War For Teh Internets: Part One

After my last piece was, alas, savaged by someone who had actually bothered to do some research on the subject, I've decided to concentrate on some easily-verifiable general comments about the political situation in England, namely why Labour's fucked, at least online.

Let me give you some background. In late 2003, during the run-up to the Democratic Primaries, a rank outsider, Doctor-turned-Governor Howard Dean, entered the race. Unlike Joe Lieberman, Dick Gephardt, or John Kerry, he didn't have any celebrity dollars, the backing of Senators or establishment support. He only had two things going for him: his principled, consistent opposition to the Iraq War, and thus, in the goldfish-like long-term-memory of the average voter, every military action perpetuated by the United States ever except for the 'good' ones like World War Two (nobody turned round to him, for instance, and said, 'Hey! Ain't you the guy who wanted 50,000 American troops in Kosovo?), and his utilisation of a strange new device for raising money and drumming up support. It was called 'the unternet' or something. Well, it worked surprisingly well, with Dean gaining an enormous amount of money, a truly phenomenal grass-roots presence, and becoming (for a while) the frontrunner, before losing the Iowa Caucus, and fucking up in a typically overblown, grandiose fashion, in the form of the 'Dean Scream', a cracked, tormented cry for help seemingly rising from the depths of his soul at the end of a stump speech in New Hampshire, which he later blamed on some bad flu medication. The Democratic nomination later went to John 'Mr Personality' Kerry, who (unlike George W Bush) conspicuously failed to utilise the internet and thus crashed and burned. A similar thing happened last year, only with the parties reversed, with Rep. Ron Paul (look him up) as a non-hypocritical Howard Dean, McCain as Kerry and Obama as Bush. In fact, according to some estimates, effective control of the internet can account for a 4-6% rise in support for a candidate.

Thus, a well-defined internet presence and a large number of famous, like-minded bloggers is absolutely essential for any modern political party. The three major parties in the United Kingdom are currently engaged on a life-or-death struggle for internet control, one which Labour is currently coming in third place in, and which the Conservatives are triumphing.

Fact:

• Of the top ten most read blogs about British politics on the internet, seven are conservative or libertarian. Two are liberal or socialist.
  
• Of the top twenty, fifteen are conservative or libertarian. Only three are liberal or socialist.
• Of the top hundred, 48 are conservative or libertarian. 30 are liberal or socialist.

Another fact:

• According to traffic ranking, conservatives.com is the 196,413th most visited site in the world. This isn't great, but is a damn sight better than labourhome.co.uk, currently engaged in a desperate fight for third place with libdems.org.uk: Labour's website is 246,737th, while the Lib Dems are 247,439th.

Noticing this, Labour launched a website for those left-wing bloggers who hadn't already deserted Labour over its rather illiberal foreign policy and authoritarianism. It was to be edited by Derek Draper, a minor former aide of Tony Blair who enjoyed a surprising amount of power, largely by controlling who was granted an audience with His Tonyness, presumably enjoying a similar relationship with him as David Walliams' ministerial aide did with Anthony Head in 'Little Britain', and who was later disgraced over a lobbying scandal in 1998. The site was to be called labourlist.com. In typical New Labour fashion, it was finished a month behind schedule, was booted up live on a minor TV station and immediately crashed. It's well worth checking out.

Essentially, it contains two kinds of articles; ones where any slight hint of dissent towards Gordon Brown among the Labour party is shouted down, and ones where Labour self-congratulatingly pats itself on the back for being inclusive and non-racist, unlike those awful Tories. Quite frankly, it shows how low Labour have sunk if they're hailing some of the authors on the site as their secret weapons against the Tories. They're getting Piers Morgan, disgraced editor of the Daily Mirror and general cockmunch, to write articles, for fuck's sake.

(I'd like to finish on an anecdote to do with Piers Morgan. On the great Radio 4 staple, 'I'm Sorry, I Haven't A Clue', Stephen Fry was asked, during the 'New Definitions for Old Words' round, to come up with a new meaning for 'countryside'. His suggestion? 'The murder of Piers Morgan.' (countryside. Say it out loud and slowly)).

Hell Freezes Over - I Defend Trades Unions, Labour Doesn't

I've recently started reading all of the articles I can find on labourlist.com, the internet site where discredited politicans and newspaper editors go to die. Usually the combination of self-righteous less-racist-than-thou posturing, predictions that the Conservatives will crash and burn at the next election, and absurd attacks on Middle England just mildly amuses me, but today I saw something which makes me furiously angry. It had to do with Keith Vaz, old Latymerian, head of the Black Socialists despite being a Goan Daravidian, and all-round shite.

In the past, he's jumped on any politically-correct cause and bandwagon going, so he looks brave and principled without making a single risky decision; banning violent computer games, attacking Jade Goody for her perceived racism towards Shilpa Shetty, and so on. This time, he's prepared this simple, elegant statement about the recent 'British Jobs for British Workers' which encapsulates the reason why Labour's doomed to second- or even third-party status come the next election.

'Traditional trade union values support the right to work of all workers equally. We should take great care when we try and create a right to work that is dependent on whether or not you have a British passport. Seeking to create opportunities to work that are based on the concept of citizenship that excludes those who are EU citizens or have indefinite right to remain in the UK is dangerous and wrong. It is an unnecessary political gift to the far right.'

Right. For the benefit of readers somewhat out of the unionised loop, I'll go over that statement line by line.

'Traditional trade union values support the right to work of all workers equally.'

No they don't. If they did, than why would picketing trades unionists attack cowboy labour? They support the right of any member of the union to do a fair day's work in safe conditions for fair pay. That is all.

'We should take great care when we try and create a right to work that is dependent on whether or not you have a British passport.'

Erm...Keith? 'British Jobs for British Workers?' For some reason, I didn't you see you standing up for neoliberal economics and outsourcing when Gordon Brown said that, but now that the Government is opposing the strikes, you've jumped on the bandwagon. A bit odd, a Socialist supporting free trade, don't you think?

'Seeking to create opportunities to work that are based on the concept of citizenship that excludes those who are EU citizens or have indefinite right to remain in the UK is dangerous and wrong.'

So the concept of citizenship according to you is membership of the EU. Forgive me if I'm wrong and we're all part of some enormous Orwellian pan-European bureaucracy, but I could have sworn we were all Subjects of her Majesty Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God, of Great Britain, Ireland and the British Dominions beyond the Seas Queen, Defender of the Faith, Duchess of Edinburgh, Countess of Merioneth, Baroness Greenwich Duke of Lancaster, Lord of Mann, Duke of Normandy, Sovereign of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath, Sovereign of the Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle, Sovereign of the Most Illustrious Order of Saint Patrick, Sovereign of the Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George, Sovereign of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, Sovereign of the Distinguished Service Order, Sovereign of the Imperial Service Order, Sovereign of the Most Exalted Order of the Star of India, Sovereign of the Most Eminent Order of the Indian Empire, Sovereign of the Order of British India, Sovereign of the Indian Order of Merit, Sovereign of the Order of Burma, Sovereign of the Royal Order of Victoria and Albert, Sovereign of the Royal Family Order of King Edward VII, Sovereign of the Order of Mercy, Sovereign of the Order of Merit, Sovereign of the Order of the Companions of Honour, Sovereign of the Royal Victorian Order, Sovereign of the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem, whether you like it or not.

'It is an unnecessary political gift to the far right.'

Ah. The Reductio Ad Hitlerum. Happens every time Vaz makes a statement, it seems. So now Ramsey MacDonald, the Jarrow Marchers, Tony Benn, Sidney Webb and my grandfather are all on the verge of annexing Chechoslovakia and invading Poland and the Low Countries. You utter shit, Vaz.

Still, there's no denying that it's a political gift to certain political parties associated with the far right, most notably the BNP. As two recent council by-election results show, with the BNP picking up safe Labour seats, one in Kent and one in Lancarshire, what was once the core of the Labour party - northern, working-class, Methodists and Baptists - has been ignored for so long by a government made up of out-of-touch, authoritarian Champagne Socialists seemingly only bent on securing as much money and influence for themselves as possible that it's turned to the only visible party which supports the same policies that Old Labour once did - protectionism, opposition to unlimited immigration, trades unionism - with terrifying results for New Labour.

Still, the main purpose of writing this post isn't to defend the BNP against critics, but to defend trades unionism itself. Although a supporter of the Austrian laissez-faire economics of Ludwig von Mises and Lew Rockwell, I hold that in a libertarian state, the right to associate is one of the most important rights enjoyed by the subjects or citizens; thus, the right to collectively bargain for an improvement in conditions or wages is the cornerstone of a civilised society. However, the right to associate must be voluntary and not overseen by the Government, as is the current situation: once the Government made clear its displeasure of the strikers, the TUC, currently run by middle-class Oxford-educated members of the New Labour establishment, rapidly called off the strike in return for crackerjack benefits. The only union to keep going was (surprise, surprise) Solidarity, often accused of being a front group for the BNP. Keir Hardie would be spinning in his grave.

Stuff that grinds my gears

Since, from its inception, only four things have been posted on the blog - one rant against Jacqui Smith, two videos and one rather depressing piece about being alone on Valentine's Day - I guess I'll have to produce more rants to avoid prosecution under the Trades Descriptions Act. Well, just to buck y'all up, here's a list of things which pisses me off.

• Starbucks calling its smallest coffee size 'Tall'. This marketing ploy might work in uncivilized, backwards countries like America, but, in England, fails to distract the consumer from the fact that he's just paid £3.79 for a cup of coffee with all the size and caffeine content of a urine sample.
• People calling me a 'reactionary'. Seriously, guys. Would a reactionary support legalization of all controlled substances, gay marriage and withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan? Well, yes, if he was Enoch Powell (look him up on Wikipedia if you're interested in the man behind the stereotypical racist.)
• American West Coast accents, rapidly becoming ubiquitous among young, educated urbanites across big-city America. You know, the one with the slight lateral lisp, permanent slight edge of uncertainty, and upwards inflection at the end of each sentence so it feels like the speaker is perpetually asking questions? Like this? For sure. What beats me is why, with all the beautiful American regional accents - the languid, aristocratic, cultured Virginia Piedmont Received Pronounciation; the slightly nasal but unmistakably good-humoured Boston-Rhode Island; the Appalacian accent, possibly the closest the modern ear can get to the English of Shakespeare's time; the wonderful, interrogatory, threatening, aggrieved New York accent that Joe Pesci speaks in every single film role he has ever taken - people plump for one which reminds me of a eunuch.

More stuff to follow.

The loneliness of the long-distance Zimmer

Yesterday was the Worst. Valentine's. Day. Ever.

It started off pretty normally: get up, get dressed, make breakfast, clean teeth, check Facebook, discover that potential inamorata has reported you for 'cyber-stalking', whatever that is. The suggestion that merely for bombarding photos the object of my affections with suggestive comments places me in the same bracket of internet society as a seventy-year-old man who pretends to be a fourteen-year-old girl in youth chatlines, only leaving the flickering light of the monitor to fetch some vaseline and a rubber glove, really, REALLY, REALLY pisses me off. What would they do with Dante Alghieri, who, only speaking to Beatrice Portinari twice during his life, was entirely content to stalk her through the streets of Florence, and shoe-horn love poems to her into La Commedia Divina and De Monarchia on the flimsiest pretexts? Had Facebook existed, I'm sure they'd close down his account rather than run the risk of him offending Beatrice by posting 20,000 lines of impeccable terza rima about her tits on her profile page. So how come he gets talked about as the greatest high poetic writer of the Middle Ages, and I get FUCKING BLOCKED ON FACEBOOK???!!!?? Seems strangely unfair, doesn't it?

Anyway, back to the day. My advances having been rebuffed by the fairer sex, oh, around 100% of the time (there was a girl in New Jersey, but, to be fair, she had drunk forty ounces of malt liquor prior to meeting me, and, for some reason, my rogueish, Pierce Brosnan-like charm works much better over there), I found myself broken, loveless and alone for yet another Valentine's day. While y'all were partying down with various female friends/male friends/transseuxal prostitutes, I spent a romantic evening on my own watching Noel's Live HQ with half a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc. I suppose, some day I'll look back on this and laugh, but, to be frank, that day seems a pretty bloody long way off.

PS. Coming back from the Gym, in between two three-hour sessions of revision, I couldn't help noticing the lead story in the Daily Mail was 'Thirteen-year-old father is symptom of broken Britain'. Typical. Everyone's getting some action except for me.

Fitna Part II

Since the posting of Fitna two nights ago, I have been accused of 'bias' by more than one viewer, so, in the interests of fairness, as a counterpoint, here's the 'moderate, sincere, Muslim community' in their own words.



Charming. I'm not sure if I approve of the swastika, but I entirely agree that 'Mr Blair him a dirty Kuffar', whatever that is. And an incompetent social democrat to boot.

Fitna

Since Fitna's been banned from showing in the House of Lords, on the grounds that it equates Islam with violence (at the behest of Lord Ahmed, an Islamic peer who threatened anyone who suggested Muslims were violent with violence), I feel morally obligated to strike a blow for free speech by hosting it here. You don't have to agree with everything it says, but I'm at least letting you make up your minds about the material, which is more than Jacqui Smith and Lord Ahmed do.

Here goes: Part 1



Part 2

Jacqui Smith - A New Solution

I am, for the first time in months, incandescently angry at something or someone. And that someone is Jacqui Smith.

For anyone out there who hasn't heard of Jacqui 'Jackboots' Smith, she's the current Home Secretary, the petty-minded, authoritarian, bigoted, corrupt nannying embodiment of the moral and intellectual turpitude of New Labour: a woman who, while letting convicted terrorists claim benefits and refusing to allow the anti-Islamist libertarian Geert Wilders into England, dares to lecture those few conservatives who remain in opposition to her tacit fascism - the fact that there is now one CCTV camera to every 14 people in the UK, or 3,000,000, the national DNA database, the proposed legislation to force a free-born Englishman to carry ID even to go down to the shops on pain of arrest - of being 'soft on terror'.

This is a woman who, while spending £5,000,000 of taxpayers' money making ads threatening benefit cheats, has the gall to steal £116,000 in housing expenses and then, being cleared by a rigged committee, attacks the newspaper which leaked the story as 'irresponsible'.

This is a woman who tried to force through legislation allowing people to be held for 42 days without trial or even an offence being formally lodged against them. When this was (thank God) overwhelmingly rejected in the house of Lords, they were accused of not being patriotic.

This is a woman whose knowledge of British Parliamentary tradition is so lacking that she authorised police officers to violate the Magna Carta by arresting an MP in the Houses of Parliament itself. The last time someone tried this, in 1641, tens of thousands of people all over England (including my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather) rose up in arms to fight against the encroaching tyranny of Charles I. That no similar outcry was made this time is symptomatic of our emasculation as a nation by unaccountable, unelected elites.

This is a woman who, reduced in popularity in her constituency to the extent to which her husband is forced to write letters into her constituency's newspaper under an assumed name praising her, is planning to do a 'chicken run' - flee to another, safer Labour seat.

Despite all this, she is still valued enough by the incompetent Brown administration to remain third-in-command at Labour HQ after Brown himself and Harriet 'Harperson' Harman, a woman who looks and sounds more and more like Rosa Kleb with every passing day. Clearly, desperate times call for desperate measures. So, how can the British public neutralise her, either politically or literally? Three options spring to mind:

1. Donate the odd £10 to the Conservative Party every now and then. Redditch is a particularly high-profile target for them, given Smith's pathetic 1.5% majority and her importance to a rapidly-imploding Labour party.
2. Forward all of your junk e-mails about penis extension and Crown Princes of Nigeria needing to use your bank account to smithjj@parliament.uk.
   
3. If you're an attractive woman, you could always try to sell a story (complete with photoshoot of you nearly naked) - MY NIGHT OF LESBIAN LUST WITH HOME SECRETARY - FORMER GO-GO DANCER REVEALS ALL! - to the Daily Sport.

All excellent options, I'm sure you'll agree. However, another, slightly more controversial idea, presents itself: someone could set a website up, jacquismithdeathpool.com for instance, to which people could donate money on the understanding that it is given to the person who predicts the hour of Smith's death, either by natural or unnatural means, the most closely. I predict an enthusiastic response.