Don't worry kids, I'm not gonna do a me and abandon the other 2016 timeline I'm working on. Yet.
Thursday
February 25, 2016
“But let’s move on to an election which is actually imminent, in the United Kingdom; Europe’s uppity one.”
Oh, but if only John Oliver knew how correct he was. Hearing it reminds me of the jibe by the European Commission President last year that Britain “does nothing but argue,” lamenting the old days under David Steel. You may think it’s strange for me to be watching HBO on the day the Prime Minister went to the palace to have Parliament dissolved, and you’d probably be right, but this very first day of the election campaign is usually quieter than outside observers realise. Everyone huddles and finalises their strategy; today most of the party leaders are revising for tomorrow’s debate; the first in British political history. So here I am in the back of the taxi on the way to Broadcasting House, watching one of the countless American shows where someone talks to the camera while funny images appear over his right shoulder, because I’ve seen the Prime Minister’s pitch today at Downing Street a thousand times already. I’m interrupted with a text; my producer wants to know my take on the big controversy slowly emerging about his speech. The PM had referred to Britain being “on the precipice, faced with the choice of either continuing down the steady path or jumping into the unknown. At this time of national peril, we cannot resort to wild or rash actions. Stability is the only option.” A lot of people, Labour and the Liberals included, are calling this very statement rather wild and rash. Some have called it fearmongering, and the term “national peril” has been described as almost warlike in its rhetoric. The Labour leader has been calling “civility” between the parties the best option during the economic crisis, and what a crisis; last week the unemployment figures finally hit that terrifying twenty percent. It’s worse elsewhere, with the news all week displaying fresh pictures of the civil war-like riots in Greece and Spain. Over there it’s terrifying, here it’s just miserable. I text back to my producer, "he should have just cried, we both know he's dead in the water regardless of what he says." Come on, he's not staying in Downing Street amid this kind of circumstance.
But the cast of characters has been assembled. There’s our Tory Prime Minister, the energetic Etonian patriot Donald Mount whose claims to fame include being the tallest and youngest Prime Minister ever whose Cabinet has been variously been nicknamed the Algonquin Round Table or the Oberkommando. His sunny optimism is wearing very, very thin on a country dealing with the worst state of affairs since the Luftwaffe figured out how bomb doors work. He rose so high when he first came to office, refusing to follow the Americans into Iran, and now look how far he's fallen. Our own little forgotten war in Sudan is still grinding on after ten years. Then there’s the Labour leader, John McDonnell, representation of a party rebellion against a generation of centrism by the hierarchy and mired by controversy over his comments about the IRA. The party loves him, the country not so much, the executives of the industries he wants to nationalise even less. The Liberal leader attracting plenty of international curiosity, Paisley-native Sophie Nkrumah, who holds the potential to be the first black national leader in the history of Western civilisation (I think). Her Muslim deputy, Alaa “AJ” Jasim, has managed to become the darling of panel shows everywhere ever since calling the Prime Minister a “cockbucket” on The News Quiz. Coming at such a time for international politics, when the continent’s centrist consensus is being ripped to shreds by the far-right and far-left amid the recession, it’s not doing an inconsiderable service to our global reputation. Doing the opposite, as he’ll be the first to tell you, is Victor Hood. Real name John Western, having changed it to presumably be an eye-catching supervillain, he’s been leading the rebranded and modernised National Front for a decade in total obscurity. Then along came the recession and the return of that spectre called stagflation, and he’s exploded onto the political scene. Today he’s addressing a rally in Blackpool and channelling his inner Oswald Mosley once again as his party prepares for the most important election in its history. But unlike Mosley he’s got no time for intellectual fine points; to many he’s the bloke next door who says some outlandish things but doesn’t really mean them, the nice guy who pays his round and with whom you can always have a laugh with. His being a homosexual (obviously, look at that suit) is enough for a great deal of people to dismiss accusations of fascism; last year in Manchester he famously conducted a book-burning of Mein Kampf as a publicity stunt on Holocaust Remembrance Day, which the Anglo-Jewish lobby diplomatically called “unnecessary.”
Notice how I gave plenty more words to Mr Hood than anyone else. There’s a good reason, because he’s shaping up to be the key figure for this election. Since the world economy decided it was too stable for its liking, the National Front has catapulted from a solitary percentage point in the polls to occasionally touching fifteen percent. Proportional representation working its magic, a motherlode of parliamentary seats are beckoning. It’s been a hell of a lot of work to rebrand the party; when he became leader, Hood publicly refused the endorsement of former leader John Tyndall, the party’s first MP when proportional representation first came into effect for the 1979 general election. Since then he’s had an uphill fight against the party’s white nationalist old guard but is now declaring “I cleaned out the rot.” Appointing a black deputy showed how far the party had come and a spanner has been thrown into the works of a political system which since the late 1970s has rotated around the three big parties. Smaller parties come and go as quickly as they are conceived (remember the Referendum Party?) but this feels different. Something deeper in underway.
I arrive at Broadcasting House to present my nightly piece on the six o’ clock news. There’s a lot to get through. With the main story being the dissolution of Parliament and beginning of the six week election season, I spell out to the viewers back home the one thing everybody can agree on; this election may prove the most consequential since 1979. Nobody can deny that Britain is at a crossroads, which promises remarkable results no matter who ends up on top. Is it possible that Victor Hood could end up our Deputy Prime Minister, I ask? To some he might resemble a cartoon character, a chuckling aristocratic walrus, but he represents a fundamental threat to the politician mainstream. I don’t make the walrus comment in front of the camera, of course, but my point still stands. What I do say is an imploration for the viewers to tune into the debate tomorrow. It’s going to change everything, I’m sure.
I make it home in time to catch The News Quiz on BBC One. It says a lot about our culture that the beginning of the election gets barely a few minutes. It seems the American election is attracting rather more interest, for now at least. Still, the story of Georgia senator Winston Jackson, descendant of slaves, taking on establishment heavyweight Lloyd Bernstein for the Democratic nomination in a time of economic chaos, social unrest, and war in the Middle East makes for an inspiring one. Polls suggest that if it were up to Britain, Jackson would win by seventy points. He seems to have a real shot at winning in South Carolina tomorrow, but I don’t buy his eventual victory. Bernstein’s been at the top of the party for twenty years; someway, somehow, it’ll be him and President Falwell come November.
Thursday
February 25, 2016
“But let’s move on to an election which is actually imminent, in the United Kingdom; Europe’s uppity one.”
Oh, but if only John Oliver knew how correct he was. Hearing it reminds me of the jibe by the European Commission President last year that Britain “does nothing but argue,” lamenting the old days under David Steel. You may think it’s strange for me to be watching HBO on the day the Prime Minister went to the palace to have Parliament dissolved, and you’d probably be right, but this very first day of the election campaign is usually quieter than outside observers realise. Everyone huddles and finalises their strategy; today most of the party leaders are revising for tomorrow’s debate; the first in British political history. So here I am in the back of the taxi on the way to Broadcasting House, watching one of the countless American shows where someone talks to the camera while funny images appear over his right shoulder, because I’ve seen the Prime Minister’s pitch today at Downing Street a thousand times already. I’m interrupted with a text; my producer wants to know my take on the big controversy slowly emerging about his speech. The PM had referred to Britain being “on the precipice, faced with the choice of either continuing down the steady path or jumping into the unknown. At this time of national peril, we cannot resort to wild or rash actions. Stability is the only option.” A lot of people, Labour and the Liberals included, are calling this very statement rather wild and rash. Some have called it fearmongering, and the term “national peril” has been described as almost warlike in its rhetoric. The Labour leader has been calling “civility” between the parties the best option during the economic crisis, and what a crisis; last week the unemployment figures finally hit that terrifying twenty percent. It’s worse elsewhere, with the news all week displaying fresh pictures of the civil war-like riots in Greece and Spain. Over there it’s terrifying, here it’s just miserable. I text back to my producer, "he should have just cried, we both know he's dead in the water regardless of what he says." Come on, he's not staying in Downing Street amid this kind of circumstance.
But the cast of characters has been assembled. There’s our Tory Prime Minister, the energetic Etonian patriot Donald Mount whose claims to fame include being the tallest and youngest Prime Minister ever whose Cabinet has been variously been nicknamed the Algonquin Round Table or the Oberkommando. His sunny optimism is wearing very, very thin on a country dealing with the worst state of affairs since the Luftwaffe figured out how bomb doors work. He rose so high when he first came to office, refusing to follow the Americans into Iran, and now look how far he's fallen. Our own little forgotten war in Sudan is still grinding on after ten years. Then there’s the Labour leader, John McDonnell, representation of a party rebellion against a generation of centrism by the hierarchy and mired by controversy over his comments about the IRA. The party loves him, the country not so much, the executives of the industries he wants to nationalise even less. The Liberal leader attracting plenty of international curiosity, Paisley-native Sophie Nkrumah, who holds the potential to be the first black national leader in the history of Western civilisation (I think). Her Muslim deputy, Alaa “AJ” Jasim, has managed to become the darling of panel shows everywhere ever since calling the Prime Minister a “cockbucket” on The News Quiz. Coming at such a time for international politics, when the continent’s centrist consensus is being ripped to shreds by the far-right and far-left amid the recession, it’s not doing an inconsiderable service to our global reputation. Doing the opposite, as he’ll be the first to tell you, is Victor Hood. Real name John Western, having changed it to presumably be an eye-catching supervillain, he’s been leading the rebranded and modernised National Front for a decade in total obscurity. Then along came the recession and the return of that spectre called stagflation, and he’s exploded onto the political scene. Today he’s addressing a rally in Blackpool and channelling his inner Oswald Mosley once again as his party prepares for the most important election in its history. But unlike Mosley he’s got no time for intellectual fine points; to many he’s the bloke next door who says some outlandish things but doesn’t really mean them, the nice guy who pays his round and with whom you can always have a laugh with. His being a homosexual (obviously, look at that suit) is enough for a great deal of people to dismiss accusations of fascism; last year in Manchester he famously conducted a book-burning of Mein Kampf as a publicity stunt on Holocaust Remembrance Day, which the Anglo-Jewish lobby diplomatically called “unnecessary.”
Notice how I gave plenty more words to Mr Hood than anyone else. There’s a good reason, because he’s shaping up to be the key figure for this election. Since the world economy decided it was too stable for its liking, the National Front has catapulted from a solitary percentage point in the polls to occasionally touching fifteen percent. Proportional representation working its magic, a motherlode of parliamentary seats are beckoning. It’s been a hell of a lot of work to rebrand the party; when he became leader, Hood publicly refused the endorsement of former leader John Tyndall, the party’s first MP when proportional representation first came into effect for the 1979 general election. Since then he’s had an uphill fight against the party’s white nationalist old guard but is now declaring “I cleaned out the rot.” Appointing a black deputy showed how far the party had come and a spanner has been thrown into the works of a political system which since the late 1970s has rotated around the three big parties. Smaller parties come and go as quickly as they are conceived (remember the Referendum Party?) but this feels different. Something deeper in underway.
I arrive at Broadcasting House to present my nightly piece on the six o’ clock news. There’s a lot to get through. With the main story being the dissolution of Parliament and beginning of the six week election season, I spell out to the viewers back home the one thing everybody can agree on; this election may prove the most consequential since 1979. Nobody can deny that Britain is at a crossroads, which promises remarkable results no matter who ends up on top. Is it possible that Victor Hood could end up our Deputy Prime Minister, I ask? To some he might resemble a cartoon character, a chuckling aristocratic walrus, but he represents a fundamental threat to the politician mainstream. I don’t make the walrus comment in front of the camera, of course, but my point still stands. What I do say is an imploration for the viewers to tune into the debate tomorrow. It’s going to change everything, I’m sure.
I make it home in time to catch The News Quiz on BBC One. It says a lot about our culture that the beginning of the election gets barely a few minutes. It seems the American election is attracting rather more interest, for now at least. Still, the story of Georgia senator Winston Jackson, descendant of slaves, taking on establishment heavyweight Lloyd Bernstein for the Democratic nomination in a time of economic chaos, social unrest, and war in the Middle East makes for an inspiring one. Polls suggest that if it were up to Britain, Jackson would win by seventy points. He seems to have a real shot at winning in South Carolina tomorrow, but I don’t buy his eventual victory. Bernstein’s been at the top of the party for twenty years; someway, somehow, it’ll be him and President Falwell come November.
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