The appetite for conservative policies

Hector Drummond Posted on by

Some people have wondered whether there really is an appetite for more conservative policies amongst the British people. I’d say the fact that Boris Johnson’s government got a poll boost when they started talking tougher about prison sentences shows that there is.

Sure there are smaller parties that talk like that that get nowhere. But they’re too small to be players. The sad fact is that it’s very hard for a small party without a lot of money behind it to get anywhere, so I don’t think that that tells us much. It’s when a big party talks like that that allows us to get a better idea of the demand. So the fact that the Conservative Party’s talk was received well by potential Conservative voters tells us that there’s a demand.

Of course, it remains to be seen whether this is just all talk by the Tories. The Tories have a long history now of talking tough and then not delivering. And any hopes that people like me might have had that they would start talking about further conservative policies have been disappointed. If they really wanted to get ahead in the polls then there are a raft of further proposals they could talk about, but it’s like they’re frightened to move off the doorstep to where they can’t hear the voice of Mama BBC and Father — or should that be ‘other Mother’? — Guardian telling them what to do. Not that they always do what she says, but she’s unquestionably the boss.

But it’s nice that the Conservatives have done some opinion polling for any potential new conservative party that wants to start up and has some serious money behind it. That money won’t be wasted.

Boris bounced like a flat basketball

Hector Drummond Posted on by

I’m in the middle of summer hols, and there isn’t much internet access, which explains the lack of posting, but I thought I should note while I have the chance to be online that all the signs still are that Boris will fudge his No Deal Brexit. He talks a good game, but past evidence suggests that he pushes at Establishment views without really taking them on:

Britain could remain in the customs union and single market for another two years after Brexit, Boris Johnson said yesterday – as he suggested a negotiated deal with Brussels was still possible.

The Boris bounce was actually pretty pitiful:

Boris Johnson becoming Prime Minster has boosted his party in the polls more than any other Conservative leader in modern political times.

 

Mr Johnson won the Tory leadership race just last week but his party has already begun polling at 29.8 percent rating in four different opinion polls. This marks a 5.5 percent increase in polls conducted before he took office. The only other Prime Minister who has managed such a huge feat is Tony Blair, according to data from Pollsters.

5.5% may be a lot historically speaking, but in these extraordinary circumstances I’d say it’s nowhere near enough. A lot of people who have switched to the Brexit Party are not coming back to the Tories, not even with one of their most vocal No Dealers in charge. When Johnson tries to foist another pretend/delayed Brexit upon us many will drift back to the Brexit party, and that will be it forever for the Tories and their pretend conservatism.

 

The Biscuit Factory Vol. I: Days of Wine and Cheese serialisation. Part 78

Hector Drummond Posted on by

‘Hey, there’s Garrett from your department, Douglas,’ says Ren.

‘Just in time for your round, Garrett,’ says Douglas.

‘Bugger,’ says Garrett, who goes off, and then comes back with more drinks.

‘How’s that twat of a head of your department going, Garrett?’ says Miles.

‘Beresford?’ says Garrett. ‘Still a twat.’

‘Taking twatness to new places?’ says Ren.

‘He’s a pioneer,’ says Douglas. ‘He discovers places that you didn’t think anyone could be a twat in, and somehow he manages it.’

‘Perhaps he’s built a time machine, and he goes back in time to study his past behaviour,’ says Ren. ‘He observes himself being a twat, and he thinks, that was pretty good, but I could have been even more of twat had I done such-and-such. So he goes back again, replaces his former past self with a new past self, and does the such-and-such instead.’

‘I think he’s just a natural,’ says Garrett.

‘What have you been up to then, Garrett?’ says Miles.

‘I’m writing a book examining global warming from the perspective of a physicist. Not much in it, as far as I can see.’

‘Really?’ says Lily. ‘Isn’t global warming settled fact now?’

‘It’s nothing of the sort,’ says Garrett. ‘Nothing stands up to scrutiny. You should see the dodgy tree ring data. And the computer models that give you a hockey stick whatever data you enter. The constant manipulation of the temperature records. The refusal to release raw data so that other people can analyse it. It’s about as solid as the Nazi’s world ice theory.’

‘You can’t publish that,’ says Miles. ‘You’ll be crucified.’

‘Nonsense,’ says Garrett. ‘It’ll be objective science. No scientist can object to that.’

‘You’re very wide-eyed,’ says Ren. ‘I admire you and I’m not saying don’t do it, I’d like to see it published, but you don’t know what you’re getting yourself in for. It’ll be the end of your career.’

‘But I’m not a right-winger who’s saying this because he wants unrestricted capitalism.’

‘Oh, for fuck’s sake,’ says Ren.

‘I’ve been a member of the Labour party all my life,’ says Garrett, ignoring Ren, ‘that’s no secret, so I’m still on the right side. This will be about science, not politics.’

‘The fact that you said “the right side” is the reason why you should be scared,’ says Ren. ‘Publish it because you’re brave, great. But I hope you’re not going to publish it because you’re an innocent fawn.’

‘You don’t give working scientists enough credit, Ren. You spend too much time looking at all these weirdo scientists when you do your philosophy of science. The rest of us normal scientists can make decisions without politics getting in the way.’

‘Global warming is mostly about politics, Garrett, rather than science. Why do you think it is that the global warming theory, which as you say evaporates under serious scrutiny, has become the mandatory opinion?’

‘Well, we’ll see. I’m not scared.’

‘Nice knowing you,’ says Ren, shaking Garrett’s hand. ‘Finally an Arts guy can say to a Science guy that you need to practise saying “Do you want fries with that?”’

‘Can you get another round Garrett, before you lose all your money?’ says Miles.

‘No, if I’m to be poor, as you seem to think, then you can get the round in.’

A few rounds later on, the sun makes a surprise late burst for record books, and even a blinking Malcom and his Politics stablemates come outside. A toast is made to the end of the teaching for the semester, and to the sun. A bet is held on whether Malcom will shrivel up and die as the rays of the sun hit him. Toasts are made to three of them getting through their probation. A toast is made to Ren for not getting sacked for not doing the TITE. A toast is made to Garrett and his book and his bravery/stupidity. A couple of nearby female Psych students with glowing faces try to lasso Miles with their halos. (This is metaphorical talk; they aren’t wearing fancy-dress.) Gay Jay turns up for one drink, but the student bar isn’t a place he wants to be once teaching has finished, so he doesn’t stay long.

Then the cosmic architect spills some toner across the sky while changing the celestial laser printer’s cartridge. One moment the sun was centre-stage, threatening a spring sunburn for anyone who didn’t respect her, the next moment the electric light bulbs around the bar entrance seem very bright in the gloom.

Despite his incessant talking Ren starts to become abstracted from the scene. He feels himself being drawn back, watching the outside bar scene from a distance, and then his mind is gradually drawn upwards. He can see all of the academics and students of Grayvington at their end-of-term parties all over Baron Heights, and in the surrounding student suburbs, and in Tinfields in the inner city.

He goes higher still, and across the country he sees, lit up, all the University cities and towns. He sees all the University parties that are happening tonight across the land, all full of academics and students drinking and talking in the chipboard student bars and the uncleanable student houses and the soft-lit, tasteful academic homes. There’s Deadly Hedley, the Beagle, trying to get a handsome young male graduate student away from the Longford Philosophy department’s party. There’s Jason at the LSE, boring a bunch of grad students by going on about EU economic policy. (Unfortunately for Ren the female grad student who was thinking of seducing Jason tonight has now changed her mind.) There’s the Grayvington Radical Thinkers Society party, full of students doing nothing but admonishing one another for their wrongthought. There’s Millicent, admonishing herself, as she fends off the advances of a lesbian colleague, for her failure to embrace more correct modes of being. And then admonishing herself some more for her thought that maybe if the colleague was better-looking she might be tempted. There’s Ken and Halberd mingling as normal at a social psych party – they have had to renounce any association with Ren in order to be accepted back into their social psych milieu (their integrity only goes so far.) There’s some cute female Psychology students in a corner at a student party talking and giggling about Miles’s arse, and giving their ratings for the sexual attractiveness of the other male Psychology lecturers. There’s Mika, one of Ren’s old Oxford MCR sparring partners, hosting a party for some fellow thought-dodgers as they plan new ways to protest against the greatest threat to humanity in the modern world: Israel. There’s Violet Wells, at home for the summer break, all alone, who’s swapped staring at the dirty ceiling in her tiny college room for staring at the clean ceiling in her much larger bedroom at her parent’s place. There’s Fitzroy Donleavy, a vague young Philosophy lecturer who Ren knows from conferences, smoking dope and trying to make his ideas understood to his fellow smokers. There’s the TV don Helena Bosquet in her SCR, having a little drinks party where right-thinking members of the TV industry are introduced to right-thinking members of the academy. There’s Lucius Birch, no longer in academia – the story is that he’s become a backroom boy for a mental health charity – drinking at home alone and plotting his revenge on Ren. There’s the VC, Niall Raven, and his gorgeous but bored wife Dymphia, hosting a party at Cathradean Hall for some other VCs, and promising Pro-VCs, and New Labour politicians, and a few Conservatives who are more at home in this company than in their own party. Dymphia is wondering whether any of the guests are worth seducing – there are so many rooms there that Niall would never find her even if he got suspicious and went looking.

Ren wonders how many there are in those parties who are like him. And how many other Garretts are there, prepared to go against the grain on modern shibboleths like global warming? What will happen when Garrett’s book comes out? What will Grayvington be revealed to be like, once the heretic self-exposes? Even in his four years here he can see that Grayvington is becoming even more left-wing. The leftism is of the corporate, progressive type, a smoothed-over type of Cultural Marxism, but it’s still leftism, and dissent from the party line is being gradually squeezed out, like air bubbles trapped behind a sticker of the University being pushed towards the edges with a University purchase card. He gives it ten years – ten years, or maybe fifteen – until the cultural left gets a complete stranglehold on the Universities, as well as more of a grip on society, and individual political opinions are stamped upon. Conquest’s Second Law of Politics has it that every institution that is not explicitly right-wing sooner or later becomes left-wing. That even seems to apply even to institutions that are explicitly right-wing, so left-leaning places like Universities have no chance. Especially Grayvington, with its ruthless New Labour Vice Chancellor, and its sixties expansion departments with their corridors of posters with fists and slogans on them, and its unhappy students who resent the fact that it’s only Grayvington they get to complain about, rather than Oxford or Cambridge.

Until then, though, Ren is content to drift. He drifts through the air from imaginary party to imaginary party, listening in on the conversations, in the same way that the general direction of his life is drifting. For the time being he lets the imaginary astral winds blow him about however they will, while he absent-mindedly fondles the almost-conscious belief that this state of intoxicated pleasure can last for decades while his body and mind stay young and unchanging.

He remains in this trance-like state for an age, until his consciousness spreads out so far that it eventually becomes indistinguishable from unconsciousness, and the tenuous control it has over his body finally breaks. Miles and Douglas take his body – for all they know it may be his former body – via taxi, to Miles’ place, where it is deposited on the floor while Miles and Douglas put on some music and drink whisky. Before they get so drunk that their minds follow Ren’s path, they put a pillow under his head, and a bottle of water next to him, in readiness for his rude awakening tomorrow. For his scattered motes of consciousness will eventually regroup, and will eventually re-animate his creaking, reluctant corpse, and thrust him back into the fray.

 

THE END

The Telegraph’s view, even now, is that we should cave

Hector Drummond Posted on by

The Telegraph’s view shows they haven’t really caught up:

Few prime ministers of recent times have taken office in less propitious circumstances than those facing the winner of the Conservative leadership contest this week. The Brexit imbroglio remains unresolved and the prospect of a conclusion that hardly anyone wants, namely a no-deal departure, is now a real one.

No, most Brexiteers now want No Deal, as they have realised that anything else will sell them out.

Britain appears to have dithered to calamitous effect.

This is a pithy summary of Britain since the 1960s.

This failure needs to be explained

We know the explanation. Since the 1960s the ruling class has had fundamentally different ideas about the country’s direction than everyone else.

a clear focus on what matters to the country is essential. The priority is Brexit and persuading the EU to reopen talks around the Withdrawal Agreement and the Irish backstop.

Insane. The priority is anything but trying to reopen talks about the awful WA and the backstop. The priority is to prepare for a No Deal departure. Seriously, the Telegraph has no more backbone than the Guardian.

Extinction is what they want to do to non-Greens

Hector Drummond Posted on by

Extinction Rebellion get one thing right:

Extinction Rebellion cause nationwide chaos – but claim they aren’t anarchists

This is true. They aren’t anarchists. They’re hard-left statists. They’re causing anarchy temporarily so they can get a quasi-religious iron grip upon the country. They’re about as anarchic as Mao.

The Biscuit Factory Vol. I: Days of Wine and Cheese serialisation. Part 77

Hector Drummond Posted on by

2002-03

Semester 2

Week 10

Friday

 

‘Let’s go outside,’ says Ren.

‘Foucault and Gramsci are kind of similar.’

‘In what way?’

‘But we just got here,’ says Lily.

‘Well, they both, like, try to explain power relations in terms of the, uh, complex mechanisms of society. And, like Gramsci, Foucault views power as a relation of force. A relation of force, right, that can be found only in terms of action.’

‘I think it would be nicer outside,’ says Ren. ‘Better conversation.’

‘But Gramsci sees power relations through the lens of binary oppositions.’

‘What sort of oppositions?’

‘You don’t have to listen to conversations on other tables,’ says Lily.

‘Leaders and the led, the rulers and the ruled, and er… well, that sort of thing. But for Foucault though, power is diffused.’

‘It’s hard not to hear it.’

‘But Gramsci and Foucault, they both make use of Machiavelli’s idea of relations of force. Foucault’s analyses are fundamentally, er…’

‘Fuckdamentally?’ says Ren.

‘Fundamentally based on the notion of power, right? It’s everywhere. Always being produced, all the time, every second.’

Ren pours some salt into his hand. ‘Let’s produce some power,’ he says.

‘But Gramsci’s different. For him power inheres in ideology.’

Ren throws salt in the general direction of Malcom’s table.

‘What the fuck was that?’ says Malcom, rubbing his hair.

‘Just some salt,’ says Ren.

‘Ren, what are you doing?’ says Lily. ‘Don’t be a drunken arse again.’

‘Just wanted to see if you shrivel up and die if you get salt on you,’ says Ren, who decided a while ago that he if he has to behave like Lily expects then she’ll just think him a wimp. And she’s still going out with Jason anyway.

‘Piss off,’ says Malcom. He turns back to his friends. ‘Where were we?’

‘I was going to say that for Gramsci a social group can modify the aggregation of relations to create a hegemonic order,’ says someone who looks like Malcom on beard-and-bullshit steroids.

Lily gives Ren a look.

‘Just a bit of horseplay,’ he says.

Lily thinks of telling Ren to slow down with the drinking, but then she thinks, why should I be the one to spoil the fun? If Ren misbehaves then he can suffer the consequences himself.

‘The sun’s coming out,’ says Douglas. ‘I’m making an executive decision to move outside.’

‘You create power merely by being aware of the complex social network-hegemonic forces within which an individual is situated.’

‘Douglas is creating power,’ says Ren, ‘by his acute awareness of complex social network-hegemonic forces.’

‘And by his masterful decision-making,’ says Lily.

‘Get your coat, Douglas, you’ve scored,’ says Ren. ‘The complex mechanisms of society are yours tonight.’

‘But this issue can’t be resolved without a discussion of Gramsci’s philosophy of praxis,’ says Malcom.

‘Quick,’ hisses Ren. ‘Move it.’

 

When they have found themselves a nice spot on the grass outside the bar, Miles says, ‘Jesus, Malcom talks that sort of shit all the time. He never stops. That’s why I couldn’t do another year of TITE.’

‘Are the Humanities and Social sciences already lost, then?’ asks Douglas.

‘Sociology is beyond repair,’ says Ren. ‘Then again, Sociology was always bad.’

‘Sociology was like the Trojan Horse for this rubbish, wasn’t it?’ says Douglas.

‘Some say English was the original Trojan Horse,’ says Ren. ‘Something so subjective was always bound to get taken over by those with agendas. And I don’t just mean political agendas, I also mean those who wanted to increase the perceived prestige of the people who teach English. If English Lit is just a glorified bookclub, then as the leader of a bookclub group you don’t have much status. But if you link the study of English Lit to the health of civilisation, you make yourself more important. And there’s some justification for that sort of claim. Literature is important. But then the claims get bigger and bigger, and then you find that if you introduce heavy theory from the Continental philosophers that you get even more prestige. You don’t even have to bother talking about novelists and their silly characters any more. Or poets and their boring imagery and rhymes and metre. You can talk about your pet political ideas, dressed up in fancy language, and suddenly you’re like a modern priest. This is also what the Sociologists, and a lot of the Political Scientists, found.’

‘And the Science and Technology Studies people,’ says Douglas.

‘And Film Studies,’ says Miles.

‘And Cultural Studies,’ says Lily.

‘And American and Canadian Studies, and all the languages, and any sort of field that looks at some geographical or cultural area,’ says Ren. ‘And Art History, of course, and even a lot of Theology these days.’

‘And Geography,’ says Douglas.

‘Geography? Really?’ says Miles.

‘Oh yes,’ says Douglas.

‘And everything you say is unfalsifiable,’ says Ren, ‘but you’re preaching to people who haven’t foggiest notion of what that means. And neither do you.’

‘Malcom and his gruesome Politics mates inside the bar definitely seem to have no notion of that,’ says Douglas. ‘I asked Malcom at a TITE class break once what post-structuralism means, because he’d been going on about it, and to explain it he just threw around a lot of other half-baked terms.’

‘And if you asked him to explain those, it would be more of the same,’ says Miles. ‘You can’t ever pin them down to anything concrete.’

‘Speaking of the titty, have you all passed your probation now?’ asks Ren.

‘I have,’ says Douglas.

‘Me too,’ says Lily.

‘And me,’ says Miles.

‘You too, Miles?’ says Ren. ‘How did you pass it? You only did one year of TITE.’

‘I got a letter the other day saying I had passed probation, but that the University expects me to finish the second year of the course at a later stage.’

‘Hah! As if you’re ever going to do that!’ says Ren.

‘Might be a good idea to do it,’ says Lily. ‘If Miles wants to get a job at another University they might want you to have a degree like TITE.’

‘I think I’ll take my chances,’ says Miles. ‘I’m not ever going back into that class again.’

‘So did you not pass probation, Ren?’ asks Lily. ‘You don’t look like you’re going anywhere, though.’

‘His bags are packed and in his office. He has to be off-campus by midnight tonight or security will throw him out,’ says Miles.

‘My letter said that I have passed probation, subject to me passing the first year of the TITE. Not the whole thing, any more, at least. But until I do a year of it I’m still on probation.

‘So how is the University treating you now over Lucius?’ says Lily.

‘They still haven’t decided whether I’m a hero or a villain. They’re not kicking me out for not doing TITE. So I won that battle. Sort of. But they’re not letting me off TITE either. I stay in probation limbo until I’ve done a year of it.’

‘So are you going to do it?’ says Lily.

‘No.’

‘But you don’t want to stay on probation forever. You’re more vulnerable to being sacked if you’re still on probation. Even quasi-probation. You want to get made permanent.’

‘I just need to get promoted. Then my probation will be removed.’

‘Are you sure about that? Maybe they’ll stop you being promoted until you’ve passed probation.’

‘That’s not what I’ve been told. There’s nothing in the contract about that. I’ve been told that you can become Senior Lecturer even if you’re still on probation, and if you’re promoted then probation is considered to have been achieved.’

‘Are you likely to get promoted soon?’ says Douglas.

‘A year or two. I’m publishing loads.’

‘Still in philosophy of science?’

‘Metaphysics and philosophy of science, as I have often told you.’

‘Sorry, my mind just blocks the term “metaphysics” for some reason.’

‘I’ve published more in three years than most philosophers publish in a lifetime. Not doing TITE has helped with that, it’s given me more time. Although it’s mostly to do with innate genius.’

‘How have you managed to publish anything?’ says Douglas. ‘You’re always drunk.’

‘I’m always drunk when I see you, because those are get-togethers for the express purpose of drinking. I’m not always drunk when I’m working in my office.’

‘He’s only drunk sometimes in his office,’ says Miles.

‘Are you one of those academics who pretend they do no work, who get publications without even trying, but secretly you’re beavering away day and night to get things out?’ says Douglas.

‘I don’t pretend I do no work,’ says Ren. ‘You’re under an illusion about that because of the social circumstances you mostly see me in.’

‘Yeah,’ says Miles, ‘Ren balances things nicely. One hour of working. Then one hour of drinking. Then one hour of working. Then another hour of drinking. And so on.’

‘I think there are lots of the opposite type of academic,’ says Lily.

‘You mean one hour of drinking, and then one hour of working?’ says Miles. ‘That’s more my style.’

‘I mean the academic who makes out that they work a lot, but really they do very little.’

‘I think Bill Porterfield in my department is like that,’ says Ren. ‘Every time I see him he says he’s so busy, got so much on, so much admin, so many papers he’s working on, but he never seems to do anything. And he has a light admin load.’

‘How come you’re publishing so much, Ren, when you claim that Philosophy is not even what you want to do in life?’ asks Douglas. ‘What’s motivating you to put so much after-hours work in?’

‘I figured that if I was going to be stuck in Philosophy for a while then I might as well put in a few years hard work and get myself onto the next salary band. Then I can coast in comfort while I work out how to get myself out.’

‘Sounds to me like a recipe for getting yourself further entrapped,’ says Lily.

‘He’s too lazy to work out what he really should be doing,’ says Miles.

‘So you’re saying I’m working hard because I’m lazy?’ says Ren.

‘Yes,’ says Miles. ‘It’s also avoidance.’

‘Avoidance of what?’

‘Avoidance of a lot of things,’ says Miles. ‘Do you want me to list them?’

I’ll just die if they find out that Daddy was rich

Hector Drummond Posted on by

You will, of course, have heard of the latest absurd Kate Winslet comment:

Kate Winslet has told of her relief at discovering that her ancestors were peasants, saying she would have been “upset and disgusted” to have come from wealth.

You hardly need me to point out how ridiculous this is, so I thought I would instead pass on a story that indicates just how much attitudes have changed.

You remember Laurie Lee and his book Cider With Rosie? All about his childhood experiences growing up with his poverty-stricken family? His older brother Jack Lee , later a successful film director and producer, was mortified by this portrait of their family, because it depicted what a poor background he came from. In those days that was something to be embarrassed about – perhaps not ashamed, but embarrassed.

Nowadays we have the complete opposite, where people are ashamed (or pretend they are ashamed) to have come from a family that managed to do well. I don’t think either attitude is healthy. It’s just very disappointing that we have gone, as with so many other things, from one extreme to another.

(Of course there are still some social circles where coming from a rich background is regarded as a good thing – there’s a certain local private school near me where the boys definitely have that attitude – but generally the attitude amongst the fashionable classes is the opposite.)

Update:

“People never believe me, but my children aren’t over-privileged. We just don’t live like that. They are very balanced. Humble.” Winslet has three children, the youngest with Edward Abel Smith, nephew of Sir Richard Branson and previously known as Ned Rocknroll.

She’s so humble she married a man who called himself ‘ Ned Rocknroll’. She’s so anti-money she married the nephew of Richard Branson, who is famously poor.

Funny how they always leave the important bit out…

Hector Drummond Posted on by

From a Telegraph article about the moon landing:

In 1966, 20,000 different companies were working on Apollo. Different companies handled different parts of the job, which all had to operate in concert …

 

Kevin Fong points out one of the great contradictions of this, given the culture war between American democracy and Soviet communism, “This is all supposed to be about the capacity of the individual to succeed against the communist ideal of collectivism, but actually Apollo is almost the greatest symbol of collective endeavour that America has ever had.”

This isn’t right. Communism is about forced collectivism. A free society involves voluntary collectivism. Or voluntary individualism. Either is fine in a free society. The point is the voluntary versus forced bit, not collectivism versus individualism. This is a mistake that writers and intellectuals and members of the great and the good make time and time again. Something in their mind, some residual attraction to Communism, some half-conscious hostility to the idea of freedom for everyone, some latent desire to be in charge of writing the rules, prevents them from ever acknowledging, or at least presenting, the matter clearly and accurately, so they end up repeating the lie that collective action is not part of freedom.

Coalditz

Hector Drummond Posted on by

I’m right behind all these people who want the coal mines opened again. Open all the old ones, and hundred new ones, I say! Ignore the climate change objections, they’re bollocks.

Only question is… who’s going to work in them? Most of the old miners have got better jobs now, and they ain’t going back. (I know a few of them, and while they loved the mining community they had at the time, they’d rather shoot you than let you take them underground again). Or else they’re happy living on the disability and watching their big screens.

Young people? Are you serious? Can you really see pampered millenials having to get their hands dirty, working long days underground? Not when there’s welfare money rolling in.

Immigrants? Some of them work hard, true, but those ones have jobs in the service sector. They’re not going underground. The rest hang around on street corners all day, doing nothing much. They’re not going underground either.

There’s kind of picture building up here, isn’t there? Group X is not going underground. Group Y isn’t either. Z? Nope. Even butch lesbians who go on endlessly about how they’re as good as men at everything aren’t going to copy that particular male occupation. No-one is. Perhaps a few hardy salt-of-the-Earth working-class Northern lads who haven’t gone soft, but generally… no-one.

So you can open as many mines as you like, and you could fill the cushier surface admin jobs ten times over, but you’ll never get enough people to do the digging for a wage that makes the mines profitable.

(Not that it will happen anyway, as Greta will never allow it.)

Update: The real reason why coal mining can never be allowed to happen again – it’s racist:

A coal miner auditioning for a part in the Black and White Minstrel Show. He has since been arrested and is now interned for life in a high security prison for terminal racists.

Just eat what you want

Hector Drummond Posted on by

This is from the New Scientist:

(via Christopher Snowdon).

Update: Obviously you need vitamins and minerals to avoid getting conditions like scurvy and pellagra. Calcium for good bones. And if you eat too much you risk getting overweight (although as Jim says in the comments, genetics plays a big role in this). But as far as living a longer life goes, what you eat doesn’t matter that much, as long as you get enough calories, and get the basics.

Quote of the Day

Hector Drummond Posted on by

From Ducky McDuckface in the comments:

[Ross Clark in the Telegraph:] “While Oswald Mosley may have gained some traction in the 1930s, he never came remotely close to power.”

Oh, really?

[From Wikipedia:]

“Mosley then made a bold bid for political advancement within the Labour Party. He was close to Ramsay MacDonald and hoped for one of the great offices of state, but when Labour won the 1929 general election he was appointed only to the post of Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, a position without Portfolio and outside the Cabinet. He was given responsibility for solving the unemployment problem, but found that his radical proposals were blocked either by his superior James Henry Thomas or by the Cabinet.

 

Mosley was always impatient and eventually put forward a whole scheme in the “Mosley Memorandum”, which called for high tariffs to protect British industries from international finance, for state nationalisation of main industries, and for a programme of public works to solve unemployment. However, it was rejected by the Cabinet, and in May 1930 Mosley resigned from his ministerial position. At the time, the weekly Liberal-leaning paper The Nation described his move: “The resignation of Sir Oswald Mosley is an event of capital importance in domestic politics… We feel that Sir Oswald has acted rightly — as he has certainly acted courageously — in declining to share any longer in the responsibility for inertia.”[15] In October he attempted to persuade the Labour Party Conference to accept the Memorandum, but was defeated again. Thirty years later, in 1961, Richard Crossman described the memorandum: “… this brilliant memorandum was a whole generation ahead of Labour thinking.””

Remarkable.

 

Tommy Robinson’s treatment proves that governments don’t change much

Hector Drummond Posted on by

Amazing garbage from the Telegraph about Tommy Robinson:

One might imagine that a man of Robinson’s beliefs would want to stick to British help rather than the imported variety. But that misses an important fact about the hard Right in Britain. It is reliant on overseas help because there are so few people in Britain who want anything to do with it. While the Guardian and others might like to claim otherwise, Britain has been remarkably resistant to far-Right politics.

 

The filthy pond in which neo-fascist politicians must fish in the UK is tiny compared to that in most countries.

Tommy Robinson is a fascist, apparently. Never mind what he actually says. Ross Clark is not going to let you see any of that that. Not a word. Never mind what was really revealed in his trial. Ross Clark is not going to let you any of the details of that either. None at all. Ross Clark is just going to leave you with the impression that Tommy Robinson is some Hitler-worshipping white supremacist, a modern-day Oswald Mosley, who we should all forget about as soon as possible:

While Oswald Mosley may have gained some traction in the 1930s, he never came remotely close to power. It was P G Wodehouse who captured his true place in British society, by lampooning him as Roderick Spode in his brown shorts – a down-at-heel aristocrat in desperate need for attention whose antics leave conservative-minded English folk bewildered.

The lies that people are telling – even people I thought were decent, like Ross Clark – about Tommy Robinson, and the way he’s been treated, are horrifying. I know I’ve been warning about this for years, but it’s still frightening to see it in action.

The Biscuit Factory Vol. I: Days of Wine and Cheese serialisation. Part 76

Hector Drummond Posted on by

2002-03

Winter break

End of January

Monday

 

The phone rings in Ren’s office.

‘You’ve really fucked things up now,’ says Miles’ voice.

‘What?’

‘The department are making me teach Social Psychology.’

‘Oooh. Nasty. How’s Lucius?’

‘Gone.’

‘Gone?’

‘Completely gone. He’s either been sacked or jumped. Nobody knows which at this point. But he is, in effect, no longer a member of the Psychology Department.

‘Poor Lucius. If he’d only managed to avoid having his innovative methods being detected for another five or so years he would have been all right, because by then that sort of data-collecting methodology will be compulsory in Psychology.’

‘And I wouldn’t have to take his Social Psychology class, on top of everything else I have, with only a week to get ready for it. And guess what? I’m still marking fucking exams. And guess what? I have another one hundred and seventy exams to mark, coming in on Wednesday. How is doing all of this achievable?’

‘At least your exams don’t take as long as mine do to mark. We’re in this impossible situation where you are supposed to properly read and re-read an exam in a ridiculously short time, and your classes start again the Monday after the last exam on Friday. You must get your exam marks in ASAP, by yesterday morning before nine, preferably the day before yesterday, but you must take care to mark each exam thoroughly and carefully. If I’d wanted an impossible job I would have gone down a fucking rabbit hole. You know how long it takes just to decipher the hand-writing in some cases?’

‘You should see some of the hand-writing I have to deal with,’ says Miles.

‘And then you have to decipher whatever the fuck the student is on about. And essays are even worse because they’re longer and more rambling and just when you think you have some time to do some research a big batch of them comes in and then you have to write long, insightful comments on every one. I must have done something bad in a previous life to have to spend so much time every term marking endless reams of undergraduate drivel.’

‘You’ve done enough bad things in your current life to justify any amount of torture, mate.’

‘You think you can’t go on, it’s 3am, and you look at your pile, and you’ve still got eighty left.’

‘It does my head in after a while,’ says Miles. ‘After about four I need a lie-down in a dark room. Then I start wishing that I worked on a building site instead. Sunshine, sports talk, physical work, that’s what I need.’

‘I usually look at the classifieds during every marking period,’ says Ren. ‘But I’d only end up a high school teacher, which would be even worse.

‘Or working for a funding body, which would be like a really crappy type of academic job, without the prestige.’

‘Hang on,’ says Ren. ‘Lucius was suspended, or given a sabbatical, however you want to put it, a week or so ago. Shouldn’t they have assigned someone to Social Psych at that point?’

‘They should have, yes, but they’re hopeless at making decisions. Wouldn’t have made much difference, I’ve had to spend the whole week marking, and couldn’t have prepared anyway.’

‘So when are you going to prepare? When’s the first class?’

‘Monday of next week.’

‘Blimey. So you’ll get like, Sunday evening to mug up on a whole field of Psychology?’

‘Yeah. Mind you, it won’t be hard will it, considering that the whole field seems to be based on nothing but the conviction that everyone’s a racist, consciously or unconsciously. Seriously. I’m not joking. That does seem to be the underlying insight, insight in quote marks, of the whole field. We’re all racists, and sexists, and our behaviour is driven by crude stereotypes. And there are so many influential papers in the field that look very dodgy to me. I wonder how many other Luciuses there are in Social Psychology? It’s enough to turn me into you.’

‘There are advantages to that, like the enormous cock, and the genius in varied fields that could be put to use one day, not to mention the fact that I’ve got a new hi-tech squash racquet. Are there any lecture notes, or overheads, from previous years that you can use?’

‘No. And Lucius isn’t going to give me anything now, is he?’

‘So, any idea what’s happened to Lucius?’

‘Last person to talk to him says that Lucius claimed, in an unconvincing fashion, that he was innocent. He seemed very rattled, and shifty, apparently. And then said he was going off to take his sabbatical, yes, he was still talking about a sabbatical, in Wales with his new girlfriend for a few weeks to start with. He refused to say anything more.’

‘But you said he’s gone for good?’

‘Yes, the Head told us a day after this happened that Lucius no longer works for the department. He wouldn’t say anything more. I presume that also means he no longer works for the University in general, because I doubt they’ve offered him an alternative job in the kitchens. Of course, everyone in the department, everyone in British psychology, is talking about his work, and poring over it. Suddenly, it seems, it was always obvious that his data was fake, even though some of the people now saying this had previously acclaimed Lucius for his fantastic work. Has Robot spoken to you about…?’

‘About the press conference esclandre? Yes, he was very pissed off with me, as usual, but I told him that I heard about the press conference at the last minute, and went for a listen. Then Lucius start libelling me in public, to the press, so I had to say something. He wasn’t happy about me producing that train station letter, but I told him I got that recently, which I did. And the University hadn’t seemed very interested in my help in the investigation anyway.’

‘So are you in the clear? Is he just jealous because you got your picture in the papers?’

‘Well, as I said, he’s pissed off with me. He’s always pissed off with me. I’m getting fucking sick of it, frankly. He walks around like he’s got a mouthful of wasps. He disapproves of lots of other members of the department as well, of course, it’s not just me, but it’s like the sight of me pains him every time he sees me. I could respect that if he had some achievements to his name, and an admirable character, but he doesn’t. He’s an all-round nothing. So fuck him. There’s not much he can do to me over this. It won’t look good if they try to do anything to me after I’ve exposed Lucius.’

‘How long do you think before the media works out that Lucius has been sacked, or quit?’

‘If it gets discussed on the Psychology internet forums then not long.’

‘Maybe they’ll run another picture of you?’

‘If they call me I’m going to say that most of the hard work was done by a couple of graduate students. I won’t say who, though, because I don’t think they want the attention, at least not at this stage when everything’s feverish.’

Quote of the Day

Hector Drummond Posted on by

Aaron Lake Smith:

The Soviet Union, it must be remembered, was a regime founded by freelance writers and editors. In other words, a nightmare.

Nice. And there’s more:

Pamphleteers, autodidactic theoreticians, critics, publishers of small journals, hot-­take artists, takedown artists, and failed poets who’d reinvented themselves as labor organizers—fractious and at constant war with one another, literary people through and through.