"It's Shite being English. We're the Lowest of the Low."

It's a shite day today, truly shite, one of the worst days ever, a day when 5 more years of corruption, venality and corporate greed are destined to destroy what took decades to build up. By the end of this government Britain is going to look like the town Biff ruled in the second of the Back to the Future films; a country filled with carpetbaggers, snake oil salesmen, property developers, gangmasters and money shufflers. 

So I walked the streets of Bath today and looked around. You could sniff out those who have so happily caused this state of affairs. And you wanted to slap them, to ask them if they knew what they were doing because stupidity and ignorance is the only excuse for such a disgusting state of affairs. 

But it's not the state of affairs in Wales, or Scotland. Things are very different there. As the results came in last night I thought of Scotland and I thought of Trainspotting and Renton's denunciation of all things Scottish. And then I thought of the envy of so many English people ; that Scotland has one Conservative MP, that Scotland is not a country full of class conscious pound sniffing power mongers. 

I cringe at being English today, I feel shame at what my fellow Englanders have become and what they will do to this country for no good reason. Renton's great speech about how shite it is to be Scottish still applies today. But not for the Scottish. For the English. It is shite being English. 


God help us. Our only hope is that the Conservatives natural avarice, corruption and cold cruelty combines with its arrogance and they destroy themselves in those flurries of Tory spite that marked the end of the Major years. 

Some hope. I thought about Renton this afternoon and then thought some more about Trainspotting. The whole bloody film is full of quotes that seem to sum up this most dismal of elections. 


 



On Being English


"It's SHITE being English! We're the lowest of the low. The 

scum of the fucking Earth! The most wretched, miserable, 

servile, pathetic trash that was ever shat into civilization." 



On Today, this grim, depressing shite 

day


“Everything in the street today seems soft focus.” 



On The Reasons People Vote 

Conservative


"Choose your future. Choose life . . . But why would I want to

do a thing like that? I chose not to choose life: I chose 

something else. And the reasons? There are no reasons.

Who needs reasons when you've got the Conservative 

Party?"



On David Cameron


“You fucking knew that fucking cunt would 

fuck some cunt.” 



On Voting Conservative


"People think it's all about misery and 

desperation and death and all that shite, 

which is not to be ignored, but what they 

forget is the pleasure of it. Otherwise we 

wouldn't do it. After all, we're not fucking 

stupid. At least, we're not that fucking 

stupid."

Elaine Duigenan (who, amongst other things, makes photograms of old nylons and hairnets and pictures of snail trails) is taking part in the Orange Dot Gallery 2 to the Power 10 Postcard Art Project. She very kindly sent me a Micro Mundi Snail Trail card for me to have my way with - that's it up there. Sorry John Heartfield, I couldn't help myself.

Cameron in China: What's your poison?

Strange people, strange picture. What's their poison, I wonder, and is it a comment on the quality of Chinese goods, that whatever it was, it was just not good enough.

These four are in China, and they are wearing poppies, ostensibly because of Remembrance Day when we British remember the horrors of war and say Never Again/express our support for the boys in Iraq/Afghanistan/Iran and Yes, Again.

The Chinese associate the poppy with opium, which we forced upon the Chinese in the 19th Century. We were Victorian drug dealers and the Chinese were our junkie scum. That helped us in learning lessons of hypocrisy. It also helped destroy China and led to wars and rebellions that cost tens of millions of lives. And the opium was sold because we had a bad balance of payments.

Chinese officials apparently asked Cameron and co. not to wear the poppy because of this, because the poppy is a vivid symbol of China's humiliation at the hands of the European powers. "We informed them that they mean a great deal to us and we would be wearing them all the same," a British official explained.

Perhaps China's export of  all the plastic crap and tat that floods our shore is their revenge for these past humilitations, a poison of pointless consumption. And just as opium not only destroyed China, but also blighted the heart and soul of this country through the wealth attained by corrupt and criminal businessmen, so China is being poisoned, both literally and metaphorically by toxic wealth, lost fingers and wasted lives.

A Royal Wedding! Very nice, but wouldn't a Political Funeral have been better. Come on China, must do better next time!

The Four Stooges

The times they are a-changing back!

But at least Margaret Thatcher didn't dismantle every part of the British support structure. She started the job, but was held back at least part of the way. There were too many one-nation Tories who realised the effect that would have on Britain, and not just on the poor, but also the rich and on themselves, the people who made the decisions.

The same can't be said of Cameron, Clegg, Osborne and Alexander - what names could we call them? This is a polite blog, so I won't call them names, but I will comment on how alike they look and how, now, anybody who does not look like them, anybody non-male, non-white, non-privately educated non-healthy, non-heterosexual, non-wealthy, is a minority group, an equalities group. And that is a poor state of affairs to be in.

David Cameron, Tally-Ho-Ho-Ho!

Farewell Gordon Brown. I liked his lack of artifice and his ability to save us from complete financial disaster, especially after the venality of  Tony Blair and the array of shabby, self-interested and delusional Conservative and Labour Prime-ministers that we had over the previous 30 years.

What do I make of David Cameron, our new prime-minister? I'll be generous and go with Obama's verdict - "What a lightweight."

That's Dave in the top picture - second from left on the back row. Bottom right is Boris Johnson, Mayor of London. In the second picture you can find George Osborne, our future Chancellor (for a few months anyway) in the bottom left hand corner. The Bullingdon Club is an Oxford University drinking and dining club.

Happy hunting, Dave. Tally-Ho!

Tory Boy

I last saw this bloke at Bristol Uni in 1987 (studying History and Classics - couldn't get into Oxford or Cambridge). And he's back - the time-travelling Tory. Nice chap. God help us all!

(picture from today's Independent)

My David Cameron

 

 

Many more takes on the airbrushed David Cameron posters from here.That's the original one at the bottom.

And make your poster - using this template here. Or this generating page here. Lovely.

David Cameron Poster

The  election will probably be in May, campaigning is hotting up and David Cameron is almost certainly going to be the next prime minister of the UK.

The Conservatives have always been better at the posters, if only because reactionary posters are more visually striking. Up top is the latest Conservative Party poster -  a bit of a disappointment because it's quite nice really, cuddlifying Cameron with not a hint of nastiness in there.

He's been airbrushed to plasticity, a contrast to grizzled Gordon, his gentle eyes undress the undecided middle-aged wobbler in a most decorous, yet lascivious fashion, his lips puckered just a tad selectively. The icy blue backdrop exudes calm and a fresh-breathed confidence, his promises to preserve the NHS a reminder that he's not like those sub-rock dwelling tories we once loved to hate. Who is his target audience, I wonder. Would you?.

Anyway, here is Cameron getting criticised for the airbrushing and "pouting lips Keira Knightley would be proud of."

Some knock-offs of the poster are below (from Political Advertising Blog.) , as well as a predictable but funny Jedward (if you are not from the UK, they were terrible X-Factor (a TV singing competition) singers and famous for their daft hair) spoof mocking Brown and Darling.