Gordon R is Gordon B’s Salvation

Hard to imagine isn’t it, that Gordon Ramsay might just have stumbled (however hypocritically) on the answer Gordon Brown needs to survive. It sure won’t be through being advised by Tony Blair (thanks Cherie).

Ramsay has suggested that restaurants should be fined for using out-of-season produce, simple as that. But think about the implications, as the PM stumbles incoherently to find his message, his political voice. It’s all about fairness and responsibility; the new politics to move on from the now thoroughly destroyed Third Way should involve the government tying technology together with its own and consumers’ responsibility. So in Ramsay’s example it’s about not using foreign food just because technology allows us to - it’s trumping that with the notion of its carbon footprint being too big a cost and domestic, not to mention in-season produce being better. It’s rather obvious that you can extrapolate the point across the board:

- We throw away vast amounts of food whilst food prices in the developing world are escalating out of control. And Professor Tim Lang is right - we but also our politicians have to catch up with our inability to use this technology properly. We throw it away because we can, because we don’t feel a direct connection with the consequences of our actions either on the environment or on others elsewhere in the world. We don’t think twice about using out-of-season produce in our own kitchens, nor appreciate that as with restaurant fast food comparison, self-prepared food at home is healthier and often quicker and easier. Government tackling food and our relationship to it at home would have profound environmental consequences, alongside health improvements and would be a core development in a politics where consumers are helped by the government to take responsibility for the choices provided for them.

- Expanding airports, particularly in the south-east is lunacy. The economic case hasn’t been proven for a third runway or sixth terminal at Heathrow, nor for Boris Johnson’s renewed call for the Thames Estuary Airport. Common sense says unlimited expansion isn’t possible anyway, but the environment can’t take all the current planes arriving here as it is. Finally move forward with high speed rail as the Spanish so gleefully have done and realise that as with easy, cheap money, the days of treating flight paths as drag racing tracks to Majorca and Ibiza have to stop. We have the ability to race around the world at low cost whenever we want, but if you keep building airports and expanding them to accommodate this, you factor out any sense of responsibility. People want what they can get - a market that remains utterly free to do as it and its consumers pleases with always produce distortions which the consumers don’t like, such as environmental damage. Time to help them make the responsible choices.

- Walk Away from ID cards. Not only because they’re an illiberal, ineffective idea, but because the government’s central claim is just stupid. We should do it just because the technology already exists? That’s not how technology works - it tends to come from the bottom up; if there’s a pre-existing need and the technology appears it tends to get adopted. Technologies that the government thinks are cute for control of its electorate tend to bring disasters with them - the usage always creeps where it’s not supposed to go, this government has already proven how incompetent it is with handling confidential data, and there’s the likelihood of fraud in a contracted out operation such as this. They would be useless against terrorism, but it’s again a case of a road we mustn’t go down just because we can. There is an inbuilt presumption of guilt in the proposed terms of use of these cards, when we need to tie technology’s use together with responsibility.

If you want fairness then the solutions are also clear: don’t tax the poor to appease the middle classes. That was an electoral wheeze which worked as long as New Labour didn’t squander its political capital. Iraq and Brown’s last gamble as Chancellor - withdrawing the 10p tax band - have seen to that. You don’t go through with the nightmare of 42 days, you issue an immediate asylum amnesty for gay asylum seekers from Iran and other Islamic states, remembering on both counts that one of New Labour’s original claims to legitimacy was Robin Cook’s ‘ethical foreign policy’. It stopped being ethical even during his tenure as Foreign Secretary but Brown could trumpet returning to ethics and fairness as a basis for dealing with foreign affairs as a means of regaining voters’ trust in the Labour Party.

The tragedy is he doesn’t see any of this. It’s absurd that Boris Johnson and David Cameron, the current two most important people in British politics, appear to.

Doctor Who 4:6 (Spoilers)

“The Doctor’s Daughter“

As when it first visited the Cybermen’s dimension, the Tardis is hi-jacked, bringing Donna, Martha and the Doctor to a future of an unending battle between humankind and the Hath. It’s a world where new warriors are cloned instantaneously from a single ‘parent’ and the Doctor is forcibly catalogued, forcibly siring a daughter (Georgia Moffett). As the troupe is separated in an initial battle with the Hath from Martha who goes with the Hath, they find what they expected the war to be isn’t how it turns out. 

On the surface the episode is a horrible retread, but under the surface there are plenty of things going on. In the middle of yet another total war, the Doctor a) doesn’t question how he is drawn into it and comes up with an easy and totally implausible conclusion and b) accepts without enough evidence that his family is dead, that it was his fault and that he should withdraw ever further from people as a result and c) sits in the middle of a conflict distorted by Chinese whispers - it isn’t what it appears to be. We still don’t have an explanation for the last time the Tardis was forced into a conflict without the Doctor’s consent, and it can’t be a coincidence that it’s happening again as Rose returns. Indeed the first series’ final outcome was a result of the Dalek Emperor’s manipulations - the Earth he tried to take over was compliant because of the Doctor’s intervention 100 years earlier. Are we watching the Doctor still being used (perhaps in a scheme to engineer the wishes of others?

The acting is for the most part adequate. With Tennant you’ve seen this all before, as indeed with Agyeman, whose perfunctory appearance this episode only proves her replacement by Tate was a wise move, and it’s Tate as the Doctor’s moral compass who shines once again. Joe Dempsie from ‘Skins’ shows that life after success in a cult series isn’t necessarily that easy, but it’s Moffett who’s interesting. As the real daughter of a previous Doctor (Peter Davison) she’s great ironic casting for the Tenth Doctor’s daughter. As their relationship develops from her being an irritating side effect of a conflict he didn’t ask for, to his genuine progeny, the ample chemistry between them shines. It shouldn’t be surprising, she did after all audition for Rose Tyler in 2005. The conflicts about an instant daughter’s legitimacy as a fighter (when the Doctor’s pacifism was itself balanced out in the Time War), as a Time Lord (when she hasn’t experienced a ’suffering’ he himself can’t substantiate) and a human (when her thoughts and body are just as substantial as Donnas) are very interesting. What’s genuinely confusing though is her resurrection - a side-effect of the terraforming, a distorted regeneration, or did that first breath look an awful lot like residual time vortex energy? Did Rose bring her back as an accident of Parting of the Ways or by design now? It’s an important question when the terraforming technology - the Breath of Life - came from a ‘female creator’. 

With a newly created Time Lord in the mix, there is clearly a new strand heading into the back half of the series. We’ve had a huge implication through this allegorical episode that the Doctor’s involvement in the Time War wasn’t quite what he thought it was, that its disastrous result might not be true after all and that he’s a pawn in a much grander scheme. We have the wall between dimensions falling for an unknown reason, planets disappearing, the rift at the Medusa Cascade being rather important, different alien groups trying to use Earth as a breeding ground, and Donna fulfilling a potentially sinister role. And were Jenny’s (Moffett), Rose’s and Captain Jack’s immortalities all the results of grander manipulation of the Doctor and his assistants? It’s not like the Time Lords have form for that or anything…

Burmese Junta Takes on Whole World

It’s been a disaster to rival the scale domestically of the tsunami. There are up to 100,000 dead in Burma, following Cyclone Nargis, maybe more. Yet the Burmese junta has decided to impound UN food aid and ban foreign aid workers.

Despite the disaster, the junta said it was pressing ahead with a vote on a new constitution designed to maintain its grip on power. All but the worst affected regions will be balloted tomorrow.

In a television message, citizens were urged to do their patriotic duty and vote. The message did not mention the suffering caused by the cyclone.

The question that the world has to answer is what to do about this? Do we allow the generals to attempt to reinforce their grip on power as their people are dying in their thousands, or do we, as the French are advocating at the UN, bypass the Burmese government and distribute by air anyway? I’m not sure anyone in the blogosphere has answers to these difficult questions and I don’t want to waste time starting a debate.

Instead donate £10 to the DEC here

We all did it for the tsunami, and must do it again.

If you have any questions about the DEC, or anything about this cyclone and its terrible aftermath just ask. But give anything you can. The agencies partnered with the DEC know what they’re doing and aren’t affiliated with national governments in any way. They just need money and the freedom to get on with what they’re good at.

Boss Doesn’t Like You? Blacklisted!

Later this month, the National Staff Dismissal Register (NSDR) is expected to go live.

Organisers say that major companies including Harrods, Selfridges, Reed Managed Services and Mothercare have already signed up to the scheme. By the end of May they will be able to check whether candidates for jobs have faced allegations of stealing, forgery, fraud, damaging company property or causing a loss to their employers and suppliers.

Workers sacked for these offences will be included on the register, regardless of whether police had enough evidence to convict them. Also on the list will be employees who resigned before they could face disciplinary proceedings at work.

This is unthinkable. Gordon Brown and Jacqui Smith wonder why their popularity is in free-fall - people don’t appreciate how they have it so good? They blame the government for economic forces out of the government’s control? What about they realise this is yet another illiberal scheme concocted by the Home Office and know exactly whom to blame? Watch for this scheme to creep into areas it wasn’t intended for, and as usual to hurt the most vulnerable.

Buck Foris

Boris Johnson has taken office as Mayor of London.

I would like to thank first the vast multitudes who voted against me - and I have met quite a few in the last nine months, not all of them entirely polite.

I will work flat out from now on to earn your trust and to dispel some of the myths that have been created about me.

There is nothing you can do to earn my trust you idiot. You’ve already lied about your transport policy, you’ve shown disinterest, dislike and ignorance about diversity, and offered policies on crime which were just plain stupid. How do you think you can earn my trust, when the ‘myths’ have to a number already been proven to be true? When you’ve written in an outright homophobic manner for years and then when you have the opportunity to explain your platform’s contradictory support for gay Londoners you refuse - when you say you were against Section 28 but still support the point of it, what are we supposed to think?

Where there are neglected opportunities we will seize on them, and we will focus on the priorities of the people of London: cutting crime, improving transport, protecting green space, delivering affordable housing, giving taxpayers value for money in every one of the 32 boroughs.

Putting metal detectors in schools and tube stations to weed out those carrying metallic weapons is economically impossible. It’s also impossible in terms of manpower, and is hardly a step towards tackling the reasons for why knives and guns are being used by young people to kill one another with. Improving transport won’t be done by attempting a no-strike deal with unions ideologically opposed to you, with clout no central government would currently dare stand up to for long.

And I hope that everybody who loves this city will put aside party differences to try in the making of Greater London greater still.

You are an Old Etonian who hasn’t as an MP voted for the best interests of London. Put aside party differences? Are you completely mad? Your sponsors the Evening Standard went through the whole gamut - from saying Ken’s campaign was being managed by suicide bombers to claiming he was setting up a socialist cabal in City Hall - maybe you’re the one guilty of negatively inflating party differences.

To the young people who voted for the goofball celebrity of Have I Got News For You, to the self-loathing gay Tories who voted for a man who hates you, to the ungrateful taxi drivers who voted down the man who inflated your fares well past the point of reason, to the racists and homophobes who took their opportunity to stab London’s minorities in the back, I say thank you. Thank you for making London look as stupid as the United States. We now have no political capital to expend in attacking the Americans for voting for a hateful, ignorant and stupid buffoon as their leader. Where they voted him in anyway for his affability, it seems London just did too, proving once again that most people really are stupid.

Film Review: Iron Man

The first Marvel Studios film is in and it’s a knockout. Don’t get me wrong, it’s certainly not perfect, but its flaws are easily outweighed by its strengths. And as hoped, its principal strength comes in the form of Robert Downey Jr. The question was always whether a rich alcoholic was going to be able to play a rich alcoholic convincingly, and Tony Stark in particular, a character who bounces between consistent but conflicting incarnations more than most comics characters. He doesn’t just play Stark, he is Stark, and far more convincingly than I’ve seen him in the comics - more than Millar’s Ultimate Stark, more than Michelinie & Layton’s classic incarnation, more even than Lee in his heyday. He’s not just an arms dealer with a change of heart, or an alcoholic with an unwanted sense of nobility, but as in his current incarnation in the comics his sober decision-making is determined by his intense, alcoholic nature. He always finds ways to do what he wanted to do while justifying those ways to himself. This attention to character detail outdoes anything every superhero film has ever managed before. Downey even looks like Stark - it’s a bravura performance.

He’s hardly alone - Gwyneth Paltrow shines despite Pepper Potts’ under-written role, Terrence Howard pulls off Stark’s friend Rhodey again more credibly than the book, and Jeff Bridges delivers a genuinely masterful performance as Stark’s mentor turned enemy Obadiah Stane. His corporate manipulation is an effective approach for a character who was such a one-note figure in the book, and it’s almost a pity to see him as the genuine enemy, driven by ambition and jealousy, as the film goes on. And it really does go on, which is the main problem it has. At over two hours the film is far too heavy and unfocused, particularly in the origin segment in the first third, where it takes too long to get into the body of the film. But this flaw is easily outweighed by what follows - Stark’s development of the modern suit is both fun and enjoyable and the CGI is far better than anything I’ve seen in any other superhero film. And the film’s ultimate focus on corporate responsibility and humanitarian intervention is a revelation, one which director Jon Favreau might have been better advised to focus the film more on.

There isn’t much doubt though that a franchise has been born, one as with the renewed Batman franchise, is helmed by an acting heavyweight with charisma and good looks to spare. I really look forward to Iron Man 2 in 2010, particularly with the rise of the Mandarin and entrance of War Machine foreshadowed. 8/10

By the way you must wait till the end of the final credits. A SHIELD-related delight finally awaits, which no self-respecting comics fan should miss out on…

Film Countdown II: Dark Knight

from www.whysoserious.com posted with vodpod

If the finished product is even a tenth as good as this trailer then we have a modern classic on our hands. I haven’t been this excited about a film in a long time. Note the trailer autoplays, but you can pause/stop it underneath its bottom left hand corner.

Doctor Who 4:5 (Spoilers)

“The Poison Sky“

Now that was a lot better. The Sontaran Stratagem continues, as it becomes clear that they’re not out to pollute the Earth or destroy it, only turn it into a breeding ground for more Sontaran clones. The Martha clone sets out to confound the Doctor at every turn, Donna is kidnapped within the Tardis and has to escape the Sontaran mothership, with the Doctor stranded on the planet below, and why is Rose trying to contact the Tardis? For that matter why isn’t she successful?

The sloppy storytelling from last week is mostly fixed, with much better pacing, some excellent acting all around, and even Christopher Ryan’s scenes are (*ahem*) shorter, giving General Staal an edge which he simply didn’t have in the first part. The tragic denouement, with Ryan Sampson’s Luke Rattigan giving his life to save the Doctor, was an unexpected but tidy twist, given that the Doctor had no way out in his plan to destroy the Sontarans. And the Doctor’s reveal that he knew about the Martha clone was a nice piece of storytelling, with us finding out yet more of his alien nature - he could detect the clone by smell. But it’s Tate’s well written character who again steals the show - how she’s going to deal with the impending formal return of Rose is anyone’s guess. Or is that vice versa?

Rose herself is trying to break through again from ‘Pete’s Universe’. But why? If the wall between dimensions is now almost porous, shouldn’t we by now be detecting the impact? Or is it going on around us and we’re just not seeing it? Is the dimensional barrier falling through accident or design and either way what is it allowing to happen which we are being told about? This episode is the second this series to try to use Earth as an alien breeding ground. What is going on in the bigger picture and who just stole the Tardis with everyone in it?

Mayor BoJo

I’m aghast.

Was Ken brought down by Gordon Brown’s poisonous effect on the Labour Party? Was it the £25 4×4 congestion charge? Was it a backlash against his embracing of London’s diversity or his meeting Yusuf Al-Qaradawi? Was it his support for Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez or his failure to get the tube running properly? Was it his support for the corrupt Sir Ian Blair, or the street crime which spiralled out of control, despite the figures the Metropolitan Police lazily fell back on? Worse still was it Brian Paddick’s failure to direct his supporters’ second votes to go to Ken?

Boris Johnson isn’t a fan of ethnic minorities, homosexuals, poor people or London for that matter, yet London has just voted him Mayor. London elected someone with the right attitude and experience for two terms, then reflected and decided “he’s been in the job too long” and supplanted him with a bumbling oaf of a man, who’s never prioritised London’s affairs as an MP, and doesn’t support measures such as the congestion charge which have already been proven to improve London’s environment. Seems a bit bonkers doesn’t it? But whilst extremely upsetting and worrying, it was actually quite predictable.

The diversity agenda quite simply doesn’t operate in a straight line. Livingstone came in with the creation of the job in 2000 promising genuine change, and he delivered. More than anything he set about breaking the disproportionate privilege previously only held by the white middle-class - the funding of ethnic minority groups, the congestion charge, the promotion of ethnic and subcultural events like Pride by City Hall - Trafalgar Square has never been busier, more educational or diverse - these have all acted to raise the profile and power of London’s minorities. Except a) now there’s more of a level playing field they’re all flexing their muscles in ways previously unthinkable and b) the middle classes will never overwhelmingly support the championing of policies, approaches or attitudes which act in others’ best interests.

So Ken was in large measure a victim of his own success. But the Guardian is also right I think - a perception of arrogance, being above what the voters might want - also did him in. Was the Oliver Finegold affair his Monica Lewinksy moment? Maybe, in that it didn’t reflect badly on him in his job, but was a distraction he could have done without, and:

(whilst) every success brought acclaim (it) also seemed to erode his sense of humility. The line between self-belief and arrogance can be a thin one. Self-belief was a essential component of the construct Livingstone had so successfully sold to the public over almost 30 years. Arrogance, descending all too frequently into shows of petulance, only served to degrade it.

That’s a really strong analysis I think. He was right to battle the disgusting Evening Standard, but it was a pointless battle. He was right to bid for the Olympics, but London wanted to hear he wanted it for community and sport, not merely for the development money (which was, after all, a prime priority for his position). He may have championed gay rights with his partnership register (the precursor to civil partnerships), but his open support of Islamist cleric Yusuf Al-Qaradawi compromised a key component of his support from the gay community. Was he right in saying the right wing tabloids didn’t represent Al-Qaradawi’s views fairly? Probably. But he also refused to acknowledge that the cleric might have misrepresented his real views to him too. And then he really backed the wrong horse with Sir Ian Blair (whom Boris now needs to fire from chairing the Metropolitan Police Authority, as promised). Supporting a Metropolitan Police Commissioner who remained more concerned with saving his own neck following his corrupt attempt to block the investigation into the Met’s murder of Jean Charles de Menezes was just bananas. With people’s experience of street, knife and gun crime escalating out of control in Ken’s last term, he could then never say he was the Mayor of law and order.

It’s the worst result we could have expected - London even now has the BNP in the Assembly. I hope at least that a London which has become more political than at any time since the 80s will still have the courage to ignore the Evening Standards of this world and hold this new bunch forcefully to account. But given how stupid certain elements in London have been this last week - voting for an unqualified, elitist, celebrity (George W anyone?) idiot because it’s “time for a change” - things don’t look positive. At least the 2012 Olympics, which most of us believe will be a shambles will be presided over by a shambles. Just don’t forget what this man really thinks of diversity, Ken’s championing of which was chiefly responsible for winning the bid and putting London back on the map:

Film Review: Happy-Go-Lucky

What if someone were naturally, unalterably happy? What if their default position to life were to see the cup permanently half full? Is that possible? Is it possible to be genuinely equanimous about the fights, the violence, the pain, jealousy, spite and other nastiness which others hurl at us? Is it possible to take them for what they are, to be non-reactive?

Poppy (Sally Hawkins) is happy. She rents a flat with her girlfriend Zoe, regularly goes out with the girls, has a job she adores, doesn’t need a man and doesn’t care about saving money; to coin a phrase - life is sweet. Nothing can shift her - her controlling younger sister, the mad Flamenco dance teacher, the damaged driving instructor, nothing. It can’t be real can it? And everyone thinks the world of her - her school head, her younger sister, Zoe, even racist driving instructor Scott - they’re all drawn into the slipstream of her happiness.

This is a remarkable film, quite lovely. It’s engaging, intelligent and deeply thought-provoking. Being a Mike Leigh film you constantly expect a dark undercurrent or a dark revelation, but there are none to be had. There are times when Poppy wavers - the first appearance of bullying at the school clearly dumbfounds her, and Scott’s violence clearly upsets her, but she never stops being curious about life, never stops believing that being positive, even if against all the odds, is the way to approach life.

Having the main thrust of the narrative involving positive Poppy and negative Scott is highly effective. Poppy doesn’t need a man, yet she persists in trying to lighten the load for mean, nasty, angry and jealous Scott (Eddie Marsan); it really is hard to be him. Her chaos in contrast with his extreme control leave you wondering who’ll get the better of whom. Leigh wisely lets his actors tell the story - a battle both to justify their worldviews and to try to convert one another, and Sally Hawkins is quite astonishing. Balancing out good humour, contemplation and raw intelligence couldn’t be easy for any actor, yet she effortlessly makes you believe in her character. She’s hardly the only good actor - Marsan’s damaged driving instructor might be appalling (and frequently laugh out loud hilarious), but he never allows the role to descend into caricature. It’s a timely film and Leigh brilliantly opts to risk a happy movie in which to explore the really awkward question about happiness. You’ll never see better. 9/10