan sees these two policies as the answer to all of London’s ills. He has nothing to say on important areas like transport and policing, which have occupied the mainstream candidates.

I’ve never trusted Christians. To me they seem the most two faced of all religions: likely to burn you at the stake or torture you to death while harping on about forgiveness, brotherly love and the welfare of your eternal soul. At least with Al Qaeda you know where you stand. Like Al Qaeda, Alan Craig’s candidacy for Mayor is part of a worrying global trend towards religious tribalism. Politics should always be a secular enterprise, as personal religious beliefs are a matter of personal conscience. By allowing religious rhetoric into political discourse we risk going further down the road of a state that intervenes in the personal lives of citizens for their “own good.”

So far, UK Christians have not managed to attain the rhetorical skill and strong grass roots organisation of the Christian Right in the USA, so we have little to fear from them immediately. But their message is gaining ground in the British political discourse. Our political leaders are increasingly pious: Gordon Brown’s puritan injunction against supercasinos and increased taxes on alcohol are just the latest examples of the state’s attempts to save us fom our own vices.

Luckily, Alan is unlikely to win; but he is a sign that secularists need to stay on their toes.

Filed under: London, London Mayor , atheism, christians, islam, London, London Mayor, politics