the brilliantly leaping gazelle

Its not all doom and gloom, in the real world wonderful things happen, like this,

EuroMillions jackpot of £105m claimed by Selsey couple

A builder and a shop worker have been named as the winners of a £105m EuroMillions jackpot.

 Steve Thomson, 42, and his wife Lenka, 41, from West Sussex, were the sixth jackpot prize winners in the UK this year, operator Camelot said.

I must confess to being slightly disappointed when the winner’s of such a of such life changing amounts of money turn out to be so old that there’s hardly any life left in them to change.

But not these two! They’ re young enough to enjoy it to the full yet old enough to do so wisely.

Good luck to them but it seems they’ve been lucky enough as it is.

Shitting cock! There’s so much happening that I want to post about and it just adds and adds. For one there’s comparing the Brexit party ‘contract’ with the government’s own assessment of what a ‘no deal’ Brexit would entail, contained in its ‘Yellowhammer’ document. I might have to merge that with post with one about the Conservative manifesto, and it’s pleasingly re-assuring promise that all we have to do to ‘Get Brexit Done’ is vote Conservative, and compare that with comments by Ivan Rogers – until recently our top civil service wonk at the EU – on the likelihood of that happening.

Then there’s one on opinion polls, their skewing of the election narrative in the media because of the bandwagon effect. And another about whilst there are strict rules on traditional forms of political advertising – billboards, pamphlets, etc – and television adverts, online it’s free for all. Not to mention the W.H.O report on climate change which to my utter surprise, contained dire warnings if drastic action isn’t taken.

By tomorrow all these will have been pushed further down my to-post list because of another thing in this election campaign, in much the same way Jacob Rees-Mogg and his comments about the Grenfell tragedy seem to have slipped off the news agenda.

But instead I want to post about three events that may on the face of it seem wholly unrelated, but to me are not. But then, I am brain damaged, so…..

Birmingham anti-LGBT school protests: judge makes ban permanent

A high court judge has permanently banned activists against LGBT equality lessons from demonstrating outside a Birmingham primary school.

Protesters went head to head with a local authority during the five-day trial to stop protests outside Anderton Park school. The school, in the Sparkhill area of the city, has become the focus of a long campaign to halt LGBT equality messages being taught in the classroom.

Most of the protesters have been of Muslim faith and some have stood regularly outside the school chanting “Let kids be kids” and carrying placards with the message: “Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.”

Following the five-day hearing in October, the high court judge Justice Mark Warby reserved his judgment until a later date. On Tuesday, he announced the verdict, saying an exclusion zone surrounding the school would remain in place permanently banning protesters from gathering outside the school.

Warby said protesters had grossly misrepresented what was being taught at the school and caused a significant adverse reaction to children, teachers and local residents.

Wait, was he seriously suggesting that protesters had deliberately misrepresented what was being taught to inflame the situation ? Claiming that teachings in a book written over 2,000 years ago thereby confers upon them some unquestionable moral authority in today’s society is so absurd as to be laughable. Actually any book written over 2,000 years ago is a product of its times and certainly not be used as an instruction on how to lives one’s life. I mean, we don’t use medieval medical treatments like blood letting, , now do we? And is it only me that finds it highly ironic that lesson’s about tolerance are being protested against by a religion who seek tolerance for themselves and their faith?

And then was this today as well,

Chief rabbi attacks Labour anti-Semitism record

The chief rabbi has strongly criticised Labour, claiming the party is not doing enough to root out anti-Jewish racism – and asked people to “vote with their conscience” in the general election.

 In the Times, Ephraim Mirvis said “a new poison – sanctioned from the very top – has taken root” in the party.

Which was followed up by this, as the BBC reported,

Here’s the council’s formal response to the chief rabbi’s criticism of Labour.

“As a faith community, we commonly are threatened by Islamophobia. This an issue that is particularly acute in the Conservative Party who have approached Islamophobia with denial, dismissal and deceit,” it said.

British Muslims – whilst from the most disadvantaged communities and rarely allowed a voice in the public space – will listen to the chief rabbi and agree on the importance of voting with their conscience.”

And then for good measure, another peddler of fairy stories, added his ha’panny worth,

Justin Welby backs chief rabbi after Labour antisemitism remarks

The archbishop of Canterbury has in effect backed the chief rabbi’s comments on the Labour leadership’s record on antisemitism with a tweet highlighting the “deep sense of insecurity and fear felt by many British Jews”.

 

This kind of solidarity between faith groups, supporting each other and seeing an alleged intolerance toward on one faith group somehow symptomatic of a wider societal problem of intolerance generally that affects them all is a new, and to an atheist like me, deeply worrying phenomena. Remember the outrage over ‘The Satanic Verses’? I don’t recall there being any concerted effort by other faiths to join in, seeing an attack on one as an attack on all. Same with ‘Jerry Springer: The Opera’ – which I must say I thoroughly enjoyed – where was the solidarity there? Just because a lot of people believe in something, it doesn’t then give their beliefs legitimacy. Lots of people believe the earth is flat, or that U.F.O’s exist, or that Elvis is alive as well, does that make it true?

There was going to be a third thing but this post is too long as it is, so I’ll post it tomorrow. Unless of course something else catches my eye….

Last night provided me with the perfect illustration of how a series of known facts can, thanks to Twitter,  Facebook and other ‘social’ media platforms can easily be distorted or presented in such a way as to confirm pre-existing prejudices.

Last night, my house-mate showed me a video she had seen on Twitter. Apparently, when Foreign Secretary, Boris’s Johnson has visited Russia to visit the media mogul Eugene Lebedev at some parties.  The house where these parties took place was supposedly near some land owned by Vladimir Putin. These parties were, reported  John Sweeney with the earnestness befitting a man standing on a on a hill somewhere in a Russian forest, ‘Bunga Bunga parties! On one occasion, Johnson had gone without his police escort! Apparently MI6 thought presented potential problems.  Sweeney reassured us it was all true, cross his heart and hope to die true, because both the BBC and the Sunday Times had reported it.

I didn’t watch the entire video, but apparently Sarah Sands accompanied Johnson at least once, I was told, and she is now the editor of BBC R4 ‘Today’ programme, this proved something. Well to me it proved that before becoming editor of ‘Today’, she had formerly been editor of ‘The Standard’. a London newspaper owned by – cue drumroll – media mogul Eugene Lebedev and they were friends, and he was being friendly. And what to make of the claim that Putin owned some land nearby? Just because he owns it, doesn’t mean he uses it. He’s the President of Russia, I bet he owns lots of land there. Possibly for tax reasons, or possibly to preserve a natural woodland habitat. Who knows? I don’t and more importantly, neither does John Sweeney,  but that doesn’t stop him from planting the suspicion in our minds that something – no-one knows what – murky is going on.

Those parties that were like ‘Bunga Bunga’ parties? Talk about nudge-nudge, wink-wink! We all know – or think we know – what the ‘Bunga Bunga’ parties were all about. Hosted by the ageing crooner and former Italian PM, Silvio Berlusconi, and attended by older men and much younger women, they invariably turned into what happens when older men, alcohol, other illicit substances and younger women have a party.

We know what sort of a man Boris’s Johnson is. In fact, what sort of man would take his police escort to a party of that sort?

And as to Sweeney’s assertion that because the BBC and Sunday Times had reported on this, it had to be true, well if I was to learn that those articles had been written by him, shocked I would not be.

But that is the danger inherent with social media. Things that feel like they might be true, have a patina of credibility to them and re-enforce existing prejudices, regardless of truth, can be shared many times over by those in the same echo chamber.

But then I would write that, given that as I don’t have a smart ‘phone, I don’t get these videos sent to me. More importantly, even if I did, I like to delude myself that my natural cynicism, memory and critical thinking would help me interpret things differently. But here’s the thing, in this age of ‘fake news, is my delusion simply that!

Or, to be even more paranoid, am I meant to start doubting myself?

And just to prove how easy it is to present things out of context so as to give a false impression of the background leading up to it, who better to illustrate this point than John Sweeney himself. This is a trailer that the BBC put out for his ‘Panorama’ documentary, ‘Scientology and Me’, which shows him shouting and generally losing his temper in a not BBC way.  What we don’t see is the constant intimidation by the Scientologist’s that caused this. But what need have we in an age of Twitter, of context or nuance?

This post was meant to be about something else, but that something else will have to wait until tomorrow because I’ve spent too long converting a pdf. into a Word file. Whilst I imagine these things are simple if you know what you’re doing, I don’t and therefore it isn’t.

Anyway is it just me or has anyone else noticed the Nigel’s Farrago has somehow managed to pull off the same trick as Boris’s Johnson. And no, that isn’t a euphemism; much as I’m sure Boris’s Johnson is no stranger to being pulled off. And Donald Fart. Both being pulled off and pulling off the same trick.

How have they done this I mean it’s a clever thing to do and everything, but still, how?

In what possible universe are they outsiders, removed from the political class, that has consistently – as they would have the disenfranchised believe – ignored their political wants as somehow being not as deserving as others.

Possibly some of the blame lies with the mainstream media, which treated Donald Fart’s election campaign as a bit of a joke and therefore failed to subject him to anywhere near the same level of scrutiny as other candidates until it was too late. What do we know about Boris’s Johnson? I mean, really know. Granted, now he’s PM and fighting an election campaign, he’s being subjected to a level of scrutiny about his conduct that he has managed to keep hidden from the public and with good reason, as the public are not liking what they see. Did anyone else hear the boo’s that heralded his entrance onto the stage for BBC1’s ‘Question Time – Leaders Special’

But Nigel’s Farrago seems to have gotten a free pass. He appeared, fully formed and somehow able to channel people’s frustration into serving his own political ends. In fact, rather like Harold Saxon. For those of you unfamiliar with ‘Doctor Who’ Harold Saxon is an invention of the Doctors nemesis, ‘The Master’. Bear with me. Finding himself trapped on earth, he manufactures an identity, an entire history so as to launch a political career. Using mind control, he convinces people to think him good, without knowing why

Only he isn’t. And it’s only when it’s too late and becomes Prime Minister that people realise that.

But hey, ‘Doctor Who’ is only voguish science fiction, and besides, after announcing The Brexit party will not field candidates in over 300 seats, the best he can hope is to do is influence Boris’s Johnson, if he becomes Prime Minister. After all, we know “The Master’ can change gender, but can he?

I’ve read the Brexit party’s contract with the people, so called, because,

The old mainstream parties have made ‘manifesto’ a dirty word. Everybody knows that a manifesto is little more than a set of vague promises that its authors have no intention of keeping.

I think everyone with an I.Q larger than the radius of their kneecap can see the see that that.

And secondly, the contract, is, it pains me to admit it, a model of clarity, both in terms what it says and also how it is presented. Certainly it is a refreshingly easy read. If all of the manifesto’s published thus far were slimmer’s, then the Liberal Democrat and Labour one’s would be the before ‘photo’s and the Brexit party the after one’s. It says to voters ‘We’re different, we’re not tired, we’re dynamic and forward thinking and that’s why we want to make Britain great again. ‘

And up to a point one thinks ‘Yean, it all makes sense, it all seems fair and reasonable.” But then, rather like ‘those pesky meddling kids’ who thwarted the light-house keepers evil plan in ‘Scooby-Do’, you start wondering where on earth have those pesky little details gone? You know, the one’s that give a little substance to these bold claims. For example, they say they’ll

Phase out the BBC licence fee.

And replace it with what? A subscription model of some kind? Adverts? One is left wondering. And there’s more. A lot more detail free playing to the crowd bullshit. They want to,

Invest in our High Streets: alongside our reforms to Corporation Tax, we will replace business rates with a simpler system to assist small High Street retailers and leisure operators outside the M25, with any reductions funded by an online sales tax.

No-one can possibly disagree with investing in our High Streets! Apart that is, from the countless consumers who’d rather spend their hard-earned money to buy more, for less, online. Ah, an online sales tax, you say? That’ll work! Because the big online retailers like Amazon and eBay, not only are they more than happy to disclose how much profit they make in the UK, they want to pay tax! This has been well documented, both in the press and parliament.

There’s more detail free promises, like,

Invest in the NHS and Social Care: we need to keep investing in these essential and treasured public services — with more medical staff and less waste.

Well we can all agree with that. But read on a few pages further and you’ll find this,

We need to develop a National Health Service fit for the 21st Century. The Brexit Party believes in continued investment in the NHS, better management, increasing the number of medical staff and cutting waste. We want the NHS to be a beacon of excellent care. It was the Labour governments of Blair and Brown that burdened the NHS with billions of pounds of debt through their Private Finance Initiatives.

Mmm. Details, schemtails! Yes Blair and Brown did introduce P.F.I, into the N.H.S, no-one denies this, but it was and has been massively increased and aggressively pursued by successive ideologically driven free market Conservative governments.

The NHS must remain a publically-owned, comprehensive service that is free at the point of use. Your postcode should not determine your care or health.

Again, nothing contentious here. All good, yes? Er, no!

There should be no privatisation of the NHS; where existing private initiatives have failed to deliver we will return them to public ownership.

No one has ever mentioned the privatisaiton of the NHS. What is a concern though is the increasing tendency of NHS. Trusts being forced to sell off lucrative services to private providers. So yes, whilst,

The NHS must remain a publically-owned, comprehensive service that is free at the point of use.

It’s the lack of any detail of what they mean by privatisation. It’s not clear how all – not just some – of these services that the NHS currently provides will be paid for, who is going to be paid and how so called ‘Cinderella’ services – the not money-making one’s, the un-glamouress services most of use – be funded? Fine and everything if they’re ‘free at the point of use’ but if taxpayers money is boosting the profits of private companies, that money that could be put to greater use if it were re-invested in the NHS.

I was going to stop there, but then I spotted this promise of theirs to,

Introduce 24-hour GP surgeries to relieve the strain in A&E departments.

You mean they’re going to re-negotiate GP contracts? Does the trouble Jeremy Hunt had with junior doctors not ring any large fucking bells? That would be a walk in the park compared to incurring the wrath of a workforce whose members are already leaving in large numbers. And who would want to visit their GP at 2am?

I know I’m nit picking but it’s their fault, simplifying it and all, making it so easy to read and find fault with. What did they expect?

There are a lot of faults to be found and I haven’t finished finding them yet…

Just watched ‘the BBC’s ‘Question Time – Leaders Special’ and my initial thoughts are these

Jeremy Corbinned looked as if someone a size too big had lent him that suit back-stage, like a boy wearing a new school uniform that his Mum says has a couple of years in it And he didn’t answer all the questions asked of him, rather, he did that politicians trick of answering the question he wished he’d been asked

Jo Swindle. It was nice to see her being called out on things the Lib Dems had helped the Tories push through when they were in coalition with them. Nice to see her voice go up an octave when she was challenged on reconciling being a democrat with revoking Article 50 and ignoring the wishes of 17.4 million people. Her response was basically, ‘We’ve been honest with what we believe….we’ve been honest and we don’t care what you think. I mean, we have to pretend like we do, but we don’t really

Boris’s Johnson walked onto the stage to the sound of boo’s. And it didn’t get much better from there. He looked so uncomfortable, so ill at ease, that he made Gordon Brown seem like a showman.

But the leader who impressed was Nicola Sturgone. She had command of the issues, tackled what could’ve been difficult questions head-on and left one with the abiding impression that if she was not out and out enjoying it, she was less terrified by it than the others.

It’ll be interesting to see what the press and social media make of it.

Just a quick one, as I’ve only got up, thanks to leaks in my bedroom last night, including one that woke me up by dripping onto my face! Exactly!

Anyway, Priti Patel made headlines yesterday with her claim that,

Tory government not to blame for poverty in UK

And she’s so right, in a cold factually correct way. How could they? They’re only policies after all. In much the same cold and factually correct way, guns don’t kill people either.

In both cases it’s how they are used that does the damage. And by who, on whom.

I must confess to feeling a sense of political déjà vu as I read the Labour manifesto yesterday. I mean it was all going so well. There’s all these fine and noble promises to do this, solve that, how under the Conservatives the other has happened but that Labour would do the very opposite, and from this that many and wonderful benefits would transform our nation. And all this for the measly price of one – ONE! – vote per person.

Or not, if you believe the ‘Daily Mail’

But I digress. There’s a lot in the Labour manifesto to like, and whilst on some plans their ambition could be argued to stretch credulity, as least it comes from a good place. And then I came to this,

Labour will radically reform early years provision, with a two-term vision to make high-quality early years education available for every child. We will also extend paid maternity leave to 12 months.

Which seemed to me to be worryingly similar to proposals in the Liberal Democrats manifesto. It had to be me, surely! Ah, that joke never gets old! But no. It was them, not me, because they added,

Within five years, all 2, 3 and 4-yearolds will be entitled to 30 hours of free preschool education per week and access to additional hours at affordable,subsidised rates staggered with incomes. Labour will also work to extend childcare provision for 1-year-olds.

How exactly is this a good thing? In what way is state sponsored parenthood in any way compatible with some of their other lofty ideals? Here’s one,

Tackling the destruction of our planet is a question of justice – for the communities at home and abroad who are most affected by it and for our children who will bear the consequences if we don’t.

That would be the other consequences then, the one’s not to do with the planet not being able to sustain the amount of people alive right now, never mind adding to the problem. We need to be rewarding people for not having children, make it an act of altruistic on behalf of the planet, a civic duty, much more effective than adopting a vegan diet. Now there’s a thought! If people want a child that bad, let them do good instead and adopt. Because by providing free childcare, a parent who would otherwise have stayed at home and looked after the child, will now be free to re-join to world of work. And with the wage they’ll earn, the extra income will mean extra expenditure. Oh good, more consumption.

And don’t be thinking Labour’s unjoined up thinking had stopped there. Oh no,

We will recruit nearly 150,000 additional early years staff, including Special Educational Needs Co-ordinators, and introduce a national pay scale, driving up pay for the overwhelmingly female workforce.

So, let me get this straight. Their plan is to offer more childcare, that will increase the size of the labour market by freeing up parents to work. And to make this a reality, the plan is to create 150,000 new jobs. Am I missing something here? Aren’t these jobs going to be paid for out taxation? And where does tax revenue come from? In part, from us buying things. You can see the fundamental flaw here, can’t you?

This is our last chance to tackle the climate emergency.

Yeah, tell that to the rest of the manifesto.

Oh, alright since you asked, here it is,

I was getting ready for bed last night I thought, ‘I know what I need, some light reading.’, and as good fortune would have it, earlier in the day I downloaded the Liberal Democrat Little Book of Aspirational Mindfullness. It really is quite soothing. I’d say that it isn’t too taxing, but even though I’ve only skimmed it, they do talk about raising tax. Which, by the way, I think is a good thing, as no matter how efficient you want something to be, sooner or later someone, somewhere has to pay. Anyway, moving on.

Where was I? Oh light reading and children’s stories, that’s’ where.

Oh yes. Contained in their grim fairy tales is the claim that they will, if elected,

Offer free, high-quality childcare for every child aged two to four and children aged between nine and 24 months where their parents or guardians are in work: 35 hours a week, 48 weeks a year.

Hang on! How does offering people free childcare in any way help alleviate the climate emergency they so earnestly bang on  about. If anything, it makes it worse. Because a parent who would otherwise have stayed at home and looked after the child, will now be free to re-join to world of work. And with the wage they’ll earn, the extra income will mean extra expenditure. Oh good, more consumption. And that’s not the end of it. No. Because the jobs that’ll be created by this provision will create more workers, who in turn will earn more, and who in turn will spend it. Whoopie-fuckin-do!

Is it just me or is this sound in any way like a good idea?

Rather than offering rewards for successfully helping destroy the planet by breeding yet more consumers, they should offer incentives for people not to have children.

As I say, I’ve only skimmed it, but there’s a lot about ‘wellbeing’, which is best read later, possibly in the morning, ideally with a bowl of a high fibre cereal and natural yoghurt. Mmm. Yumee

The main problem for me with last night’s debate was the lack of any debate. Did we really learn anything about them, other than they stuck to the key messages they wanted to hammer home? And secondly, I doubt very much if anyone was going to change their opinion about either man, if anything it’d reinforce them. What was a revelation was the readiness of the audience to openly laugh at both leaders when they said something worthy of ridicule.

But the format was the main problem and the audience’s laughter only served to highlight it. Two men, each stood on a stage in front of a lectern, facing the audience, answering questions asked by a host with her back to the audience, what century are we living in? She’d ask the question and then they’d parrot off their clearly very well rehearsed answers. Interventions were far to few for my liking and I wished that John Humphreys had been in charge. But therein lies the problem. It was no good telling us how important this election was, how this was our chance to get answers from the two candidates, if they weren’t challenged, robustly if need be. They politicians who want to be the next P.M, for Darwin’s sake! However, a journalist who knows how the system works and plays the game, isn’t going to be as forceful as a member of the public, who, when confronted with a politician who they think is lying to them, pulls them up on it. Conversely, the politician, no matter how angry or irritated by this they are, can’t show it, because, after all, it’s a member of the public

And of course, only a cynic of the very highest order would suggest that one reason politicians are nervous about meeting or having any interaction with the general public is because of this their irritating propensity to ask unhelpful questions. One’s that don’t allow for carefully scripted and on-message answers to be given, and with presentation and social media being an ever present factor in elections, this presents a problem for politicians. Of course they say they like to meet to the public. It’s not just because they can’t control what they say or they don’t play the game, but they are not dependent on access to boost their journalistic career, and therefore don’t have anything to lose. I think of course of Diana Gould’s famous questioning of Mrs. Thatcher over the sinking of the Argentine battleship ‘The Belgrano’ on the BBC’s ‘Election Call’. Thatcher was visibly frustrated by being challenged on this, but couldn’t be rude to a member of the public, not in an election campaign. Unfortunately, the sinking of ‘The Belgrano’ happened during the Falklands War and I can remember being in a shop, when someone burst in, shouting, “We’ve taken Port Stanley” and everyone, including me, cheered.