Fistfights in the Street as a Credible Alternative to Modern Politics

British politics has rarely been in a more shambolic and fumbling state than it is right now. Sure, we’ve had fuck-ups, corruption and catastrophically stupid decisions in the past but I don’t think the mechanisms behind them have ever been so exposed. We basically have a government that is one step away from fistfights in the street. Frankly, it’s pathetic.

I may not agree with the Coalition government I want to at least know they have a plan. I may not support the opposition but I want to hear that they are standing vigilant. I may welcome a fringe party if they are cognitive and considered. Governing isn’t just about policies, it’s about providing the public with a sense of trust that at the very core of whomever is in power is a promise to makes people’s lives better.

What I see right now is a political class that can barely function as grown adults. These aren’t merit badges they’re playing with, it’s people’s lives, and they need to start behaving as if they are capable of organising themselves so as to at least appear in control. So much division does make the public feel better, it does not inspire trust in the system, and then things fall further apart.

Basically, I don’t want a government who use Premier Inn surveys to dictate education policy. I don’t care if your plan is to turn schools into sweatshops for Primark, just don’t use a fucking Lenny Henry promoted brand to justify it.

Throughout the past 3 years I’ve waited for Labour to gain some kind of momentum as a force for good. This is a nasty government often flying against public opinion and yet no credible opposition has appeared. Never before has one leader inspired so little in so few – Ed Miliband is vacuum, barely registering as present let alone liked or disliked. Labour were once the party of the working man and surely a little firebrand heralding of support for the people would be all it needed?

The Coalition government has marginalised the poor, the unemployed, the sick and the vulnerable - how can a party that was once of the people not seize this opportunity to bring a sense of protection back? Why weren’t Labour at the front of the marches, at the protests? Standing up for the values which are meant to be at their core? They shouldn’t have been doing it for future votes, but to remind everyone that’s there’s still, theoretically, a party which hasn’t forgotten them.

The same argument stands for the EU debate. To leave would be idiotic, and every politician with a sensible mind knows that, but now the debate has gone public it has become uncontrollable  What was once a sure-fire doozy of a no-vote has now become a lot more precarious.

At least UKIP have brought a bit of character and drama back. Backward, vaguely racist character and drama maybe, but at least you know where they stand. The Lib Dems have also made their position known although, really, who listens to a word they say anymore?

The benefits of the EU are now so familiar we barely think of them as benefits, and so the argument always turns to the negatives. There is no clear and concise information in the public realm that isn’t tainted. I don’t feel qualified to vote on our membership to the EU, although I do know that they hate the size of our milk jugs and want to ban bacon butties. Newspaper headlines have painted the EU as the villain for so long it’s hard not to accept BARMY EU MADNESS as the default.

I want some clarity. I want to know where they stand. I want to know that all sides have some faith in their chosen direction. I want to know that they actually have the interests of their people at heart. I want to know that they’re not all morons.

If none of that is achievable then I will accept fistfights in the street.

#banbenefits

What I thought would happen was that it would become a mixture of those who got the satire and those that didn’t – I thought we’d have some kind of meta-Poe’s Law hashtag burst for a while and we’d all learn a lesson about how ridiculous the attacks on benefit claimants really are.

What actually happened was that virtually everyone got the joke immediately, and then promptly ran with it in a way that was far funnier, far more honest and far more sincere than I ever expected.

It actually became rather beautiful, with people sharing their stories and experiences of being on benefits with a sense of humour and self-awareness that could never be found behind a thousand closed doors in Westminster.

It also solidified for me the sensation that the public aren’t blind to the divide and conquer tactics of the government, nor the endless negative propaganda being peddled by the papers. When the BBC starts going down the line of asking if Mick Philpott is representational of JSA claimants you know we’re in trouble, but the public seem well aware of how bullshitty this all really is. I think everyone did good today.

These are my pick of the tweets –> #banbenefits

How Far is Too Far?

As far as we at DMR towers are concerned no subject is too taboo to make jokes about, but context is everything. We have no problem with rape jokes, with jokes about murder, or incest, or child abuse – but there’s got to be a reason for them. We’ve done dozens of Reeva Steenkamp jokes over the past fortnight but absolutely none of them were at the expense of the victim. With satire especially, you have to always be on the side of humanity.

The Onion’s ‘Quvenzhané Wallis seems kind of a cunt’ tweet is a great example. Conceptually I think it absolutely stands up as a valid joke – it’s clearly ironic, and clearly poking fun at a desensitised social media universe where there will always be someone who legitimately thinks that. It simply taking the extreme opposite standpoint of a general consensus.

What it is lacking, though, is an awareness of the wider world. Primarily, that you’re talking about a 9 year old girl – and to do that you really really have to be making a bigger point. Social media is a very reactionary format and they should have been savvy enough to know the life-beyond-the-instant that sort of statement would have.

That girl will now forever be associated with ‘cunt’. Many many years down the line, when she has lead a full life, filled with achievements and success, that word will still be there. It will feature in an obituary one day, and that’s the real criticism here. It’s not an issue of humour, but an issue of editing. It’s not that it shouldn’t have been written, it’s that it shouldn’t have been sent.

To give The Onion their credit, though, I thought their apology was very well considered.

Last week, when the Daily Mail was gleefully reporting on the issue of ‘white flight’ from London I wrote a tweet which is still sat in my drafts folder, It said:

CENSUS: Pakis, immigrants and muzzies drive white population from London. And if you complain they’ll call you racist!”

It’s meant to be repugnant. It’s meant to be horrible to read. We’ve written before about how satire should come from a place of anger, and that tweet absolutely was. The article, and the comments below it, carried the same levels of racism, hate, fear and lies as contained in those offensive terms, and I was just cutting through the bullshit.

The Daily Mail feeds on that kind of attitude. It is a fundamentally racist publication; purposely creating division among races (and, to give them their credit, economic class, gender, sexuality and any other classification of person you wish to name). The overriding theme is of an (indigenous) white population under siege from an invading army of foreigners typified, at least by their pictures editor, by women in burkas flicking the V.

The comments sections is overflowing with carefully moderated insinuation. There’s no space for considered thought, or debate, or rationality. It’s a free-for-all gripefest about how, well, the pakis, immigrants and muzzies are ruining everything. For example, a recent article about a primary school where all the children speak English as a second language improving it’s OFSTED report was met with the following top rated responses:

 

The important thing here isn’t that the comments were made, it’s that they were approved by the paper and approved of by its readers. These are opinions constructed from a promoted worldview of suspicion and propaganda because, above all else, it brings in the bucks.

I didn’t publish that census tweet in the end, not because it wasn’t valid but because I just didn’t really want our followers to have those words appear in their timelines. People wouldn’t have retweeted it, and if in some bizarre way the tweet had become widely popular it would almost certainly have lost it’s ironic context pretty quickly.

There’s another joke that I’ve sat on for over a year now about the Taxpayers Alliance. I’m fairly sure it’s ok, it’s just really… vulgar… and while there is a larger point behind it, I’m not sure that’ll come through enough and all it’ll be noted for is the vulgarity.

I will say this, though: Daily Mail readers seem kind of like cunts.