Know Your Place

Emerges blinking into the rain

2008-07-06T16:08:00.003Z

Hello again.

It's been a while, but I am back; without fanfare but re-engaged nonetheless. I might be a bit slow getting back up to my previous blogging form. It's high summer, I have another blog to commandeer and, most interestingly for me, I am about to start seriously researching my long-planned novel. I've been meaning to do this for months. Well, it starts tomorrow.

Distracting me from this purpose have been various book-related events, of which there will be many more over the next six weeks (have a look at the updated list of my speaker engagements). Plus, on the back of the book, people keep asking me to write things for them. This is very flattering - although it has rather undermined my previous avowed intent to stop writing journalism. Oh well. A lot of what I've had to say has been on the subject of liberty versus the Machine, inspired of course by Mr Davis. Here's what I think of him, and here's what I think of the Machine.

Anyway, I must go and add three months worth of articles to this site. But I will be back soon, and I won't wait so long this time.

Hiatus

2008-04-09T21:31:00.002Z

Apologies for the on-off nature of this blog recently. Work on the book has left me with little time for anything else, so I can only plead overload.

It's likely this will continue for a while and this, plus a planned holiday soon, means there may not be much going on here for a month or so. I thought I should warn you so you can make other plans.

I will be back though - and in the meantime there is still liveliness in evidence over at the Real England blog.

See you when I surface.

It's the only language they understand

2008-03-26T16:26:00.003Z

Sorry for the absence of posts recently. Lots is happening on the book front (look out for an extract in the Guardian this Saturday), plus I am dividing my time between here and the Real England blog. There's only so much a man can write.

I do, however, want to share the heartening news that Alastair Darling is being barred from pubs across the land, following his dastardly tax hike on beer in the budget, which will doubtless see even more locals close for ever. Personally I think this is all pretty timid stuff. I would prefer to see him strung up from a lamp post by his fingertips, next to Jack Straw and Ed Balls. That's not really anything to do with beer taxes, though. It would just be for fun.

Shaping up

2008-03-10T17:10:00.002Z

Over at The Ecologist, I'm wondering why everything is still going horribly wrong.

Meanwhile, on a lighter note, the Real England summer book tour is shaping up nicely. If you have any ideas about venues I could speak at or people who might like to hear me, drop me a line. I will buy you a pint of real ale in exchange, and I'm a man of my word (mostly).

"I'll be just fine, says planet"

2008-03-06T14:37:00.002Z

I wouldn't normally treat you to two posts in one day but this is just great.

"The planet said environmental campaigners should change their slogan from 'Save the Planet' to something more relevant such as 'Save Your Sorry Arse'."

Never a truer word.

Languaging the world

2008-03-06T09:24:00.003Z

Here's a thing. I just came across this interview, in the Independent, with a popular beat combo known as Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly. Actually it's just one guy (with a slightly rubbish name) who I have, despite my advancing age, actually heard of (he was playing a club round the corner from me last week). I should have gone and said hello because, as you will see if you read on, he is apparently inspired by my last book, One No, Many Yeses.

I like it when I hear things like this. One of the fascinating things - and sometimes one of the frustrating things - about being a writer is that you never know quite where your words are going to go, or who they're going to touch. I've had emails in the past from people who read One No and decided to give up their bank jobs as a result. It's inspired plays. I've heard from fans in Korea, Germany and Romania. Recently I got an email from a guy who had been so inspired by the book that he had had the words 'Ya Basta' tattooed on his arm. I was slightly nervous about that one; I just hope he doesn't regret it when he's fifty and hold me responsible.

When you write a book you are responsible for a mass release of words into the world. You never quite know what they will do or who they will reach, but you can be sure that they will have some kind of impact. You may never hear about most of it, but it will be out there, happening, changing things - maybe not in the ways you intended, but changing things nonetheless. All you can do as a writer is sit back and observe and take pleasure from the effects you do see. Hearing about them is what makes the whole enterprise worthwhile.

The excitement begins

2008-03-03T18:46:00.004Z

The time is fast approaching ... my new book, Real England, is published on 10th April. There's already some excitement building. Two newspapers will be serialising it towards the end of this month - more on this soon - and there are events planned and more in the pipeline.

In the meantime, I've today launched the Real England blog, to accompany the book. It'll be updated regularly, and will hopefully complement this little effort, which I will continue to write also, whether you like it or not.

Pop over and have a look. Read an extract, plan to come to an event, leave a comment, pre-order a copy ... and let me know what you think, of course.

Plane entertaining

2008-02-27T16:30:00.004Z

You have to hand it to Plane Stupid: they do a great line in stunts. This morning they were up on the roof of the Houses of Parliament, being startlingly effective with their message about new airport construction. Good on them. The sheer cheekiness of it all is an inspiration in a nation in which nothing ever seems to change but for the worst. The ever-witty Gordon Brown responded by saying that "decisions should be made in this house and not on the roof of this house, and that is a very important message to send out to protesters." Isn't that brilliant? So characteristically humourless and clunking and utterly self-defeating. Good old Gordon. It was worth it just to hear that. Oh, and to read the response-by-numbers from this wanker - and the splendidly barbed comments below it.

Readers of this blog will know, of course, that I am stoically unconvinced about our ability to prevent the climate going tits up - though when I see things like this it does give me a momentary flicker of hope. Unfortunately, I then see things like this. This is an article about the world's largest building - Beijing's new airport. It's twice the size of Heathrow's Terminal Five. 97 new airports are planned for China, 45 of which will be built in the next five years. Try climbing on the roof of this and see where it gets you. Bayoneted, I would imagine, by the defenders of the Glorious Revolution.

This seems, incidentally, to be a point entirely lost on arch-tool Norman Foster, the architect responsible for this monstrosity. He was all over the media yesterday, smugly observing that it has taken less time to build his new Ozymandian construction than it has taken to hold the public inquiry into Terminal 5. He sounded like he thought this was a good thing. That's the way it tends to work, Norm, when actual people aren't allowed to get in the way. Hitler had a good line in ruthless architectural efficiency too. I'd bet he paid his architects handsomely as well.

I wish I could fly

2008-02-13T17:55:00.003Z

This intriguing, if badly-scanned, graph appears in today's Guardian. It's a stark illustration of the pollution caused by the global shipping industry. The darker the area, the more particulate pollution its suffers from - and some of the darker patches overlay major shipping lanes very precisely.

More interesting than this, though, is what the Guardian's report reveals about shipping's contribution to climate change. In short: it's big. This is interesting because, in the ongoing battle to target the villains in the global emissions game, shipping has escaped almost unscathed. Keys have been scratched down the paintwork of SUVs, camps held outside airports, power station chimneys climbed and locked onto. Yet all the time the world's vast container ships, backbone of the global economy, have been going about their merry business polluting the planet in order to bring us the latest straight-to-landfill must-haves. And nobody's said a thing.

But the most interesting thing about this story, to me, is this:

This graph - which is also badly-scanned, not to mention wonky - is the big story. It compares the relative emissions of aviation and shipping - and look which comes out on top. Shipping produces 4.5% of global industrial emissions; aviation just 2%.

For a while I've been increasingly uncomfortable about the green movement's intense and, I think, irrational focus on airline emissions as a major target for their climate change campaigning. I think environmentalists have made a big mistake in making this such a major issue, and I think they're going to regret it.

Why? Firstly because, as this report shows, aviation is not the biggest problem. Car traffic is a bigger problem. Home energy wastage is a bigger problem. Forest destruction is a bigger problem. Shipping, it seems, is a bigger problem. Aircraft emissions may be the fastest-growing cause of emissions, but they're not the biggest, by a long chalk. And how fast are shipping emissions growing? Does anyone even know? I doubt it.

But this is not the main problem. The main problem is a typically green refusal to try and grasp human psychology. Flying is, I think, to most people, one of the great unalloyed benefits of 'progress.' People love it - not the journey itself, perhaps, but the destination. We can go to places our grandparents never dreamed of, cheaply and fast. People love this. They will cling to it, and do. Going all-out to tackle flying, in this context, is effectively an attack on peoples' aspirations. Once again, the greens end up looking like they want to stop people enjoying themselves. Out comes the puritan instinct, so badly-hidden, and suddenly we're all playing I-fly-less-than-you in public. It turns people off. It's dull and lentilly and counter-productive.

So why do it? It's not politically sensible. It's not tackling the biggest problem out there. It alienates people. If you really want to stop climate change (and in my view it's too late, but feel free to try) this is a suicidal way to do it. It resurrects all the old doubts people have about the greens and, instead of inspiring them, makes them feel guilty.

If I was running Greenpeace, say, or Friends of the Earth or any other big cheese green NGO, I know what I'd do. I'd take virtually everyone off my aviation campaign, and stop beating the public around the head with their desire to take their kids on holiday (oh, and did I mention that most of the environmentalists I know fly far more than Joe Public ever will?) I would put all of those people to work on my forests campaign, and I would shift the main focus of my climate change work from something negative to something overwhelmingly positive: protecting the world's rainforests.

This is a win-win-situation. The great forests of the world are falling, still, at a rate of knots. Climate change or no climate change, this is a planetary tragedy. Stop the destruction and you help stop climate change anyway. You also save thousands of species, the homes of tribal peoples and the last untouched wildernesses of the Earth. Best of all, you give the public a positive message: 'help us save the great forests and stop climate change', rather than 'don't go on holiday and stop climate change.'

That would make sense to me. Granted, it wouldn't give us the familiar thrill we get from telling people what not to do - but it does seem far more likely to actually work.

Decline and fall?

2008-02-11T09:28:00.000Z

What happens to a system when its people begin to opt out of it? I asked that question a few years ago in my first book. I was talking in the context of global neoliberalism; in the context of mass movements of people withdrawing their permission from the global economy. That's still happening, though millions more are excitedly opting in at the same time.

But what about closer to home? Am I the only one who, for some time, has felt that Britain has a kind of fin de siecle feel about it? Is this how the last days of the Weimar Republic felt, as well-meaning liberals tried in vain to hold their society together as the darkness gathered ahead?

I don't know, but I know that this country increasingly seems desperate, pale, dysfunctional, and that change, big change, seems inevitable. What that change will be, and how palatable, I don't know. In yesterday's Observer, John Gray wrote an interesting piece about the collapse of the British state, and the collapse of our faith in it. In the FT a few days ago, Maurice Saatchi wrote a less good piece (you have to sign up to read this, but it's free) about the angry English and what they have to be angry about which, despite him being a bit of a tit, does touch on a couple of key points.

The main one, I think, is disenfranchisement. A state, a nation, holds together if its people trust it, more or less, and feel it has a common purpose - and that they are a common people. Today we have none of these. Many people in Britain feel, quite rightly, that their concerns are not represented by the political status quo. On a number of crucial issues, people have no voice at all. Mass immigration, for example, regularly tops the list of concerns people have about Britain's future. Whatever you think about it, you can't argue that that concern is being met by any politician. Similarly, more state power is handed to the EU almost annually, with no-one's voice being heard, despite mass anger. The state is privatised bit by bit, and will continue to be whichever party runs it. Multinational companies, from supermarkets to private healthcare firms, tear up our culture and landscape and eat it for breakfast and none of us gets a say. Something called 'multiculturalism' descends upon us from above and goes unchallenged, again, by the political establishment even while the majority of British people, whatever their skin colour, feel uncomfortable about it. Wars are started despite mass opposition. The state draws up scheme after scheme to remove our rights and liberties in a spiralling effort to put the pieces back together again

I could go on. The point is that, whatever your personal opinion on any of these things, it doesn't matter. The country is changing rapidly, those changes are not in your hands, and you cannot vote them away. The nation is fragmenting into islands - islands of wealth and poverty, islands of ethnicity and religion, islands of culture and lack of it. England, Wales and Scotland are going their separate ways (one good thing in my view), the head of Henry VIII's church wants Sharia law ... and nobody knows what the future holds. I'm by nature a pessimist, so I think it may bring darkness. What normally happens when we are gifted a combination of a failing state, internal ethnic tensions, a violent external threat, economic uncertainty and a longing for unity and purpose? I'll give you a clue: it's not enlightened liberalism.

Business as usual, possibly

2008-02-05T11:59:00.000Z

What am I to think of Barack Obama? This blog is trying to wean itself off getting excited about politics - and especially politicians (here's why). I can still remember when I was a young and naive 25 year old, back in 1997, and found Tony Blair exciting enough to vote for him. Back then, I believed that individual politicians had the ability to change the Machine significantly, rather than just run it efficiently.

Well, I don't believe that anymore. And I particularly don't believe it when it applies to the USA. This nation, with its vast military-industrial complex, its enmeshing of corporation and state, its imperial outposts and its settled establishment interests, is never going to be amenable to serious change in a short time period. The office of president, in any case, is a weak one internally (partly whey they spend so much time waging war elsewhere). It follows, then, that however exciting/convincing/shameless a presidential candidate is, America will not be transformed into beacon of enlightened liberalism whoever is running it. It doesn't work like that.

Yet even I find myself getting excited by Barack Obama. I curse myself for this. Why, I ask myself, am I excited? I know none of his policies. I've heard none of his speeches. I'm simply refracting the distant excitement of others. I am being swept up in the moment, even though I know that moment will lead nowhere. It's truly pathetic. But hell, it's a confusing time and my thoughts have been accordingly confused. Here's a selection of my recent thoughts about Barack Obama:

Wow, this is really quite exciting. I wonder if he could be the next JFK?

Hang on: JFK started the Vietnam war.

And then he got assassinated.

Say what you like though, the guy has charisma.

And he does have a nice smile. And he used to write poetry and smoke weed, so he can't be all bad.

I wonder what his policies are.

I really hate Hillary Clinton; vile little plastic goldfish. I hope she loses.

I really hate myself for being taken in by this admittedly impressive PR.

Imagine Obama in the White House though. Wouldn't that be something?

Why do people keep calling him 'black? He's mixed race, but no one calls him 'white'?

Humans have an apparently limitless need to believe in leaders who will liberate them from the drudgery of reality. Idiots.

It's quite exciting though.

See. Stupid, isn't it? Still, I'm sure that soon enough the Hillary machine will roll over him, and we'll all deflate a little as she goes on to lose to John McCain, who will then start a war with Iran to show the towelheads who's boss, thus ushering in World War Three. Back to business as usual, then.

Hard Times of Old England

2008-02-01T11:57:00.000Z

Surfacing from beneath a tsunami of nappies, and other unappealing things, I find myself firmly embedded in the build-up period to my book. The launch is being planned (in a pub, of course), various events are being lined up (look out for me in Llangollen, Dartington, Oxford, Bristol and elsewhere - keep an eye on the events page for details) and I'm looking for feeble excuses to plug it everywhere I go.

Far more interesting than this, though, is that I have just discovered the book's theme tune. I recently invested in an album called The Imagined Village, a reinvention of English folk music by such luminaries as Billy Bragg, Benjamin Zephaniah, Transglobal Underground, Eliza Carthy and - God's Englishman - her dad Martin, the man who taught Bob Dylan most of his early tunes and Paul Simon the words to Scarborough Fair (for which he is nevertheless forgiven).

The album is utterly brilliant and you should buy it, even if you don't like folk music. It may surprise you. It's version of the old classic Cold, Haily, Rainy Night is fab. Best of all though is this reworking of the old rural lament Hard Times of Old England, complete with new lyrics by Billy Bragg sticking it to Tesco and the Countryside Alliance. If you can ignore him dancing like an embarrassing uncle, it's a gem. Honestly, it's like my book set to music. Must remember to get him a copy. And I can't believe I missed this tour. Damn.

This blog is on paternity leave

2008-01-10T20:47:00.000Z

My daughter, Leela, was born on Tuesday. I am both overjoyed and exhausted. There'll be no blogging till February, as I come to terms with it all.

Come back then, though, when I can promise you:

In February: a return of my usual semi-regular blogging pattern (though no improvement in quality. You can't expect miracles.)

In March: a new blog and website based around my new book.

In April: the book itself, with associated talks, articles, festival appearances etc.

It's going to be quite a year.

Permission withdrawn

2007-12-19T10:52:00.000Z

Seriously: can you tell the difference?

They look the same. They sound the same. They're both ambitious, young media types-turned party leaders. They believe in more or less the same thing. And they both - oh, Jesus - give the same speeches. Have a look at some of these titbits from Clegg's acceptance speech:

" ... Today is about two things: ambition, and change.

It’s about renewed ambition for Britain.

Because we want to change politics, and change Britain.

Above all, our politics is broken.

Out of step with people.

Out of step with the modern world.

That is why I have one sole ambition: to change Britain to make it the liberal country the British people want it to be.

I want a new politics: a people’s politics ..."

It makes you want to gouge your eyes out with pencils. Verbless sentences. Vapid sentiments. The usual demand for 'change.' This is a style of speaking created and perfected by Blair and his minions and it utterly dominates British politics now. Ming and Gordon can't do it convincingly - which is one reason they were sidelined. It's the politics of the marketing department: dress up your lack of ideas with idea-free words. Sound inspiring whilst saying nothing. It's Orwellian, in the accurate sense of that overused word: deliberately designed, meaningless language 'falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the outline and covering up all the details.' This way you can claim to represent something different whilst representing something precisely the same as you will get from the rest of them: the vapid market worship of our ruling elites.

Already the political journalists and 'commentators' are twittering on about which section of the electorate Clegg and his gang will choose to 'target' at the next election; how they will 'position' themselves; what 'tactics' and 'strategy' they will use to persusde we foolish many to loan them our permission to form part of the cabal that runs this shabby little nation on behalf of the masters of the global economy.

Well fuck them all. This latest feeble charade in the long feeble charade that is our 'democracy' has made my mind up about something I have been considering for a long time. From now on, I am not voting. I will not give these people my permission. I will not take part in this game. I will not participate in their jostling for scraps from the table of power. I will not legitimise them; any of them. That's it. I'm out. Do you what you want, you fresh-faced, power-hungry bland little boys. Enjoy yourselves. Just keep away from me.

Validation

2007-12-18T11:31:00.001Z

A pleasant and suprising Christmas gift arrives in the post: news that one of my poems has won a prize. Even better, it has a cheque attached.

Who said art doesn't pay? Now we'll just have to see how it gets on with the pram in the hall.

Our Christmas present to the future

2007-12-17T09:26:00.000Z

You might be expecting me to be furious about the outcome of the latest climate change shindig in Bali. Furious about the whole thing, perhaps: 15,000 people fly to this sunny little island from all corners of the world, emitting as much carbon dioxide to do so as Mali emits in a year. They spend a week yakking about the biggest threat to the world since humanity walked on all fours; they get right down to the wire; then they announce ... a 'breakthrough!' There's been a deal! The world's nations have all agreed on an action plan to tackle climate change.

And the plan is ... well, the plan is to agree that at some stage in the future we will set some targets to slightly reduce our emissions at some stage after that, if at all possible.

Obviously this is a waste of everyone's time. But unlike some greenies I am not frothing mad. Because I, you see, expected nothing better. I've written here, and elsewhere, before about my conviction that it is impossible to stop climate change - not because the science says we can't or the technology is not available but simply because the political will - both from our 'leaders' and from us, as members of rich, contented nations - is simply not there. I've taken a bit of stick for this from environmentalists who want me to keep parroting the agreed green line on the climate - we can do it! there's still time! there's a massing global movement! a small group of committed people can change the world ... etc - but everything I've seen since I first said it has only confirmed me in my view.

Have a look, for example, at possibly our best known environmentalist, George Monbiot's, two recent columns - here and here - and ask yourself what conclusion can be drawn from them if you're being really honest with yourself. Look at the Bali 'agreement' in the light of what we know about the science of climate change. Then look at the mounting campaign that has been growing in the last few months, calling for a mass protest across Britain - not in favour of action on climate change, but to demand that garages cut their petrol prices.

Still, I am not depressed. Why? Because I have given up expecting better. I am cultivating an almost Buddhist detachment. I am no longer naive enough to imagine that Hilary Benn can go to Bali and save the word. Not naive enough to imagine that the rich will give up their riches to save the future. Not naive enough to imagine that the corporate/government complex can get us out of a problem it got us into. I have lost faith in the political process. And you know what - it's joyous. I haven't felt so free, so creative - so hopeful - in years. There is nothing for it but to find our own way. To stop expecting The System to deliver. It never can.

What will save us? Who knows if we even need 'saving'? I know it's Christmas, but we don't have to think like fundamentalist Christians all the time - don't have to keep worrying that apocalypse is around the corner. Even if it is, there's nothing Gordon Brown and Greenpeace can do about it. What will save us? Digging our garden, being in love, writing poems, standing up for our inevitable place, belonging, fighting off the encroachment of corporate culture, walking in the woods, knowing who we are, grounding ourselves - and not believing the talk of those who expect the suits and the bankers and the big-picture thinkers to get us out of what they so long ago dragged us into. This system has its own momentum now. This tide will not turn until it is ready. And us? We have to ride it. And you know what - I am beginning to believe that we can.

Have a good Christmas.

The Stars Go Over The Lonely Ocean
Robinson Jeffers, 1941

Unhappy about some far off things
That are not my affair, wandering
Along the coast and up the lean ridges,
I saw in the evening
The stars go over the lonely ocean,
And a black-maned wild boar
Plowing with his snout on Mal Paso Mountain.

The old monster snuffled, "Here are sweet roots,
Fat grubs, slick beetles and sprouted acorns.
The best nation in Europe has fallen,
And that is Finland,
But the stars go over the lonely ocean,"
The old black-bristled boar,
Tearing the sod on Mal Paso Mountain.

"The world's in a bad way, my man,
And bound to be worse before it mends;
Better lie up in the mountain here
Four or five centuries,
While the stars go over the lonely ocean,"
Said the old father of wild pigs,
Plowing the fallow on Mal Paso Mountain.

"Keep clear of the dupes that talk democracy
And the dogs that talk revolution,
Drunk with talk, liars and believers.
I believe in my tusks.
Long live freedom and damn the ideologies,"
Said the gamey black-maned boar
Tusking the turf on Mal Paso Mountain.

Erratics

2007-12-11T09:16:00.001Z

I've been very erratic with the blog of late. Apologies to my loyal fan(s?). Tons of work to get done before Christmas, especially frantic since soon after that I become a father. A generalised panic will then ensue which, it is only fair to warn you, will keep me offline for most if not all of January, as my enforced paternity leave kicks in.

But fear not, for after that things get much more exciting. In February this website will be updated and blogs will start again in earnest. In March, the website for my new book will be launched, with much fanfare and discussions around the nation's dinner tables. And in April the book itself comes out. I won't let you hear the end of this, so don't try missing it.

I'll try and write something else before Christmas. In the meantime, here are three recommended articles from other people, on differing but equally interesting subjects. Here, the always-worth-reading Peter Wilby writes about the media's treatment of the Venezuelan Prez Hugo Chavez. And here, Michael Meacher explains how the government is about to take away more of your democratic rights and give them to Tesco.

Finally, if that's all too much to bear, there is news that you are happily still marginally better than a monkey, and continuing to improve. Hurray for nature.

A sneak preview

2007-12-04T15:13:00.000Z

A real blog coming soon, I promise. In the meantime, you can get a sneak preview of my long-awaited (?) new book here. Hell, you can even reserve yourself a copy. It's nearly Christmas. You know you want to.

A Guest Blogger

2007-11-14T18:07:00.000Z

Regular readers will know that I've long had a beef with the rabidly anti-environmentalist editorial team over at Spiked magazine.

But I thought it was about time we tried to build bridges. So today this blog features its very first guest blogger - Brendan O'Neill, editor of Spiked, who writes here in a personal capacity.

Hi, I'm Brendan O'Neill - and you are a wanker.

That's a fact - an empirical one. Whether you like it or not.

Let me explain. Not that I need to explain myself to you people. But let me do it anyway because, God knows, you need to be enlightened.

Not that there is a God. And here's why.

One fine day, a long, long time ago, a fish crawled out of a swamp. Not long after that, the fish became a monkey.

Do I need to tell you what happened next?

That's right - the monkey became you. And me. And that's when it all really kicked off. Between us we did great things. Wrote the plays of Shakespeare. Built loads of cool machines. Started tonnes of fuck off big wars. Chopped down loads of crappy forests full of cunty animals and replaced them with roads and shit hot things like that. You and me - we're the fucking greatest. There's nothing we can't do. And believe me, my friends - we haven't even started yet.

But you don't believe me, do you? And that's the whole problem.

Because you people are scared. You look at the grand sweep of human progress, and instead of saying 'Bring it on!', you say 'Eeew! it's big and scary! I'm going back under the blanket with my cup of fucking cocoa!'

Poofters. The lot of you.

Progress, you see, is under threat. It's under threat from you. We've got tonnes of stuff that could make the world even cooler. We could genetically modify ourselves, for instance. I could make myself three mouths, so I could express three times as many groovily controversial opinions at once. You could get yourself a spine (ha!) We could grow tonnes more food to feed poor people so they could get rich like me, which everyone knows is better. We could kill all the fucking flies and shit that sting us. We could build flying cars and warp drives, so we could go off to other planets like Captain Picard. All of this is possible.

Or it would be - if you'd all just die.

Because you lot hate progress, don't you? You hate progress and you hate freedom. Like big, fat, crippled, spastic Luddite elephants, there's nothing you won't do to impede it. 'Climate change!' you whine. 'Oooh, trees and animals!' you squeal. 'Overfishing!' Overfishing? What's that? Never heard of it. Twats.

The reality is, these are all just excuses. Your real agenda is clear for all to see. You hate progress, and machines and freedom and modernity. Most of all, you hate people. You want to kill them all, don't you? Say it. Go on: say it. It's what you're thinking. You're all like that schoolkid who just shot up all his mates in Finland. His mum was an 'environmentalist.' Did you know that? Or did the eco-liberal media keep it from you? Perhaps they didn't tell you that Hitler was a vegetarian either. It's pretty obvious what that means, isn't it? Hmm?

You may not like hearing it, my friends - but it's an empirical fact.

Now there's something you don't see every day

2007-11-01T11:46:00.000Z

Yeterday, a Liberal Democrat said something exciting. How often do you get to write a sentence like that?

Sorry, I'm being facetious. Sorry especially to Nick Clegg, Lib Dem leaderhsip contender who, in a bid to put some clear yellowish water between him and David Cameron/Chris Huhne made an excitingly radical statement yesterday on ID cards. Not only would his party oppose them, he said, but if the Labour government introduced them, he would refuse to provide information for the database, even though doing so would be illegal. Yes, you heard that right: potential party leader encourages civil disobedience.

ID cards are an evil scam. If Mr Clegg wins, and if this turns out to be any more than a piece of sneaky positioning for the hustings, I might even vote for him. It's the first interesting thing I've heard from a Westminster politican in quite some time.

More choice! Oooh, I can't wait!

2007-10-31T10:15:00.000Z

There will come a time when the debate about devolution for England catches fire and refuses to go away. I can feel it approaching. In the meantime, following my last post, some interesting discussion about the forthcoming break-up of the union (hurray) can be found here and here.

In the meantime, we're presented today with some evidence of why we desperately need more political power at local level. Preliminary findings from an ongoing report by the Competition Commission into the power of supermarkets have redefined the word 'spineless'. Or perhaps the phrase 'thoroughly captured by corporate interests.' Whilst recognising a few little problems, like superstores shitting on farmers from a great height, for example, the report thinks things are generally looking pretty good in the grocery trade. Small shops aren't really threatened by Tesco et al, and 'consumers' are having a great old time of it. There are no monopolies; just lots of fairness and fine ready meals.

The major problem we have, in fact, is that there aren't enough supermarkets. Yes, you heard right. The way to deal with the dominance of Tesco is to open up lots more branches of Sainsbury and Asda. You see the twisted logic.

When I was in the USA a few years back, I met people who were using local democracy to rein in superstores and multinationals. I visited towns which had changed local laws to limit the percentage of retail trade which the chains were permitted to have. Here's one thing more devolved power could do for us: give us the ability to shape our local economies around the nation, rather than having them shaped in Westminster and the Tesco boardroom. All we need now is a politician brave enough to suggest it.

England for the English

2007-10-28T13:05:00.000Z

This is getting worrying. Fresh on the heels of their really rather excellent Quality of Life policy review, which contained some seriously interesting thinking about green issues in British politics, the Tories are giving me another reason to take them seriously. Where will it end?

This time it's their proposal, announced yesterday, to ensure that only English MPs can vote on English matters in the House of Commons. Sounds like traditional Tory Little Englandism? Not so. Here's why.

The English are uniquely ill-served by post-1997 British democracy. The Scottish now have a Parliament, with elected members, a large budget and significant powers to run their own nation in their own way. The Welsh have the same to a lesser extent, as does

Northern Ireland

. And a good thing too - democratic devolution is always welcome. But all of these nations also have representatives in the British Parliament at Westminster, where Scottish and Welsh MPs can make decisions about the future of

England

to which they will never have to answer to their constituents – though English MPs cannot do the same in those countries.

Thus Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish MPs at Westminster can vote, and have done, to impose controversial policies such as university tuition fees or foundation hospitals on the English which their constituents at home will not have to suffer and for which they will not be answerable at the ballot-box.

England

is the only British nation without any form of democratic devolution. It is the only nation in Europe without its own parliament or government. It has fewer MPs per head of population than the other British nations, and receives less money per head from the treasury than either

Scotland

Wales

Northern Ireland

. The British government has ministers for

Northern Ireland

Wales

and

Scotland

– despite devolution – but no minister for

England

. The Scottish enjoy privileges, from free university education to a lack of academy schools, which the English can only dream of but for which the English have to pay. Meanwhile, Scottish MPs can ensure the government gets its way in denying those things to us south of the border.

Don't get me wrong: I'm not being anti-Scottish, Good luck to them. Scotland seems an exciting place to be these days, partly due to its renewed sense of nationhood. All I'm asking is for the same thing. England remains subsumed within 'Britain' while the other nations forge their own way. This is making a lot of people angry, across the political spectrum. Legendary Labour MP Tam Dalyell, who first invented this so-called 'West Lothian question' back in the 1970s, says that the unfairness of the political settlement since devolution is causing 'smouldering and growing concern in England, not least amongst some English Labour MPs.' This may be why almost 70% of English people - including me - now support the creation of a fully-fledged English Parliament, to square the circle created by devolution. Alex Salmond of the SNP supports us, by the way. There's a man who know which side his bread is buttered.

What's the government's reaction to this? They scorn it at every opportunity. They even resort, without irony, to the argument the Tories used when they opposed setting up the Scottish Parliament in the first place - that it will 'break up the union.' To which I reply: maybe it will. And if that's what the union's people want, that's what they should get. The Labour Party is dominated by Scots, and knows damn well that if the injustices of the British constitution are redressed, their power will be reduced. They know which side their bread is buttered too. Our job is to stop the buggers eating it. They did buy it with our money, after all.

Bring me my hoe of burning gold

2007-10-28T10:02:00.000Z

A recent opinion poll, carried out by a major market research organisation, confirms that 79.7 percent of my readers are in danger of imminently slashing their wrists if I don't stop writing about the looming end of the world and our total inability to do anything about it. Comments offered to the pollster included: 'I thought greens were supposed to be mindlessly optimistic, but he's just depressing'; 'If I wanted wall-to-wall hopelessness I'd go and read a Booker Prize winner' and 'I preferred it when he used to write about carrots.'

Of course, if I were a true artist I'd say 'fuck the lot of you.' What do you think this is, the Labour Party? On this blog we don't base our political opinions on the latest here-today prejudices of the lowing masses. We are timeless and brave and true and uncompromisingly unread.

On the other hand, I'm feeling a bit vulnerable today. And since yesterday I went to my allotment, where I dug up beetroot and turned it into soup, took delivery of twenty bags of composted horse poo and sowed a few lines of peas, I thought I might write about that today, to cheer you all up and stop you from leaving forever. That, I thought, would be a good plan.

But then I did a stupid thing: I bought the Observer. Regular readers will remember me vowing fiercely never to do this again. I should have stuck to my promise. I meant to. But I was weak, reader: I wavered, just for a second, and now all my good intentions are wrecked, and my soul poisoned beyond redemption.

Because on page 56 of the Observer magazine, I found this:

Look at these cunts. Just look at them. In case it's not clear, these morons are modelling this season's fucking look down on the allotment. Mr Dreamy-Thom-Yorke-alike on the left has a 55 quid jacket. Mr I-love-myself-stupid-hair next to him has spent 99 quid on a 'luxury Italian tweed wool coat' in which he can pose moodily on a stepladder. The bloke with the dodgy wig at the front is wearing 'vintage sand-blasted jeans.'

What the hell is going on here? I go to my allotment to get away from self-regarding wankers like this. It's a place of mud and rain and digging and sweat and recycling and reality. Half the point of allotments is that the slugs, sheds, water butts and grumpy old men make them the kind of place where Shoreditch wankers like this fear to tread. One of the very last places in modern Britain that is not ruled by the arseheaded look-at-me gastropub classes. And now they're here! They're coming for us! Is nowhere safe? Nowhere?!

Maybe if I lock myself in my shed they won't be able to get me. It's either that or I just give in to my urges and have at them violently with a mattock. See what that does to your Italian wool double breasted coat, scarf boy. So help me God.

Onward to our glorious future

2007-10-23T11:30:00.001Z

The Campaign to Protect Rural England has just released a series of 'intrusion maps', which lay out in detail how noise and visual pollution have spread across England over the last forty years. They're very telling and (sorry) depressing too; these two show the change between the early 1960s and 2006. Visit their website and you can see more variations, including detail of the spread of visual and aural pollution where you live.

It would be nice to think that this kind of thing would be a wake-up call, wouldn't it? Today, though, we are also informed that the population of Britain is set to increase by ten million by 2031; with all the associated increases in roads, houses, power lines, windfarms, power stations and other human industrial detritus that this will bring. And in order to make it easier to foist these things on us, for our own good, the government is currently building up to piloting a new Planning Bill through parliament, which will remove much of what meagre say we have over such things.

What can we do about this? Well, in the case of the Planning Bill you can at least object to your MP, which may do some small good. Overall, though, unless you have a good scheme for tackling the human growth obsession, and a workable way of making it happen, not a lot. Other than move to the margins, grow your own vegetables, create an off-grid energy source and enjoy yourself while the rest of them go insane in the name of Progress. That's my plan, anyway.

Inhumanity is good for you

2007-10-18T16:10:00.000Z

My post on climate change and the human future (see below) has generated some appreciations and also some increasingly heated debates (involving me, I must admit: I just can't keep my mouth shut.) It's interesting how defensive people can get when humanity as a mass is criticised. I've already been called a misanthrope, and informed that loving humanity is my duty, whether or not that love is deserved. I've even been informed that if I don't love humanity (unconditionally, it seems) then I can't love anything else. Even my dog.

All of which has made me determine to look further into the ideas surrounding deep ecology, which I'm increasingly convinced are quite desperately needed. For the record, I don't hate humanity. But I don't love it either. I love individual humans, but not 'humanity'. When I am accused of preferring trees to people, my answer is always the same: it depends on the tree. And on the people.

Meanwhile, here is my favourite poet, and pioneer of deep ecology's predecessor, 'inhumanism', Robinson Jeffers, with an appropriate verse:

Passenger Pigeons

...Respect humanity, Death, these
shameless black eyes of yours,
It is not necessary to take all at once - besides that,
you cannot do it, we are too powerful,
We are men, not pigeons; you may take the old, the useless
and helpless, the cancer-bitten and the tender young,
But the human race has still history to make. For look - look now
At our achievements: we have bridled the cloud-leaper lightning,
a lion whipped by a man, to carry our messages
And work our will, we have snatched the thunderbolt
Out of God's hands. Ha? That was little and last year -
for now we have taken
The primal powers, creation and annihilation; we make
new elements, such as God never saw,
We can explode atoms and annul the fragments, nothing left
but pure energy, we shall use it
In peace and war - "Very clever," he answered in his thin piping voice,
Cruel and a eunuch.
Roll those idiot black eyes of yours
On the field-beats, not on intelligent man,
We are not in your order. You watched the dinosaurs
Grow into horror: they had been little elves in the ditches
and presently became enormous with leaping flanks
And tearing teeth, plated with armor, nothing could
stand against them, nothing but you,
Death, and they died. You watched the sabre-tooth tigers
Develop those huge fangs, unnecessary as our sciences,
and presently they died. You have their bones
In the oil-pits and layer rock, you will not have ours.
With pain and wonder and labor we have bought intelligence.
We have minds like the tusks of those forgotten tigers,
hypertrophied and terrible,
We have counted the stars and half-understood them,
we have watched the farther galaxies fleeing away
from us, wild herds
Of panic horses - or a trick of distance deceived by the prism -
we outfly falcons and eagles and meteors,
Faster than sound, higher than the nourishing air;
we have enormous privilege, we do not fear you,
We have invented the jet-plane and the death-bomb
and the cross of Christ - "Oh," he said, "surely
You'll live forever" - grinning like a skull, covering his mouth
with his hand - "What could exterminate you?"