The Kate Emms Tour: The Australian Leg

It's only a guess but I assume Australian TV has just aired Michel Cockerell's excellent series on the House of Commons. Early Sunday, my web statistics went crazy with hits from the southern hemisphere. For two solid hours, I had hits from people searching for... Well, if you've read this blog long enough, then you'll know what they were searching for.

This whole 'Kate Emms' thing is beginning to intrigue me to the point of it becoming a distraction. I watched the Cockerell series twice and I didn't immediately hit the internet to research the name 'Kate Emms'. Yet that's precisely what hundreds (if not thousands) of people regularly do whenever that second (I believe) episode of the series is aired.They say hat certain people have 'star quality', that hard to define quality which can neither be taught not bought. If that's true, then it seems sensible to reason that there must be people out there who have star quality and just don't realise it. I'm beginning to think that Kate Emms might be one such person. If this blog can get thousands of hits from 'fans' of Kate Emms when all she's done is briefly appear on TV buying chocolate bars from her co-workers, then imagine what would happen if she launched a proper career in light entertainment. Perhaps with a song and dance act. Think Madonna with a Parliamentary/Chocolate slant.

I don't know. Thinking on my feet here. I see a name in lights. A spotlight picking out a figure. It's a large cardboard cut out of John Bercow, with oversized novelty head which wobbles from side to side. The music starts and the figure does a soft shoe shuffle before somebody carries the head one way, the arms and legs another, and then the body splits in half revealing the star of the show dressed as Black Rod and doing a two minute tap dance.

There has to be money in this. Perhaps this calls for a letter to Sir Cameron Mackintosh...

***

The problem with technology is that it ages so damn quickly. At the moment I'm struggling with aging computer hardware and my limitations seem to grow by the day. I know now that there will come the day when I'll simply have nothing left on which to blog and The Spine will go dark. Already this year, I've lost a laptop which I can't afford to replace. My remaining PC is a six core beast but beginning to struggle with some of the tasks I ask it to perform. It's also hardly portable and getting on in the years. My Samsung Note is good for drawing but severely limited when it comes to painting with colour. It's also useless when it comes to writing or blogging. I wrote yesterday's blog post on it and it was a very long struggle. It's the reason why I'd probably never again buy a Samsung tablet.

There are certain things you realise about companies once you join their user groups. With Dell, it was their complete lack of responsibility. My laptop was always overheating because of a design flaw. They failed to issue a recall and I was stuck with it and it died a few weeks ago with barely enough hours on its clock to justify the initial outlay. Plus they had incorporated technology into their power supplies so you always had to use an 'official' power supply, which I always think is a bit of a shoddy trick. I won't buy Dell again. It's a shame but the thinking of some corporate types goes beyond logic when they choose some short term gain over the loyalty of very long time Dell owner. It's the same thinking, I suppose, which made them move the Dell technical support to India. It says something about any company when they choose to save money instead of providing proper support to their user base.

The thing you realise being a Samsung user is that the company seems to have the attention span of a gnat. The Samsung Note 2014 Edition is a truly great tablet but, once the product was out the door, Samsung moved on to something new. Firmware updates have been sporadic and they have completely ignored the plethora  of people complaining about the Bluetooth issues that affect the tablet. Simply: it's impossible to get the 2014 Note 10.1 inch table to work with a Bluetooth keyboard. There are hundreds of pages on the web detailing the problem. Connecting to the keyboard is simple. In my case, I'm using an Apple Bluetooth keyboard, which is one of the better keyboards out there. I can type on it and the tablet captures my input. But after ten seconds, it drops the connection and I have to wait another ten seconds before it connects again. I then have about ten seconds of typing before it disconnects again... Ad nauseam.. After nearly two years, there are still no fixes.

Since my main activity is writing, the Note has been a huge disappointment. I can't type using the screen. My fingers are simply too big and I want to type quicker than the touch screen allows. It's not enough to turn me off Samsung products entirely but I'd be cautious about buying another.

Friends I know swear by Apple and though I've always scoffed a little, I can see why their loyalty lasts. I've never had such luck finding a company to whom I've been entirely loyal. Apple were about the best but I could never live with their restrictions. I wanted access to SD cards and operating systems. I want control over the devices I own and I don't want to pay the earth for beautiful hardware that's locked to me. I don't know where I'll turn next or even when I'll have a chance to move on to new hardware. Perhaps I'll go back to paper and ink and I'll grow a beard in the style of Henry David Thoreau, retire from the electronic world to live in a cabin. Sometimes it feels like it would make a lot more sense, instead of wasting my days making podcasts that only three people listen to and writing words largely ignored by the multitude only passing through in order to read the last news about Kate Emms.

 

A Bercow/Hague Cartoon

I drew this in the time it took me to watch Question Time last night. I wish Question Time had been longer, though it was nearly 3am by the time it finished. I was up for another five hours, unable to sleep because of the strange sensations going on in my throat. Sleeping sitting up never works for me so I ended up watching random things on the BBC iPlayer. I didn't have any means of watching the leader's 'debate' otherwise I'd have watched that. However, I understand it was pretty bad (though Paxman was good) and that Kay Burley did her usual stunt of sucking up to the rich and powerful and going all in to hammer the relatively weak or powerless. I have to see if I can find it online. I simply forgot it was on last night. (And, in fact, I was about to delete the comment about Kay Burley since I didn't see it myself and it was sister (politically pretty neutral) who told me and was really indignant about it. Then I saw this and figured it sounded pretty typical.)

Away from politics, I'm pretty certain I know what's been wrong with me.  I thought I had a cold. I'm now sure I picked up a viral throat infection at some point in Chester. I've had all the symptoms and an absence of cold and flu symptoms. It's still not turned into a proper cold and I don't feel as bad as I'd usually feel with a cold and an almost total absence of solid sleep. More amusingly, my Barry White voice has gone because I can no longer string more than two words together before it leaps into the higher octaves, only audible to dogs and Liberal Democrats. Not sure if this is now technically laryngitis but my family think it's highly amusing.

Anyway, I hit the websites looking for cures. Green tea and honey was supposed to be good. I'm sure it is if you stomach the stuff. The slowly brewed yeast off a mouldy old badger wouldn't have tasted so bad.

Bercow

Still a little under the weather but trying to get my eye and hand back into the game. Not entirely sure how to feel about today's vote in the House of Commons. I'm tempted to write to Kate Emms to ask what she thinks I should think. Ever since I mentioned Kate Emms in my review of the Commons documentary, the name 'Kate Emms' has eclipsed all others when it comes to bringing visitors from Google. I'm still not convinced there isn't another Kate Emms who is a shadowy member of One Direction...

Anyway, William Hague's ploy did seem a little underhand but it's Cameron I really despise for trying to destroy Bercow simply because the Speaker dare stand up to the Prime Minister. It's precisely the same flaw in the PM's character that has been exposed by the debate about the leader's debate. Power seems to have corrupted him to the point where he can't bear to hear dissent but dissent is usually the best barometer of a democracy.

Today's proceedings did, perhaps, explain why Hague had been moved to Leader of the House in the last reshuffle. Previously, I couldn't understand the move. Had Cameron planned this all along? If so, it was a nasty little business to pass off to Hague whose career had, thus far, deserved something better. I have no idea why Hague is quitting but that too seems odd except he's another (like Portillo) whose status increases the further he gets from power. He would have made a fine Prime Minister and would have been Prime Minister had fate not given him that head with that voice. I think exactly the same is true of Ed Miliband as I've said before. It's cruel but a fact about large portions of the voting public who are led almost as much by looks as they are by policy.

As for Bercow (note to self: must draw him for tomorrow), I don't know what to think. He seemed genuinely moved when the 'No's won and that means I was genuinely moved. In his favour, the backbenchers seem (or perhaps tend) to like him. However, I can't get over the fact that I probably wouldn't like the man and he can sometimes strike me as a grade 'A' pillock, with pomposity his worst (and greatest) quality. He's pompous to the point that my family spontaneously burst into laughter whenever he comes on TV, strutting alongside the great, good, and powerful. However I don't have to deal with him and I imagine dealing with him on a daily basis is like trying to manhandle a greased sealion into a golf bag.

Who is Kate Emms?

Yesterday I wrote about my love of the new Michael Cockerell series, 'Inside the Commons', and doing so, I mentioned that the stars of the series are the people who do all the heavy lifting at Parliament. One of those people is Kate Emms, Clerk in charge of Private Members’ Bills. Well! No sooner had I posted her name than the hits started to come in. Across the nation, people were searching for Kate Emms. Nobody was searching for the politicos. Nobody was even searching for George Clooney, despite my cartoon of yesterday. No. The zeitgeist mob were clamoring for news about Kate Emms which now leads me to wonder: who is Kate Emms? Is this the same Kate Emms who is the Clerk in charge of Private Members’ Bills? Or is there a Kate Emms who perhaps sings backing vocals for One Direction? Is there a Kate Emms who is in Towie (I have no idea what that word means, if it's spelt right, or used correctly and, frankly, I don't want to know). Anyway, if there's a different Kate Emms I don't know about but perhaps invented stretch nostrils or haptic cheese, please put me out of my misery in the comments. I'd really like to know.

Incidentally, this isn't my proper blog of the day. My routine has been broken because I have to dash out in a few minutes. I have a Jacob Rees Mogg cartoon nearly finished which I'm both proud to have drawn and greatly appalled by. I might post it later if I get work finished. Then I'll try to write something significant.

In the meantime, if you're looking for some interesting reading, check out Tim Marshall's new post over at 'The What and the Why' about the politics of the Baltics. Good stuff from a very promising new website.

Hello Tim Marshall, Thank You Michael Cockerell, Goodbye Jacob Rees Mogg

Before I get to the meat of today's blog, I should point you in the direction of a new website, TheWhatandTheWhy, which is the site of Tim Marshall's re-emergence into the world. You might have read my original piece about why I thought Marshall was the last good reason to watch Sky News, my vow to start a letter campaign, or the forlorn attempt  that Stan Madeley made to persuade 'Harding the Hack' to hire Marshall over at the BBC. Well, none of that went well but there is a new website and it contains enough words and video to get the heart racing. I don't understand what the hell is happening in the Ukraine but I feel a lot better knowing that Tim Marshall is around to explain the parts that make a little sense.

Speaking of chaos, I drew today's cartoon really late last night after watching Michael Cockerell's documentary about the House of Commons. I couldn't sleep. My mind was restless. I didn't want to draw cartoons that other people like. If I'm honest, I don't really like that type of cartoon I know I should be drawing if Private Eye are ever to buy one. It was late, I was angry, confused, thoughtful, so I resorted to type. I drew something for which there was be an audience of one. I don't know why George Clooney with a peg-leg amuses me but does there always have to be a reason?

I sometimes wonder how many people share my sensibilities. I cannot, for example, understand why there weren't riots when Tim Marshall left Sky News. Nor do I understand why Cockerell's series isn't a cause of national celebration. The series just gets better with each episode and convinces me that I'm utterly addicted to politics.

It's been such a sublime experience. The series has never once felt like it's pushing an agenda. The narrative feels supremely balanced, despite every step in the process of documentary production being in some sense editorial. Yet it's to Cockerell's credit that none of this feels directed to an end. There are no tricks on show. No sly camera movements or clever editorial juxtapositions by which a cut implies a whole new level of meaning. It's a programme that genuinely feels like it's watching but not intruding. Anything else is left to the reader to intuit. Was David Cameron being genuinely kind when he stopped to congratulate a politician who was being interviewed for the cameras or was Cameron being typically calculating knowing the cameras were on? In this household, that's a debate that raged for a week and countless replays. (The consensus is that it was the latter.)

Perhaps it's the way age gathers memories into ripe bundles but the BBC always seemed to make TV this good back when it wasn't racing with 200 other channels to find the lowest common denominator. Next week is, sadly, the last episode. It will be missed. It will, however, have a legacy and I can sense what that legacy will be after only three episodes. I already have a renewed faith in some politicians and, especially, the people behind the scenes. The series has been best when it followed the clerks as they laughed at the incongruities of the system. Conversely, the series had done nothing to lessen my hatred of party politics and, in fact, has in many respects confirmed it. The greatest threat to the parliamentary system are the big party machines which erode the significance of the individuals working to benefit their constituents. The greatest hope to the parliamentary system are the individuals who refuse to submit to the party machine and continue to work for their electorate.

In that sense, my suspicion of party politics is balanced by a new admiration I've found for the people who work in the system. The real stars of the series are people whose names you might not remember for long after the series ends. It's people like Kate Emms, Clerk in charge of Private Members' Bills at House of Commons, and Sir Robert Rodgers, the Clerk of the House, who announced his retirement in the first episode. If there is a message from the series, it seems to be one that affirms the believe that the system is safe in these people's hands.

Beyond the unexpected stars, the biggest winners are individual politicians. Sarah Champion, MP for Rotherham, suffered an inauspicious introduction in episode one ('I need a wee' she said, ushering the camera crew out of her bathroom) but revealed herself to be the kind of MP I'd want fighting on my side. I never expected that. I was expecting to dislike her but found myself very quickly warming to her. It perhaps says something about our distrust of politicians but, over the first three episodes, I never expected to see so many MPs spending so much time working on the behalf of others. That was an almost spiritual revelation.

At the same time, the series has also show me how much a few MPs seem to work on behalf of nobody but themselves. I've spoken to a couple of people about this and they've both backed up an observation I made which sounds party political but it really isn't. I don't particularly dislike Tories any more than I dislike Labour supporters or Lib Dems. My mind doesn't run down such well worn ideological grooves.  Yet saying that, Tories have not come out well from the series. With the single exception of Peter Bone who was featured in last night's episode, many of the Tories came across as either self-promoters or wide-eyed ideologues. And as much as I find myself reassured that we have a system that's outdated and retains many anachronisms, there is one anachronism I don't feel in any way reassured by. It is the anachronism who calls himself Jacob Rees Mogg.

This morning I was talking to my sister about last night's episode and she made a remark which I thought was telling. She's more interested in the day to day workings of politics than me yet she is nowhere near as cynical or hard-bitten. Yet even she found Mogg too much to bear. 'It's like he's never had to struggle for anything in his life!' she despaired. 'Everything seems to have been handed to him on a bloody plate.'

Last week's episode was a perfect example. Mogg was filmed filibustering a Lib Dem's private member's bill that would have protected the poorest in our society (particularly the disabled) from cuts to their housing benefits if they were deemed to have 'surplus rooms'. He first filibustered on the floor of the House of Commons and then again when the bill reached the Committee Stage. Some might admire or find it slightly amusing that he attempts to derail the bill by wasting time, languorously quoting the hymn, 'Our God, Our Help in Ages Past' by Isaac Watts . 'I want to talk about time,' Mogg begins, 'time, like an ever rolling stream, bears all its sons away...' MPs looked on in frustration.

It just made me furious beyond measure that the system rewards a man like that. It astonishes me that a man who has lived his entire life in the lap of the establishment, cosseted at Eton and Oxford, earning a second income (allegedly £500,000  since 2010) should play games with people's lives. In what sense can he even understand the plight of somebody living in council accommodation, on a low wage, perhaps with a serious illness? What gives him the right to judge and to block laws which would improve their lives?

My first novel (the one that was going to be published until the publisher was bought up by Harper Collins) was a thinly veiled lampoon of Mogg. Yet even I was left astonished by the depth of his twisted morality. The more you pick apart the Mogg biography, the  more your fingers bleed. The Honorable Mogg is an ex investment banker, the son of the noted editor of The Times and married into one of the wealthiest families in the country. So, naturally, he believes in zero-hour contracts and, according to Theyworkforyou.com, any policy that denudes the few protections that give the rest of us a chance to live a moderately tolerable life. For example, the Member for North East Somerset:

Voted very strongly against paying higher benefits over longer periods for those unable to work due to illness or disability

Voted very strongly for reducing housing benefit for social tenants deemed to have excess bedrooms (which Labour describe as the "bedroom tax")

Voted very strongly for university tuition fees

Voted very strongly for a reduction in spending on welfare benefits

Voted very strongly against equal gay rights

Voted very strongly against smoking bans

Voted very strongly against raising welfare benefits at least in line with prices

Voted strongly against slowing the rise in rail fares

Voted very strongly against increasing the tax rate applied to income over £150,000

Voted very strongly against greater regulation of gambling

Voted strongly for restricting the scope of legal aid

For a man who clearly cares so much about correct parliamentary process, Mogg is a walking hypocrisy. This entry in his Wikipedia page says so much: "In December 2014 Rees-Mogg was reported to the Parliament's standards watchdog for speaking in debates on tobacco, mining and oil and gas without first declaring he is founding partner and director of Somerset Capital which has £multimillion investments in the sectors."

I could descend to some found language here but I don't want to demean my argument. My opinion of Mogg has never been lower and, for that, I am so glad that Cockerell was there to educate me.

Ralph Steadman once declared that he was stopping drawing politicians. His website describes it like this:

Finally so disgusted by the antics of those who should be running the country, Ralph decided in 1997 to stop drawing caricatures of politicians. He felt it fed their over-weaning egos and they liked the attention too much. It distracted them from the jobs they had been voted in to do by a long suffering public.

I don't think Steadman is wrong but Cockerell has reminded me why it's important to keep drawing the worst of them. Just a few weeks ago I'd have never thought of this reason. We owe it to the rest of them.