Category Archives: Opinions and Rants

Like many others I’m struggling to make sense of the terrible events in Norway. What kind of twisted ideology could prompt someone to do this?

Some things I’ve read on the web this morning sent a chill down my spine and made me break out into a cold sweat.

Several years ago, I used to post reviews to the music and culture reviews site Blogcritics.org. I became disillusioned with the site after the increasing political content, and the sort of unpleasant people that content was attracting.

The last straw was when proprietor Eric Olsen gave a soap-box to very unpleasant anti-Islam hate pieces authored by a far-right Norwegian using the pseudonym “Fjordman”. I resigned from the site, because I didn’t want my own writing to be associated with what was clear to me was the writings of a neo-Nazi.

Now I see Twitter is awash with speculation that “Fjordman” and the perpetrator of the terrible massacre in Norway may be the same person. Even if they’re not, the likelihood that they both frequented the same murky corner of cyberspace is extremely high.

I feel dirty.

Warning. This is a rant. If you’re here for the prog-rock reviews, move along, there’s nothing to see.

I never thought I’d start thinking like a republican (in the British sense, not the American or Irish sense!), but I wish the royal couple would just elope to Greta Green, and save the rest of us some hassle!

When Princess Diana died vast swathes of the country wore their emotional incontinence on their sleeves, indulging in recreational grief over someone they never met. It left the other half of the country wondering if they were last sane person left in Britain. The way I felt browbeaten into compulsory mass weeping left me profoundly alienated, at least until I realised many others felt the same way. It did make me realise that the monarchy no longer represents the whole nation any more in any meaningful way.

The only people who care about the royal family now are tabloid-readers who see them as the ultimate reality TV soap opera, and a few old-school high Tories. And since I’m neither of those things, I’m beginning to object to being asked to pay for it all as a taxpayer, especially in these times of austerity and spending cuts.

But there’s a simple solution. If the royal’s fans are those who worship at the altar of celebrity, let the High Priest of celebrity culture pay for the bloody thing. I’m sure Simon Cowell can afford it

Welcome to the election which everyone lost. The voters have returned with a verdict of “none of the above”.

• Labour have done as badly as they did in 1983, so they’re kidding themselves to say it’s anything other than a massive defeat. No way can Gordon Brown expect to stay in office.
• The Tories have also lost. They were up against the most unpopular prime minister people can remember, in the middle of a recession, and 37% of the popular vote is the best they can manage. The verdict of the British people on them was “we don’t trust you guys with a majority, so we’re not going to give you one”.
• The Liberal Democrats never expecting to form a majority government, but their goal was to get a big enough wedge of MPs to be able to form a majority with either of the other two parties. That hasn’t happened, which is why they have also lost.

So now we’re in the post-election period while the parties investigate coalitions, and try to make deals. Commentators from countries with proportional voting (i.e. most countries) are bemused that so many people in Britain find this strange. We seem to have three options:

• A coalition (or some agreement short of a coalition) between the Tories and the Liberal Democrats. While the parties are right to enter discussions, I doubt that they’ll be able to hammer out a deal that both parties will be able to accept. The ‘Orange Book’ faction of the Liberals and David Cameron’s moderates may have something in common, but there are a sizeable section of both parties who’d consider such a deal to be anathema.
• A minority Tory government, perhaps doing ad-hoc deals to get certain legislation through. At the moment I think this is most likely option, although it’s likely to end in a second election within a year.
• A Lib/Lab coalition. Sadly I think this is a non-starter; the numbers simply do not add up. They’ll be well short of a working majority, and nobody really wants to cut shady pork-barrel deals with the Scottish Nationalists or Democratic Unionists.
• A grand coalition of all three parties as government of national unity, with David Cameron as Prime Minister. Possibly the least likely of all, and only justified if the problems with the economy are really as serious as some of the more apocalyptic commentators are suggesting.

Whatever happens next, we’re going to be living in interesting times. There’s been a lot of talk about electoral reform during and after this election. Whether or not parties can work together successfully when no one party has a majority will be one test of whether or not both the British people and their politicians can deal with the results of an electoral system which would never give an overwhelming majority to a single party.