Some idle thoughts on water

This may make no sense what-so-ever but I've been thinking about water. More specifically I've been thinking about our attitude to the ancientness of water.

Let me put it like this. When we see a moutain in general we go something like 'Ohhhh' and then often we'll have some thoughts about how impressive it is.

I certainly think about how old that mountain is and how that same mountain won't just have been experienced by generations of humans, but by all the generations of humans and loads of things that went before us too.

Sure, we've shaped the natural landscape significantly and when wandering through a London park I don't tend to have any deeper thought than where my next kebab is coming from, but by and large mountains are one part of the landscape that have a certain permanence.

They've been around and we give them an emotional significance because of that. Likewise ancient standing stones, great valleys and all sorts of cool, impressive stuff that has a lot of terrain-i-tude. Kudos to them all.

However, as I was being rained on earlier today I got to thinking. I stared at a drop of water on my hand and contemplated its history. Well most of us know the basics of how rain happens in a cycle. It rains, the rain soaks into the soil, that water collects and eventually makes its way into a river, that river makes its way into the sea and the water is taken from the sea into clouds that then rains on your washing as it hangs out to dry. And again, and again, and again.

That's a cycle that has been taking place for something like, oh, 4,000 million years or thereabouts. With the exact same water. The same rain that tried in vain to soak me today might have been the very same water that Napoleon's horse drank and weed out again. I feel kind of priveleged. It might have been drunk by the very last Tricerotops or the very first Woolly Mammoth - it was certainly around then.

Water has been the very stuff of life since before life got going, and by and large very little stuff that was water becomes anything more than water mixed with other stuff (like being part of a lizard), or water arranged as a vapour or a solid. Very little that wasn't water gets into a situation where it becomes water. Almost all of the water we have now was still water billions of years ago, and it still finds time to stop play at Lords. Cool.

But our attitude to water is rarely of awe. Even when it is arranged into an ocean that's been sat there for millions upon millions of years we don't tend to have those same thoughts that we might when confronted by a desert or a majestic set of rolling hills. We can be impressed by its size, enjoy its pleasures but I don't think we tend to reflect upon its age.

I suspect that's because we find construction fascinating and the building blocks of life common place - because they are no matter how special. It may be a passing thought but I still reckon that it's an important fact that each humble rain drop has been around for, what, a thousand times longer than the human race, including false starts? I think that deserves a little bit of respect, surely.

Thinking aloud

This Friday I'll be missing the funeral of a friend of mine. Not because I can't make it, although it would be difficult to get there all things are possible if you put your mind to them, but because I don't think I could bear it. Possibly cowardice, but more likely because I feel like I'd explode with hypocrisy if I attended.

He was a kind and generous man, softly spoken and cautious with his emotions. A real pleasure to be around and, in the intimacy of a one on one conversation, thoughtful and gently funny. He was also ready to talk about wrestling with his mental health issues in a self deprecating and darkly humorous way that always blunted the sharp edges of the topic.

We enjoyed each others' company and, once we lived in separate cities, would occasionally keep in touch with the odd text here or email there. But no more than that. Frankly we drifted apart. He wasn't even on Facebook or Twitter for goodness sake!

One drawback of being an emotionally self-sufficient introvert, which I am, and not requiring much from my friends is that, of course, those friendships can so easily remain at arms length and detach into nothingness. The upside is that if I never saw another human being in my life I'm not sure I'd be that bothered (as long as the shops still opened obviously).

If it's emotional sustenance you need I'm really not your man. Although I'm happy to discuss personal and emotional subjects, like right now, even then it will be in a cool analytic way without the visceral rawness of the hormonal tide that might actually be sweeping through me.

When I heard that my friend had killed himself last week I found myself gasping for breath. It was a moment we'd explicitly talked over and how his (then potential) suicide would effect his friends and family. I know I was pretty hard on him about it at the time, that it was his decision and his responsibility, no-one else's. Now it's real I'm less sure.

My thoughts soon turned to the friendship we'd shared and, well, the inadequacy of what he received from me. I'll be honest, those feelings of indirect culpability have been troubling me over the last few days.

Although I'd told him he alone was responsible for this decision, that he had yet to make, the fact is we are our brothers' keepers. We can make a choice as a society of individuals how much we're going to look out for one another, how connected we're going to be, and that decision has a real consequence.

I didn't put a rope around his neck, but I might as well have watched and done nothing. At least those closer to him tried, at least they were there for him and let him be there for them. I know in his heart he felt he was unneeded in the world and, as one of those who did not need him, in any real sense, I let him drown and he didn't even know I wasn't there.

We can't be there for everyone, but we can let people be there for us. The greatest thing you can do for another person is to let them help you. Their self-worth depends upon it.

End of the Tyrant; Now to end tyranny

Millions, if not billions, of people across the world will have raised a smile to hear that Egypt's dictator Mubarak has at last stepped down. You would have to be made of stone to not welcome the news.

Of course the end of a tyrant does not mean the end to tyranny and the revolutionary wave across the Arab world has barely begun. What comes next will no doubt be a mix of both good and bad, new solutions and old. The risk of an even more reactionary regime is both real and, I think, no reason to mourn the dying of the old.

I was impressed last week by a reporter on Radio Four being interviewed by John Humphreys. "How will Mubarak react next?" he was asked "I don't know." He replied. "But Mubarak wont do a Tianamen Square will he?" "I've got no idea what he'll do!" Queue an outraged snort from Humphreys - but the reporter was right.

Speculation is pointless at this time, the only thing that really matters is how the people of Egypt and the rest of the Arab world react. What kind of world they choose to make is in the balance and how those disagreements and compromises that lie ahead play out are all to play for.

There are many different visions for Egypt's future, and I'm sure that even what people want at this point is fluid and changing. Maybe those with modest aspirations will find themselves radicalised. Perhaps the religious will start looking to secular solutions and others will find themselves fusing faith and politics.

I'm reading it all with interest, but I've decided that, not only do I not know enough about the region to comment properly, but also that even the self appointed experts will have to throw their deeply entrenched ideas in the days and years to come. Who can say what these means for Egypt's women or how Israel will take the news, or the US or the people of Saudi Arabia?

This domino is falling. Today we should celebrate that, even if we cannot know what seemingly permanent structures will evaporate next.

How left wing are we?

YouGov has come out with a fascinating survey on how left/right wing people think they are.

Inevitably they've chosen a scale where being on the right takes you up to +100 and being a lefty is -100 but, despite this outrageous bias I think there's something quite valuable about asking people upfront where they see themselves on the political spectrum.

So the headline news is that 25% of people see themselves as left of centre and 24% see themselves as right of centre. Hurray! We're winning, let's move on...

Although another way of saying that would be that the majority of people do not describe themselves as left or right-wing, even a bit.

The other number that jumps out at you is that women are twice as likely to be less certain of their political direction. Seeing as most men think they know everything I guess this fits.

Women were 22% left of centre, 16% right of centre while with men with have 29% left of centre and 30% leaning to the right with 22% for both seeing themselves as in the centre. So a 'political' woman is much more likely to see themselves as on the left or the centre than on the right, while men are less likely to take the middle-road, which is possibly connected to that idea that men tend to be much more certain of their correctness and therefore often take a more extreme view.

Possibly.

Although having said all that the big thing for me is that so many people simply did not know how to answer the question which, as ever, is probably for a whole number of reasons. Come on, let's look at the regions (and Scotland, which is not a region but a country).

Would it shock you to find out that Scotland and the North were the most left wing parts of the UK? No? Me neither.

There is an interesting difference between them though in that Scotland's 33% left, 23% centre and 15% right is not identical to the North's 31% left, 19% centre and 20% right. The North's lefties are more likely to see themselves as harder left but, unlike in the North, Scots are more than twice as likely to see themselves as on the left than the right.

While London is to the left of the sea of right wing South surrounding it, it is still the place where a 'person' is most likely to describe themselves as on the far right. I bet loads of that is Essex.

I should point out that 2% of the South thought David Cameron was very left wing. Who'd have thought? I guess you can show anything with statistics...

From the archives: why we stand in elections

One theme that is emerging is that, these days, I use the word socialism a lot less when I write - and a good thing too. However, I was intrigued when I came across this piece I wrote in July 2004 on 'Why we stand in elections'. Tempted as I am to tinker with it to reflect some changes in my perspectives I think I'll be brave and post as is.

It's not that long ago that many on the left assumed that we never stood in elections. There is no Parliamentary road to socialism, meant we never use parliamentary elections. Now the assumption has flipped the other way. Not only does everyone believe that we must stand in elections, but there is very little questioning of why we might be doing it.

I want to take a quick look at what a socialist election campaign is meant to achieve - and the kind of thing we should attempt to avoid.

Obviously, for socialists, we see elections as an opportunity to advance "socialism" and persuade people over to left wing arguments on a whole host of questions.

We hope that by standing in elections we can raise crucial questions that no one else will raise and can help build campaigns in the estates and on the streets that fight for social justice, often uniting with people who fall well outside of 'socialist'.

A socialist campaign should try to reflect the principles that launched it. Team work, democracy, fraternal discussion and working class politics need to be crucial threads running through those campaigns.

We don't avoid certain questions or adapt our answers because we think they might be vote losers. Nor do we go out of our way to bludgeon people with a full list of socialist demands, or pick out what think might be our most unpopular demands.

None of this means that we never compromise, that we always stand no matter how bad the vote might be or anything like that. Tactical questions are important to make sure we don't end up finding ourselves stepping backwards, but it's this overall picture - the real reason for standing in elections that we should not forget.

A socialist election campaign needs to draw new people in and give those with less time the opportunity to do a little on this special occasion. There are a whole layer of progressive people across the country that simply will not become 'activists' attend meetings and regularly support demonstrations - but they will, once a year say, go out and leaflet and stick a poster up in their window. We need to find ways of going to them rather than expecting everyone to be head banging activists.

This layer is particularly important because we should be striving to give them as much democratic input as possible so they feel this is their movement and when they go to work or are waiting at the school gates they are confident to put the arguments of that movement.

If activists and supporters are to give their all they must feel they are part of the campaign, they have a say in decisions and that it represents their views - rather than simply supporting someone that they think will do a good job. In short it must be accountable to the supporters on the ground rather than a top down plan by the 'leaders' of the movement.

All of this raises the question of the difference between our democracy and theirs and it all points us in a very different direction to the careerists and opportunists that pollute the Labour Party. Protests are not simply good opportunities to get your face in the paper - they are the essential building blocks of the struggle for a better world. Elections and elected officials are worth only what they add to this fight.

We do not stand to get elected, but we do hope to get elected, to win greater support for the left and gain a profile for our ideas that we could not otherwise achieve. The press will always suppress information on minority candidates, particularly socialist ones, but we can twist their arms if we prove ourselves to be news and to ignore us would clearly smack of censorship.

However even when we get a hearing, we should never expect that we get a FAIR hearing. Despite all this the media is a crucial tool in any modern campaigning work.

Whilst those socialists who remain in Labour may conceivably argue that a fight inside Labour may push it to the left - there is no Labour election campaign (for instance at the June 10th elections) that can be said to be a real fighting expression of the anti-war movement, or that connected with the local population on a socialist basis, no matter how left wing the candidate.

For the Labour Party power is an end in itself, and protest is useful only where it enhances the vote - for socialists political power is only worth bothering with if it gives the movement more confidence, shifts the population to the left and strengthens our ability to fight. Socialists never say 'we will do this for you' what they must say is that 'no one but yourselves will protect your interests, rise up and fight.' And in this unity is strength.

ABC of Feminism: Your body, your choice

This next piece in the ABC of Feminism series is by Haringey Green Sarah Cope, pictured here angry and shouting and at a recent NHS demonstration. Here Sarah looks at one key feminist battle ground - women's bodies.

If anyone, when asked whether or not they consider themselves to be a feminist or not, replies that they don’t think so as there really isn’t a ‘need’ for feminism anymore, I’d ask them to look at the issues around women and their bodies.

There are a myriad of issues, including the pressure on women to conform to certain standards when it comes to appearance, the over-medicalization of birth, attacks on abortion rights, the criminalisation of sex work, the condemnation of sexually active women, the low conviction rate for rape…the list is depressingly endless, and that, in part, is why I for one am a feminist.

I’m going to focus on just one of the issues here. Access to safe abortion is something we have had in this country since 1967, although the laws around access could be improved – for example, the need to obtain two doctors’ signatures is archaic and restrictive, and should be removed.

However, we are fortunate to have what women in other countries have to break the law to obtain. Indeed, it’s been reported that women in countries where abortion is illegal are just as likely to have an abortion, as there will be no shortage of people wanting to cash in on women’s desperation. However, they have to risk their lives and may face either death or imprisonment for having the temerity to attempt to take control of their own bodies.

I am seriously concerned that abortion rights will be under attack again soon, with Tory MP Nadine Dorries, who previously tried to get the time limit on abortion lowered from 24 weeks to 20 weeks, on the anti-abortion warpath again. In October, Dorries wrote on her blog:

‘If girls and women were offered counselling and information regarding other options such as, wait for it, yes, adoption. As strange as it may seem, some find that an easier option than having to deal with the consequences of a medical procedure which, somewhere in their deepest thoughts, they regard as the ending of a life.’

If any argument makes me angry, it’s this one. The idea being that going through a pregnancy and childbirth, the biggest physical and emotional thing a lot of women will ever experience, is no big deal. So let’s see, that might well involve puking every day for months, intense back and pelvic pain, extreme tiredness, and your body changing beyond recognition. Oh yes, and possibly life-threatening conditions such as eclampsia. And then there’s childbirth, which as you might have heard is a bit on the painful side (made more so by the NHS being far from up to scratch when it comes to maternity services). But that’s okay, you can just hand the baby over (no breastfeeding, I guess…) and forget about it. NOT GOING TO HAPPEN.

And that’s without even mentioning the effect being adopted will have on the child as it grows up. I’m sure that adoption is handled much more sensitively these days, but it’s never going to be entirely trauma-free.

I wouldn’t rely on the Lib Dems to be a moderating voice when it comes to abortion rights, either. My own MP, Lynne Featherstone – now the Equalities Minister – wrote to me a couple of years ago about abortion rights, in response to a letter I had written to her in which I expressed my concerns about the possible lowering of the time limit for abortion. Featherstone wrote that we must listen to the latest medical advice on the issue and that she wouldn’t like to see women using abortion as a form of birth control.

Wow – a woman would really have to hate herself to use a D&C as a form of birth control. “No, don’t bother using a condom – I’ll just have an abortion, like last month! I just love having my cervix dilated and my womb scraped and vacuumed!” Yes, I can just hear that conversation in bedrooms across the country. Sexy talk.

Whenever I think of the issue of abortion rights, I think back to when I was in Toronto, researching for my MA dissertation. I was in the Thomas Fisher library, looking through a box of letters from Margaret Atwood to fellow writer Gwendolyn MacEwen. One of the letters was written in a much shakier hand than usual, and reading the content it transpired that Atwood was heavily pregnant with her daughter, Jess.

She wrote of how it was affecting her and signed off by saying that there was a word in the English language for being made to have sex against your will, but there was no word for being pregnant against your will. She said that there should be, because having been pregnant, she couldn’t begin to imagine how traumatic that would be.

There is no reason why any woman should have to experience this trauma. The brilliant resurgence in feminism that we’ve seen over the last couple of years means that the moment access to safe abortion is threatened, we will be ready to fight hard to protect it. It’s just a pity that we still have to defend something that is so fundamental to our equality.

From the archives: Food for thought

I wrote this piece in April 2004 which was a combination of a report and an attempt at looking at new ways of self education for activists. Currently I'm still doing something similar in Camden, and if you want an effective, top notch discussion forum where people both talk and listen - this is definitely the way to do it.

On Saturday we tried out an interesting experiment in Colchester. We didn't set world history on a new course but we did try something different that's worth telling people about.

A couple of us had been thinking for a while about the way that political discussion takes place on the left. We came up with some questions and tried to answer them;

• "do you have to have an organisation to be allowed to discuss politics"
• "do meetings have to start off with fifteen minutes [which in left wing language means 25 and feels like 40] of dry algebra first"
• "Is there a way of allowing the participants of the discussion more direct control over the debate"
• "How can we make the whole thing a more pleasant experience"

We felt that, apart from the odd exception, it has always been the discussion part of a political meeting that was the most interesting. So the first we decided to do is ditch the monologue at the start. We invited people round to one of our houses saying that we are going to have a political discussion and we're going to try out doing this in a far more friendly and relaxed way and let's see if it works.

The conditions were everyone brings food to share and everyone brings some thought they'd like to discuss. This could be a question they don't know the answer to, a problem we face as activists, an article they've recently read or an issue they simply feel passionately about.

For this first experiment we chose to have a broad title of the environment and I have to say it went extremely well, particularly my garlic mushrooms! Having the discussion round someone's house, over a meal makes things much more relaxed, and does not stop people coming if they don't have much money.

What about potential problems though? Aren't we limiting it to people we want to have dinner with and by not advertising we don't allow new faces? Both true and one of the problems of the left has been its reliance on closed cliques and circles - what I would say in response is that we were very careful not to invite a pure revolutionary core, but different people from different political perspectives and experience.

What the movement can't do away with is the public meeting, democracy and all of that. But what we did was create a free space where political discussion is not only possible but also the rigorous control of any over aching dogmatic theory was absent.

We estimated that the right number is between 6 and 8, although having tried it once it's possible you could have ten. It was pretty impressive how the discussion stayed (mainly) on track and didn't degenerate into how's it going at work, etc.

The lack of a "summing up" from the top table was really, really good - particularly because everyone brought different thoughts, the discussion had been so wide ranging and interesting, and at times quite stretching that the day ended with the feeling that we had covered a lot of ground in an in depth manner.

One worry I had was that of "keeping control" what if someone dominated the conversation or went on for ten minutes on a particular point? The fact is it didn't happen - so we'll cross that bridge if and when we get to it. There's something about not just talking left but bringing the social back into socialist that was extremely worth while.

I thought I'd report it here because it's something that everyone can do and it was interesting to take part in. The proof of that is that although we'd sort of thought it would be a couple of hours we ended up discussing politics for five hours, and even then we were cut short due to the fact that people had to work in the morning.

A time of cuts: what should councillors do?

The sad fact is that over the last thirty years the power of councils has been steadily diminished. Year on year councils have become more and more the local administrator of national government than the governmental arm of local communities. We've seen a fundamental centralisation of political power in this country at the expense of local democracy.

So when it comes to national spending local councils have a lot less lee way than they've had in the past. The national government has forbidden council tax rises to ensure that local councils are only able to meet their budgets through cuts in services. There's no clearer indicator that the Coalition's priority is to shrink the state and reduce services and jobs rather than address the deficit when it tries to prevent councils raising revenues as an alternative.

Even the ability of councils to set an 'illegal budget' has been curtailed and council officers are obliged under law to have the national government take over councils that are even considering setting such a budget. So even if it was an admirable policy (and I'm not sure about that) it's a fairly pointless rhetorical demand when no local council could even try it.

I have heard a couple of people advocating forcing the national government to implement the cuts in their council, but what sort of psycho actually wants the Coalition to come in and set an example to the nation with the services they and their neighbours use? I guess the sort that thinks proving a political point is more important than libraries and nurseries... there you go.

So what's the alternative? Bite the bullet and start butchering the first born? No, for a start that would be rude. However there is no quibbling with the fact that for councillors in this position it is very grim indeed.

As our starting point I think we need to both explain why the national economic policy is wrong headed both economically and morally. It's not enough to say that the cuts will hurt (and by hurt I mean immiserate, distress and kill) we have to make the case that the cuts wont work and are unnecessary.

However, having framed the debate in that way we're no closer to giving guidance to a local councillor who's wrestling with the decisions before them. The general election result was a disaster for Britain but it's a disaster we're in the middle of so we need to go further than outline an alternative national economic strategy, "Cllr Blogs" needs to know how to avoid closing down home help for the elderly.

Green councillors across the country have never felt prissy about voting against budgets before the crisis and I hope the pressure of the 'there is no alternative' Westminster consensus wont push them into thinking that they have no choice but to vote for savage cuts. But they'll need more than a stubborn attitude as ammunition - there need to be positive proposals on how to deal with the age of austerity.

I think Darren Johnson got the tone right in this release on why he'll voting against Lewisham Labour's cut package this Monday. Here's an edited version;

Cllr Johnson said, "I strongly oppose what the Conservative/Lib Dem Government are doing nationally. But I am also appalled with how Labour are going about this locally. Labour's plans amount to a massacre of local services."

He continued, "Rather than making cuts to frontline services I want to see Mayor Steve Bullock make savings by slashing senior executive pay, cutting the millions spent on expensive private sector consultants and cutting down on glossy PR and council spin."

The Mayor's cuts programme, which will be presented to councillors on Monday, includes closing the Early Years Centre in New Cross, cuts to nurseries, street cleansing, parks and schools improvement teams.

Rather than cutting vital services Greens want to see the Council make savings by:

• cutting senior pay for top council executives
• reducing the millions spent on expensive private sector consultants
• cutting down on glossy PR and council spin
• reducing council fuel bills by making our schools, libraries and other buildings more energy efficient
• working more closely with other public sector bodies to cut admin costs

Darren said, "The Government argue that these cuts will help clear the deficit. But experts have warned these cuts will harm the economy, not help it. Cuts this big will simply increase unemployment, meaning that the government raises less in taxes and will have to spend more on benefits. Green MP, Caroline Lucas, has set out an alternative plan to tackle the deficit. Instead of hitting public services she has shown how we can tackle the deficit by increasing taxes for the very wealthiest, introducing a Robin Hood Tax on financial transactions, clamping down on the billions lost through tax evasion and tax avoidance, and scrapping the Trident nuclear weapons programme."

It seems to me that this is a better position than a simple 'no cuts' position which doesn't discriminate between savings and attacks on services. I'd also say there is much to commend this letter from former Lewisham councillor Ian Page in the Evening Standard where he says that;

THE LABOUR councillor introducing last week's cuts package in Lewisham blamed an international crisis and the actions of the coalition government.

He didn't mention that the reductions were part of £60 million cuts agreed by a Labour council and mayor back in March under a Labour government. Aside from high-profile cuts such as library closures, there are many others that will be invisible to the general public but devastating for those concerned: such as the closure of Opening Doors, a service for the long-term unemployed providing them with access to facilities to move them towards employment; cuts to adult social care, and the cancellation of project work to raise aspirations in areas of intergenerational unemployment.

The most vulnerable, isolated people are in no position to organise and highlight their plight. Councillors could use council reserves and "prudential borrowing" to buy time and build a mass campaign in order to bolster their demand for more money from central government.

Through such methods Liverpool council successfully won £60 million back from the Thatcher government. When councillors refuse to do this, unions and the community should coordinate strike action and direct action to defend our services.

Leaving aside any Liverpudlian nostalgia, Mr Page is quite right to point out that even before the coalition government was formed Labour were planning massive cuts in services this year. The further into this government we go the easier it will be for Labour to distance themselves from these cuts but the fact is that, in Lewisham, these cuts were going to happen no matter who took control of the national government as long as Mayor Bullock remained in place.

More than that prudential borrowing, as a method to hold back the savagery of the cuts, is well worth exploring, but it seems to be entirely off the agenda. I think that lacks vision and I hope others can make this work even if it only plugs part of the short fall.

However the key point that Ian Page makes, which I think is worth repeating time and again, is that if the council and national government wont serve the interests of communities then those communities need to make their voices heard loud and clear. In the end it will be that democratic movement that has the best hope to defeat the cuts agenda and while councillors need to take their positions seriously in the chamber they should never become so focused on council rules that they forget who they're representing and why.

Tribalism and party politics

All genuine political parties are alliances. There isn't a single significant party in history that hasn't had a number of currents and tendencies within it with their own perspectives and methods - although this doesn't always mean rows and rage, obviously.

For me those tensions are a useful democratic tool. Any organisation that is too ideologically homogeneous is setting itself up for a fall, unable to adapt it's strategy organically, too easily going out of political fashion or unable to test arguments internally there becomes a natural limit to how large or influential it could become.

It's also the case that people join parties for very different reasons and it's good for different groups of people to feel there are others like them in any organisation. When it works best people learn from each other, enjoy the variety and it puts you in a good position to reach into many different communities with a good team of activists.

There are also pitfalls, which is why members of parties don't always welcome with open arms those who have a different vision for the party. It's certainly true that there's a big difference between an idealised utopia of political differences being discussed with mutual respect and intellectual agility and the often personalised and ridiculous nature of internal political debates in all parties.

I think that's where tribalism comes in handy. If you're Labour through and through, if you're going to support every Labour candidate put before you even when they completely oppose everything you stand for, it helps to see the party label as more important than the political content.

In fact, while tribalism is an essential tool for building a stable party capable of running councils and nation states it cuts against fluid political debate and can find loyalists voting in favour of candidates they hate against candidates of other parties who hold far closer views. This is justified, when it is justified, by the idea that there is a larger political project at work and even a crap, say, Green Party candidate is an advance for the cause they so poorly represent despite a candidate for another party being a keen environmentalist and lefty right-on person.

For me I've never really been a tribalist. I've obviously been enthusiastic for particular candidates or parties over the years, but my party right or wrong has never been something I've ever felt quite comfortable with. I happen to think that's quite a healthy position to hold, but it does create problems.

One of the reasons I'm writing this post now is that there are no elections coming up so no one will think I'm talking about a specific candidate, but to draw a hypothetical example - if I want to see my kind of ideas get greater prominence and a candidate for another party is, well, better than the Green one (which never, ever happens obviously, cough) I'm in no position to actually say so. In fact, if questioned, I'd have to put on my most sincere face and lie. That's not really cool is it?

Or perhaps it is. If I'm standing somewhere I don't really want fellow party members announcing on public platforms that I'm useless and people should vote for someone else, even if they think it. And after all why wouldn't they? The usual boundary is that people sometimes don't bother campaigning for candidates that don't inspire them - but actually often they do.

So there's no facility to recognise that politics is so much more complex than what colour rosette someone is wearing. Where does that leave people who have a looser, more open minded attitude towards politics? Well, they could become unaffiliated commentators, but that's rather unsatisfying and sterile. If politics is about taking an active role in your community then refusing a party card might not be the best way of going about this - although some people make it work for them.

In 2012 Londoners will have at least three ballot papers in front of them. There's no party that would allow someone to advocate voting Lib Dem on one, Green on another and Labour on the third - even though, once the specific candidates are all in place, there could be good arguments for doing just that. Not that you'll catch me voting Lib Dem this side of Armageddon.

Does that make all party activists natural liars? No, not at all, some people are just stupid and actually don't know that there might be a difference between candidates of the same party. Others are so base they don't care what the political views of their candidate is as long as it gets them personally one step closer to power.

Still others skirt close to the edge and imply heavily they would vote for the Tory in a particular election and allow the knowledge of party rules to do the rest for them - that's kind of having your cake and eating it too though, don't you think? None of it's very satisfactory though.

I guess this side of the abolition of all parties it's a problem everyone is stuck with. Certainly parties are essential vehicles for political change and the most effective of those parties will always be the best at squaring the circle of broad church pluralism and tribal loyalties that go far deeper than how any particular candidate may or may not vote on abortion, the economy or war.

What Lord Young tells us about politics

Lord Young, who along with Caroline Lucas won a Spectator award this week, has quit his unpaid role advising the Prime Minister. His crime? Having lunch with the Daily Telegraph. Serious stuff.

Actually the key thing he said that has been held up in horror was "the vast majority of people in the country today, they have never had it so good ever since this recession - this so-called recession - started."

Now, as it happens, this is factually incorrect. His opinion that low interest rates meant most people with mortgages had more spending money is not borne out by the statistics but, I'd argue, being wrong about something over lunch is not enough grounds to lose your job.

Labour is posturing saying that those out of work will be "offended" by the peer's remarks which is irretrievably prissy. A minor figure, who isn't even in the government, tells a journalist they think the rhetoric around the recession is overblown over what sounds like a rather sumptuous lunch. Hardly that insensitive and hardly likely to offend any unemployed person who takes the Telegraph.

Actually my favourite bit of the interview is where he says that the cuts will take government spending levels to 2007's figures which wont be that bad. "Now, I don't remember in '07 being short of money or the government being short of money," Well, of course he wasn't short of money he's Lord blooming Snooty! You can't judge the state of the economy on whether the rich are forced to buy economy beans.

However, I don't think he should have gone. We're breeding a generation of political robots, who serve simply to provide an antiseptically wiped set of progressive sounding sound bites no matter how horrendous the policy. By punishing honesty in this way we deepen the trend towards power for its own sake.

For me it seems that Cameron took a "safety first" attitude towards his health and safety advisor, worried about negative press from these off hand, off message remarks. It shows tremendous weakness on his part that he's afraid that the slightest rustle of leaves means the whole tree is about to come tumbling down.

It also shows how this government is much more of an extension of New Labour than it is of Thatcher. Thatcher's government in the eighties had a tame press that was willing to go to war for it's ideals. When the government was criticised they rarely caved in unless it was completely unavoidable.

Lord Young's departure, for what amounts to rather mild (if wrong) remarks, demonstrates a remarkable lack of nerve or loyalty on the part of the top brass. It also reveals Cameron's priority to be seen to "care". That's the taint of Blairism not the boot print of Thatcher and the Coalition wont get through five years cowering at just the thought of gunfire.

The mainstream political consensus has led to the death of ideological politics and the rise of a political class that services the industry, seeking power for its own sake. To lose an advisor for such a minor deviation from the party line is a bizarre waste of "talent". I've no idea whether Lord Young is any good at writing Health and Safety reports but his views on the overall effects of the recession can't possibly effect the work he was doing.

It's all very well those in opposing parties, like me, crowing at a Tory head having been taken - but this is a worrying sign that politics is far, far shallower than it should be. No genuinely radical government could survive in a political atmosphere where people can't say what they think without being shot for it.

Lovely things happening to lovely people

If, like me, you were delighted with the news of another Royal Wedding pushing all that depressing *news* out of our papers and off the radio, even as far as Australia, you... excuse me... I'll start that again.

Getting married can be a very stressful affair. You have to sort out the flowers, book a scout hut somewhere for the reception, ensure racist aunty Joyce doesn't sit next to your new black father-in-law - and don't mention the cost of it - whew! - madness.

It must be ten times worse if you're a Royal Family member. For a start booking out a Cathedral must cost a packet. I hear the entire thing is going to cost in the order of thirty million quid, which is a lot of sausage rolls and Cava I can tell you. How are they going to afford it all? I mean the Prince doesn't even w... pardon? Who's paying for it? The greedy buggers!

Sigh.

I know this is meant to be a cue for a miserabilist rant about the Royals, but I thought I might take a different tack to this story about a couple of irrelevances who're squeezing the state for everything they can get due to an anachronistic travesty of an institution.

You see, while I take the abolition of the Monarchy as a given, I do want to avoid the traditional grumble fest of negativity that surrounds these events. Too late you say? Well, yes, you're probably right... but regardless there is an argument that goes 'why are we spending money on this huge bash when there are people sleeping in the streets?' and I'd like to take a moment to edge, ever-so-slightly away from that.

Whatever the horrors that David Cameron is planning for us with his happiness index there is an essentially correct point at the heart of it which is profit and growth are not anything like the same thing as happiness and fulfillment.

Now thirty million is not a huge amount in the big scale of things. It's half the cuts Lewisham council are going to be making over the next three years for example. That's something obviously - libraries saved, nurseries staying open an extra year, that sort of thing - but seeing as the coalition want the cuts and won't even save front line police it seems unlikely that the money would have been spent on that rather than ordering a new Afghan gobbling machine.

I'm cautious simply because the same argument gets wheeled out over the arts, over community festivals and all kinds of joyous cultural wheezes. Why should we spend money on opera when there are children starving? Why spend money on modern art that most of the population doesn't understand when many pensioners live in poverty? Why indeed?

For me I believe that the coming inevitable socialist utopia will still have national occasions like this. Not Royal Weddings of course, but celebrations of essentially meaningless events - and I suspect we'll have them long before all world hunger is cured and poverty eradicated.

A society that doesn't have 'coming togethers', where we see the value in each other and citizens get to feel a genuinely valued part of society, is unlikely to care much about the old, sick or the young. If we don't have fun or pride or culture, even difficult culture that people don't understand, then there precious little chance that ordinary people are going to devote their time to good causes.

Socialism isn't all increasing zinc production and utilitarian tower blocks you know. There needs to be some light in there too.

This event is, of course, as divisive as it is uniting and serves to exclude the nay sayers as much as it helps anaesthetise the enthused - but there is worth in celebrations - even when we're a long way short of a perfect world.

Our Influences

Left Foot Forward are running a poll on the most influential left wing thinkers involved in politics today (from a list drawn up by readers) and I just voted in it here. I'd like to encourage you to do the same.

There's some lovely names on there but it did get me thinking about what influential actually means. I mean Tony Benn is pretty much a household name and is a worthy addition to any list of signatories to your open letter in the Guardian but do people think differently because of him, or is he preaching to the choir?

I wonder what similar list would look like if it was a poll for the 'most influential green thinker'? Monbiot? Lucas? Meacher? Or would we be traipsing off into the Andes to find those courageous fighters that no one has ever heard of over here?

Official recommendations in internal elections

There's been an interesting debate developing around whether or not it's anti-democratic for the official top brass to endorse candidates running in a contested election. For those who are opposed it seems to say 'Sure, you *can* vote for the other candidate, but really, it's against policy'.

Let's look at the current Green Party deputy leadership election. Here we have Derek Wall running against Adrian Ramsay, both known and respected figures in the party, but of course Adrian is not just the incumbent he is also running as a joint ticket with the uncontested (and currently unbeatable) Caroline Lucas. Some people clearly think this is a problem.

Personally I'm OK with this because, to me, it seems like useful information to know who Caroline's preferred deputy is. Also the fact that they are running as a team implies a shared political vision or approach, which again is useful information to those deciding where to place their support. The fact that it is overwhelmingly seen as an (undue?) advantage to Adrian is simply because Lucas is well respected in the party - but doesn't this mean her opinion counts and should be heard? Members should have received their ballot papers this week and will still have the option of voting for Derek as deputy, no matter how official Caroline's endorsement may feel to some.

The hard-left example

This is a far cry from the way far-left groupings organise their internal leadership elections. These are decided by the hardcore activists (usually by show of hands) at conferences under the watchful eye of organisers, rather than by post to all members in a secret ballot. They also always use slate systems which suffocate debate, reducing members' options to being in favour or opposed to the official party selection. This gives tremendous weight to a self-perpetuating leadership and all but declares even nuanced disagreement on (or among) candidates as an automatic ticket to political Coventry, which is even worse than the actual Coventry - if you can imagine such a thing.

That's better than CAAT though. I was horrified when I discovered that the Campaign Against Arms Trade has no elections at all but some sort of nebulous self-selected body of elders. It ticks along pretty nicely without all that fuss of members deciding how their money is spent or anything. They still manage to make a worthwhile contribution to the movement, but I think that's inadequate for any organisation that does not want to get mired in conservatism or risk becoming a self-sustaining clique.

For me tickets, like the Lucas/Ramsay combined candidacy provide a useful function as long as members have the power to buck the recommendations if they so choose, which in the Greens they do because they still vote for individuals, not lists. However, I would draw the line at 'official' tickets, which seem inappropriate, painting those unlucky enough not to be on that list as unrepresentative of the organisation, when surely that's what the election is there to decide.

Official recommendations

An interesting variation on this is the Fawcett Society's internal trustee elections, which are taking place at the moment. Here members are being asked to elect six of nine candidates (using the completely inappropriate STV system). The existing Fawcett board provide their recommendations of which six they want members to elect to help to run it which goes out with the candidate statements.

While I'm not informed enough to quibble with the out-going board's recommendation which is probably sound (and the London Library use the same system) this process does seem to have a few ethical issues when it comes to accountability and openness.

Caroline Lucas endorsing Adrian may *feel* like the official endorsement of the Green Party to some members but it falls far short of the Fawcett option of the organisation actually telling members who it wants them to elect to hold it to account.

Note: If Green Party members want to submit a question to the online leadership hustings send an email to ero@greenparty.org.uk with the subject header 'hustings question'. Put your name and local party in the email and if your question is for a specific position (either leader or deputy) remember to specify that.

Green Party: What leadership model?

It's been a few years now since the Green Party made its decision to adopt a leadership model. At the time it was a hotly contested issue and, in a high turnout, the referendum resulted in more than 70% voting to reform the old system.

However, since then there has been little discussion of how to implement the new system, I believe in order to help heal some of the wounds and concentrate on politics, funnily enough. That's all very sensible but the fact is with poorly contested elections the party has essentially allowed inertia decide for it what we want from our leader.

I'll get out of the way right now that Caroline Lucas is a superb politician and that I've taken a decision not to publicly back either deputy candidate (Adrian or Derek) and I shall be voting after the conference hustings in order to mull my decision over in the most fulsome manner possible, although I'm happy to hear your opinions on the election. So this post is not about them but about the roles they seek to fill.

What this post *is* about is whether our reluctance to talk about what we want from our leadership team has left us in a situation where we use the posts simply to raise the profile of our two candidates best placed to win a Parliamentary seat. I'm not sure that's what they should be for.

Two years ago we elected Caroline and Adrian not just on the basis of their excellent personal qualities but also on the basis that we wanted them to become MPs and the added national media profile of these positions undoubtedly helped. We were right at the time, I think, but this shouldn't be the ongoing model which would end up prioritising two Parliamentary seats above the rest of our work.

Now Caroline is elected, for example, there is a good case that she definitely should not be the leader so that we do not become a one person party. Caroline's role as MP gives her the highest profile in the Greens regardless of internal position and if Adrian had run for leader with a new running mate, for example, we'd have upped his media profile and given the job to someone with time to do it. Heresy you say!

I'm not just saying this because our one woman/one man rule means that the only way any woman in the entire party could become part of the leadership team is to beat Caroline - although I do think we need to change the rule to 'at least one woman' so that half the party that is currently denied a realistic shot at a leadership role can be admitted to the club.

The facts are that Caroline is a very busy person. She’s being excellent in her constituency, in the House, in the press, radio and on TV. As someone who provides inspiration to party members she is absolutely second to none. However, in terms of day to day party leadership we’re far less well served. Politically, organisationally and in simple terms of having time to just listen to party members across the country she just does not have the time.

I probably don't need to point out that this is not a criticism of Caroline but a statement of what it means to have our one MP attempt to take on the job of party leader too. Inevitably it means we don't think our leader needs to devote any time to the role, but if it's important then they clearly do.

We need to seriously address what the consequences are of having a leader who has no time to listen to the party she leads or devote serious time to members. We need to flesh out the responsibilities of leader and deputy so our structures are more meaningful than simply ways of getting press attention while the party drifts politically.

The thing is if we were consciously saying that the leader faces outward, providing a shining light to the public, while the deputy takes an organisational role, providing more internal leadership this would be fine. We need someone who provides traction between the disparate and decentralised local parties and the party centre - but we don't say this.

The deputy role is used as a lesser version of leader. That's fine for Norwich South but not so great for the national party who are essentially left to their own devices. I think we can do better than that and right now a lot of people in the party feel that they, their local party and even their region doesn't matter to the party.

I have to say that I think it's strange that we took such a radical shift in our structures and then devoted no time afterwards to making sure they actually worked for the party in practice. Perhaps the bigwigs have discussed it, but not with us if they have. I think we need to start exploring some of these questions, although I certainly don't claim to have all the answers.

Do we have a leadership model where local parties and activists think they are taken seriously? Has the role of leader and deputy changed in wake of the election? How do we support Caroline in her phenomenally difficult task? And of course how can she ensure that what she's doing is what the party wants of her?

Let them eat cake

Don't really have time to post but am listening to the Any Questions panellists line up to give various versions of 'cut off unemployment benefits - that'll learn 'um'. Not a single member of the panel put the case for why the dole exists, reducing it down to some sort of reward for immorality, which including those on invalidity benefit.

The first point is if you want people to riot, if you want them to rob, if you want them to take up drug dealing make sure you have communities of people with next to no income. Forget being nice to lazy people, or however you want to frame it, think about how safe you'll be in your bed at night.

The dole keeps you safe, cut it off and the crime rate will soar, for everyone.

The second point is if you want your streets strewn with homeless people make sure that anyone who isn't working cannot meet their rent. You might find this is more expensive than the social security bill.

The third point is there are so many myths around how much people are entitled to on the dole. If you're single with no kids you have below subsistence payments. You are not living the life of Riley. Those with kids *are* better off which is only right and proper because a society that allows its children to starve is not worth having. That said they're not living in gold plated mansions either.

The fourth point is the level of unemployment and dole determines the rights and wages of those who are in work. If losing your job is the end of you it means that employers are dictators with carte blanche to bully, to pay the lowest possible wages, to do anything they choose to their workforce. Leaving the morality of that aside this is a recipe for economic disaster.

The last point I'll make is this - and there are so many but don't have time - making the unemployed live in misery does not magically create jobs for them to go to. There is no point pursuing a policy of zero unemployment without a policy to create full employment to match it. This government is committed to laying people off and then beating the victims of that policy.

This knee jerk response of attacking people who claim benefits (who are often fictional tabloid stories anyway) is not big and it isn't clever. It amounts to blaming the victim and does nothing to tackle to causes of unemployment. If any government ever did pursue this kind of approach we would find ourselves making the latest sequel of Mad Max before we knew what had hit us.

From the archives: why feminism is good for men

This article first appear last year in the lefty daily paper the Morning Star.

Whenever I hear a bloke describe himself as a feminist I reach for the sick bucket.

I certainly wouldn't describe myself that way, despite believing in equality and having right-on positions on the major issues of day.

Sometimes labels don't get us very far.

When men describe themselves as feminists they are telling us something about their politics, but that is not the same thing as actually having consistent positions on women's equality.

For every political stance you can think of there is someone who describes themselves as a feminist.

It can give an indication of how someone sees themselves but it doesn't tell us what they think about sex work, trade unions, abortion, marriage or a host of other issues.

Despite feminism's continued relevance, it has become so devalued as a term that it gets used to describe almost anything.

A recent piece in the Guardian, which should know better but never does, described fascist sympathiser Brigitte Bardot as a feminist because "she represents the power of women. What's iconic about her is her shape, the way she occupies space."

Was this what the pioneers of feminism were struggling for - to be defined by their "shape"?

There's a middle class version of feminism that focuses on language while ignoring social inequality.

I can't be the only person who has had a female manager who is more than relaxed about the all-female cleaning staff being paid a pittance and given no respect while insisting that the workplace uses bizarre jargon in order to avoid "sexist language."

It's enough to give equality a bad name.

However the feminist movement has brought enormous social advances - and not just for women.

Struggles led by feminists have brought about significant positive shifts over the decades, although no-one sensible would argue that these battles are over.

The break from the rigid moralism that kept people who didn't love each other within spitting distance provided a massive step forward in quality of life for millions of people. Divorce has saved countless couples from emotional disfigurement.

The right to an abortion, easily available contraception and sex education have not just been essential for a woman's right to control her own body but have been absolutely revolutionary in terms of how we all live our lives.

Family planning isn't just something that has enhanced people's sex lives or simply allowed them to have one, it's a social revolution allowing us to make choices about children, sexual health and orientation that simply were not open to us before.

I'm certain that the 17-year-old me would have been a pretty poor husband and father and I'm very glad that, due to the advances that feminism fought for, it never had to happen.

And feminism has broken down barriers to advancement for men and women. It may sound strange to some that allowing women to be promoted into positions previously the preserve of men should benefit both sexes, but it certainly seems that way.

When my mum was at school not only was she not allowed to take her best subject - maths - because it was not a "girl's subject," but she was all but forced to become a nurse, which did not suit her.

It was not in anyone's interest that the job of, say, a heart surgeon, did not go to the best person because gender roles forbade it.

The other side of the coin is that many men of my dad's generation simply never learned skills such as cooking because it was assumed that a woman would do it all for them. How many men have no confidence to do the simplest things around the home because they have been told it is "women's work?"

Feminism has gone a long way to making workplaces habitable too. My first job was in a lawnmower factory and I thought it was hell on Earth.

I found it difficult to cope with the constant use of the c-word, the misogynist tripe that my workmates came out with and the dull-as-ditch-water view on what was and was not "homosexual behaviour," even down to your choice of biscuit or how you wear your jacket.

These attitudes have now gone away but feminism should be heartily thanked for the progress made in workplaces in terms of how people behave with each other.

Feminism may not be about bettering men's lives but there is no question it has improved them.

Guest Post: The limits of sham democracy

The next in this series of guest posts comes from my cousin Graham Jepps, who's working for socialism north of Watford, in Scotland in fact. The plan is to have one Jepps bringing down the government in every nation on Earth, a bit like a local franchise operation but with a more liberal use of the term reification. Graham argues that reforms to our democratic system can never really give us democracy.

Electoral reform is a shibboleth of middle class liberalism, a chimera which will give us the illusion of wider enfranchisement while in reality securing the status quo.

The belief that reforms can work is founded on a confusion between power and permission. Improvements in civil rights and in living and working conditions in the last few decades, as welcome and necessary as they have been, have been mistaken for empowerment when they are in fact merely a widening of tolerance.

We have greater equality of pay, of opportunity, of rights, but the granting of these permissions neither decreases the actual power of the person or persons granting them nor increases the power of those receiving them. In other words, the status quo has been maintained and strengthened by virtue of the passive acceptance of those whose permissions have been increased, in the belief that they have secured a distribution of the power franchise. As Peter Hallward has said, "...modern forms of power do not primarily exclude or prohibit but rather modulate, guide or enhance the behaviour and norms conducive to the status quo...".¹ Make the malcontents happier by making their life a bit easier and allow them to imagine that they have power and influence and you restore order and government can carry on its dirty business unmolested.

If one wants a measure of the government's attitude to empowerment of the people one need look no further than Michael Gove's ridiculous assertion that we are all more empowered today because of the Sky Plus box, which apparently frees us from the tyranny of the programme schedulers. Yes, Gove did actually say that that was a form of empowerment. (As unbelievably vacuous a remark that this was, it was even more remarkable that the journalist interviewing him did not rip him to shreds for having said it. But the quality of modern journalism is another matter for another rant).

In the words of Alain Badiou, "Parliamentary politics as practised today does not in any way consist of setting objectives inspired by principles and of inventing the means to attain them. It consists of turning the spectacle of the economy into the object of an apathetic public consensus. The possibilities whose development it pretends to organize are in reality circumscribed and annulled, in advance, by the external neutrality of the economic referent - in such a way that subjectivity in general is inevitably dragged down into a kind of belligerent impotence, the emptiness of which is filled by elections and the sound-bites of party leaders." ²

In other words, the fetishization of the markets informs government policy. Note how any reporting of government policy is followed by a report on the reaction of the markets. The sham of democracy allows this situation to continue, regardless of whether we consider the democracy we have to be merely the illusory manifestation of class domination or a distortion of true democracy.

If we want a workable representative system we will have to dismantle completely the existing structure and rebuild it from scratch.³ We must become more involved in politics at a local community level and in the workplace and be far more radical and forward thinking in our political engagement. In short, we must shake off the soporific apathy which consumerism fosters and start to think seriously about the future of human society. One thing is for sure, we can't entrust it to those currently in power.

Electoral reform, in whatever form it takes, will give people the illusion that they have more power over their leaders, while allowing those who really have the power to validate their position with the faux humility of having "listened to the people". The people speak, but only when they are spoken to, and they only say what the system wishes them to say. It is increasingly true that, as Paul Weller so succinctly put it, "the public wants what the public gets." Parliamentary and electoral reform will neither enfranchise nor empower anyone except those already in power.

Anything which reinforces in the minds of the venal incompetents in government the idea that they have a mandate must be avoided at all costs.

Notes:

1. Quoted in Slavoj Žižek First As Tragedy, Then As Farce, Verso, 2009.
   
2. Alain Badiou, Ethics, Verso, 2001.
   
3. It will be noted that a small, dedicated and enterprising group of proto-revolutionaries did in fact attempt to do this literally in 1605. While of course I would not advocate such extreme measures I would say that neo-gothic architecture is not to my taste and the Palace of Westminster being a particularly revolting example of the style would not be at all missed.

From the archives: The spheres of Cambridge

I don't know how many of you have read the Philip Pulman 'Dark Materials' books but one theme they rely upon is the idea of worlds layered one upon the other, never quite touching but just one step away. So you have different Oxfords all co-existing without even noticing each other. Some very similar, some very different but all occupying the same geographical space.

I've begun thinking about Cambridge in very much that way - that you have different spheres who knock against each other in the street, overlapping, wrapped up in their own priorities but only recognising others from their own world.

Most noticeably this is true with the homeless community who, even when they're asking you for change, look through you like you aren't real. But it's also true with the two universities. Cambridge is a very different place to the bin man in Arbury to the Cambridge University student put up in halls whose world revolves around his or her college.

Quite how many of these communities there are it's hard to tell - particularly when you're only in one of them yourself. A few examples would be the Turkish community, which seems pretty tight, as do many of the Asian foreign students. Then there's the white working class "youth" in the clubs on a Friday night and their related but impoverished younger cousins lounging about on Parkers Piece or skateboarding around the Grafton Centre.

It isn't simply that there are class distinctions here (which there clearly are), there are also fundamentally different ways of seeing the world. A multistory car park is a place to store your 4x4 to some and a wild place for urban fitness to others. Parkers Piece at night is a place of concern for some who are crossing it and to others this is the social centre of the city, poor things.

Tonight I had the good fortune to cross one of these boundaries and get sucked into part of the world of the homeless community, if only for half an hour or so. On one level it was pretty unpleasant, essentially I had to intervene to prevent a Moroccan guy having his head beaten in by two, well, um, urgh, scumbags I suppose you'd call them.

There was an odd moment though when they realised I'd stepped into their space. The look on their faces, even the guy I was saving from a pasting was, "hold on - you're from the other place - you're not meant to be here!" The funny thing is part of me agreed, it was as if I shouldn't even have been able to detect a racist attack was taking place right in front of me.

But once you've started something you often feel you need to finish it so I stayed in their sphere. Anyway, my presence managed to diffuse the situation and I walked a ways with my grateful charge as he ranted and raved about how he wasn't one of them, he had a daughter, somewhere, and an Armani jacket.

As we parted he even charged me for his time, telling me "Come on, I've walked all this way with you" forgetting I was walking with him to make sure he was safe. For once I was happy enough to give him what was in my pocket and tell him to take care of himself, but it was still fascinating to see that although the gap between us had closed enough for us to actually recognise the existence of the other the fact we were from completely different worlds still remained, so I still hadn't quite transcended the status of cash machine for him.

Neither of these worlds is more real than the other, neither one more substantial - although mine is decidedly more comfortable than his to be to be sure. I'll be sleeping the sleep of the just up on my shelf tonight and Christ knows where he'll be. For a moment though we did see one another and were able to help each other out, if only for a brief while.

From the archives: Max Mosley and the policing of sexuality

In this celebration week one thing I'm going to do is to take a look back at the archives and repost some of those forgotten classics. Here's something I wrote for Stroppyblog in 2008 in the wake of revelations that Max Mosley had been visiting a sex dungeon.

Frankly all the papers have been very naughty. Very naughty indeed, and I have a basement flat that they must proceed to immediately for their proper chastisement. It really is not on plastering what are private goings on all over place. What's the use of being a fabulously wealthy son of Britain's most prominent wartime fascist if you can't have a private life, eh?

The term public interest is a strange one in the context of the Max Mosley sex scandal. Of course the public is interested, we all want to know whose bits and pieces have been going into whose whatchamacallit, but there does not seem to be a compelling democratic requirement for us to know the first thing about Mosley’s proclivities “sick” or otherwise.

Some of the discussion in the press seems to be of the opinion that because Mosley does the kind of things that only former Blue Peter presenters would contemplate he is not fit to be in charge of that stupid game where ridiculous looking cars whiz about until time itself seems to be standing still. For instance the Telegraph’s Kevin Garside thinks that the revelations around the case “paint Max in a deeply unflattering light, and more readily associates him with the kind of behavior unsuited to one running an international body like the FIA.”

Really? Frankly I could do with that one being spelt out for me because I'm not getting the connection. Perhaps he's called for the driver who comes in last to be stripped and lashed around the track and it's only now people have realised he had ulterior motives beyond simply spurring the others on to do better. However, unless this is so I am nowhere near convinced.

Admittedly when Garside describes Mosley’s sex life as “rich and varied” it’s difficult to know whether he is referring to the fact that Mosley’s five “friends” cost him £500 each and therefore he is regularly indulging a habit beyond the reach of most - even as a Christmas treat. That doesn’t include the reported £ 35,000 yearly upkeep of his fully equipped oubliette either. Yes, obscenely "rich" even.

Incidentally, there seems to have been very little focus on the prostitution angle of the case (and some of the evidence seems to be casting him in more of a pimp than a client) but there has been a great deal of censorious frowning about the so-called Nazi connotations of his ritualized abuse. As if the real social conditions of the women involved is far less interesting than the make believe games they were being paid to indulge in.

Mosley denies there were any Nazi overtones to his orgy, even though one of his captors was wearing a Luftwaffe uniform and a fellow prisoner pleaded with her guards that they were “Aryans” and so did not deserve to be harshly treated. Obviously there were Nazi overtones – but so what? They weren’t organizing a BNP branch, daubing local shops in swastikas or running for office as far right candidates – they were (or at least he was) having fun, mucking around – and they were not to know they were being videoed, so any sensitivities about other people’s feelings are irrelevant because for five out of six of them this was a private function, even if one of them was the wife of an MI5 agent. They just weren’t to know that the News of World would be posting selected highlights on the net.

In “Spanking good fun” I described the common “old stereo type of the elite white male in a powerful job by day and lashed to a dungeon rack by night” and that seems to fit our Max rather neatly. But the stereotype holds our attention because of the contrast between real world power and the make believe powerlessness - not because it reveals the old white guy's true nature, but because it reveals an unexpected side to it.

Some political people seem to be confused because they’ve mistaken sexual games for real oppression. Now obviously slap and tickle without the tickle is not everyone’s cup of tea. Fair enough, but that’s no excuse to go around tutting and getting sniffy at consenting activities you were never meant to find out about, let alone invited to.

In fact it’s worse when people start talking about BDSM as if it’s some sort of bizarre acted out therapy where he’s been working out “issues” with his father. I don’t get turned on by going round building sites, tapping pipes and then shaking my head sadly (which is how I imagine my Dad at work, perhaps the reality was different) and I don’t think it’s an appropriate way of sorting out any father/son issues that may or may not exist. Maybe it’s just that he’s into a particular form of kinky sex, and so he does it. I don't think you'll be getting any great psychological insights just from the press reports though.

Obviously there are some personal ethical issues involved. He’s been getting up to this for decades and forgot to mention it to his wife. That, dude, is not cool. There’s also the prostitution thing, I don’t think it stops being prostitution just because they’re getting paid large amounts of money and appear to be rather happy about the whole thing (which is perfectly possible). So there are power issues here, but it isn't the caning that's the issue.

Whatever the wrongs and rights of this I still find it difficult to get excised and start ranting about his deviance or immorality. I mean he’s not one of those back to basics Johnnies is he? He’s never openly nailed his personal morality to the mast – that just isn’t his kink - so I don't think it's our place to lash him for it. No matter how much he begs.

But still some want to send in the Nazi sex police. The weird thing is the press appears to be taking the position that kinky sex is alright, but German kinky sex? That’s just sick!

Take this from the Guardian when it was put to the reporter that in fact it was just an English dungeon fetish and had nothing to do with the Nazis the journo's patriotic feathers are ruffled and he replies "I know of no English prison that beats its inmates with a stick until their buttocks bleed. I know of no English prison where the warder will deliver those blows and count them out in German. I know of no English prison where the inmates then have sexual intercourse with the warder who has just given those blows." Whilst, of course, the real Nazi regime was just like the fantasy played out for Mr Mosley. Maybe someone needs a history lesson.

We should reject the policing of sexuality even by people who are progressive on other issues. The simple fact is that something can be an expression of a deep desire without being a literal exposition of what you’d like to really happen. Dressing up in a Nazi uniform for kicks does not make you an advocate of genocide – even if you’re a member of the Royal family.

Ah, I’ll go further, because I see some thin ice I’d like to skate on. Some people have rape fantasies, they do, it’s a fact. It does not mean they actually want to rape or be raped they are simply drawing from the deep, dark well of sexuality and if you are one of them it does not make you a bad person and you shouldn’t spend even one second feeling guilty about those fantasies.

Just as a dream does not mean you actually want to play strip poker with William Shatner at the local library (although, actually, that might be pretty cool) a fantasy or a fetish is just that and is not *real* in the sense that you're likely to act it out elsewhere. If you can’t see the difference between being caned by someone in a sexy uniform and the historic horrors of the Third Reich then you have officially left the building of free thinking and joined the temple of dogma where they burn the mention of "incorrect things" because they think that means they will no longer exist.

Who are we?

I was at a very interesting play last night which explored some ideas about who we are. At one point there was a discussion about whether your sexuality is anyone else's business. Obviously, as long as your not hurting anyone else, the answer is no, but this is not a majority opinion as there's always someone ready to pronounce on who should and should not do what.

The borders of 'normal' are constantly being policed to make sure transgressors feel our wrath. The fact that these borders shift over time does not make them feel just as immutable, just as timeless - even though such an idea that they are not constantly shifting is patently absurd.

During my sociology degree I'd have called this a question of 'norms' and 'deviance', in other words what we take to be normal standards for society and those who deviate from it. One of the interesting things about this is that things like murder or suicide are seen as great taboos and far from normal behaviour while, in reality they are literally everyday occurrences that have 'rates' that can be statistically measured and effected.

That's why they use the term 'norms' rather than 'normal' because breaking norms is normal, if not the norm.

So why do some people feel that the fact that some people are gay, for example, is any of their business. Why get angry about adult consenting behaviour that has no bearing on your life? Why do people get violently attacked, even killed, for daring to go about their daily lives without shame?

I think a large element of this is the way we define ourselves, which you might think of as a very individualist act, but it is in fact a social one. So much of who we are is bound up with others. Where we work, say, or who our family is, our position in the community, our academic achievements or friendship networks. Even those aspects of ourselves that feel very private are in fact inevitably bound up with social categories. A private writer of poetry is still perpetuating a socially created category, and using learned forms to articulate their emotions.

In fact I'd go so far to say that we define ourselves in relation to other people, often unconsciously and we have a tendency to categorise and formalise what is really quite fluid. We might think someone is 'sexy' or 'brainy' or 'witty' or 'emotional' but will also recognise that this is just one part of that person, more complex than a label and often a part that may be hidden under the surface in different circumstances.

When we dig into these ideas they become difficult, but they rarely create problems as we rub along in our daily lives.

These boxes that we put others in help us to place ourselves, to define ourselves. A box with firm and clear edges finds it more easily fits when stacked with others. It's safer that way because you don't have to define yourself anew everyday and when you find yourself in a social situation it isn't a terrifying venture into the unknown because everyone is meant to stick to the rules, even though they don't.

So if you start blurring those edges, redefining sexuality or stepping outside of the normal dress code or ways of speaking then you're doing something extremely scary. You're changing the rules. If your sexuality has fallen out of the socially accepted box then what's to stop mine doing the same? My ideas about myself are challenged and by being 'different' you challenge the whole basis of the shape of society when you wear lipstick with your goatie beard.

Those edges of what is acceptable isn't just socially policed, that policing itself helps define what is and is not acceptable and sometimes gets produced even when no deviance has actually been exhibited. If gay people are beaten up if they are open about their sexuality it reinforces where the line is. The bigots are not just unhappy about other's behaviour, they actively want to create, through their bigotry, what kind of world we live in.