Five Most Popular Posts in May

Here's what did the business last month.

1. May vs Corbyn: The Verdict
2. Explaining Laura Kuenssberg's Bias
3. What is the Dementia Tax?
4. Emmanuel Macron and Neoliberalism
5. A Note on the Labour Vote

Goodness me, what a month. Even with an election looming I wasn't expecting huge numbers. Then again, given what's happened during the course of May, the start of the month is a foreign country. Overall, we saw just shy of 126,000 page views last month, making it the third best ever. Can these fortunes continue? Well, whatever happens in the election in eight days' time there will be plenty of things to discuss and analyse. There will be fall out for the Tories. There will be fall out for Labour, and I'll be there sifting through the bones and looking and what could happen next.

Turning back to May 2017 for the last time, is there anything here that deserves a second look? I'm going to throw two your way. The first takes a break from politics, well, politics here by looking at the relationship between economic anxiety and Donald Trump. The second is an examination of the gross exploitation of tragedy by assorted commentators and social media wannabes.

Five Most Popular Posts in April

What were the most read posts last month? These:

1. For the McDonnell Amendment
2. Chuka and Dan: Jeremy Corbyn's Heirs?
3. How Opinion Polling Works
4. Gerard Coyne: Another Reason to Vote Len McCluskey
5. Theresa May's Surprise General Election

This month we come in a smidgen under 110,000 page views. Which works out as the fourth highest total ever, so I'm not likely to complain. Helping things along no doubt is, yes, more politics. There can never be too much politics as far as this blog is concerned. Though, interestingly, three of this month's five have nothing at all to do with the shock general election (which comes in at the bottom).

Top of the blogging pops is my argument for the McDonnell Amendment, the proposal to reduce the threshold a leadership candidate has to meet to be considered by the membership and affiliated supporters. Not far behind was my purposely mischievous piece on how the victory of Jeremy Corbyn has shifted the politics of the PLP. Whoever succeeds him, they need a leadership pitch that more or less covers the same ground. I almost fell off my chair when I read Chuka Umunna talking about workers' interests and the need for Labour to stick up for them! Third is a polemic against the anti-science nonsense peddled by sundry self-described Labour and Jeremy supporters who dismiss opinion polling as a Tory conspiracy. Funny to see them suddenly find favour after three reported a marked movement toward Labour during the course of last week. And in fourth is a look at Gerard Coyne's ill-fated and awful campaign for Unite general secretary.

Any recommendations for posts you may have missed? Of course! Two this month. First is on the sociology of camel toe knickers. Yes, you read that correctly. Check it out. And second is my chin-strokey review of Paul Mason's Postcapitalism - an essential work everyone and anyone interested in the fate of capitalism needs to read.

Five Most Popular Posts in March

What were the most viewed posts last month?

1. Owen Jones and Naive Cynicism
2. The Collapse of the Labour Right
3. Dutch Lessons for the Centre Left
4. Daniel Hannan, Marxism, and Dishonesty
5. Nicola Sturgeon's Independence Ambush

To be honest, I thought this blog had peaked. As the London-based media collapsed into lazy cliches about a land outwith the M25 when it came to Stoke-on-Trent and its famous by-election, this blog filled the gap. And it showed as the audience soared to, for me, dizzying heights. From there, I expected an orderly decline to more modest but still respectable figures. The fates, however, had other ideas. March was my best month ever with just shy of 151,000 page views to brag about, an average of over 4,800 page views per day. Credit has to go to the Owen Jones piece which, thanks to a plug by Owen himself, resulted in this place receiving 31,000 extra page views in a single day, an all-time record. What if that was every day, eh? Perhaps more people would start listening. In addition, the underlying viewer totals are nice and healthy too. It might be a while before we beat this, but volatile times married to a hunger to understand what the hell is going on could lead to more boosts in the future.

As always, there is the odd post that gets overlooked. On this occasion, may your attention be directed to some advice for new Labour MPs. If you're one of the folks who end up in Parliament in future, you might want to keep this in mind.

Deep Duck Trouble for the Sega Master System

Or Deep Duck Trouble Starring Donald Duck to give this platformer its full title. This 1993 (relative) rarity was one of a clutch of Disney games Sega, or rather the developers the jobs were sub-contracted to, produced in the company's eight and 16-bit glory days. And (nearly) all of them are thought of quite fondly, retrospectively. Castle of Illusion with Mickey Mouse and Aladdin across the MegaDrive and Master System, World of Illusion and Quackshot on the former, and Donald Duck's Lucky Dime Caper on the latter. We definitely won't talk about Fantasia or Ariel the Little Mermaid. For the most part, Sega's Disney games were well-crafted, in part because Disney insisted on having input. After all, if you are licensing your cash cows the game they're pasted into better be alright.

Deep Duck Trouble was a late period entry onto the Master System, and as you might expect it's well programmed and avoids many of the issues that plagued the console. Namely flickering sprites and hideous tinny music. The adventure sees you assume Donald's mantle as you try and restore a necklace to its rightful resting place, all in order to lift a curse cast on Uncle Scrooge when his treasure hunting ways got the better of him. This involves platforming over five areas of a tropical island before facing off against the end boss and saving the day. It's all competently done. The standard zones common to platformers are here - jungles, water, caves, mountains, ice, temples (all that was missing was the desert). It wasn't the first time these themes turned up in a game, and were far from being the last too. Also, as a Disney game, violence had to be muted. Jumping on enemy heads Mario-stylee is okay, as is kicking blocks onto the bonces of baddies too. And, as per a Disney game, Donald cannot "die". Standard video game talk of "lives" is banished and replaced by "tries".

By this time, platformers were ten a penny with very little distinguishing one from the other apart from mascots/franchises. Deep Duck Trouble does at least make an effort in this regard. Rather than fight an end of level baddy, you're posed with a challenge. At the close of the first level you must keep sprinting to avoid coconuts thrown at you from a miniature King Kong who swings among the trees. Don't forget the spikes and the pitfalls too! Reach the end of the stage and he smacks into a tree. Likewise, the water level demands you do something similar, though this time you're frantically swimming up the screen to avoid the jaws of a very snappy shark. Definitely a nice switch from the usual fare.

As well crafted as the game is, there are very annoying cheap deaths from time to time, unnecessarily (and unfairly) tricky bits that see your life, sorry, try tally drop down. This is definitely the case on level five where a drop, which is something usually to be avoided, is actually the way through the level. Considering this was a kids' game on a kids' system, which is how Sega marketed the Master System once the MegaDrive came along, lazy misdirection like this is unnecessary. It's one thing to try and stretch the game experience out, quite another to effectively troll the player.

Going back to Goffman and the sociology of video games, point four of a digital reworking of his own scholarship on games notes how, for solo gamers, it is an outlet for presenting their (gaming) self to them selves - among a number of other things, of course. It's an act of reflexivity, a practice of being explicitly invited to monitor your own action as you respond to pre-programmed moves and, depending on the game, its artificial intelligence will likewise try and counter appropriately. There is none of the latter in Deep Duck Trouble. As an 8-bit title, the platforming action and attack patterns of the baddies are strictly scripted. It's as inflexible as the formations advancing down the screen in a game of Space Invaders. The fact it is quite easy once you get the hang of it is suddenly jarred when that unexpectedly tricky jump appears, ill-placed enemy, or hard-to-dodge obstacle. Getting beyond them means investing either a lot of time to familiarise yourself further with the game, which could add up to many more hours of repetitious gameplay (at least modern titles have much stronger narratives that simulate progression). Or, you could cheat.

Cheating in games has always been something of an ethical grey area, and what constitutes cheating has changed as games have changed. The sorts of things vintage gamers like me would have thought cheating, such as instant respawns and infinite lives, come as standard now. Which, I suppose, befits games' evolution toward interactive cinematic experiences. It goes without saying that cheating in multiplayer matches over the internet is very much frowned upon, but what about in the privacy of your own home? Naturally, no one gives a monkey's if you can unlock all the best weapons from the off. Indeed, for some players, cheating helps them get full value out of the game and therefore enhance the experience. But for simple 8-bit platformers? During my playthrough using the trusty Retron5 I am ashamed to say that save states came in very handy. Stupid mistakes or surprise deaths were and are much easier to avoid of time can be rewound to the point just prior. The application of saving to a game that was never designed to have progress saved fundamentally reshapes the experience. Game over no longer implies a tedious trudge back through the game to the sticking point, only for it to happen again - a cheap death is a momentary inconvenience. The advantage it has is time, especially as the number of tries it takes you to make that perfectly timed platform jump or avoid the tumbling rock from nowhere can be quite a few. Taking out the trudge saves time. If you only get past level four's swooping eagle on the 15th try, that's quite a bit of tedium cut out of the experience.

Does this matter when it comes to gaming reflexivity? It can. Cheating through saving is only an option and one the purists can easily avoid by sticking exclusively to the original hardware or exercising iron will power. For others, for me, because time is short (why play when blogging is the best game ever?) liberal use of cheating allows me to get through games I wouldn't otherwise have time to play. What does that mean when it comes to matters of skill, of the feeling of accomplishment, of meeting a challenge for its own sake? Something to ponder in a future post.

Five Most Popular Posts in February

Phew, what a month! The five most read posts were:

1. On the Doors in Stoke Central
2. Is the Corbyn Moment Over?
3. At the Stoke Central Hustings
4. On Labour's Victorious Campaign in Stoke
5. Lies, Damned Lies, and Paul Nuttall

Crazy horses! Last month recorded 118,000 page views, making it the second highest on record. Would the blog like a base of 4,200 page views a day from here on in? You bet it would. As the story of the battle of Stoke-on-Trent Central fades from the memory and becomes the preserve of ragged trousered oral historians in the local party, and skinny jeaned politics geeks elsewhere, the normal service of calmly commenting on Britain's chaotic politics - among other things - continues.

Amid February's hurly burly, there are probably a few posts you missed. But the one I think you should read, and I hope to expand on in the future, is this on Labour and insecurity. Until we sort that problem out we can look forward to the Tories walking all over us, regardless of who is sitting in the leader's office.

Stoke Central Polling Day

Admittedly, I've never liked polling day much. Probably because my experiences of them are never the greatest. 2011 in Bentilee found me soaked and dispirited by the small numbers we turned out which, thankfully, were enough to see off the BNP. 2012, Springfields and Trent Vale: over a thousand Labour pledges and we still lost to the City Independents and their manifesto promising a ban on cervical smears(!). 2013 in Baddeley, Milton, and Norton - bloody miserable and another loss to the same crew. 2014 Newcastle-under-Lyme, alright I guess. So too was Stafford 2015, until I got home and saw that exit poll. Silverdale last year was uncharacteristically good as we took one off UKIP. And today?

Let me just say that this was the worst weather I've ever campaigned in. Storm Doris lured me in and gave us a good going over. Despite the multiple warnings from Carol on BBC Breakfast, it didn't look too bad out. Sure, trotting up to Hanley from Chateau BC was a touch windy, it was manageable. It was pleasant enough to pause briefly to admire the kippers going in and out of their HQ. I was asked by a plonker wearing a garish Union Jack-covered suit who I'd be voting for. "Not for your lot, mate." "Why?" "Hillsborough ... for starters." The deflated look was worth holding back the real explanation. Anyway, it was 9am and met up with brothers Tom and Lloyd at campaign HQ, and joined by sister N we hit the first doors around Hanley Park and Shelton.

This ward is predominantly populated by students with a large number of second generation Asian residents and an outer rim of white English locals. It was also the only ward in the whole city to have voted Remain in the EU referendum. A juicy morsel for our Liberal Democrat friends perhaps? Except, going door-to-door, they hadn't bothered going out early to drop off their polling day rounds. It was also quickly apparent that Doris had chosen this moment to do its worse. We were flung from house to house, my kipper-coloured brolly mutilated by the storm's gusty tendrils. As Tom put it, it felt like our hands were bloody stumps. Absolutely sodding soaked, Gareth Snell and Ruth Smeeth joined us just as we were beginning the second round. Thankfully this was a stone's throw from home, so I made my excuses and pegged it to change and put on more appropriate wear. Alas, the umbrella was beyond redemption. We'd had some good times ...

Back at base camp after a quick bite to eat, I went out with sister T and a couple of comrades who'd travelled up from Exeter. This was just down the road from the office and so made short work of a couple of rounds. Then back to recharge (bring me coffee or bring me death) and a chat to the poor bugger charged with hair drying all our soaked WARP sheets. By chance I bumped into me ode muckers Chris Williamson and Cllr Sarah Russell from Derby North CLP. Funnily enough, when I last went out with these motley comrades the weather was almost as appalling (snow storms in Mickleover don't come recommended). Off we headed with sister T and other Derby folks to Birches Head. This is a 1980s estate with plenty of detached housing and can be quite tricky for Labour. Here the big coat proved its worth as pulses of rain and beams of sun were cast down upon us, some times simultaneously. And for the finale, we had a double round back in Shelton with an expanded Stoke/Derby/Newcastle/Manchester/Matlock alliance. On this round especially we hit quite a lot of people who'd been and were about to head off to the polling booth. Interestingly, down one driveway I found a Rolls Royce. Not something you'd expect to see in those parts.

I'm sure you didn't want the diarising, but still. What this campaign has reminded me is that going out and doing the kind of slog others avoid like the plague can be and is a good laugh. Invariably, canvassing is not quite fun, but is always interesting and occasionally uplifting. And I've been heartened not just by the hundreds, if not thousands of comrades who've poured in from all over the country (and some times, from beyond) but also a good chunk of new members who signed up because of Jeremy Corbyn. A lot of old hands like to moan about the inactivity of these recently-activated folks, but they're no lazier than people who've been round the block a bit. Dozens upon dozens got their first taste of party campaign on the doorsteps of The Potteries, and I hope our shining pearl of North Staffordshire hasn't put them off future activity.

Back to business. The real reason why I don't like polling day is you're only left with an idea of how your vote turned out, whereas the normal go-find-your-voters canvassing gives you an overall glance of how the result might fall. That said, as the day went on turn out improved. Even the horrendous morning session wasn't a total loss. I am cheered by what comrades told me. Knowing someone who worked on the Heywood and Middleton by-election, which the kippers missed out on by a whisker, he said there was a palpable shift in their direction as the campaign wore on. No such shift was seen on the doors this time. Indeed, a few Tory-Labour switches (to keep UKIP out) were turned up - the job is to make them permanent rather than tactical voters. Overall then, the data points to a Labour win. But I don't do predictions any more - if that turns out to be wrong, and it might be, there are either a lot of shy kippers or we're not asking the right questions to flush them out.

The ballots are now in, and the result is beyond anyone's power. The tense night of counting now begins.

Five Most Popular Posts in January

The five most read posts in January were:

1. The Left Unity Masturbation at Work Debate
2. Goodbye to Tristram
3. A Political Guide to Stoke-on-Trent Central
4. Paul Nuttall in Stoke
5. Stoke-on-Trent Central Labour Long List

It's basically been Stoke month on the blog since Tristram Hunt announced his resignation from Parliament. As I've been saying since this blog's inception, Stoke-on-Trent is the city around which the nation's politics revolve. And now I have the audience to back up this truism. January 2017 weighed in at 133,000 page views, an average of over 4,000 per day. Or, between you and me, this blog's best ever figures. I would be very pleased if it turns out I haven't peaked already this year, but we shall see.

Yes, it's my front row seat at the Stoke Central by-election circus that's to blame. And in February you can look forward to further reportage from the campaign trail as well as my analysis of the coming result. Labour are looking strong, but I remember my resolution to cease venturing predictions. The big winner, however, is the republishing of the "classic" Left Unity masturbation at work debate. Truly the most bizarre - and telling - debate certain sections of the left have engaged in in recent years.

I won't be letting you off that lightly. Getting the second chance treatment for January is my meditation on Living Dead Liberalism. Seeing so many liberals fawning over Ken Clarke for his speech in Parliament against Brexit sums up their bankruptcy.

Five Most Popular Posts in December

The five most-read last month were:

1. Individualism and Neoliberalism
2. French Lessons for the Centre Left
3. Remembering Lily Jayne Summers
4. Top 100 Tweeting Politics Commentators 2016
5. Politics After Richmond

Who'd have thought a book review would come top last month? Well, it did and rightly so. Ralph Fevre's Individualism and Inequality is an important contribution to ongoing work around neoliberalism, and offers ways of thinking about different kinds of individualism that should be embedded at the heart of progressive (or socialist) politics. A must read. Coming in second is a reflection on the disaster zone that is Francois Hollande's presidency and the lessons we should take from that. Unfortunately, a year's worth of critiquing Corbyn suggests that the centre left are not interested in learning such things. Third is my tribute to our missed comrade, Lily Jayne Summers. We will be saying a proper goodbye to her on the 10th. Fourth, shockingly, is the annual top 100 of tweeting commentators - the first ever time it hasn't come out top at the end of a December. 2016 was a strange year. And bringing up the rear is a pondering on whether the Richmond by-election marks another shift in British politics. Short answer? Sort of.

I've decided to deposit three posts in second chance city. Most recently, my critique of the useless numbers proffered by the Change Britain campaign, and a preview of the Copeland by-election. And lastly, a look back on the history of British politics blogging. Changes? There have been a few.

Happy reading and happy 2017!

The Most Read 16 of 2016

2016 was awful, but it turns out awfulness does wonders for reality-based socialist blogging. Page views surged to 936,000 over the course of this year, working out at roughly 78,000 a month, or 2,500 a day. Enough, Google informs me, to make a princely £28.10/month were I to AdSense this place up to the eyeballs. Still, it's good to know there's still a solid audience 10 years into this game. The old Facebook page could do with more likes though (hint, hint). 

The collapse of the mainstream centre left into liberal virtue signalling and covering for Saudi Arabia in Parliament, and too much of Corbynism in thrall to conspiratorial thinking means there is a space for small independent bloggers and pundits to get to grips with what's happening and offer analysis-based diagnoses, no matter how unpalatable they might be. And, with any luck, that gap is going to widen as increasing numbers start looking for comment that's a bit more thoughtful. Either/or self-indulgence was so 2016 - 2017 belongs to critical thinking and nuanced argument. Well, it would if there is any justice.

Want to know what the most read posts of 2016 were? Of course you do.

16. Race, Class and Donald Trump
15. Ken Livingstone, Labour and Anti-Semitism
14. Why is the BBC Silent about Tory Electoral Fraud?
13. After Neoliberalism
12. Top 100 Independent Tweeting Bloggers 2015
11. Is Corbynism a Social Movement?
10. Why the Establishment Doesn't Get Corbynism
9. Splitting the Labour Party
8. Jeremy Corbyn in Stoke-on-Trent
7. What is Happening to the Labour Party?
6. Against the Corbyn Coup
5. EU Referendum: What Would Trotsky Do?
4. Jeremy Corbyn's Prime Ministerial Speech
3. Jeremy Corbyn and the SWP
2. Why I Voted for Jeremy Corbyn
1. Reluctant Corbynism

There is a theme that dominates this list, but I can't quite grasp what it might be. Can you?

With lists in recent years typically dominated by more lists, bonking, and far left shenanigans, politics, real politics has come to the fore. And about bloody time. 2017 is going to be difficult and fraught year as the Brexit disaster beds down, Donald Trump assuming office and rattling his super-manly sabre, a rolling wave of far right success in continental elections and, yes, a few more beloved celebrities are probably going to leave us. The outlook is bleak, but I will be here chronicling it all and offering my two penneth.

Instead of my usual tradition of digging up (relatively) unappreciated posts, I'd like to pay tribute to two of my comrades who passed away unexpectedly this year. Eddie Truman and Lily Jayne Summers were among the finest human beings I've ever had the pleasure to associate with. Their passing is felt everyday, and we owe it to their memory to dust ourselves off and keep fighting for a better world. After all, if these comrades were still with us it is what they would be doing.

Things I Learned in 2016

Instead of a customary look back, I'm nicking Paul's idea and having a think about what I've learned this year. We never stop learning, after all, and for anyone who comments on politics and society to make sense of them in order to change them, it behooves them to take stock and reflect.

1. Liberalism has gone the way of the walking dead. It is a ruling set of ideas every bit as decadent and useless as Conservatism, and 2016 was the year this was demonstrated in no uncertain terms. I would say more, but I'm brewing a post on this very topic in the near future. Thunder, stealing, etc.

2. Be very careful about predictions. Last year's prediction about the EU referendum was spectacularly off, but then again I find myself in the company of every politics pundit going. I was also daft enough to think Trump couldn't win against Hillary Clinton, and as the popular vote gap between the two is in spitting distance of three million, that would have been right were it not for the electoral college. However, where I have got it right - Corbyn remaining Labour leader, decline of UKIP despite the hype, resurrection of the LibDems - this isn't because of superior powers of clairvoyance, but paying proper attention to trends and balances of forces. It's not always right, but more often than not, analysis works.

3. Theresa May immediately presents as a more formidable Prime Minister than her predecessor. She's a "grown up". She appoints people who can do the job. She isn't an ideologue, but has a plan that nods towards Ed Miliband. That's where liberal analysis ends (see 1). However, scrutinising her actions finds a politician as dithery as Gordon Brown, and as captivated by immediate party interests as Dave was. To have such a PM heading up the Brexit negotiations is a recipe for catastrophe.

4. Capitalism is in deep, deep trouble. It's not about to collapse, but the crisis tendencies that drive the beast are grinding against each other painfully, and it seems no amount of austerity, protectionism, or QE without significant inroads into private ownership seem possible to bring it back to rude health. The alternatives are either decades-long stagnation, as per Wolfgang Streeck, or a displacement of market relations by cooperative, networked, peer-to-peer relations as sketched out by Hardt, Negri and Boutang and publicised here by Paul Mason.

5. Jeremy Corbyn isn't proving to be much cop, I'm sorry to say. True, he was dragged down by some of the most disgraceful, pathetic, infantile behaviour ever witnessed in mainstream politics, and true, he's earned the right to run the party as he sees fit as far as the membership is concerned. Secondly, and related to 1), this year his opponents - the bulk of the PLP - have demonstrated they do not understand the character of the party they represent in the Commons. By trying to subvert the members' will, by seeking to replace him with someone whose politics would be continuity Miliband, replete with market solutions for problems, a desire to gut the welfare state, and bang on about controlling immigration, they would have destroyed the party. The coup-that-wasn't and the second leadership contest wasn't between winning an election and losing one, but a question of whether there would be a Labour Party or not. Jeremy Corbyn might not be leading the party to victory in 2020, but already he's saved it as a going concern.

6. And lastly, despite my best efforts I've discovered in 2016 that there are only so many hours in the day. The heftiest workload I've ever had, the maintenance of this place, a commitment to politics, at times it's proven impossible to juggle the lot. The blog has suffered, the politics have suffered. That is never going to happen again.

What George Michael Meant

2016 continues to exact a grim toll among the celebrity set, and the latest victim is George Michael. There are few things I can add to the stock obituaries proliferating across news sites, except for what he meant to me. Because, among all the other much loved celebrities who met their demise this year, George Michael was perhaps the one I felt closest to. This closeness, of course, is an illusion, an effect of how the celebrity system in the advanced industrial societies work. As we've discussed previously:

As celebrity has become even more ubiquitous, the option is there - and it's readily taken - for people to form simulated relationships with celebrities of their choice. Whether one is a self-described superfan or is moderately interested in the doings/work of a particular star there is a one-way, "inauthentic" relationship. Despite never meeting them, seeing them, or getting a reply on Twitter off them they can become as meaningful to someone as a real, flesh-and-blood friendship can be. Sometimes even more so. Zygmunt Bauman, the diagnostician of what he likes to call 'liquid modernity' nevertheless observes that for all their inauthenticity, relationships of this stripe can reproduce the agonies and ecstasies just as well. The relation one might have with a certain celebrity might be more real than real, more human than human. It's a strange coming together of supplicant and replicant, of a real person "meeting" a simulated person through the intermediaries of multiple media technologies.

Illusions can seem real. And if they present as real, they can have real effects. George Michael provided a soundtrack that was always playing in the background during the formative years of millions of people. His songs rotated heavily when I was a little kid glued to Top of the Pops. This continued at university with his songs getting regular spots on cheesy (boozy) nights out in local clubs and down the union. In other words, George Michael's work is bound up with some of the very happiest times of my life. But also, strangely, so is his person. Throughout the last 30-odd years, his celebrity has been a constant, a background presence that has helped anchor me and masses of other people in an otherwise turbulent period of accelerated social change. That, ultimately, is one of the social consequences of the celebrity system, and why I feel his passing so keenly.

George Michael was a big star with few peers in pop. But he was also culturally significant in a number of unstated ways. There were surprisingly few stars from the 1980s who actively collaborated with other big names, but he was one of them. Aretha Franklin, Elton John, Queen, Mary J Blige all teamed up with him and turned out superb pop moments. Today, collabs are so utterly frequent they barely merit mentioning. George Michael can arguably lay claim to inventing designer stubble. The manner of his forced outing by the LAPD in 1998 landmarked the strides taken towards gay acceptance as no one was really bothered, which in turn he sent up in Outside. In more recent years, he was fodder for the gossip sheets with his admissions of drug taking, self-deprecating confessions about a rustling in the bushes on Hampstead Heath, and the bizarre incidents of his crashing into a photography shop and subsequent falling out of his car on the motorway(!). Having reached such a level of fame, it's almost as if he took a delight in an eccentric subversion of it.

But nor should we forget that George was a frequent target for the tabloid press. As with any celebrity megastar, they reveled in his low moments. Gloating when his contract with Sony was upheld in the courts, prurient as they tried to break the studied silence about his sexuality and personal life, and hay making when he was done for cottaging. George Michael was - is - loved, but for the press that helped make him their attachment was purely cynical, their heartfelt headlines entirely hypocritical.

Despite their best efforts, he epitomised what it meant to be the 'good celebrity'. George Michael's working class background kept him grounded and socially conscious (Wham! played a Miners' benefit gig at the height of their success). Once forced out, he was utterly unapologetic about his sexuality and made a point of not caring what people thought about his cruising and drug taking. His intolerance was directed at the intolerant, an ethic everyone involved in progressive and socialist politics should seek to emulate. And he was a generous man, refusing to partake in celebrity charity fests and preferring to help people out quietly and anonymously. In all, he was a lovely bloke, and one of the reasons why he meant so much to so many.

53 these days is no age, and the world already feels the poorer for his passing. Goodbye George. We will miss you.

10 Years of All That Is Solid

Tony Blair and George W Bush were mainstays of the political scene. Social media was confined to a tiny niche of hobbyists and nerds. Nigel Farage wasn't a household name. And pop music, generally speaking, was better than it is today (no, that's not old age speaking, it's a fact). One Friday evening in 2006, an obscure PhD student who happened to be a member of an obscure Trotskyist outfit in an obscure corner of the country sat himself down and started writing. 10 years on and countless evenings later, the dullard is still writing.

Yes, December 8th 2016 marks a whole decade of blogging. While most of the '06 scene have passed onto lighter forms of entertainment and/or greater, better things, here we bloody well are.

I'll have a few things to say about what's happened to politics blogging over the course of those 10 years in the next post, but until then here are the all-time greatest hits, the posts that have commanded most attention in terms of raw audience numbers. Some of them are good, at least in my own eyes. Some of them bad. And others a bit pointless. Glancing down the list, readers might spot a certain fondness for lists. I cannot tell a lie. As a kid, ever since compiling a compendium of every Transformer then known (Generation One to the cognoscenti) I've had a compulsion to list things. Hence it's fitting that so many should make the cut of the 100 most read posts, and that this blog marks its 10 years with its own list.

Here's to the next decade!

100. Ken Livingstone, Labour and Anti-Semitism (April 2016)
99. Top 100 Independent Tweeting Bloggers 2013 (January 2014)
98. Why is the BBC Silent About Tory Electoral Fraud? (May 2016)
97. After Neoliberalism (August 2016)
96. Who is White Van Dan? (November 2014)
95. When Men's Bodies Meet Side-Saddle Trunks (June 2014)
94. Doncaster SWP: Why We Resigned (July 2010)
93. Kenneth Tong and the Fame Game (January 2011)
92. The Far Left and the 2015 UK General Election (April 2015)
91. The Difficulty Writing About Video Games (December 2012)
90. Top 100 Independent Tweeting Bloggers 2015 (January 2016)
89. Islam and the New Atheists (July 2013)
88. Problems with Porn (December 2007)
87. The Far Left and Revolutionary Identity Politics (November 2013)
86. How to Destroy a Blog Post (June 2013)
85. SWP: Life on the Revolutionary Treadmill (January 2013)
84. Lessons of the Labour Leadership Campaigns (September 2015)
83. Egypt: Revolution, Democracy and Leadership (February 2011)
82. What has Happened to Germaine Greer? (May 2013)
81. Top 100 Tweeting Bloggers 2013 (December 2013)
80. The Work Programme: Still Worse Than Useless (January 2013)
79. Post-Materialism and Class (August 2008)
78. Why I Didn't Support the March on Stoke (February 2013)
77. Doctor Who: Sexism and Audience (December 2012)
76. Is Corbynism a Social Movement? (August 2016)
75. The SWP: A Short Obituary (March 2013)
74. Celebrity Strikebreakers (November 2010)
73. Sharon O'Donnell and Jumping the Gun (January 2014)
72. Top 100 Tweeting Politics Commentators 2014 (December 2014)
71. Lindsey German Resigns from SWP! (February 2010)
70. Porn as Ideology (December 2009)
69. Zombies and Ideology (November 2010)
68. What Next for Politics? (September 2014)
67. Where Now for the SWP? (January 2013)
66. Gramsci, Althusser and Hegemonic Struggle (August 2009)
65. Splits and the Socialist Party (August 2013)
64. Consumer Culture and Postmodernism (July 2010)
63. Top 100 Independent Tweeting Bloggers 2012 (January 2013)
62. SWP Bullies London Black Revolutionaries (November 2014)
61. Dear Liz Kendall (May 2015)
60. The Far Left after the Election (May 2010)
59. It's Time to Bash Benefit-Bashing (October 2012)
58. Mary Daly, Death of a Feminist (January 2010)
57. Ian Watkins and Narcissism (December 2013)
56. Top 100 Tweeting Politics Commentators 2015 (December 2015)
55. The Far Left and the 2010 UK General Election (April 2010)
54. Chris Bambery Resigns from the SWP (April 2011)
53. The SWP, Rape, and Revolutionary Justice (January 2013)
52. Top 100 Independent Tweeting Bloggers 2014 (January 2015)
51. Far Left UK General Election 2015 Results (May 2015)
50. Why the Establishment Doesn't Get Corbynism (August 2016)
49. Splitting the Labour Party (July 2016)
48. Machiavelli and Marxist Politics (July 2010)
47. Roy Bhaskar: Worst Writer Ever (October 2010)
46. Top 100 Tweeting Bloggers 2010 (December 2010)
45. Jeremy Corbyn in Stoke-on-Trent (September 2016)
44. Sex, Power Play and Trotskyism (January 2014)
43. Melanie Phillips: Marketing Bigotry (January 2011)
42. Top 100 Worst Blogs Poll (July 2010)
41. What is Happening to the Labour Party? (July 2016)
40. Whither Left Unity? (November 2013)
39. Claim Benefits? Then Bank Charges Are Illegal (March 2013)
38. The Guardian's 1,000 Books You Must Read (February 2009)
37. Five Books on Marx and Marxism (May 2013)
36. Ed Balls for Labour Leader (August 2010)
35. Cadre Parties and Mass Parties (November 2009)
34. Class and Ideology in Sex Party Secrets (January 2015)
33. Hitler, Charisma and Leadership (November 2012)
32. Why I Resigned from the Socialist Party (February 2010)
31. Foucault, Power and Sex (March 2007)
30. Against the Corbyn Coup (June 2016)
29. Raoul Moat, Gazza and the Media Circus (July 2010)
28. The Depravity of the SWP (October 2013)
27. EU Referendum: What Would Trotsky Do? (June 2016)
26. Lindsey Oil Refinery: The Media's Silence on the Cost (February 2009)
25. The UK's 100 Worst Political Blogs (September 2010)
24. Sexism and Abuse of Power in the SWP (March 2013)
23. Dawn Porter Free Lover (October 2008)
22. UK's Top 50 Worst Politics Blogs 2013 (September 2013)
21. Jeremy Corbyn's Prime Ministerial Speech (September 2016)
20. The Meaning of Conchita Wurst (May 2014)
19. Tommy Sheridan on Trial (October 2010)
18. Gramsci, Intellectuals and Class (January 2010)
17. Jeremy Corbyn and the SWP (October 2016)
16. The Perfect Vagina (August 2008)
15. Critiquing Doctor Who: Deep Breath (August 2014)
14. Is there Bias on BBC Question Time? (November 2012)
13. Top 100 Indie/Alternative Songs of the 90s (August 2015)
12. Top 100 Tweeting Bloggers 2012 (December 2012)
11. Louis Theroux Behind Bars (January 2008)
10. Dogging and Dogging Tales (April 2013)
9. Martin Smith Resigns from the SWP (July 2013)
8. Support for the SWP Central Committee (February 2013)
7. Why I Voted for Jeremy Corbyn (September 2016)
6. Top 100 Dance Songs of the 80s (December 2010)
5. Reluctant Corbynism (August 2016)
4. Natalija Belova and The Sun's Benefit Lies (January 2013)
3. Top 100 Dance Songs of the 00s (December 2009)
2. Top 100 Dance Songs of the 90s (August 2010)
1. Top 100 Dance Songs of the 70s (August 2014)

Five Most Popular Posts for November

The five most-read last month were:

1. Race, Class and Donald Trump
2. Marine Le Pen on Andrew Marr
3. The End of Capitalism?
4. Momentum's Double Vision
5. How Likely is a General Election?

Good to see this blog's slightly different take on Donald Trump's unexpected election victory get top of the pops this month. While liberalism retreats into calling his voters racist and thick, just as they did with Brexit voters, Tory voters, Corbyn supporters, and anyone else falling short of their impeccable standards of political hygiene, there is an audience casting around for alternative explanations that go beyond middle class identity politics (and identity thinking). I hope this at least served as an entree. There's a very good chance Trump's win will boost Le Pen's chances in the French presidentials next May, which is not good news. Nor was it for Andrew Marr to get her on his show. Less a grilling and more a few turns on a sun bed, as abysmal politics broadcast journalism goes, we've been provided with a new floor. Well done. We also took a look at the end of capitalism, seeing as apocalypse is in the air, had a foray into Critical Corbyn Studies, and asked whether Theresa May is going to call an election. TL;DR answer? No.

Making the trip to second chance city this month is my review of Alex Nunns' The Candidate. It's an excellent read. If you've been good, it's well worth asking Santa for a copy! Oh yes, it's going to be December too. The month is traditionally a busy time on the blog, what with all that free time to soak up and annual blogging lists to post. NB This blog reaches its 10th (yes, 10th!) birthday on the 8th, so do expect some vainglorious nonsense.

Onwards!

Why Did We Call It Wrong?

Some didn't. No doubt they're feeling smug as others flail around in horror. But for the bulk of "us", the commentariat people spanning the academic pundits specialising in voting behaviour, the professional commentators paid for their opinion-forming opinions, and neither forgetting those weirdos who write about politics because they want to, Tuesday represented a unanimity of failure. That so few called it for Trump goes beyond bad analysis: it's a social phenomenon. How then did everyone get it wrong?

Well, for starters, we didn't. We were wrong, and yet we were right too. Not only did Hillary Clinton win the popular vote, she might surpass Trump's tally by some two million once all the ballots are counted. So yes, all the analyses were right that the GOP wouldn't out poll the Democrats - and the size of that margin could give Trump added extra legitimacy problems later on. Yet, despite knowing about the electoral college, too many of us treated the contest as if it was a simple popularity contest. The vagaries of this anti-democratic and archaic stitch-up system were rarely factored in.

The second point was polling. Most people writing about American politics, including Americans writing about politics, are removed from the action on the ground. You have to take what passes as evidence as your guide. And that, traditionally, has been opinion polling. While they were a bit all over the place, they favoured a Clinton outcome as per the final vote tally. Yet they also posted clear leads in the crucial battleground states, including Wisconsin where not a single poll put Trump on top. In Britain, the experience of the 2015 general election and Brexit should, by now, have taught us to treat polling with caution. On each occasion, they've been able to pick up movements in opinion but not the actual figures. Sucks to be them, sucks to be fooled by them.

And then there are the demographics. Asked about it in the lead up, like many others I couldn't see how Trump might win with such a coalition arrayed against him. Surely the bulk vote of America's ethnic and sexual minorities, allied to a sizeable chunk of white people would be enough to bury his chances? As we know, they weren't. The white middle class and well-to-do base of the GOP turned out in the states Trump needed them to turn out in, while the Democrat vote deflated. All the stars aligned for a Clinton win, and without anything else intervening we went with that.

Lastly, there's a strange sort of groupthink. In my bones, I felt we weren't going to win the general election, that Leave would put us on course for exiting the EU, and Trump was set to come out on top. But I ignored it, took Tony Blair's advice and had a heart transplant, substituting emotion for the cool analysis of hard numbers. This, however, was a conceit. The fear of the alternatives engendered a herd wisdom that appeared to have a close relationship to the simulated results of polling and extrapolations of demographics, but this was coincidental. In truth, commentators hostile to Trump right across the spectrum of opinion fooled themselves into think that he couldn't win because, well, he just couldn't. In the same way Britain just wouldn't leave the EU, how Labour wouldn't vote for Jeremy Corbyn (twice), how the Conservatives wouldn't be victorious in 2015. Being wedded to the established way of doing things, whether cheerleader or critic, meant projecting its assumptions onto a wider electorate. They couldn't possibly support ....

How to prevent this from happening again? Going in the opposite direction and forecasting doom and gloom is not an answer. Treating polling data more critically is the easy thing. Keeping a sociological imagination is necessary but not sufficient. One has to be alive to the play of tendencies and counter tendencies, their strength and weaknesses. But most importantly, and more difficult more difficult to accomplish is sustained self-criticism combined with the checking and rechecking of one's underlying assumptions, including acknowledging and allowing for your stakes in a issue and how that might colour your findings. It's not just fresh thinking that's needed now, but critical thinking and intellectual honesty. If that can be managed, then fewer in may be blindsided by so-called freak events in future.

Five Most Popular Posts for October

The most read posts last month were:

1. Jeremy Corbyn and the SWP
2. Understanding Jeremy Corbyn's Reshuffle
3. Theresa May: Brexit Means Wrexit
4. Theresa May and Thatcherism
5. The Woolfe was on the Floor

Critical Corbyn Studies, the Tories, and UKIP make the cut this month. Which is hardly surprising as that's pretty much all I've written about. Bringing together Jeremy Corbyn and the SWP was always going to add significantly to the audience figures. And indeed it did, giving this blog its biggest single day of visits since this dreary piece went viral a few years ago. That helped me to my fourth best monthly page views ever, so no complaints.

In posts you may have missed is this case in support for Suzanne Evans for UKIP leader. Outdated because Raheem Kassam showed his mettle and pulled out, it nevertheless diagnoses the two roads facing the purple party.

Five Most Popular Posts in September

The five most read posts this last month were:

1. Why I Voted for Jeremy Corbyn
2. Jeremy Corbyn's Prime Ministerial Speech
3. Jeremy Corbyn in Stoke-on-Trent
4. Now What for the Labour Establishment?
5. Some Critical Advice for Jeremy Corbyn

Critical Corbyn studies absolutely dominated the blog last month, with my piece explaining why I voted this time for Jezza cleaning up and going semi-viral on the old social media. Jolly good. Its ilk helped push the blog to its third highest page view total ever with a monthly tally a shade under 101,000 page views. Perhaps now the summer's interest in Jez dies down and the Westminster slog resumes after next week's Tory conference, the numbers might drop back. We'll see soon enough.

Five Most Popular Posts in August

The five most read posts last month were:

1. Reluctant Corbynism
2. Why the Establishment Doesn't Get Corbynism
3. Is Corbynism a Social Movement?
4. Labour Wins in Silverdale
5. After Neoliberalism

Another triumphant month for critical Corbyn studies as far as this blog's audience figures are concerned. In all, 102,656 page views happened, making August 2016 the second most popular month ever. It was only 700 views off the record set in July, so if the rest of the year can hit those dizzy heights I'll be most chuffed.

The piece on Reluctant Corbynism isn't just the most read this month, but is in the All That Is Solid all-time top ten after going mini-viral. What - I think - it and the other Corbyn pieces demonstrate is an audience who want to understand what Corbynism is about and what, if anything, it represents. And let's be honest, most of the mainstream output is dishonest guff and dismal delusion. Suggesting there is an appetite for thinking is After Neoliberalism, which is probably the longest (and most complex) piece I've written for the blog so far. Want more head scratching pieces?

Ants in the Coffee

I'm working on what the trendies and hipsters call a 'long read'. It's about Neoliberalism - what it is and what's likely to come after. I'm about 2,000 words in and not sure if the mid-point has been reached. Yikes.

You're here looking for a bit of blogging red meat to play with, and so ...

I've been making cups of coffee since I was a little kid, mostly for myself and mum. And I followed the standard prep format. Coffee and sugar in first, followed by the milk and then topped up with boiling water. Seeing the half/semi-dissolved granules swimming about the surface was, in my book, the sign of a drink well made.

Then, over 20 years ago, I went to university. In the second year our house was in a street about two minutes walk from the main entrance to the ivory tower, so all the folks we knew would pile round inbetween lectures. Many hours of Neighbours and Home and Away were spent with cakes from Wright's Pies and beverages from, well, me. And I recall one of my housemates (hello, Liv!) moaning about my "ants in the coffee". Imagine my horror that, apparently, the trusty and tried Cartledge way of doing things was wrong. The water goes in first and the "ants", my beloved melting coffee sands, were unworthy. Sad to say, I capitulated and adopted the "proper" method and have added the milk last ever since.

The important questions then are:

a) How do you make your (instant) coffee?

b) Is it a region thing?

c) Is it a class thing?

This has puzzled me for the best part of 15 minutes, so can you shed some light on the situation?

The Annoying Necessity of Facebook

In the recent past, Facebook has advertised Britain First to me. It has dangled anti-semitic conspiracy sites before my eyes. I've had adverts for Nazi memorabilia and militaria. On occasion, it has even alerted me to Gary Barlow products. Imagine my surprise when, on Wednesday, I found this peddler of dodgy politics and suspect pastimes had banned me from posting links to this here blog. That's right, because - apparently - someone had made a complaint about my content, the site was on the naughty step before the ban was lifted this evening. Perhaps the fashions in the previous musical posting were too offensive for someone's snowflakish disposition.

Unfortunately, Facebook has come to matter. Social media-wise, I've always been into Twitter more, even though micro-blogging has tended to displace proper blogging, effectively leaving the field of extended political comment the preserve of professional journos. For me, Facebook has always been for snarky comments away from the public eye, sharing cat and retro game photos, and the things not entirely suitable for here. Only slowly have I woken up to the potential of Facebook as a platform for driving a larger audience this way. Probably because I'm a rubbish accelerationist and, well, you don't know despair until you've seen a Facebook group. Anyway, despite knowing for a while that a punter is more likely to follow a link from Facebook than practically any other social media platform, including Twitter, it was only last year I started taking it semi-seriously by setting up a dedicated page for the blog (give it a like if you haven't already!). And as you can see from the side bar, 223 likes isn't much to shout about. Yet in the last few months it has started paying dividends.

Blog traffic has shot up to just over 100,000 page views these last couple of months, and August is all set to be busier still. Chicken feed for the big boys, but a big deal for what is essentially a hobbyist's obsession. Obviously, recent events have suddenly made my wares more compelling to larger numbers, but the analytics show the sharing on Facebook is driving a not insignificant audience in this direction. And lo, for the four days it had banned links to here, readers dropped by about a quarter. This internet and social media lark is a funny old game.

Naturally, as a private network owned and operated for profit, Facebook can do what it likes. It is no more obliged to carry my content than I am the sundry ravings of assorted conspiracy theorists. Well, that is if you subscribe to an archaic notion of property completely unsuited to the internet age. There are two dimensions to Facebook that demand there be proper accountability and democratic say over what it can and can't do. In the 21st century, the platform is part of the global infrastructure. Business opportunities are scoped out and realised. Friendships are won and lost. Ideas are shared and debated. Had Facebook not emerged when it did, something very similar would have had to have been invented. Therefore to have such a key piece of infrastructure not only in private ownership, but ultimately under the sole, virtually unaccountable command of Mark Zuckerberg and his senior management team is not very zeitgeisty, at the very least.

Second, I've been on Facebook a long time. I got my account sorted in 2007 when it was a plaything for postgrad students looking for new procrastination opportunities. Instead of moaning about Facebook inconveniencing me, some might suggest I should be grateful for them providing me bandwidth for nine years' worth of status updates. Huh, pity the fools. Facebook's core business is data, masses of it. Every time they "do me a favour" by moaning about my age or a night out with the comrades, each utterance is mined for tiny packets of data about where I am and what I'm doing. Aggregated together, this data builds up a digital doppleganger about my preferences, behaviours, and so on. They do this with me. They do this with their 1.7bn active monthly users. All their big data is chopped and changed in any number of ways, and allows Facebook to sell targeted advertising to folks who want to flog their wares to particular demographics. The Tories, for example, used this to good effect in their social media campaign last year by funneling messages to key mosaic groups in key marginals. I don't know how much my data is worth, but as Facebook's profits were $1bn last year, they make more money from me, you, and everyone else on the site than the funds expended maintaining the network. There's an argument that all social media users should be paid directly for their data, but until such a time there is a relationship of unequal reciprocity, and this applies to Facebook and its users. Like the formal equality of employer and employee in a job contract, the relationship is mutually dependent but one profits more from it than the other, usually without the latter's knowledge. Therefore, as they profit from my data we should feel perfectly entitled to moan, gripe, and demand they be transparent and responsive.

As the networks continue to proliferate and social media becomes even more fundamental to the infrastructure of our globalising civilisation, so the democratic pressure on the tech giants and their business models will build. Until then, this small corner of the internet relies on those networks for making its mark on the world, much to my annoyance.