Blair's grotesque legacy

New Department for Justice will come into to effect on May 7, or something like that, it says in the Guardian. How has this happened without a whimper from the opposition. As well freeing up Home Office resources for spying on us (see below) it also means that Home of Office is prepared to do anything, however half-arsed and temporary, just to hold back the tide until prisons are someone else's problem. Is there going to be another minister for this new department or what?

God I dislike Gordon Brown. It's mainly the hanging around impatiently that I dislike so much. Spinelessness and impatience.

http://timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/alice_miles/article1415188.ece

No news

17 year old smokes pot. Big fucking deal. If he were still caning an ounce a week, that'd be news.

I wonder if my membership of a famous society for alcoholics who no longer drink precludes a career in politics. Didn't stop Dubya after all.

Good and hard

Astonishingly my readership has soared into the "at least three" bracket. Afghanistan BananaStand - you are evidently a man (?) after my own heart and are very welcome here.

Since my last post I attended my first local tory association meeting. Our local counsellor for Shepherds Bush, Alex Chalk (if you're reading this, bad boy for googling yourself, you'll go blind you know) arrived late looking a lot like a varsity rower. He wasn't wearing lycra, it was more the loafers, outdoor backpack, barbour and the fact the he was about 8' tall that gave it away. I sidled up to him after the meeting (tedious, tedious meeting) and offered the services of my pen. He was genial, and gave me his card (he is a barrister). While we were talking the president of the association came over, followed by others. There was a look in their eyes that under other circumstance I would have interpreted as a sign I was in the wrong kind of nightclub, in fact they were all salivating over the youngest members in the room and keen to be seen with them.

Alex has since e-mailed me asking for any bright ideas on how to improve the area. I will moot removing the fence at the end of Lime Grove which creates an ideal alleyway for the heroin addicts from the hostel to score their shit. Removing the fence is the tory way, installing a camera the labour way.

Apropos of the post below I remembered a quotation from A Homage to Catalonia, although Orwell was quoting someone else whose name I can't remember: "Democracy means giving the working man what he asks for, good and hard."

Respect yourself

I was amazed to see that someone (not my girlfriend) had commented on my blog. Thanks for that.

Blair is in the papers this morning talking about the new respect zones in town centres. This reminded me of conversation I had with Tom Price, a Labour Counsellor in Hackney. We were talking about the surveillance state and ID cards and he said "You try going onto a Hackney council estate and giving them the civil liberties argument about cameras and ASBOs -they will laugh at you." This stuff does seem to be popular and effective plus the government is (following Cameron's lead) talking about the causes of antisocial behaviour, spending social service time and money on the families who don't do what they're told and threatening to take away their council flats if they do. The carrot and stick principle.

I think the "right to live without fear" is hard to understand if you're not actually living in fear yourself. Like imagining hunger when you're not hungry. The Tories round my way have brought in more cameras and a drinking control zone - not staunch libertarians then. That stuff does become much harder to defend in the face of switchblade wielding chavs who want your laptop. You'd have to be very brave, or very stupid.

If these people were allowed to represent themselves what would they ask for? (Apart from an Argos chain and a Dog called Brutus)

Anyone seen "Brazil" lately?

I'm very worried by the news in The Guardian this morning that John Reid wants to split the Home Office into a Ministry for Justice and a Ministry for National Security. Obviously this does makes sense from their point of view, one of pure efficiency, if, as they do, you see terrorism as a major threat. Even though they're selling it with a "we'll ask the new ministry hard questions about civil liberties" spin I can't see a Ministry for National Security doing anything except enlarging itself exponentially to deal with an inexhaustible "threat". This can only mean more intrusion into the lives of normal people, more hysteria and more of our money spent on watching us. Blair wants to do this before he leaves, lets hope he goes soon.

Don't look at my blog

Just had to advise somone at work against looking at my blog. They were putting one together for Nokia and the Creative Director had told them I was a blogger. Thankfully I had time to check it before I gave them the link, established that it cast me in an unflattering light and then sent them off to Samizdata.

Since that last post I have discovered that "A New Direction" was also used by Clinton - obviously it worked for him.

I e-mailed Karmarama with a sample of some of our work today, so who knows, we might end up making ads for the Tories after all.

I find it so satisfying that Brown has become embroiled in the Big Brother shitstorm. Serves him right for saying he deplored "celebrity politics". Cameron has the right idea on this, which is to associate himself with more credible celebs. Cliff Richard and the Bee Gees do nothing for Blair's popularity - there's something creepy about the Bee Gees and by implication anyone who likes to listen to them ("I'm just going to relax and listen to the Bee Gees. In my cellar."). Equally his association with leathery sperm-miser Cliff Richard does nothing to dispel the idea of Blair as a religious wacko completely out of touch with the world, sustained only by the memory of popularity now long dead.

A new direction

This phrase is commonly used by sexual predators who aim to hypnotise young women into sucking them off. If you say it quickly it sounds like "nude erection", so if, for instance, you said "would you like to take a new direction", then this would pass into her subconscious as a sexual command. Interestingly this is also the strapline for the Conservatives under Cameron.

That's really where I want to start. Because I'd like this blog, henceforth, to be concerned with intersection between politics and advertising. This is my niche. No one else is doing it. Stay tuned.