Meryl Streep movie is Rubbish

Politaholic has just seen the Meryl Streep Thatcher movie and it is garbage. It isn't that is pro-Thatcher, of course it is. It is that there is virtually no politics in it. The little bit of politics there is in it is comic book. For the most part it is about an old lady suffering from dementia, it could be any old lady really. It has little to do with Thatcher. If I were a Thatcheritre I would think this a movie that demeaned her. Of course the Thatcherites love it, because they think it will rehabilitate the evil old bag.

Meryl is obviously a diva big time. Hardly anyone else gets any screen time; Richard E Grant plays Heseltine: blink and you will miss him. It's all about Meryl. The only other actor given any screen time is Jim Broadbent doing his genial old buffer routine - he has done it as Mr Iris Murdoch, Mr Mary Whitehouse and God knows who else. It's wearing a bit thin. Meryl of course is always Meryl - there is no suspension of disbelief, you never believe for a second that this is Thatcher, always that this is Meryl acting Thatcher (isn't she good? no, not if she can't disappear behind her character, not if you never for a single moment forget that this is Meryl being Thatcher). For me Lindsay Duncan as Thatcher was excellent; miles and miles better than this crap (and Lindsay Duncan's was not an entirely unsympathetic portrait, a more complex one perhaps). The other thing about the Streep movie is the screenplay. God it's awful.

Now I did see a really good movie. The Artist. If you don't see this you are really missing something exceptional.

How Corrupt is UK Government?

The recent reports of the top-nobs at the tax inspectorate hob-nobbing with CEO's of big companies before agreeing how much tax they should pay has raised this question in my mind. What is the answer? Here are my thoughts:

1. Human nature being what is is corruption is unavoidable, everywhere in the world it goes on. Doh!
2. But some countries are more corrupt than others (also Doh!) - for example, I am reliably informed by colleagues familiar with Pakistan that this is simply how things are done there. If you want a visa, or a driving licence, or whatever, the way to get it done quickly is to grease palms, fail to do so and it takes months, if you ever get it. That kind of thing is not common in the UK.
3. By comparison with a lot of other countries UK politics is reasonably clean - some of the overseas students I teach are surprised to learn, for example, that a government Minister had to resign for fast tracking a visa for his lover's nanny. That it just so "small potatoes".
4. And yet....perhaps the impression we have that the UK is relatively free of corruption is because so much of what - on a broader definition of the word - is "corrupt" is also perfectly legal. It seems (if Margaret Hodge is to believed) that the tax bosses broke no law, although they may not have adhered to their own guidelines. But it looks iffy to me. The "revolving door" syndrome (where ex-Ministers and ex-civil servants turn up on the boards of companies with which they have had dealings in government) is on any common-sensical definition of the word "corrupt" but again quite legal (I am thinking also of a former top copper who was/is cosy with News International and whose recent evidence before a Select Committee was brazen insolence). Or take PFI (and the preferred bidders) - and there is a revolving door here as well - all quite legal and in my view quite corrupt. Finally, it is interesting is it not that although there have been prosecutions and convictions of corrupt bankers in the USA there has been not one, not a solitary one, in the UK. That is not how things are done here. I wonder also if the old T. Dan Smith type of thing still goes on in local government (when the supermarket chain got permission to build the mega-store did the members of the local council planning committee find their bank balances inflated?). Another example: some years ago Politaholic experienced a spell of unemployment and was sent to a private company which was commissioned by, I suppose, the DHSS, to run what are essentially job-clubs. What a scam! For each unemployed person, sitting around all day in what is essentially day-time detention, the company received a generous stipend (at taxpayers expense). Those running it appeared very cosy with those who commissioned it.
5. I am only aware of one scandal actually linking a former senior politician to organised crime but I suppose it is wise to say no more.
6. I suppose these sorts of things - privatisation scams, revolving door corruption - go on in other countries too. I think the UK is certainly less corrupt than the USA, or Italy, or Bulgaria, or Pakistan, or....
7. But even so, perhaps there is more of it than we like to think. Its just that much of it is legal.

Hillary Clinton: We - the USA - came...

There are two notable features here: (i) the staggering vulgarity of it (ii) the mask slips - "We came...". We being the USA. Precisely.

Lynching of Black Migrant Workers in Libya

A few days ago the Guardian carried an article by Richard Seymour about the lynching of black migrant workers by Libyan rebels. It appears that the rumour that black mercenaries were fighting for Gadaffi is without foundation; but is providing the"justification" for the attacks on African migrant workers. It is Seymour's argument that the Libyan revolution has, essentially, been hijacked by domestic and foreign elites (the NTC is composed of "the former regime notables, businessmen and professionals, as well as exiles" and the military campaign has been orchestrated by NATO).

The Bloody Assizes

Following the imprisonment of a woman who slept soundly throughout the riots but accepted a pair of stolen shorts comes the imprisonment of a man - who had spent his last £4 on alcohol and presumably had nothing to eat - for stealing doughnuts. My feeling is that the public mood is changing. There is no sympathy for the rioters, especially those who engaged in actual violence. But the vindictiveness of the sentencing vis-a-vis those not involved in violence (those guilty of petty opportunist theft from high street stores)- and the departure from previous norms - is being noticed, and especially the contrast with the treatment of those at the top. The MP's have largely "got away with it", the bankers have got way with it, the police who took money from the News of the World have got away with it, and so far the phone hackers have got away with it. I don't believe that Andy Coulson knew nothing about phone hacking by the NoW - I don't think any sensible person thinks this - and I don't believe that when Cameron employed Coulson that he - Cameron - believed that Coulson knew nothing about it. Cameron believed Coulson would get away with it, so he would get away with employing him. People can see this hypocrisy.

ADDENDUM

In October 2010 a man with defective eyesight driving a 32-ton tipper truck knocked down and killed a 30-year old cyclist. He was fined £200 by Kingston magistrates court. Just as well he didn't steal a doughnut.

A "sense of entitlement"?

According to Boris Johnson an - unjustified - "endless sense of entitlement" is apparently one cause of the riots. Not something you'll find on the Tory front bench.

P.S. That's Alexander Boris de Pfellel Johnson, Eton and Oxford, former member of the Bullingdon Club.

Henry Porter raises the taboo question

Henry Porter in The Observer raises the taboo question (the first time I have seen it aired) only to dismiss it: "...some even believe the Met held back to make their point about the effect of government cuts. This cannot be true..." Can't it?

Already the pressure to exempt the police from the cuts is building. The Government is - so far - resisting (in private they are probably furious with the police), but I expect (another) U-Turn.

Mind you, the riots have helped the Tories: they wiped the Hacking scandal off the front pages and have boosted a "law-and-order" lock-em-up-and-throw-away-the-key agenda.

Wandsworth Council meanwhile appear to have opted for Israeli-style collective punishment. They have served an eviction notice on the mother of an 18 year old boy accused (but not yet convicted) of violent disorder and attempted theft. Why leave it at that? Does he have grandparents?

Police "industrial action"?

Is Politaholic alone in thinking that part of what is going on is a spot of - highly effective - industrial action by the Knackers (eager not to bear their share of public service cuts)? Inspect a lot of talk from Cameron (supported by Miliband) about more support for front-line policing.

Murdoch's Strategy

Murdoch's strategy will, I think, be as follows:

1. Play for time (if Cameron persists in pushing the judicial inquiry into the distance that will help)

2. Widen the net (if it turns out that the Mail, Express, Mirror, etc, were all up to the same tricks that will lessen the pressure on News International.

3. Specious justifications - The Sun, for example, is apparently arguing that its motivation for publishing the story about Gordon Brown's child was to raise public awareness of cystic fibrosis (rubbish).

4. The take-over of BSkyB may have to be postponed to another day; in the meantime The News of The World can be re-launched as The Sun on Sunday.

5. A few token heads may have to roll.

The Evil Empire is in trouble but sadly it is, I think, not the end.

Also: a judicial inquiry may not be the remedy everyone thinks; even now Cameron will be looking for a Hutton-esque "safe pair of hands".

Two gems: (1) A letter in The Guardian giving some advice to Rebecca Brooks: "If the Murdoch's suggest a yachting holiday: don't go" (2) Keith Vaz summing up the police's rather inadequate efforts: "More Clouseau than Columbo". But then which former Commissioner of the Met was it who said it would be a fine thing: "If the police arrested more criminals than it employs"? Setting the bar low, but a bit too high for the Met.

Thank God That's Over

The Guardian had 5-6 pages of royal garbage yesterday. God help us. Politaholic managed to avoid most of the rubbish, but it was impossible to do so completely. Is anyone opening a book on how long it is before the divorce, or the first tabloid-sensation extra-curricular?

The AV Campaign

There has been quite a lot of comment about the pathetic campaigns run by both the "No" and "Yes" camps. The two broadcasts I have seen treat the voters, essentially, as idiots. The "Yes" people seem to think that AV would have avoided the MP's expenses scandal - which is ludicrous. One of the most egregious cases (admittedly one end of a spectrum) was that of the former MP for Barnsley Central, but in that constituency Eric Illsley would have been elected under AV (in 2005 Illsley got 61% of the vote). The broadcast by the "No" campaign was, if possible, even more infantile.

In British Columbia there was a referendum on whether to introduce STV in 2005 (there was a majority in favour but less than 60% so another referendum was held in 2008 and STV was defeated). Below is a link to an animation produced by the pro-STV group. OK it is one-sided, it puts the "Yes" argument. But just compare the quality of this - which explains the system and sets out an argument - with the puerile, infantile, insulting rubbish broadcast by both sides in the 2011 AV referendum.

See THIS: BC-STV