Do politicians or their henchmen pay any
attention to detail, and musical detail in particular? The same may be asked of
those making television programmes. Or are they all endowed with rather
mischievous senses of humour? I ask because as Tony Blair marched to give his
conference speech - delirious delegates prostrating themselves before the Great
Helmsman - the song "If the Kids are United", by the punk band Sham 69, was
roaring out. Since what Blair was about to say, the title of the band was
apposite. Commentators made much of the song's title: if the kids in Blair's
nursery would just behave themselves, and if Gordon would just stop throwing his
rattle out of his pram, the world would be inherited by the "changemakers". Far
more interesting is the following verse from the song:
I don't want to be rejected
I don't want to be denied
Then its not my misfortune
That I've opened up your eyes
Who else was rejected? Who else was denied?
Who else opened up people's eyes? Indeed, one particular chap a couple of
millennia back was denied three times by one of his own followers! And have
there not been followers who have tried to deny Tony three times in 1997, 2001
and 2005? The misfortune is theirs: forgive them for they know not what they do.
And did not Tony not tell us of the "scars" inflicted on his "back" from trying
to face down a medieval system? Did not Jesus suffer similar scarring from
another medieval system? And did not Tony give a beatitude: Blessed are the
"changemakers". Moreover, the forces of darkness/conservatism would be defeated
if we would listen to the Epistles of Anthony: war (jihadi terror), famine
(Africa), pestilence (MRSA), death (the Judas Iscariots, Mo and Robin, would,
having seen the error of their ways, would not have been visited by the Angel of
Death). Evil would be defeated and a New Jerusalem would be at hand. This is
either a message from above, or Blair's Messiah complex really has taken over.
If Tony is the representative of the deity, then the Lord moves in shockingly
mysterious ways.
If one were to try to decipher anything from
"Labour's" musical preferences, last year's surprising choice for their
Conference Political Broadcast was the most informative. It was the theme from
the film Badlands. For those who have no knowledge of the film, a concise
summary would be: A superficially pleasant and good-natured man goes haywire and
murders people with real gusto. Finally cornered, the affable fellow is asked
why he had been so violent, and, somewhat to his own surprise, the
wouldn't-hurt-a-fly-type-of-guy finds that he has no convincing answer. Any
similarity with a certain resident of 10 Downing Street is purely coincidental.
This is possibly another sign of Blair arrogance (with Blair chuckling to
himself: "I'm mocking you, you fools! And you don't even know it!"). Or just an
impish but bored "Labour" apparatchik inserting it for laughs. What are the
chances such a song would have been chosen? I plump for Blair mockery. They do
say that he has a wicked sense of humour in private. In public, however, he is
merely wicked.
It was sad that the other political parties
didn't make any clever musical puns at the 2005 general election concerning New
"Labour's" use of the theme tune to a film documenting the sociopathic
tendencies of a man who couldn't give a hoot about human life. Come to think of
it, "Things can only get better" was another cruel joke at our expense.
Americans, as is well known, do things so much
bigger and better. And no one does it better than William Jefferson Clinton.
Some time back, David Dimbleby interviewed the former president and rapist. The
interview began with the well-known Lou Reed song Walk on the Wild Side. It is
taken for granted that in an interview like that, Clinton would have decided
much of the detail concerning the interview. Was Clinton being contemptuous? Or
was someone on the BBC production team indulging in some mischief making when
choosing the music? How so? Ponder these lines from the song:
In the backroom she was everybody's darling
But she never lost her head
Even when she was giving head.
Any similarity with Monica Lewinsky is, of
course, purely coincidental. Again, what are the chances that song – of all
songs! – with such resonant overtones being chosen? Clinton mockery? He has
nothing better to do with his time now. Though for Bubba-style practical jokes
he has a long way to match the one he played so skilfully in 1996 when he
refused to start proceedings to extradite Osama bin Laden from a Sudanese
government more than happy to hand the lunatic over. The religious fruitcake
hopped it to Afghanistan a little bit later. We're still laughing that one off.
As for Blair jokes, my personal favourite, and it'll take some beating, is "Iraq
has active military plans for the use of chemical and biological weapons, which
could be activated within 45 minutes." All side-splitting stuff, and,
fortunately for all, neither the Clinton nor Blair practical jokes have had any
serious consequences, though the two jesters found the gags so funny that
emergency heart surgery was soon required. Keep up the harmless fun, chaps.
Moreover, I was certainly fascinated by the
music BBC Parliament chose to play this year during its coverage of the TUC
conference and the conferences of the main political parties. The music was the
tune that accompanied the dire series "Tales of the Unexpected". I was very
young at the time, but even I found nothing remotely "unexpected" - it was all
very bloody expected. Similarly with the nonsense emanating from SKY Channel
508: BBC Parliament. There was great humour to be gained, as usual, by watching
the "comrades, brothers and sisters" rhetoric from assorted trade union leaders
- and I paraphrase - as they called on the "comrades, brothers and sisters" to
embrace the delights of "globalisation", to compete with the sweatshops of China
and to put one's faith in the imminent and "real Labour" government of Gordon
Brown, whose wise leadership will have an almost Jehovah Witness book
illustration quality about it as he brings harmony to industrial relations -
even the lion and the lamb shall sleep together in peace.
Needless to say, it was much more important,
nay expected, for the TUC to feign interest in the Gate Gourmet workers (and
good PR to win a motion on secondary action at the "Labour" conference), and
then fund a Party - turkeys voting to institute Christmas every day of the year?
- that not only refuses, on pain of death, to legalise secondary action, a
worker's fundamental right, but wants to further diminish workers' rights. Who
says "solidarity" is dead? Actually, am I the only person who can't tell the
difference between the unreal world of the TUC and that of Peter Sellers's
biting portrayal of a Bolshy union leader in "I'm Alright Jack"? A fanciful
workers' paradise is never far from Fred Kite's thoughts: "All them cornfields
and ballet in the evening," he coos about "socialist" Russia. The "Labour"
establishment, full of plutocrat-friendly Fred Kites, mutter similarly deranged
nonsense about "no more boom and bust" (Marx must be doing somersaults),
something even the most hyper-capitalist economists believe to be something akin
to a salesman peddling oil from a snake. Engels's witticism about the rampant
bourgeoisification of every part of British life doesn't quite cover the TUC's
embrace of a backward economic programme that even the Financial Times and
Economist think is inflicting serious structural strains on an economy built on
debt.
All this TUC gibberish reminded me of Norman
Johnson, the new Guardian columnist, doing the introductory "who I am and what I
stand for" gushing description of himself. This consisted of the customary
"Islamo-fascism" number. Fifty-two columns a year will write themselves by
deliberately confusing jihadi extremism with fascism. In this first column,
though, he was honest enough to write that he had been hired as a second-rate
David Aaronovitch (comrade Dave, a former Stalinist, has moved on to the Times,
a mad outfit where his embrace of the cult of the personality will be warmly
reciprocated by bundles of Murdoch's dirty money). Mr Johnson then gave what can
only be described as a "Tale of the Unexpected" about how he is in the happy
position to see all his communist ideals embodied in, er, New "Labour". I
consulted my Communist Manifesto and, strangely, found no mention of support for
privatisation and dictatorships, fighting imperial wars, aiding jihadis, and
increasing the gap between rich and poor. I must have a faulty Manifesto. Surely
it is only a matter of time before Johnson joins Aaronovitch and other
"leftwing" visionaries at News International, apparently communism's new
politburo. Although Johnson's piece was a "Tale of the Unexpected", it was also
a blast from the past: "Marxism Today" is back and retelling the same unfunny
jokes.
(Here's a funny
thing. How many people would be surprised to learn that Norman Johnson does not
actually exist - he is in fact the "satirical" creation of a Guardian columnist,
who is making "fun" of something or other. Satire is, roughly speaking, making
serious points through ridicule. Now, given that Norman Johnson is regularly
outdone by Martin Kettle, let alone the departed David Aaronovitch, how is a
reader meant to distinguish satire from "informed" comment. Or is Martin Kettle
imaginary and Norman Johnson real? The Guardian is full of second-rate
Aaronovitches and columnists who genuinely believe that their "socialist"
aspirations have come to fruition in New "Labour". It's a real freak show. The
Guardian show could be satirical if it so chose, though its readers would
misread the comedic intentions of liberalism's standard bearer for seriousness:
it could hire writers who don't need a New "Labour" press release in order to
form an opinion. Unfortunately, for every independent-minded and intelligent
Gary Younge, though he makes mistakes, there are twenty or thirty unthinking and
predictable Andrew Anthonys. Journalists, especially liberal journalists, are as
a general rule, though there are exceptions, a very deluded bunch in that they
believe their own propaganda about how "cynical" they are, how they believe
every politician is a liar, etc. When faced with incontrovertible proof that
politicians are liars, even war criminals, how quickly the faux-"cynicism" fades
and a defender of politicians appears.)
Back to the political conferences. The Lib
Dems conference saw a lurch to the right, but with the always amusingly vacuous
punch line "not left, not right, but what's right for Britain". Was this a Tale
of the Unexpected? Hardly. I've yet to get over the Lib Dems amazing antiwar
placards stating: "It is not yet time for war". Equidistance is back with a
vengeance - and awesome spinelessness impossible to find anywhere but in a party
that has a seven-winged worm as its emblem, as Paul Merton brilliantly pointed
out. Let no one say the Lib Dems were antiwar. (Billy Bragg defended the Lib
Dems have-your-cake-and-eat-it policy on Question Time. An astute member of the
audience detailed the bribes and threats the US has employed in the past to
obtain UN resolutions. She then turned to Bragg and asked him whether he would
support the war if the United States was able to bribe and threaten enough UN
Security Council members to achieve the necessary resolution to wage an
unprovoked war. The "leftwing" activist and "musician" replied that, with a UN
resolution secured, he would support war. Bragg further spluttered that
international law, though it was at the barrel of a shotgun, was all that
mattered to him, everything else was hot air. How the UN security council
resolution was obtained did not concern the "leftwing" activist and useful
idiot.)
The "Labour" conference saw a...how to phrase
it?...a lurch to the right? Is an answer even necessary? Now, who would have
"expected" that, eh? And who would have expected that the conference would rule
"out of order" a motion on Iraq, or that not enough votes to force a discussion
could be amassed by the hundreds of local constituency parties, and that the
"domestic agenda" (read: privatisation) was the crucial matter of our times for
"Labour's" delegates? Since conference decisions aren't binding on the Party,
the sheer thought of embarrassing Tony Blair was all that hindered the
"comrades, brothers and sisters" of the "Labour" movement from even mentioning
the most dangerous issue in international affairs. Just like last year when a
motion to debate Iraq was decapitated by the unions (composite motion "anything
but Iraq"), here was another outbreak of "solidarity".
Priorities are priorities, after all. It would
be the height of irresponsibility to merely debate - forget about even passing a
non-binding motion on Iraq - the possible disintegration of Iraq and a war that
has a good chance of engulfing the Middle East when more important matters are
begging for attention. There was, after all, an "emergency debate" to be had on
gay rights. Is there a gay "emergency"? Has Richard Littlejohn come out? Has
Liberace risen from the dead and started recording? Are ASBOs to be served for
mincing?
By contrast, the Tories, to their eternal
credit, would never allow something as squalid as party unity to stand in the
way of important matters - look at the way they were willing to wage a scorched
earth policy in an attempt to scupper further EU integration. This is known as
principle and integrity, something "Labour's" automata and "leftwingers" will
never countenance in an effort to appease "Labour's" unappeasable rightwing
storm troopers. In their misguided effort to preserve party unity, imagining
they have some leverage on the sociopaths, "Labour's" so-called leftwingers
meekly mutter: "Yes, bass; I'll be mighty good from now on". I really do hope no
one is silly enough to try and draw my attention to the so-called damage done to
"Labour" by the extremely moderate, even slightly rightwing, "Militant"
Tendency. It was, of course, the right's shock troops blackmailing (do as we
say, or we'll wreck the Party) that ensured "Labour" were in opposition for
eighteen years. And what of the Tories? What of this make or break conference
and the leadership election? Well, whatever they do really will be a "Tale of
the Unexpected".
