« 29 July. freedom fries | Main | 10 Aug 04. Fishing »

4 August

You wake up. You drag yourself out of bed. You make yourself some coffee. You pour milk on your weetabix. You open the newspaper. You get CROSS.

Quite a lot of days begin like this for me, and this one is no exception. My two reasons to be cross this morning are:

One: the Liberal Democrats become the Neoliberal Democrats. Well, OK, this hasn't quite happened yet, but the neoliberal wing of the party has come out with a book proposing a 'policy shift' for the future. It's depressingly stupid, unimaginative and twenty years out of date. I'm no great fan of the Lib Dems, but they are the only major party prepared to occasionally suggest that the market is not a religion. No longer, it seems. The party's 'young Turks' (read: young tossers') say their new proposals represent them 'growing up as a party.' This newfound maturity involves embracing 'choice', promoting the market as a way to solve environmental problems (Jesus, I'd thought we'd nailed this shite years ago) and 'reining back the regulatory state.' Like Tony Blair, the New Liberals use the word 'radical' to describe what are actually deeply reactionary, Thatcherite approaches.

I'm very depressed! Not about the future of the Lib Dems particularly, but just about the nature of political discourse in this country - and around the world. Our two main parties are both neoliberal. Both worship the twin 21st century gods of 'choice' and 'the market', their only real squabble being over who will administer our Consumer Society more efficiently. Now our third party has decided, bizarrely, that the way to make itself 'distinctive' is, er, to do the same thing!

Democracy is dead. Send no flowers.

Two: Harold Pinter, the world's least talented poet since William McGonagall, is to be awarded the Wilfred Owen Prize, for his recent collection of anti-Iraq war poetry - doggerel so bad it makes you want to go and bomb Baghdad. Wilfred Owen! The man would be turning in his grave.

Here is one of Harold's finest:

Democracy

There's no escape.
The big pricks are out.
They'll fuck everything in sight.
Watch your back.

Democracy and poetry in one short morning. I think I need to go for a long, long walk.

Posted by paul at August 4, 2004 01:41 PM

Comments

Post a comment