Showing posts with label Conservatives. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Conservatives. Show all posts
Monday, 21 March 2016
Wednesday, 7 October 2015
Sunday, 3 May 2015
Ajockalypse Now
I'm being treated to a day away from my keyboard so I only have about fifteen minutes to unwrap this morning's news before I have to head for the train.
I've just read Boris Johnson talking about Milband in The Sunday Times and I'm not sure which part of the argument I liked the least. We have more baiting of Scotland with the headline phrase 'Ajockalypse Now', which might make a few people smile but I just frowned. It's more of that tactic we've seen at this election of deliberately winding up Scottish voters so they're even more pissed with the established Westminster parties. The more Tories wind up the Scottish, the stronger the SNP's hold is Scotland becomes and the weaker Ed Miliband's position in Westminster. I'm not Scottish, though my grandmother was, but I still find it shabby and insulting. I have no doubt that Boris would be making similar jokes if the election was going to be decided by voters in the north or the south west, or any area other than the great South East who seem to be the only people that really matter in this and every election.
Secondly, Boris came out with this gem. "Ed Miliband fundamentally doesn’t believe in the market. I don’t believe there’s any aspect of capitalism that he seems to relish or approve of."
Ignore what Miliband might or might no believe. Think instead about the thing that Boris seems to hold as an unquestionable truth. His faith in capitalism sounds almost religious. Why should anybody 'believe' in the market as though the market were some omnipotent being? I don't believe in the market but I can see that it exists. I can see also, in certain contexts, that it works extremely well. However, I can also see that the market is often deeply flawed and that's my problem with the current Tories: they seem to believe that society should be entirely aligned to the market.
Working on something else the other day, I came across Simon Mainwaring's book We First: How Brands and Consumers Use Social Media to Renew Capitalism and Build a Better World. From the parts I had chance to read, it was pretty gushing about social media but, from my point of view, quite chilling in the way that social media was going to make people's lives indistinguishable from the patterns of consumerism. I'm probably not doing the book justice but I think the argument went that companies should aim to organically intertwine their business with people's every patterns of life. It was depressing but goes to what I think is the root of this election. It goes back to that phrase the Tories keep using and I find so troublesome: hardworking people.
It implies everything that the Mainwaring book pinpointed: that we are merely fodder for the consumerist meat grinder. Tories celebrate 'hardworking people' though rarely does anybody point out how many of the buggers earn in excess of £30,000 or £40,000 a year for just a couple of hours consultancy work each week. Hardworking or 'on a good thing'? I suppose only you can decide. Yet what do they really mean? That we should be happy because they give us mobile phones, Twitter, and a couple of hours a week to do something other than stick doorhandles on a car?
But that's my 15 minutes and here I have to end it. If you want more, I suggest you watch this excellent exchange between Kenneth Williams and Michael Parkinson, in which the subject of sticking doorhandles on a car in central to the argument (begins about the 7 minute mark). In case you're wondering, I think Parkinson is absolutely right.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkUyDr97NU4
I've just read Boris Johnson talking about Milband in The Sunday Times and I'm not sure which part of the argument I liked the least. We have more baiting of Scotland with the headline phrase 'Ajockalypse Now', which might make a few people smile but I just frowned. It's more of that tactic we've seen at this election of deliberately winding up Scottish voters so they're even more pissed with the established Westminster parties. The more Tories wind up the Scottish, the stronger the SNP's hold is Scotland becomes and the weaker Ed Miliband's position in Westminster. I'm not Scottish, though my grandmother was, but I still find it shabby and insulting. I have no doubt that Boris would be making similar jokes if the election was going to be decided by voters in the north or the south west, or any area other than the great South East who seem to be the only people that really matter in this and every election.
Secondly, Boris came out with this gem. "Ed Miliband fundamentally doesn’t believe in the market. I don’t believe there’s any aspect of capitalism that he seems to relish or approve of."
Ignore what Miliband might or might no believe. Think instead about the thing that Boris seems to hold as an unquestionable truth. His faith in capitalism sounds almost religious. Why should anybody 'believe' in the market as though the market were some omnipotent being? I don't believe in the market but I can see that it exists. I can see also, in certain contexts, that it works extremely well. However, I can also see that the market is often deeply flawed and that's my problem with the current Tories: they seem to believe that society should be entirely aligned to the market.
Working on something else the other day, I came across Simon Mainwaring's book We First: How Brands and Consumers Use Social Media to Renew Capitalism and Build a Better World. From the parts I had chance to read, it was pretty gushing about social media but, from my point of view, quite chilling in the way that social media was going to make people's lives indistinguishable from the patterns of consumerism. I'm probably not doing the book justice but I think the argument went that companies should aim to organically intertwine their business with people's every patterns of life. It was depressing but goes to what I think is the root of this election. It goes back to that phrase the Tories keep using and I find so troublesome: hardworking people.
It implies everything that the Mainwaring book pinpointed: that we are merely fodder for the consumerist meat grinder. Tories celebrate 'hardworking people' though rarely does anybody point out how many of the buggers earn in excess of £30,000 or £40,000 a year for just a couple of hours consultancy work each week. Hardworking or 'on a good thing'? I suppose only you can decide. Yet what do they really mean? That we should be happy because they give us mobile phones, Twitter, and a couple of hours a week to do something other than stick doorhandles on a car?
But that's my 15 minutes and here I have to end it. If you want more, I suggest you watch this excellent exchange between Kenneth Williams and Michael Parkinson, in which the subject of sticking doorhandles on a car in central to the argument (begins about the 7 minute mark). In case you're wondering, I think Parkinson is absolutely right.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkUyDr97NU4
Friday, 1 May 2015
Why I'm So Sick of David Cameron
[Apologies for the following. Call it election fever. Call it spin sickness. Call it: I just needed to get this off my chest. I try so hard to be apolitical but sometimes things become too much.]
I'm so sick of Cameron. I'm really bloody sick of that smirking salivating charlatan. I'm sick of the way he keeps licking his lips like some gecko so greedy that he won't disgorge one worm before eating another. I'm sick of the way he talks about the NHS as though he really understands how pitiful the health service has become under his indifferent care. Does he really understand what it's like being in pain and living appointment to appointment when they're six months apart and often fruitless because the system has lost the previous lot of blood tests for the second time running?
The death of his son was tragic. I cannot begin to understand how painful it was. My heart goes out to both him and his wife because they are human beings and such tragedy deserves our compassion. But, unlike him, I could never use such a personal tragedy to close down debate when debate is essential. The fact he can do that reveals a malign side to his character. There really are worse things that weaponising the NHS. He'll do anything to win because he doesn't believe in anything other than winning.
Does he really believe that people should be severely punished when they don't turn up to a job interview? What happens when the person not attending the job interview is the Prime Minister, who refuses to debate properly with the other party leaders? Who takes his benefits away from him?
Does he really understand what a 'hardworking person' looks like? Most hard working people don't want to be reminded that they're hardworking because that's to remind them that the majority of their life will be spent in servitude to others who see them as minimum wage fodder. People do not live to be hard working. Only people who are rich enough to work for pleasure believe such lies. People work to survive and, beyond that hope, for pleasure and the occasional blue sky.
Does he really think that Eton, Oxford, a brief dalliance with 'the City', and then straight into Tory Party HQ gives him the right to talk about the our work ethic? It's almost as insulting as seeing George Osborne in hard hat and luminous jacket trying to look like he's actually dirtied his hands on something other than used hundred pound notes.
I'm so sick of the pretence and the media spin. I'm sick of the games they play with important things. I'm sick of them wanting we English to resent our families in Scotland and those in Scotland to resent the English. I'm sick of them wanting to divide all of us and make us look on every stranger as though they're somehow the enemy simply because they're poor or disabled or don't share our accent.
I'm sick of being ruled by people whose biographies are filled with holes and lies and not a hint of morality. I'm sick of the media spin, the dirty tricks, the orchestrated campaigns to misinform, mislead and disenchant a public who are politically naive.
I'm also sick of seeing holes in the roads and having holes in my boots because they've weakened the institutions of this country. They claim that they're the party for rich professionals but no party has ever done so much to destroy the professional classes. They want to deprofessionalise teaching, medicine, the law simply so they can hire cheaper workers. It's all about market forces whose basic drive is to kill or be killed.
I'm sick of them talking about austerity as though it's a real thing. There is no austerity. There is just the same old Tory ideological obsession with competition. And this is the key thing to remember. These aren't even Conservatives and I wish true Conservatives would realise that and vote them out. Old One Nation Tories should be ashamed to wear the party blue. They were people you could talk to. They had a rational distrust of ideology and a belief in helping the entire nation. They believed in something greater than these dead-eyed dolts still enchanted by the Thatcherite spell which clear-sighted people now realise was a curse put on all of us.
I'm sick of paying for everything that used to make life fun. Simple things like watching cricket in the afternoon without paying through the nose for a comprehensive sports service you neither want nor need.
I am sick of what this country has become: a nation of thick-necked heavily tattooed testosterone soaked Neanderthals who are the only ones who will succeed because Darwinian forces care nothing for compassion, kindness, politeness, or generosity.
Most of all, I'm sick of feeling ashamed to be British because to be British is to be either selfish, crass, and cruel, or it means to be trod down. I remember the days when it meant so much more than that.
I'm so sick of Cameron. I'm really bloody sick of that smirking salivating charlatan. I'm sick of the way he keeps licking his lips like some gecko so greedy that he won't disgorge one worm before eating another. I'm sick of the way he talks about the NHS as though he really understands how pitiful the health service has become under his indifferent care. Does he really understand what it's like being in pain and living appointment to appointment when they're six months apart and often fruitless because the system has lost the previous lot of blood tests for the second time running?
The death of his son was tragic. I cannot begin to understand how painful it was. My heart goes out to both him and his wife because they are human beings and such tragedy deserves our compassion. But, unlike him, I could never use such a personal tragedy to close down debate when debate is essential. The fact he can do that reveals a malign side to his character. There really are worse things that weaponising the NHS. He'll do anything to win because he doesn't believe in anything other than winning.
Does he really believe that people should be severely punished when they don't turn up to a job interview? What happens when the person not attending the job interview is the Prime Minister, who refuses to debate properly with the other party leaders? Who takes his benefits away from him?
Does he really understand what a 'hardworking person' looks like? Most hard working people don't want to be reminded that they're hardworking because that's to remind them that the majority of their life will be spent in servitude to others who see them as minimum wage fodder. People do not live to be hard working. Only people who are rich enough to work for pleasure believe such lies. People work to survive and, beyond that hope, for pleasure and the occasional blue sky.
Does he really think that Eton, Oxford, a brief dalliance with 'the City', and then straight into Tory Party HQ gives him the right to talk about the our work ethic? It's almost as insulting as seeing George Osborne in hard hat and luminous jacket trying to look like he's actually dirtied his hands on something other than used hundred pound notes.
I'm so sick of the pretence and the media spin. I'm sick of the games they play with important things. I'm sick of them wanting we English to resent our families in Scotland and those in Scotland to resent the English. I'm sick of them wanting to divide all of us and make us look on every stranger as though they're somehow the enemy simply because they're poor or disabled or don't share our accent.
I'm sick of being ruled by people whose biographies are filled with holes and lies and not a hint of morality. I'm sick of the media spin, the dirty tricks, the orchestrated campaigns to misinform, mislead and disenchant a public who are politically naive.
I'm also sick of seeing holes in the roads and having holes in my boots because they've weakened the institutions of this country. They claim that they're the party for rich professionals but no party has ever done so much to destroy the professional classes. They want to deprofessionalise teaching, medicine, the law simply so they can hire cheaper workers. It's all about market forces whose basic drive is to kill or be killed.
I'm sick of them talking about austerity as though it's a real thing. There is no austerity. There is just the same old Tory ideological obsession with competition. And this is the key thing to remember. These aren't even Conservatives and I wish true Conservatives would realise that and vote them out. Old One Nation Tories should be ashamed to wear the party blue. They were people you could talk to. They had a rational distrust of ideology and a belief in helping the entire nation. They believed in something greater than these dead-eyed dolts still enchanted by the Thatcherite spell which clear-sighted people now realise was a curse put on all of us.
I'm sick of paying for everything that used to make life fun. Simple things like watching cricket in the afternoon without paying through the nose for a comprehensive sports service you neither want nor need.
I am sick of what this country has become: a nation of thick-necked heavily tattooed testosterone soaked Neanderthals who are the only ones who will succeed because Darwinian forces care nothing for compassion, kindness, politeness, or generosity.
Most of all, I'm sick of feeling ashamed to be British because to be British is to be either selfish, crass, and cruel, or it means to be trod down. I remember the days when it meant so much more than that.
Saturday, 25 April 2015
Why the hell Aston Villa?
The list of things that count as a 'brain fade' is pretty long. Forgetting the dates of battles, wars, victories, births, deaths, exams and appointments are just the beginning. It would be understandable if you forget your mother's noodle recipe or the contents of that brown cardboard box on the top shelf in your shed. You might forget your National Insurance number or ever your car number plate. It's easy to forget the name of films or books, even though you might claim they're a favourite. It's easier still to forget the name of that actor you like who only plays bit parts in films but always does with a certain manly swagger. In that case, you're probably forgetting the name Ed Harris or Scott Glenn. Really, the list of things it's okay to forget is extremely long and varied. But nowhere on it does it include the name of your football team.
I mean nobody, not even the recently lobotomised, forgets the name of their football team. It just doesn't happen. Not even as a verbal slip. You don't suddenly say 'Manchester United' if you mean Liverpool, 'Everton' if you support Leeds. It's not simply a trick of a tired brain. You don't have one thing in mind and accidentally say it, like you might say to somebody, ' pass me the knife' when you meant spoon but you just happened to be holding a knife when you reached for the word. Those things are understandable. Forgetting your football team is about as likely as forgetting your own name. Never is my life have I introduced myself 'Eric' or 'Bruce' or 'Norma'. I'm certain about that. 100% of the time I say that my name is David.
I wouldn't image that David Cameron would ever introduce himself as Eric, Bruce or Norma Cameron either, which makes it so hard to believe that today told an audience in Croydon that his favourite team is West Ham. For years he's been telling us that it's Aston Villa and how he is the nephew of a former Villa chairman who took him to his first match when he was 13.
The significance of the story is bigger than the details. What I love about this gaff is that it's an apparently trivial mistake which might have big consequences. It's the kind of story that will click with large portions of the electorate. It's hard to judge a man based on economic predictions or the well practised spiel of a campaign speech. It's much easier to judge what you think about a man who suddenly forgets which team he supports. Had this happened in any pub across the land, the victim of the 'brain fade' would be ribbed about it for months, years, perhaps even the rest of his life.
So, why did it happen?
It happened, I think, because of the character of the man. It is a small point but I think it reveals so much about Cameron and his convictions or, more precisely, lack of convictions. I've never seen him as a true conviction politician. Thatcher was deeply ideological. Blair less so but still in a large part driven by convictions. Brown was deeply rooted in his convictions that came through his Presbyterian upbringing. Cameron, I think, is almost completely lacking in deep political thought. To put it in slightly wet terms: politics seems to be a convenient point on his life journey. It was easy for him to go from Eton to Oxford and then into the world of Conservative politics. Leadership came just as easily. David Davies was tipped as the next leader and then Cameron gave a speech behind closed doors which turned everything around. And with typical Cameron luck, he rose to the leadership at a time when the Labour Party had exhausted the ideas of one generation and a world economic collapse compounded their problems, meaning that a change in government was always likely to happen. I can't think of any party leader who went quite so quickly from obscurity to Number 10 via the ballot box.
His current 'brain fade' makes me think of Libya and the fall of Gaddafi. As revolutions go, it was a fairly easy one for a Prime Minister to cope with. It was easier still to head to Benghazi and take some of the credit and make some vague promises and we know how that turned out. We should only be lucky as he made that speech that he didn't praise the people of Syria or Liberia or even West Ham.
The gaff happened because I doubt if Cameron is invested in following Aston Villa with the passion of a true football fan. 'Aston Villa' is just the convenient tag that he can scrawl in that blank box whenever he has to answer the 'Favourite football team' question on his regular Q&As with the readers of Heat magazine.
Yet one question remains. Why the hell did he pick Aston Villa?
I can't get over the feeling that it's just a shrewd political calculation. If I were a politician who was particularly prone to taking the popular angle and always wanting to be seen on the side of the majority, who would I claim to support?
According to a recent Guardian article, the biggest three teams in the UK are Liverpool (15.21%), Arsenal (15.03%) and Manchester United (14.6%). However, at least two of those teams are great rivals. To support United or Liverpool would stain your character for supporters of the rival team. You might gain respect in the eyes of one 15% but you'd lost it in the eyes of another 15%. Chelsea, Tottenham, and Arsenal all have strong rivalries, as do teams such as Everton, Manchester City, and Leeds.
I suspect that a wily politician would choose a team that's well known but not so successful that it has bred much resentment. Does Aston Villa fit that profile? It has the fifth highest in terms of major honours among English clubs but hasn't won the top division since the 1980-81 season. Is it vanilla enough to be the team that breeds the most apathy in the league? I suspect it might. Choosing Aston Villa means that Cameron is only alienating the supporters of West Brom and Birmingham City in a heavily Labour supporting part of the country. Hostility towards Aston Villa doesn't reach across the country in the same way as you find deep resentments about other major teams. In political terms, it's as neutral a choice as it's possible to find in the top division. The votes he would potentially lose are votes which would probably be Labour in the first place.
Well, that's my theory. I have no way of knowing if it's real or not. I just expect the Tory party's media unit to now go into overdrive to prove that Cameron is a true Aston Villa fan. Expect to see the buttock tattoo before the end of the campaign. In the case of any other politician, I would have written that line thinking it a good joke to end. In Cameron's case, I'm not so sure it's a joke.
I mean nobody, not even the recently lobotomised, forgets the name of their football team. It just doesn't happen. Not even as a verbal slip. You don't suddenly say 'Manchester United' if you mean Liverpool, 'Everton' if you support Leeds. It's not simply a trick of a tired brain. You don't have one thing in mind and accidentally say it, like you might say to somebody, ' pass me the knife' when you meant spoon but you just happened to be holding a knife when you reached for the word. Those things are understandable. Forgetting your football team is about as likely as forgetting your own name. Never is my life have I introduced myself 'Eric' or 'Bruce' or 'Norma'. I'm certain about that. 100% of the time I say that my name is David.
I wouldn't image that David Cameron would ever introduce himself as Eric, Bruce or Norma Cameron either, which makes it so hard to believe that today told an audience in Croydon that his favourite team is West Ham. For years he's been telling us that it's Aston Villa and how he is the nephew of a former Villa chairman who took him to his first match when he was 13.
The significance of the story is bigger than the details. What I love about this gaff is that it's an apparently trivial mistake which might have big consequences. It's the kind of story that will click with large portions of the electorate. It's hard to judge a man based on economic predictions or the well practised spiel of a campaign speech. It's much easier to judge what you think about a man who suddenly forgets which team he supports. Had this happened in any pub across the land, the victim of the 'brain fade' would be ribbed about it for months, years, perhaps even the rest of his life.
So, why did it happen?
It happened, I think, because of the character of the man. It is a small point but I think it reveals so much about Cameron and his convictions or, more precisely, lack of convictions. I've never seen him as a true conviction politician. Thatcher was deeply ideological. Blair less so but still in a large part driven by convictions. Brown was deeply rooted in his convictions that came through his Presbyterian upbringing. Cameron, I think, is almost completely lacking in deep political thought. To put it in slightly wet terms: politics seems to be a convenient point on his life journey. It was easy for him to go from Eton to Oxford and then into the world of Conservative politics. Leadership came just as easily. David Davies was tipped as the next leader and then Cameron gave a speech behind closed doors which turned everything around. And with typical Cameron luck, he rose to the leadership at a time when the Labour Party had exhausted the ideas of one generation and a world economic collapse compounded their problems, meaning that a change in government was always likely to happen. I can't think of any party leader who went quite so quickly from obscurity to Number 10 via the ballot box.
His current 'brain fade' makes me think of Libya and the fall of Gaddafi. As revolutions go, it was a fairly easy one for a Prime Minister to cope with. It was easier still to head to Benghazi and take some of the credit and make some vague promises and we know how that turned out. We should only be lucky as he made that speech that he didn't praise the people of Syria or Liberia or even West Ham.
The gaff happened because I doubt if Cameron is invested in following Aston Villa with the passion of a true football fan. 'Aston Villa' is just the convenient tag that he can scrawl in that blank box whenever he has to answer the 'Favourite football team' question on his regular Q&As with the readers of Heat magazine.
Yet one question remains. Why the hell did he pick Aston Villa?
I can't get over the feeling that it's just a shrewd political calculation. If I were a politician who was particularly prone to taking the popular angle and always wanting to be seen on the side of the majority, who would I claim to support?
According to a recent Guardian article, the biggest three teams in the UK are Liverpool (15.21%), Arsenal (15.03%) and Manchester United (14.6%). However, at least two of those teams are great rivals. To support United or Liverpool would stain your character for supporters of the rival team. You might gain respect in the eyes of one 15% but you'd lost it in the eyes of another 15%. Chelsea, Tottenham, and Arsenal all have strong rivalries, as do teams such as Everton, Manchester City, and Leeds.
I suspect that a wily politician would choose a team that's well known but not so successful that it has bred much resentment. Does Aston Villa fit that profile? It has the fifth highest in terms of major honours among English clubs but hasn't won the top division since the 1980-81 season. Is it vanilla enough to be the team that breeds the most apathy in the league? I suspect it might. Choosing Aston Villa means that Cameron is only alienating the supporters of West Brom and Birmingham City in a heavily Labour supporting part of the country. Hostility towards Aston Villa doesn't reach across the country in the same way as you find deep resentments about other major teams. In political terms, it's as neutral a choice as it's possible to find in the top division. The votes he would potentially lose are votes which would probably be Labour in the first place.
Well, that's my theory. I have no way of knowing if it's real or not. I just expect the Tory party's media unit to now go into overdrive to prove that Cameron is a true Aston Villa fan. Expect to see the buttock tattoo before the end of the campaign. In the case of any other politician, I would have written that line thinking it a good joke to end. In Cameron's case, I'm not so sure it's a joke.
Thursday, 9 April 2015
Monday, 6 April 2015
Friday, 3 April 2015
Wednesday, 1 April 2015
Thursday, 19 February 2015
The Connoisseur of Ordure
Not having a great day. Just spend two hours travelling to the 'local' hospital. It was bike ride, a train journey and then a good walk simply to help my sister out in an emergency. Coming back, I couldn't face the walk so I hopped on the bus to take me the couple of miles back to the station. Cost £2.10 to go just one stop, which should be criminal if it weren't merely symptomatic of our wonderful nation. I read yesterday that Tories in Wandsworth tried as recently as 2011 to charge children £2.50 to use a playground. You'd weep if it didn't make you so bloody furious.
To make matters worse, the headphone jack of my Samsung Note tablet has bust. I was trying to break the monotony of the journey by listening to the audiobook of Christopher Hitchen's Portable Atheist. I could barely make out what was going on. I had cracking in one ear and silence in the other. Feeling pretty heartbroken. My Note is my right hand. I listen to music on it as I draw on it when I'm not reading books on it, web browsing on it, or playing Boom Beach. Now I'll have to do everything in silence.
Today's cartoon: it's probably nasty, distasteful, cheap but it's really not as nasty, distasteful or cheap as I feel about its subject. I actually sat long and hard last night trying to image the most vulgar drawing I could attempt. Nothing quite worked and I was sadly left with this which is far too gentle. I might try again. There's a whole well of anger from which I've barely supped. I'm treating it as an intellectual exercise in how to draw the morally bankrupt.
The problem of working digitally on the Note is that there's no facility to really throw ink around. At my desk, I'd probably try to emulate the wonderful chaos of a Steadman drawing by throwing ink at the page from a distance of six feet. Sitting on a railway station, drawing on a small 10 inch screen: everything is too controlled. Too clean. I really wanted to convey how angry I felt after watching the Michael Cockerell documentary and seeing Mogg, a truly ugly stretch of sanctimonious malevolence, strolling around Westminster and getting in the way of real politicians who are there to help people.
Tuesday, 9 December 2014
Friday, 28 November 2014
Tuesday, 2 July 2013
The Holiday Snatcher Cartoon
I was talking yesterday about privilege and how people both with it probably view the world differently. Today’s news that Michael Gove will change the rules allowing schools to to get rid of the six week school holiday is perhaps one example of that.
Of course, I have no love of the six week school holiday now that I’m adult. Behind the house, there’s an area that somebody has turned into a communal play area. For nearly two months, it will be filled with the noisy little buggers screaming constantly for morning to night. Writing to that is like trying to tap-dance whilst somebody’s drilling a hole in your foot.
Yet as a kid, the holidays were the only time I was happy. I despised school and only started to do well once I left and began to teach myself. I feel the same way now. It comes down to the degree to which all that (points out of the window at the world in general) demands control of my life. I suppose deep down I have anarchist leanings, though I’ve always liked Orwell’s description of Swift (and probably himself) as being an Anarchic Tory. What I mean by that is that whilst I value order, culture, and civilisation, I also want to be left alone and believe that we all have the right to some kind of strong independent life beyond those horrible exhausted hours that you’re usually left to enjoy after being twisted rotten working your eight hour shift.
The concept of the working week is fascinating and probably deserves a good book writing about it, if it’s not already been done and I’m too lazy to check. I know the eight hour day is a relatively modern invention, being one of those great innovations the Victorians were so damn proud about. The premise was that we work for eight hours, relax for eight hours, and sleep for eight hours. Of course, it rarely happens that way. In my last job, I’d get up at 7am, out of the house for half past, on the train for ten to eight. In the office for eight thirty, half an hour for lunch, leave around four thirty, train at ten to five, home for five thirty. The eight hour day was, in reality, a ten hour day, leaving me six hours to do with as I would. After eight hours proof-reading woefully written leisure industry reports full of horrible management-speak, I was usually so tired I’d usually fall asleep in front of the TV, waking up in time to go to bed. I was lucky. My friend is a teacher and she rarely finishes work before 8 or 9pm. The holidays are the only time she can live a normal life.
All of which makes me dubious about Michael Gove’s plans. Not only does it feel like another opportunity to hit the teachers and turn them into social workers whose primary job it is to keep youth off the streets, it’s another way to establish a drone mentality in the workforce. Force those patterns of obsequious compliance that authoritarians believe should be hammered into the underclass. The older I get, the more I feel that Aldous Huxley had everything correct in ‘Brave New World’. Establish the patterns of behaviour early enough and you govern the future. Private schools will continue to operate with the best interests of students and parents in mind. Comprehensives, I know, will be overworked, stretched, and crammed full of students who will have even less time to think, to learn, and to discover who they are and what they want from life.
Sunday, 23 June 2013
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