Normally I resolutely avoid being affronted by the Daily Mail, but I just couldn’t bear their ludicrously spiteful headline yesterday. In case you missed it:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2090750/Welfare-reform-Labour-bishops-Lib-Dem-peers-derail-benefits-cap-plan.html

Using the term ‘an insult to every working family’, the Mail goes on its typical one-sided hate-filled diatribe against anyone it sees as undeserving, i.e. non-white non-middle-class non-conformists. We can see such enlightened articles in other bastions of reasoned debate like The Sun and The Express no doubt.

The Leveson inquiry has revealed a murky world of espionage and lies endemic at the heart of our print media, yet hasn’t really scratched the surface of media standards in terms of balanced reporting. Yes, we all know that The Mail, The Express, The Sun and most other national newspapers worship the ground that David Cameron walks on and spew vitriol at anyone foreign or claiming benefit of any kind. But still, surely journalistic standards would implore them to at least consider alternative viewpoints to a debate, rather than dragging it down to the level a ten year old can understand and shout about.

An example from this article comes when The Mail uses the kind of sarcastic phrasing you would expect in a pub debate:

‘Ministers reacted with fury as Church leaders suggested that capping benefits at a maximum of £26,000 a year was somehow un-Christian.’

To their minimal credit, they do actually quote Bishop Packer later, when he explains that, in essence, the sins of the father should not be visited upon the children by capping child benefits.

Perhaps the most infuriating aspect of this non-article is that there is no discussion whatsoever in terms of the repercussions of this ill-thought out headline-grabbing bill. A cynic might suggest it has been constructed from Daily Mail headlines alone. For instance, people in London will need far more for living costs than anywhere else North of London. £26k is not a huge amount with London property prices. ‘Well if they can’t afford it they should have to move elsewhere like the rest of us’ I hear the Sun reader at the back yell. If they have moved to London and later moved onto benefits perhaps. But if they were born there, why should they be forced out of their home near their family for something that isn’t their fault? But then we come to the crux of the argument; the implication constructed by the right-wing media: that all benefits claimants are on the fiddle.

You know the kind: Jeremy Kyle fodder. Hapless or violent and absent father with stacks of kids and a mother with a mouth like a sewer; not a brain cell between them. This is the kind of minority which the Conservatives wish to convince the ignorant public is the majority. No disabled families, no terminally ill people. Just mouthy layabouts cocking a snook at the ‘taxpayer’.

The ridiculous thing is, if a few people abuse a system, you don’t tear down the system. Otherwise we would have shut down all banks by now. But let’s try not to trot out the line about the City bankrolling the Conservatives, despite its truth. A better example is MPs expenses. Did we eliminate expenses? Or cap them? I don’t remember much happening other than minimal punishment for a select few offenders, assuming they didn’t have titles or anything. So this is surely the better solution. What the Government doesn’t want the masses to know is that it is their fault people abuse the system, as these people are committing fraud. The Government is responsible for not being defrauded. If larger numbers of people are getting away with it, then the people assessing these claims are incompetent or too naïve for their position. But of course this is far too logical, self-critical and makes bad headlines. Instead of ignorant readers lapping up the ‘Government getting tough on scroungers’, it would read ‘Government admits being conned by scroungers.’

Amusingly, despite the Government’s rabid anti-public sector rhetoric in most areas, the public sector areas that actually seem to need the most reform or culling would be the area that deals with benefits claims, and Her Majesty’s Revenues and Customs; busy hobnobbing with CEOs whilst waiving large tax bills for their corporations. But then again, a cynic would once again suggest this is part of the agenda: party politics.

And no party, or media, does demagoguery better than the right wing.

‘Busy period you’re having at the minute’ he exclaimed.

We are the only shop in a five mile radius, so forgive me if I could not find the strength to cultivate a tailored answer to this trite observation.

‘We’re always busy’ I laughed politely.

Thinking this would be the end of our pleasantries, I began to turn to the next customer, only to have the gentleman continue.

‘Good news in these times. Success!’ he proclaimed eccentrically.

I began to feel he was about to leap into the condescension garden, and urged him silently to just leave, but he couldn’t resist:

‘Pays the wages’ he finished, triumphantly.

Really? Is this how employment works? You mean the company will only pay me if they make a profit? I didn’t know how to respond to this bombshell. Quite frankly it blew my tiny mind. You see, all the right-wing newspapers have been telling me that big companies and corporations are benevolent rich people who dish out money in a philanthropic gesture simply to do ungrateful poor people a favour and keep them off the dole. Now that I know that the truth is that I am only paid to make the people who employ me more money, I feel like I have been lied to.

Apparently you are more likely to discover the truth from the lips of a smug, ignorant right-wing pensioner than the British media.

What about RIM? Are they satisfied to see their Blackberry blamed for allowing bad people (as well as presumably good people and neutral people) to contact each other for illicit and destructive rendez-vous’? Of course social networking sites, so lauded for allowing protestors involved in the ‘Arab Spring’, are now demonised for allowing people with less ‘democratic’ motives to organise violence and pillaging. The ‘Prime Minister’ spews empty threats about ‘shutting down’ social networking sites, presumably because it appeals to the quick-fix-gratification society thirty years of rabid right-wing Murdoch-led media has built, although Cameron must have some brass balls to break three Tory cornerstones at once.

Tough on crime? Cutting police budgets apparently won’t affect frontline police numbers, presumably because the administration and paperwork will now be done by refugees sleeping on the Met Office floor and paid in one meal a day. Maybe privatising could make them more efficient?

Big on civil liberties? Removing all access to social networking sites constitutes removing the freedom of the entire populace because a small minority abuse it. I thought Neo-Liberals were all about less State intrusion, not more. But maybe Cameron is right. After all, there was no social disorder before Facebook.

Do not interfere with big business in any way? Well Facebook is the most potent advertising space any UK company could hope to utilise, and it will be hitting them, and their advertisers in the pocket. This is why I’m certain these threats will prove to be empty. Big business takes precedence over health, community and morality all the time.

Another interesting giveaway to the mindset of our irrational and knee-jerk society comes when we hear the familiar refrain of ‘Get a job!’, where once it was ‘Get a career.’ Have we given up all hope of these people making anything of themselves, even after serving their time? Are we happy to use ‘our taxes’ to punish them forever?

As welcome as it may have been to hear the Government will do everything in its power to lock up the offenders, rehouse the homeless and reimburse the uninsured business owners, one can’t help but feel that, yet again, quick-fix ‘hang-em-high’ soundbites will replace intelligent, detailed debate and admittance of State and media culpability in this despicable mess, and thus we will face the same issues in another decade, when every High Street may be made up of not much more then Tescos, Starbucks, Primarks and the few other corporate chains that could afford 24 hour private security.

David Cameron has attempted to dampen the fervour against his recent anti-Muslim rhetoric by saying that perhaps we shouldn’t have kept tyrants in power in the Middle East for decades just to avoid potentially hostile Muslim governments taking over. Sounds perfectly reasonable for a politics student to say in a University debate, quite another for the Prime Minister of a First World nation to use as a soundbite. He went on by generously condescending: “Muslims can do democracy”. Now that’s more like it. Inclusive and tolerant; flying in the face of decades of foreign policy from politicians far more adept and wise than him. On the face of it a brave, though somewhat naïve statement.
Trouble is some of the most prominent examples of Islamic states: Iran; Pakistan and Saudi Arabia; don’t really back up his championing as bastions of democracy. That is, if you accept the loose definition of democracy as states which allow free elections in which the winner of the vote is widely accepted as being the new leader and is acknowledged as such (America notwithstanding 2001-2005).
Of course, religion should play no part in politics and vice versa. Politics is dogmatic and filled with enough zealots without adding the burden of an ancient text manipulated to fit the purpose of the current state leadership incumbents.

With millions thrown on the dole by the Governments reckless culling of the public sector, and millions more threatened to be thrown off the dole for the same dubious reasons, we look to strong exports for our future. After all, the publicly-owned banks can’t be expected to compensate the country for their failings. There’s obscene bonuses to be paid. In the era of globalisation and the looming threat of an economically untouchable China, Britain needs to have exports it can rely on, other than our seemingly inept finance sector. Thatcher may have ruined our manufacturing base, but there’s at least one export we are formidably successful in: arms trading.

The same arms trading which has kept dictatorships slaughtering any opposition to their regimes through the Middle East and beyond for decades, ensuring in the main that oil-rich countries do not threaten to deny the West their black gold over religious ideology or principles. Money tends to buy principles very easily, which is why we should not be gobsmacked if in the near future our next biggest export proves to be cigarettes to Third World nations.

Richard Keys later fell on his sword of hyperbole, in a double move that has stunned the world of Sky Sports: a world bloated on excess, distended with theatrical and militaristic analogies and whored with hype.

When news of this story first broke, it seemed an open-and-shut case: the two were recorded contemptuously slandering the ability of Sian Massey as a linesperson on the basis of an age-old gender slur Andy Capp or Sid the Sexist would be proud of. Two knuckle-dragging old fools immersed in the misogynistic hotbed of Premier League football were bound to blurt out something ignorant sooner or later. The fact that Gray and Keys’ egos have their own moons only increased those odds. Keys’ dismissal of Karren Brady’s critique of sexism in English football with the immortal aphorism: ‘Do us a favour love’; could have come straight out of an Alan Partridge script, while Gray’s outrage at a woman daring to pass the same level of training and examination as any other person, and having the nerve to do her job adeptly at Premier League level, was just moronic.

Keys made a remark about Kenny Dalglish ‘going potty’ over an ‘inevitable’ bad decision from Massey, which was a telling remark. For one, it showed that Keys has become the equivalent of the rock star groupie who has been lurking so long that they believes themselves to be ‘part of the band’. He thinks he knows how Kenny Dalglish will react in any given situation, despite the blindingly obvious contradiction of his daughter Kelly working in the same field as Keys himself. The fact that Massey actually got her tight offside call completely right is never here nor there. If she had got it wrong, it would not have been because she had breasts. The fact is linesman generally get many decisions wrong. It’s nothing to do with their gender, or if it is perhaps it displays that, whisper it quietly, women may actually prove superior in this particular field. If Massey goes on to make incorrect calls at a regular rate in games then this is the basis to judge that she is not ready, not some boring and pitiful stereotype from old men terrified that sisters are doing it for themselves. Andy Gray, meanwhile, has been a parody of himself for so long even he yawns. Catchphrases like: ‘Take a bow, son’ and ‘What a hit’ are deployed lazily and overzealously. His insights have become lessons in banality, as he refuses to say anything remotely controversial or derogatory. For brutal fouls, the worst you can expect from Gray is: ‘He won’t enjoy seeing that again’. For negative tactics, the most scathing remark will be: ‘I’d like to see them show a little more ambition’, and of course his resolute defence of the one-dimensional pub football long-ball tactics deployed by the likes of Stoke and Blackburn is galling. So given these notes from the prosecution, it seems nobody will really miss the two titanic egos no longer spouting overblown hype and trite gushings at us. But is there more to this episode than meets the Sky?

Let’s start by examining the evidence against. An off-air recording of the two talking about Massey was added to by another off-air recording of Gray conversing with touchline reporter Andy Burton, who began discussing a colleague’s appraisal of Massey’s appearance. The ‘new evidence’; ironically old evidence, used as the final nail in Gray’s coffin was a video of him suggesting co-presenter Charlotte Jackson tuck his microphone down the front of his trousers for him. With all due respect, this ‘evidence’ is flimsy at best. For one, if this is grounds for dismissal, at least 50% of the country’s offices workforce would be sacked overnight. Making a crude suggestion off the cuff is done every day at thousands of workplaces nationwide and can never constitute a sackable offence. We are human beings, and lewd comments are part of us dealing with the chemistry between genders. If these comments are grotesquely offensive, or form part of a series of incidents, then of course that is a serious disciplinary matter. But still, a defence needs to be heard before a dismissal can be affected.

Thus we ask ourselves: where did this evidence emerge from? Well as it was not ever broadcast, we can only assume that Sky owned all the footage, therefore Sky are responsible for the leakage. But why? Well, the great conspiracy theory is about to rear its ugly head, because of course this whole sordid affair has everything to do with Andy Gray daring to take legal action against the News of the World; owned of course by Rupert Murdoch’s News International; for allegedly tapping into his voicemail. Without sounding too dramatic, there are three key ways to oust enemies from within: through slander/accusations; forcing them out through systematic bullying; or giving them enough rope to hang themselves. As egotistical braggards who had clearly lost touch with the real world, the last option was clearly the right one for Sky, as it offered guaranteed results with a little patience, with little blowback against the station. After all, if Gray and Keys had been professional at all times, there could have been no evidence with which to sack them. But take the bait they did, and most would say they got what they deserved.

But let’s just imagine the worst case scenario here. What if Murdoch actually did say to his top executives after hearing of Gray’s legal action: ‘Get some people on this. I want some incriminating footage, enough to dismiss him’? It wouldn’t be beyond the realms of comprehension to imagine a person deployed specifically to rake through off-air footage specifically to compile evidence against Gray. The fact that Keys was also caught in it was convenient, as he would have no doubt vehemently defended his friend. Finally, what about Andy Burton, the touchline reporter suspended for provoking the conversation with Gray about Sian Massey’s attractiveness? If he loses his job this point is invalid, but why would he lose his job? After all, blood has been shed; justice has already seen to be done, and nobody really cares about Burton. So if he is reinstated; as we all imagine he will be; is it again stretching the limits of credibility to suggest he may have been complicit in goading Gray to talk trash about Massey? Offered a nice sweetener and told to accept suspension in order to ensure Gray was fired? Not that I would suggest Burton is a turncoat against Gray, because what can you do if your powerful paymasters ask you to do something a little fishy? Andy Burton has no power, if he attempted legal action against Sky, he would have suffered the same fate as Gray and Keys, albeit less reported. Although deluded and out of touch, Richard Keys had a very pertinent point about ‘dark forces’, even if it was lost in his ocean of self-pity and talk of envy at his position. Murdoch wins again.

Atheism must surely be catching up, if not having overtaken, Christianity as the major ‘faith’ in Britain, and yet we celebrate the divine birth of the Jewish King; the saviour of mankind on December 25th…or was it September? But we’ll say December as it fits well with the pagan festival of the winter Solstice. And of course, St Nicholas; Jesus’ drinking buddy; will defy the limits of time and physics to deliver gifts to boys and girls throughout the land; costume and make-up by Coca Cola. Today I began to watch ‘Avatar’; a transparent analogy of the bloody white European conquest of the Americas; lauded and cashed in on by the obscenely wealthy powerful beneficiaries/descendents of those same ruthless conquerors.

Either side of this I took in four versions of my personal favourite classic; Charles Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Carol’; the well-loved tale of a wicked, selfish miser who exploited and abused others for his own ends; amid the backdrop of a merciless economic climate caused chiefly by bankers who practice many of these traits themselves and don’t seem to be in any danger of repentance or reparations to those whose livelihoods they have gambled away; under the stewardship of a coalition which seems to be heralding in a new Dickensian era of class division with their cruel political gouging.

We have been treated to the indescribable beauty of a white Christmas, which has generally been met with groans of derision and spite. Most stores were profiteering on items which will be half the price in 2 days, while we all indulge in an orgy of gluttony and sloth.

But the point is the meaning of Christmas is what you derive yourself from the season. Charity? Giving to those you love? Being around friends? Having the family all together? Getting sozzled and singing carols until the early hours? Any of these tends to beat the cynicism out of this holiday; one which may have lost its original context and inspired people to worship at the altar of materialism, but which still offers an excuse for disparate souls to come together, possibly great distances, and join the festivities together.

And any excuse for a good party is fine by me.

A hypocrisy that means a distant relative of the Queen now rules over us, despite feudalism and nobility being antiquated and anachronistic concepts for many centuries. A hypocrisy that sees a man whose previous career highlights consisted of NHS data entry and working at Selfridges appointed as Chancellor of the Exchequer, despite never studying economics; a man who tells the populace he governs that they must live with austerity via his public service cuts when he himself is heir to a £4million fortune. A hypocrisy that sees the Conservative-led coalition condemning (if you’ll forgive the pun) the destruction of property at their Millbank headquarters by students fighting for their future prospects, when, as members of the notorious ‘Bullingdon Club’, they used to revel in vandalism for no cause other than cheap (if you’ll forgive another pun) thrills. A hypocrisy that saw the leader of the Liberal Deomocrats eschewing a core manifesto promise of no increase in University tuition fees because he ‘realised there was no alternative’ when he joined the coalition, perhaps at the same time that he realised that hoping for political reform in the form of Proportional Representation wasn’t really worth fighting for after all. And of course a hypocrisy that sees the State clamping down on welfare fraudsters when it is well-documented that corporate tax evasion costs the country many times more.

It would be nice if politicians could be held accountable for decisions which were proven to have far too great a social cost for too superficial a benefit, but unfortunately legions of spin-doctors would prevent this from ever being allowed to happen.

Not from a system which means that Maggie is afforded the very finest healthcare and comfort around the clock as she heads into senility while redundant miners and their families slide into chronic ill-health, depression and suicide from their plight. A system which also sees Tony Blair working to broker peace in a Middle East he has been complicit in tearing apart with his oil wars.

If there were any justice, Hicks and Gillett, the worst a club can get, would be jailed for conspiracy to defraud and abusing the legal system. Buying a company on the proviso that you will build a new stadium, for instance, usually means that you will be held to account by the shareholders. But of course Hicks and Gillett are the major shareholders, so moral decency would suggest you are accountable to the club’s lifeblood: the supporters. So the fact that the pair have essentially lied about a core part of their manifesto suggests walking away, alone or not, would be the honourable thing. We are so far ignoring the fact that, like the Glazers, they seem to be putting other people’s money into the club while withdrawing real club income for themselves.

Anyway, the pair’s comical financial misadventures had led to them appointing a new chairman, Martin Broughton, whose express purpose has been to seek out a buyer for the club as quickly as possible, to wipe out the debt and allow the dastardly duo to make like a tree. But wait, he has apparently done what was required: he has found a new buyer to wipe out the debt and run the club: NESV, also from America, which according to the intellectually-malnourished proportion of Liverpool support means they are also villains. So the deal should have been concluded quickly to allow the present incumbents to make a less-than-graceful exit.
Unfortunately, the pair have decided this deal is less-than-satisfactory, as it will cost them £144 million. By ‘them’, we assume they must mean their creditors Royal Bank of Scotland, who still may force the club into administration if they decide that the £230 million payment must be made by this week.

Many people malign these two buffoons and scream about their lack of morals and such, but ask yourself this: isn’t this how capitalism works? Think about it: the financial/political system that seems more like Dieism (where currency is God) is all about convincing the lower classes to spend money they don’t have on products they don’t need by repayment structures they don’t want. Meanwhile, at the top of the sacred money tree, big important men in suits buy companies they’ve never worked for, with money they don’t have, on the premise that it will be paid back in endless instalments by the company, rather than the men who instigated the deal. This leaves you with the laughable scenario of unscrupulous characters BUYING a football club with DEBT, but still drawing an actual income-based salary for themselves, usually obscenely large. It’s the big business equivalent of paying for your grocery shopping with an I.O.U. note, and when it’s time to collect the creditors chase up the makers of the paper you wrote the note on.

Hicks and Gillett, as well as the Glazer family, may seem to be fiscally inept, but in fact they are just well-groomed students of the capitalist hierarchy, using and abusing a system which in any other context would be criminal, but is the way to get ahead in their chosen ‘career’. And in case those smaller business owners are seriously wondering why the part-public-owned banks are so reticent to lend them money: it’s nothing but transparent greed. Giving a loan to a new small business is highly risky, in that the company is more likely to fold than survive, thus the bank will most likely lose out on their full remuneration with little assets to seize. Loaning ludicrous sums as in the case of a football club means that the interest payments will be staggering, and after a few of these have been collected, the bank will be repaid the original sum by the time they choose whether to force a liquidation and seize the highly valuable assets. Unfortunately money talks louder than social conscience or morals, more today than ever.

Hicks and Gillett seem to be on their way for good, now we must fight to see the back of the Glazers. Football clubs are hubs of their communities, and thus must be owned or completely democratically responsible to the supporters.

http://www.joinmust.org/about/index.php

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/tv-radio/chris-moyles-hits-out-at-bbc-during-onair-rant-2086627.html

Considerably more amused than I’ve ever been when tuning into Radio One in the mornings in fact. The fact that I know p***heads down the local who, with a few hours training could do a similar job and be funnier than Chris Moyles makes it even more amusing. His listener ratings are testament to appealing to the lowest common denominator (this is a generalisation and not describing every person who listens to his show to be clear).

If there’s one thing fatter than Moyles, it’s his ego. And of there’s one thing fatter than his ego, it’s his pay-cheque. Which brings me to the succinct point of this blog; that of a caller who apparently didn’t much like the way Moyles had the temerity to moan and groan that he hadn’t received a wage for two months. They are paraphrased as saying essentially that he should simply accept it, be grateful for getting nearly a hundred grand a year and a private driver.

Hmmm, well it doesn’t really work like that does it though? To illustrate why this is a really stupid point, let’s just use some basic arithmetic. Let’s for argument’s sake assume that the plaintiff themselves earns an annual wage of £15k. Now assuming this person is responsible, and also has no mortgage to pay, we would deduct money for tax and savings etc. and assume they lived a ‘£12k lifestyle’, i.e. their outgoings per year on bills etc would total about £12k.

Now suppose their boss calls them in and says they are impressed with their attitude and ability and promotes them to a new position, now on £25k a year. Are they still going to live a £12k lifestyle? Like Hell are they! They would most likely get a new car, perhaps move home; their outgoings would increase until nearly the same as their new wage.

It’s a logical progression that the more you earn, the more you attempt to improve your lifestyle. If your earnings increase by £10k, this extra £10k is not going to charity or savings. So unless Chris Moyles really is more humble than he sounds, he will be living an £85k lifestyle. This means that his bills would be pretty close to his earnings per month. So him not being paid for two months is similar to someone on £15k not being paid for two months. He might not be destitute but he has bills like everyone else. So, although the plaintiff clearly thought they were echoing the views of the wider public, they just came across as very bitter. As, strangely enough, did ‘Moylesy’ himself.