The Artful Dodger and 38 Degrees

This ad appeared in some British newspapers earlier this week. It was made by 38 degrees,
an organisation that is also raising funds through the internet.  

This is what they believe in. I believe in that too.

WHAT WE BELIEVE IN

We believe that it's people who should have the power in our society. We help make this happen by making it easy for people to influence the institutions, like the government, who make decisions that affect us all.

We work together in our thousands to defend fairness, protect rights, promote peace, preserve the planet and deepen democracy. Some people might call those goals ‘liberal’, 'left-of-centre' or ‘progressive’. We call them common sense for a better world.

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!