Thinkurbation's Tumbleblog

OI! ED… enough already with the Coulson scandal

Dear Ed,

It’s been fun, and you’ve sown some seeds, now’s the time to move on. If you and yours bang on much more about “judgement” and “scandal” in the context of the Coulson scandal you really will pluck defeat from the jaws of victory.

You’ve done the job, now it’s time to move on.

No really. Let it go now. Because if you continue you run two serious risks. Firstly Cameron’s gag writers are working up some superb repostes, and you risk being made to look really really silly. Second, I’m not paying my subscription to the party in order to give you a mandate to snipe at David Cameron, I’m paying my subs because I want an active, radical, willing labour party.

Now’s the time to get back to the economy, now’s the time to challenge Cameron’s “judgement” on the economy, on the scale of the cuts that will delay our country’s recovery and damage our key public services.

Because, if you’re not out there, defending the public sector, promoting an agenda that invests in growth and recovery, there’s a danger that we’ll all be left wondering what you stand for.

Come to think of it, what do you stand for?

The Student Riot of November 10th – Deplore the violence but ask why it took place

The violence that took place during the student march in London on the 10^th of November has been condemned by all sides of the political divide, and rightly so. I’m as keen as the Daily Mail to see the perpetrators rounded up and put on trial.

But there’s a “but”.

While I deplore the violence, I have to admit that there is a part of me that is delighted to see British students becoming more active in protesting against the government. Of course the establishment will be blaming it on “anarchists” and repeating pompous mantras along the lines of “Violence is no way to achieve political change in a modern democracy”; the establishment is bound to speak against increased levels of activism among students. For heaven’s sake! These people are rocking the boat.

We should also put the violence into perspective. The march was attended by 50,000 students while the violence appears to have been perpetrated by fewer than 500 protesters – less than 1% of the total, and the violence appears to have been triggered by the actions of an even smaller minority. But while it seems that a relatively small group of people came to the march with a clear plan to instigate acts of violence and vanalism, they were joined by many more who weren’t part of any violent conspiracy. One student, quoted in Time, said “There were a few leading the charge, but plenty of us ordinary students were joining in as well and we’re not all anarchists,” he says. “We are very, very angry about the tuition fees and we wanted to be heard.” When a violent minority can mobilise others to act with it, it’s time to pay attention.

The 10^th of November should be the cause of a lot more thinking, worrying, and reflection than the simple parroting of condemning clichés represents. This event marks an escalation in student activism and the violence is a response to a sense among many in the UK that they have no political voice. Politicians from all sides of the divide have to pay attention, whether they like it or not.

Politicians are right to condemn the violence, as long as they are also willing to ask themselves “What have we done to create the environment within which violent protest becomes choice that people will even consider?”

Given that we have only two mainstream political forces at play today, the Labour Party and the ConLib Coalition, which group is going to stand with the students and represent them?

Dave and Ed

So this weekend, Ed Miliband was elected leader of the Labour party in the UK, narrowly beating his brother David by a margin of 1.3% of the vote.

I was personally delighted. David Miliband is, doubtless, an incredibly intelligent and polished politician; but I would have left the labour party if he’d won. Why? To me it’s all about character. David Miliband contributed to Labours defeat in the last election by penning an article in the Guardian :-

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jul/29/davidmiliband.labour

In which he appeared to set out his manifesto for a leadership challenge against Gordon. The coup attempt (which was, perhaps unsurprisingly, subsequently denied by David M) failed and David had to do some back-tracking.

Personally, I saw the guardian article as a definite challenge, and as a result could only view his subsequent back-tracking as cowardice. 

I wouldn’t want to be a member of a party with a weasel at the helm.

Ed, on the other hand, has a cleaner record when it comes to character. Take the “out for a pint” test for example - I’d go out for a pint with Ed, I couldn’t imagine sitting opposite David in a bar and exchanging small talk.

Ed would lend you a fiver, David would claim poverty. Ed would watch your back in the trenches, David would be looking after himself.

To me it’s all about character.

David would also have lost the next election - David is a labour version of Cameron - slick, shiny eyed, and oh so very slightly…. greasy. All the internal posturing, glad handing and schmoozing wouldn’t work with the voters - they’d end up with the sense that if they voted for David, they’d feel a little used, soiled even.

Ed is tangibly different from Cameron, in a number of really, really good ways.

Is Ed going to be a servant to the Unions?

You can trust the right-wing press to make much of the fact that Ed “owes his victory to the unions”, they’ll try and spin up the fear that we’ll see a return to the 1970’s.

This is such a load of bollocks, I’m embarrassed that journalists (even Radio four journos for Pete’s sake!) stoop to this dim-witted analysis.

So… get the scoop here…

Ed doesn’t owe his victory to the “Unions”, he owes his victory to “Union Members”.

Do you see the distinction?

Ed wasn’t “brought to power” as a result of deals made in smoke filled rooms - he was brought to power by ordinary people… individuals.

No other leader of ANY political party has been brought to power by such a large electorate. To put it into perspective…

Ed received 175,519 votes in his election; David Cameron received 134,446 votes in his. 

So what next?

First, let’s deal with David - David faces the biggest test of his character he’s had to face so far - Does he “take his ball back” and run away, crying like a spoilt little baby who has just been told he can’t stay up to watch another episode of Dora the Explorer? Or does he suck it up and commit to his party, and his new leader by getting on with the job?

I don’t know which call David will make, but if he runs away like a nasty little weasel he’ll have confirmed all of my misgivings about him. On the other hand, I’ll be impressed (and a little humbled) if he decides to support his brother and his party.

As for Ed… Ed’s position as “to the left” doesn’t need to be a bad thing. Sure, he needs to rubbish the claims that he’s some kind of crypto marxist (which are stupid and absurd), but we need the next competition to be between a right-of-centre (very very right of centre in my opinion) ConLib party (the “coalition” has forever doomed the Liberals to being the corduroy wearing wing of the Tory party) or a centre-left movement lead by a bunch of really credible, normal people.

On policy, Ed needs to show a strong commitment to deficit reduction, and to explain why doing it a little more slowly will be good for all of us - That’s a case that can be made, and as voters watch the carnage and inequality that the ConLibs create it’ll be increasingly attractive to voters. Oh… and for god’s sake… step away from the “Graduate Tax” - what the fuck??? 

My Partner (a post grad) doesn’t understand “working at home”

I’m defeated. I have tried to explain in a hundred different ways that when I’m working at home, I’m working.

My partner bounds in at 4pm (she’s a teacher) and then gets mardy because I don’t appear to be giving her enough attention.

This is despite:

• Agreeing that it’s best not to disturb me when I’m working
• Asking nicely if I could be left to work
• Asking her to imagine she’s actually come into an office building to chat to me

Short of telling her that the only way she can talk to me is by phoning the frikken switchboard I’m not sure how I’m ever going to help her understand that working at home means working. At home.

Jordan begs Pete to take her back

And I don’t give a flying crap

Thoughts on whining about not being invited to events

I get invited to a lot of events, but there are a fair few that I don’t get invited to. Sometimes, I hear about an event that’s taken place and think to myself - “Crap! I should have been invited to that one!”. It is annoying when you feel you ought to be well known enough within a field to be invited to participate in something, then discover that you’ve been overlooked.

If it’s something that’s really my bag, I’ll go ahead and ask the organisers why I wasn’t included in the guest list. Inevitably it’s not a conspiracy - I’ve just been overlooked, or maybe I’ve not done a good enough job of positioning myself as someone who has a contribution to make.

At the end of the day - I just suck it up and move on - with a personal to-do to make myself more interesting and relevant to the people who organised the event in the hope that I’ll be invited in future.

What I absolutely wont do is whine about it like a spoilt child.

Why am I writing this? Well, I was at an event the other day, and a couple of people popped up to ask why they’d not been invited. I’m not going to name names - but one of them (someone I know and respect) sent a quick tweet with a pointed (but light hearted) comment about his absense from the invite list. This person is a proper expert on the topic, and would have really livened up the conversation, and the organisers we’re pretty quick to acknowledge that he ought to have been invited - and committed to inviting him to the next gig. All sorted, with a minimum of fuss.

But a couple of others, decided to whine about it like little babies - The implication of their tweets was “Well„„ if I’m not on the invite list, then it must be a really lame discussion”

Well, I’ve got news for this type of whiner - If you really do believe that you are such an expert on a topic, that no discussion of it has any value unless you’re part of that discussion then maybe you need to pull your head out of your arse?

And by way of constructive advice - remember, on twitter, everyone can hear you whine

web apps for iPhone

Having fun looking at the doc for apple iphone apps… Lots of cuteness