Mark Steel: Time to inflict pain on the terminally ill

How do YOU suggest we cut the deficit then? You'll be asked this if you ever oppose a cost-cutting scheme, such as merging the sewer system with the library service or something. So here's one answer, we could pay a bit less to ATOS, a company that receives £100m a year from the Government for assessing who should be cut off from disability benefit.

The method they choose is to interview each claimant, asking them a series of questions such as, "Do you look after your own pets?" Because clearly if someone can feed a hamster they're capable of driving a fork-lift truck. Another is "Do you cry?" If you do, you're probably told it's all very well being depressed but there's no reason why you can't get a job imitating actresses who've won an Oscar, or hiring yourself out to appear at funerals to make it seem the deceased knew more people than they did.
During this questioning the interviewer taps the answers into their computer, which makes an automatic calculation as to whether the claimant loses their benefit. This is so much quicker as a method of assessing health than the old-fashioned way of examining someone.

Hospitals should follow this example. Instead of faffing about with X-rays and stethoscopes, the consultant could say, "Which do you prefer, pizza or a curry? Who would you rather have to dinner out of Fearne Cotton and Dermot O'Leary? OK, let's see what the computer says – aah, you've got gallstones."

Maybe the plan is to turn the whole process into a radio panel show called "Fit on the Fiddle", in which claimants answer the questions from a panel including regular captain Gyles Brandreth. One man who might as well have done this was Larry Newman, who attended an ATOS interview with a terminal lung disease, when he could hardly breathe. So he took his medical records and ATOS ignored them, preferring their method of asking questions.

They decided there was nothing wrong with him so his benefit was cut, and a few weeks later, as the hospital attached a ventilator he'd have to wear permanently, with splendid jollity he said to his wife: "Still, at least I'm fit for work." He died a few weeks later, and I expect if his wife took him in again now they'd still say there was nothing wrong with him and send him for an interview to be a town crier.

Still, the cuts have to be made somewhere so I suppose it's only fair that the brunt of them should fall on the terminally ill. But here's where it gets complicated. The ATOS system has worked so well that in the past three years 160,000 people have successfully appealed against their decision. So from now on perhaps they'll use a more reliable method, such as rolling two dice and anyone who gets eight or over loses their money. Or they could still call people in for interviews but do three at a time while the assessor lines them up and goes, "Ip dip dog shit, you are not it", and the loser has to crawl to the job centre.

The trouble is that these tribunals have cost £30m (and you'll laugh at this bit), and that money is paid by the Government, out of taxes. So they still get paid the £100m, out of taxes, and all the mistakes are paid for out of more taxes.

It's like a minicab firm that always takes you in the wrong direction, but you still have to pay them, then they charge you again to bring you back where you started. And to complete the analogy, on the way home they run someone over and shout: "If you can stroke a cat there's nothing wrong with you", as the victim is carried into the ambulance.

So here's my suggestion. On live television ATOS are called in for an interview by a panel of disabled people, who ask them to mime looking after their pet, then assess whether they're entitled to still get £100m or have to go and get a proper job.

Wednesday, 27 July 2011

Mark Steel: Protest scenes that left Benghazi in the shade

From the way the news has been since Saturday, I expect this week's episode of Gardeners' Question Time to go: "Before answering the question about Mister Dibley's crocus, do the panel condemn the violence we saw in Oxford Street? Well come on, do you? DO YOU?"

By tomorrow the Shipping Forecast will go: "Rockall, gales, South-Westerly, Oxford Street, paint, hurled at windows, force nine, shocking, sickening, I condemn, utterly".

This would make more sense than the interview on Newsnight with a woman from UK Uncut, who was asked if she condemned the violence. She said she couldn't speak for UK Uncut as a whole, as she was an artist who liked to create spaces of thoughts opposing the cuts, so she was asked the same question five more times and then they had a look at the next day's papers.

Or there was the reporter on the day of the march who gasped about shocking scenes, including, "people running down the street". And to confirm this, we did indeed see wobbly film of about six people running down a street. I hope he doesn't watch coverage of the London marathon or he'll hide under the bed convinced it's an armed uprising. Then he told us there was evidence "just over here" of the devastation caused, so the camera followed him and found an upturned bin. There didn't seem to be any litter around it, because even violent anarchist nihilist balaclava'd maniacs wouldn't go so far as to upturn a bin with rubbish in it, but even so, I bet anyone watching from Benghazi must have thought: "This certainly puts our trifles in the shade".

Hundreds of columns have been written condemning the violence, such as the one that declared that the march made children cry, because "the vicious expressions on the faces of the demonstrators" were full of "palpable snarling hatred". Surely we need legislation to prevent this happening again such as a "Palpable Expression Bill", in which the police are given powers to detain demonstrators who snarl – though to protect human rights it will still be permissible to grimace.

I saw quite a bit of the march, and it seemed to be full of singing and cheering and drumming, but obviously I was lucky and missed the bit where people gave out leaflets saying, "The only way forward for this movement is to make children cry". 

Then there was the barbarity of occupying Fortnum & Mason. Luckily there was a BBC reporter in the middle of it, who could bravely relay the events. Asked how the occupation was affecting shoppers, she said: "Customers are taking pictures and looking a bit bemused". So thank the Lord the protesters were arrested, or how many more might have ended up with Post-Trauma-Camera-Confusion-Syndrome? "Has there been any damage to property?" she was asked. She replied: "There is a banner that's been placed in front of a wedding cake, saying 'Closed by UK Uncut'". You can't help but feel there might be an element of snobbery in the outrage, as there probably wouldn't be as much fuss if protesters occupied a pound shop in Rotherham, with 138 arrests and a shopkeeper quoted as saying: "My main fear was for the dishcloths".

For the hundreds of thousands who were there, all this will probably have little bearing on how they saw the day. Because this was very much a trade union demonstration, made up of people who will return to work, lifted by the sense they are not on their own in opposing the cuts, but part of a huge crowd. But who knows what the Government makes of it all, because Andrew Gimson, biographer of Boris Johnson, reported about the Bullingdon Club of which Johnson and David Cameron were members: "I don't think an evening would have ended without a restaurant being trashed." Look carefully under those balaclavas and they're probably there, going: "Just like old times, eh".

The Independent Wednesday, 30 March 2011

Mark Steel: The caring, sharing way to bad times

Mark Steel

The first troubling side to the Big Society is no one can explain what it means. You might not agree with them, but at least policy initiatives such as the Five-Year Plan, Thousand-Year Reich or Holy Jihad were clear and got their point across. But ministers explain the Big Society with statements such as, "It's a brave optimism vision that instead of statedom fills a voluntary doingness not interferencing and oooh it will be so BIG and, 'Neighbours, [sings] everybody needs good neighbours', and I'm excited let's deliver more chickens to old people."

They might as well say "David Cameron has always believed passionately in his vision of a Giant Whatnot. And believe me, once you see doings, all our lives will be transformed by that whatnot." But it is used to justify their cuts. So they're not just shutting things down to save money, they're helping us out. Now instead of being stifled by the state providing services, we can have all the fun of volunteering to run them ourselves in our spare time.

Libraries, for example, must be one of the best examples of society, paid for communally, in which everyone has access to books, newspapers and computers. So a Big Society would surely build more of them; but instead it's shutting hundreds down, presumably because we're all sick of the stifling nannying ways of the library service.

All you get from them is, "Borrow this, look up that", but at last that dictatorship is coming to an end, to be replaced with a voluntary system in which people will ask a neighbour for a book about the local canal system in 1817, and when told they haven't got it, they'll be free to give up.

And this system can be applied everywhere. If we have a heart attack, we won't rely on the bureaucratic NHS as the cardiac unit will have been sold off for flats, so we'll enjoy the voluntary aid of a local Methodist who can pray for us, or, if we're not religious, get the man over the road to rub ointment on our chest. Yesterday, as the Big Society was being paraded by the Government, Manchester Council announced that its £109m cut will force it to close down nurseries, youth centres, sports halls and every public toilet except for one.

Instead the Big Society will cover all that, I suppose. Nurseries will be replaced by volunteers who say, "You don't know me, but I'll take your toddlers off yer hands. Now then, who likes having fun with fire?"

Zoos and city farms will be freed from Government funding, and replaced by a scheme called "Wild Animals in the Community". This voluntary initiative will mean children can view beasts every day, as lions sit under a cashpoint machine going, "Excuse me mate, you got a spare zebra?"

But if Cameron really believes the voluntary Big Society provides better services, then why doesn't he apply it to Government institutions he doesn't want to cut, such as the Army? If he's right, then the defence budget should be halved, and regiments in Afghanistan replaced by volunteers in yellow jackets, wandering through Helmand province saying, "Now then you holy warriors, instead of blowing yourselves up at a police station let's see you tidy up a few of these roadside bombs, then we can sit down with a Thermos for some well earned tea and muffins." 

And yet the idea of every citizen helping each other in their community does seem to be on the increase as a result of the Big Society campaign.

For example, last Saturday was Save Our Libraries day, when every threatened library was packed with hundreds of people protesting against the closures. There were kids carrying placards, mums making speeches, and residents who've never done such a thing before pledging to defend the community. Cameron must be delighted, as presumably this is exactly the sort of voluntary neighbourly action he had in mind. 

The Independent Wednesday, 9 February 2011

Shock therapy for the NHS By Russell Razzaque

 

It’s called “the shock doctrine” and it originated in the University of Chicago over fifty years ago. It was designed by a group of economists headed by right wing ideologue Milton Friedman. They possessed an almost religious belief in an unregulated, laissez faire, free market utopia and their idea was simple; the best way to introduce whole system privatization and an unfettered free market in any arena is through chaos. Though its origins were academic, it is a methodology that has been applied practically on numerous occasions around the globe in recent years. But, with disastrous consequences each time. Still, evidence never inhibits a zealot.

Just after the collapse of the Soviet Union, these same economists travelled to the former communist bloc and advised Yeltsin that the system needed “shock therapy”. They persuaded him to sell off virtually the entire slate of state industries in one go. Even Thatcher took eleven years to privatize a relatively small chunk of the UK economy, but the Russians – following the path of shock therapy – did it overnight by issuing share vouchers to individual citizens. People suddenly lost their job security, state incomes, benefits and pensions, and instead walked round with certificates which meant nothing to them. So they sold them to the few in the system (often former KGB or Communist Party officials) who had some money at bargain basement prices; and thus, virtually overnight, a whole class of Oligarchs was born. Russia, as we well know, has since been rife with inequality and the inevitable corruption that ensued in the wake of such a crippled state.

Modern history is littered with further examples of the application of the shock doctrine. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina when almost 2,000 people lost their lives and many thousands more lost their homes, schools and livelihoods, the free market ideologues descended again. The Friedmanite American Enterprise Institute enthused that “Katrina accomplished in a day … what Louisiana school reformers couldn’t do after years of trying”. They insisted that instead of spending a portion of the billions of dollars of reconstruction money on rebuilding and improving New Orleans’ existing public school system, the government should provide families with vouchers, which they could spend at private institutions. Public school teachers called Friedman’s plan “an educational land grab”. Observing what appeared to be a very deliberate strategy, journalist Naomi Klein coined the phrase “disaster capitalism”, referring to, “orchestrated raids on the public sphere in the wake of catastrophic events.” She went on to describe it in detail in her excellent book; “The Shock Doctrine”. She cites examples of its utilization from Chile to Iraq and what many free market economists have discovered since is that, rather than wait for a disaster, the ideal conditions for such a revolution can also be created.

Working within the NHS today, I have witnessed first hand the sheer confusion and, in some quarters, borderline panic, that has ensued as a result of the governments recent announcements. PCTs were established as the purchasers in the system – deciding in a planned way what services from hospitals should be purchased on behalf of GPs. These are massive strategic planning decisions that involve many billions of pounds. Overnight, the government plan to remove all of them, and hand the totality of their powers over to GPs. They have not described how GPs – with no training in accounting or management – can take up this role. They have not provided guidance as to how GPs might pool together to achieve this. As the so called “GP consortia” can be as large or as small as anyone chooses, a chaotic bout of “run around” has ensued with GPs trying to partner up with each other across boroughs and local boundaries, unsure which way to go.

The PCTs have already started to dismantle and in London, staff with no future are haemorrhaging in droves, leaving a skeletal operation alone to determine the allocation of billions worth of spending. The Chair of The Royal College of GPs has described the proposed changes as the end of the NHS as we know it. The BMA, the Royal College of Nursing and several of the specialist medical Royal Colleges have spoken out against it. Calls to phase it in and start with a series of gradually building pilots have fallen on deaf ears. No one is sure how it will work or how adversely it will effect patient care. The very people who will be tasked with implementing such rapid change are already utterly perplexed by it.

That is because they are supposed to be. It is an engineered shock.

All the while, waiting in the wings, with a metaphorical defibrillator, will be the private sector. The large American insurance based corporations – with their profits about to be decimated by Obama’s universal healthcare legislation – are eyeing the soon to explode UK healthcare market with salivating mouths. The vacuum that is being created, is being created for them. They will be hired to do the commissioning by and instead of GPs who are, through no fault of their own, clearly untrained and unable to do it. And it won’t be long thereafter before these same private organisations start hiring themselves as providers instead of NHS Trusts, many of which will ultimately go bust. The government are, in fact, proposing to rig the market in their favour by requiring every single contract to go for competitive tendering. This means that, even if there is a high performing Trust with which the local population is happy, they will still have to submit themselves for retendering to the commissioners on a regular basis who will then be legally obliged to consider private sector organisations as part of the process.

Subjecting hospitals to the instability of a retendering process could be disastrous. I have seen it happen myself. Staff numbers will fluctuate wildly as doctors and nurses, unsure if their organisation will survive, start moving between providers – just as they do in, say, the banking sector. This will potentially destroy continuity of care, as well as in-patient and emergency service provision which relies on regular staff numbers round the clock. A hospital shutting down as a result of loosing a bid to a private sector provider, who has undercut their costs as a way of breaking into the UK market – rather than failing to provide an adequate service – could be a potentially dangerous event resulting in the collapse of secondary health care provision for the entire local area.

This is why unfettered free markets are a bad idea for health care, and why the US experience has led to a hard fought reversal away from marketization. This is also why, if they were asked to vote for it, the public never would. In fact, in the last election they clearly did not. The Conservative manifesto, with its “no major reorganisations” commitment gave exactly the opposite impression. The only way such drastic privatisation can ever be achieved is through a short sharp shock to the system. Nick Boles, the pro Cameron Conservative MP, laid it out starkly, “’Chaotic’ in our vocabulary is a good thing.” Friedman would be proud. As he himself said, “only a crisis – actual or perceived – produces real change”.

This is clearly not chaos by incompetence. It is chaos by design.

• Eagle Eye
• Thursday, 20 January 2011 at 6:18 pm

Mark Steel: Shamed by our spirit of protest

Wayne Rooney must look in the papers every morning and think, "How does Vince Cable get away with it? Just like me, a year ago he was a national hero, the embodiment of hope, and now he's a bumbling fool and revealed as a cheat. But he's allowed to carry on as he pleases and isn't even substituted. I want a transfer to the Liberal Democrats."

For example, Cable campaigned for election on a promise to abolish university fees, even signing a pledge to prove his commitment, and interpreted that pledge by doubling the fees. Because abolish and double are like stalagmites and stalactites, it's so easy to get them mixed up. His party must have won countless votes as a result of that pledge, but he says now he's in government he has to be realistic, in which case the entire election campaign was pointless. When they had those debates, Clegg might as well have said, "I'll agree with whoever makes me a minister, so rather than waste time on what we think, in my time I'll show you my favourite scenes from Only Fools and Horses."

It's especially unsettling that such blatant lying came from Cable because he looked like a sweet old uncle, but it turns out he combines the demeanour of Mr Kipling with the economic ideals of Norman Tebbit. So every time he makes a statement he should be introduced with a cuddly slow deep voice saying, "Mr Cable wanted to be in the Government. So he set about doing all the things he'd said would be disastrous a few weeks ago. Because Mr Cable is an exceedingly power-hungry unprincipled little snake."

And yet no matter how vicious these cuts become, all the parties insist it would be wrong to protest or strike to try and curtail them, because they're being made by an elected government. But if they're doing things they promised not to do they've been elected fraudulently. In any case this is the thinking that got us into this mess. Most people are aware the people being made to pay for the debt aren't those who caused it, but we're resigned to putting up with it. Ministers could march round hospital wards ripping out drips and catheters and kidney machines, and we'd say to the patients, "You'd better put up with it dear, they do have a mandate." They could announce chemotherapy patients have to pay for their treatment by selling their bald heads for advertising space, and the level of protest would be a letter to The Times signed by 37 doctors and a treasurer at the BMA in a personal capacity.

Whereas in France they're running up and down the street and striking and setting fire to random objects and their cuts haven't even started yet. It's as if this is their warm-up match to get in practice and decide on the best formation for the real tournament. The Spanish have had a general strike, the Greeks are in a state of permanent revolt, and even the Belgians have had strikes and mass demonstrations. How humiliating is that? We're being put to shame by the bloody Belgians. How did we become so subservient and docile? It's as if the rest of Europe is preparing for mass protest and our slogan is, "I can't make it I'm afraid, I've got a tummy ache."

The unions have called for a demonstration against the cuts next March. Next bloody March. Even then they'll probably get frightened and call it off, and replace it with a "Gasp of Action", in which we're asked to go, "Ooh" at the same time to show our displeasure at the fire service being sold off to Balfour Beatty.

It's often claimed that protest doesn't make any difference. But then why have the French retained pensions and services and a working week (without the country falling apart) that few people here could aspire to? You can understand why a population feels unable to confront unfairness, if it's up against the North Korean army or the dictatorships of China or Zimbabwe. But surely we can't allow every public service to be dismantled and the poorest 90 per cent of the population to be wrung dry with no opposition, and say: "Well what could we do? I mean, never mind Mugabe or Kim Jong-Il, we were up against Vince Cable."

  

The Independent

Wednesday, 20 October 2010

If only we were all in it together by Mark Steel

Mark Steel

There's already been one positive outcome of the Budget, which is the pleasure of watching Liberal Democrats squirm as they try to justify the stuff that a few weeks ago they screamed would be a disaster. Tomorrow Clegg will mutter, "Look, when we said the Tories were planning a VAT bombshell, the point we were making was this country needed a VAT bombshell and only the Tories were planning it, but they were too modest in hiding their marvellous bombshell plans, so we were trying to help them. You see."



Then they'll tell us they've ensured the Budget was vicious in a fair way, because now VAT will be at a Liberal Democrat 20 per cent to ensure fairness, rather than the much harsher Tory 20 per cent proposed by George Osborne, a compromise that wouldn't have been possible without the tremendous efforts of Vince Cable.



To their own supporters they'll say, "If we weren't part of the Government it would be even worse", the line always put by liberals in an illiberal government. I bet there were Liberal Democrats in the Spanish Inquisition who said, "Because we're in government, the Queen has included in her bill a pledge to gouge out fingernails first rather than go straight in with the toenails, demonstrating the fairness we are bringing to the new politics."


The Budget has been presented as a necessity, with every measure "unavoidable", backed up by piles of figures that sound apocalyptic but mean nothing by themselves, like "We now owe £800 for every insect in Britain", or "The debt burden is equivalent to 300 years on a premium rate girl-on-girl action chatline" or "The deficit is more than the value of the moon."


But the cuts announced are measures the Tories support anyway, regardless of the state of the economy. For example, Osborne said in his TV speech he would no longer tolerate people who don't work, "Sitting indoors with the blinds pulled down, living on benefits." That's not economic necessity, it's an editorial from the Daily Express. It's an attempt to sound like someone down the pub, and maybe the first draft of his Budget went, "We're in a right mess missus and no mistake, and one knows who's to blame; them layabouts with their blinds down, gawd blimey." Or maybe he just thinks, "My word these unemployed are lazy – they can't even be bothered to get their au pair to open the blinds."



Blaming unemployment on the unemployed for "Choosing not to work" is an ideology that assumes unemployment rises and falls in line with how many people fancy being unemployed. They must think in 1931 the North suddenly decided to close their blinds and stay at home all day, which was probably lucky as by the time the war started they were all jammed shut, which was handy for the blackout.


But it's a doctrine, not a "necessity". Chris Grayling might as well say, "It's now a necessity that bed and breakfast owners must be allowed to turn gay men away, as homosexuality simply can't continue in the Cotswolds while we owe £50 trillion." There's another clue as to the nature of the Budget, which is the celebrations in the City of London. The Financial Times reported investors "greeted enthusiastically" the reduction in corporation tax, and a promise of a capital gains tax rate, "Lower than ever."


But as this was a Budget based on "Fairness" I'm sure the poorer sections of society felt the same. "Our housing benefit's being cut", they'll have chimed enthusiastically, "But we'll save a fortune on capital gains tax so we can have a day out in Southend after all."


So we've got a Labour Party that declared it wanted cuts that went "Further than those of Margaret Thatcher", and the other parties proudly making cuts much deeper than that. Which means somehow the Government would be less harsh to the poor and less grovelling to the rich if the whole lot resigned and we brought Thatcher back. You can't help wondering if somewhere or other we took a wrong turn.


First published in The Independent on 24th June 2010

They reckon we've never had it so bad by Mark Steel

                                                                            Mark Steel

How long will this government keep their trick going, of announcing every few days: "Oh my goodness, the books are even worse than we thought. It turns out Alistair Darling left a whole year's VAT on a bus. But he didn't put it on the accounts thingy so never mind, we'll just have to make even more cuts I suppose"? The day before the budget George Osborne will make a statement that: "This morning I had a call from Blockbusters, and they informed me that Jack Straw neglected to pay the late return fee on Call of Duty, a game he took out for use on his Xbox. As a result the Treasury owes £4m more than was previously believed to be the case, which makes it a necessity that we sell off the Post Office."

They could keep it going for years, telling us before the 2013 Budget that they've just discovered Margaret Beckett was a junkie and secretly sold off the M4 as far as Bristol to pay for her habit, so now they'll have to scrap the fire service. Or they were told there was some money in a Co-op account, but when they went to draw it out to pay the army, the lady behind the counter said John Prescott had already taken it and spent it all on crisps.

Every commentator on almost every programme informs us every day that the deficit is so awful we have to make unprecedented cuts, so it wouldn't be surprising if the World Cup panellists said: "England's back four can't be expected to keep their shape while there's a record £1.7 trillion debt on their minds, Gary. If we don't take immediate measures to get that down they're bound to get caught out of position."

For example, a poll in this week's Sunday Times asked whether you agree or disagree that the government could save money by "eliminating unnecessary non-jobs in the public sector". As if anyone would say: "No – we must keep those unnecessary non-jobs. They're vital to us all." You might as well have the headline: "Public supports austerity measures. An overwhelming majority answered 'yes' to the question, 'Do you agree people who do nothing, I mean nothing, except smoke dope and torture mice out of boredom, should be funded by you personally by having to sell your child to a cockle-picking gang'?"

But the government is obviously concerned that when the actual cuts are announced, that consensus might crack. So at the moment they're still being vague about what they're planning, and carry on telling us they're going to scrap "waste". But if there was a genuine pile of waste that could save billions if it was scrapped, they could be more specific, couldn't they? And say: "We've found a whole office in the Department of Transport dedicated to memorising the scripts of Last of the Summer Wine. They're all on fifty grand a week as well. It was set up by Harold Wilson apparently, when he was going a bit funny, so that's a start."

They seem to realise that, when they announce which areas will be cut, it doesn't sound so convincing that we're all in it together. For example they've cancelled plans to extend free school dinners for children from poorer backgrounds, which affects everyone equally, I suppose, as without studying the figures, who can say whether Cameron and Osborne's family would qualify for that payment? One group that might just escape that category are the richest 1,000 people in Britain whose wealth, according to the Sunday Times Rich List, has increased by 30 per cent in the last year. That amounts to £77bn, or half the entire annual deficit.

So they could contribute perhaps. But more likely is the government's plan to get people to accept massive cuts in public services as unavoidable, then happily watch people squabble over if it should be someone else battered rather than them. Eventually it will turn out the books are so bad they have to make each service appear on a television show and plead to be saved by public vote, with a tense announcement at the end by Graham Norton that "only one of you will be here next week and that is... disability benefit. Sorry, social services, you've got to go now, but you've been a great contestant. Byeeee".

First published in The Independent on 16th June 2010

Don't be fooled. This is Tory rule by Mark Steel

Mark Steel

Right – who knows a way of making "Conservative and Liberal Democrat Coalition out out out" scan properly? Events haven't been made easier by the news coverage, which involved reporters telling us "Oh my God it's historic and the two of them look so lovely together, and they're in the GARDEN, ooooo I haven't cried so much since I last saw Breakfast at Tiffany's." After the press conference the BBC's reporter gasped "It's EXTRAORDINARY, and when was the last time you could hear birdsong during a press conference?" I thought she'd carry on "It's as if the thrushes and blackbirds have arranged their own coalition and all the fluffy animals will be in the cabinet and the Home Secretary will be a lovely smiley caterpillar."
A much more stable solution was to keep the chaos going for four years, when it would be time for another election. So every day the news would say something like: "This morning William Hague offered the Lib Dems two places on the British Council of Buddhists, and the job of England football manager to Danny Alexander, but in a dramatic twist at 3.00 pm, following pressure from Paddy Ashdown, Peter Mandelson appeared at the Treasury and hung himself, thus removing a crucial obstacle to a pact with Labour."

Then Caroline Lucas of the Green Party could have nipped to the palace to say to the Queen, "Tell you what, I'll take over shall I?" and run the place while the other parties didn't even notice. Instead there's this "new" arrangement, in which the Tories have said to the Lib Dems: "We pledge to do exactly what we were going to do anyway, but if you can find some spare chairs we'll let some of you watch." And when the Tories say they're willing to consider electoral reform, you know for some that means we should get one vote each for every field we own.

So while I understand how so many were repulsed by Labour, and appreciate the vagaries of our voting system, it would be only fair if everyone who voted Lib Dem "to keep the Tories out" was made to queue up to get a good slap. Because this will be a Tory government. For now, both parties hail the partnership as a success. A Tory commentator said yesterday: "The friendly greeting given by David Cameron to Nick Clegg at Downing Street was a highly encouraging start." Well what did he think Cameron would do? Say: "Oi Clegg, never mind shaking hands, be a decent fag and toast me a crumpet while I chat to Nick Robinson"?

But nothing that made the Lib Dems distinctive, such as cancelling Trident or offering an amnesty to asylum seekers, will be even up for discussion. Instead they'll be boasting: "The new Budget is a positive example of coalition rule, in that the Conservatives made the economic decisions, but Vince Cable decided on the font it was published in. There were tough negotiations but the closure of the nation's libraries will now be outlined in Times New Roman, so both sides have made compromises, proving this arrangement does work."

But one issue apparently agreed upon by all the main parties is a government had to be found that would satisfy the markets. Because to solve the economic crisis caused by the people who run the markets, we must pick a government that doesn't upset the people who run the markets.

A consensus has been created that the deficit must must MUST be cut, as if to oppose cuts in welfare and public spending is as futile as trying to stop the laws of physics. So we'll now have a period of new modern politics, in which a Prime Minister from Eton and a Chancellor from St Paul's in coalition with a chap from Westminster Public School force the bulk of the population to pay for a mess they didn't create, rather than upset the richest one per cent who've enjoyed an unprecedented rise in their wealth. On the other hand the Liberal Democrats have already achieved one of their major aims, which is the introduction of the Single Transferable Voting system.

The way it works is fairly simple: you vote Liberal Democrat and you get the bloody Tories.

First published in The Independent on 13th May 2010

Who's run off with the inheritance? by Mark Steel

Mark Steel

Suddenly this election is hilarious. In David Cameron's broadcast he looked as if he was about to say: "Look, I mean it's NOT FAIR, I was MEANT to be Prime Minister and we were winning and having a baby and EVERYTHING and now you've RUINED it Clegg you beastly thing I HATE you," and start crying, while George Osborne handed him a hankie, then looked into the camera and said "NOW look what you've done. Vote Conservative on May 6th." When they can keep calm, the Tory argument against voting Lib Dem seems to be, "Look, you idiots, there's no point in letting him win, can't you see he can't win?"

Several Tories have sneered that as the polls changed after the TV debate, democracy has been reduced to a political Britain's Got Talent. So, for the next one, Cameron will come on with a dancing dog. And his first answer will be: "My vision for education is we need small government, and big society, but let me express that like this", and play a backing track of "Surrey with the Fringe on Top", while a Jack Russell jumps over an umbrella.

One Tory MP said on BBC news: "We should never have agreed to let Clegg have equal status in the debates". Quite right – he should only have been allowed to take part by carrying the drinks on a tray. Or by sitting at the edge with a lemonade, occasionally calling out, "Haven't you finished yet? How much longer, I'm bored".

Michael Portillo said the change in the polls was entirely down to Clegg looking into the camera during the debate. So if Lorraine Kelly off GMTV had taken part she'd have said, "Ooh my Lord the economy, my it's such a lot of money don't you think", but because she speaks into the camera she'd now be on course to hold the balance of power in a hung parliament.

Some of them dismiss the idea that anything's changed at all. Quentin Letts in the Daily Mail derided the supposed increase in Lib Dem support as: "Broadcasters talking it up to build themselves an audience for the next programme". That's a conspiracy theory to impress the people who think 9/11 was organised by the CIA.

It's as if someone's swiped their inheritance. Maybe they'll insist on all the channels having a debate, in the hope that Clegg will be caught out on the Shopping Channel when someone asks: "If you proceed with your plan to abolish the bottom tax rate for those earning below £19,000 per year, that could be worth £95 per annum. So should that be spent on this pair of absolutely stunning diamante ear-rings reduced from £225 or this gorgeous set of crystal glasses, hand-made and simply delightful?" While the presenter shouts "Mr Clegg!".

Some Tories want to counter Clegg by yelling about immigration, and one Labour MP has issued a leaflet saying the Lib Dems plan to "give the vote to paedophiles". Because that's the perfect way to respond when people announce in their millions that they're sick of negative campaigning – you reply: "Yes all right, but that ponce will give the vote to paedophiles".

What the Labour and Tory arrogance ignores is that even if the swing in Clegg's favour is flimsy, as it's due to one TV appearance, much of the support for Brown or Cameron must have been even flimsier for it to be so easily prised away. For several years, and especially since the Iraq war, many Labour voters haven't really voted for "Labour" but for "Oh blimey, pwww, Labour I suppose".

At some level Labour seem to understand this, so in this campaign they've tried to be the people's anti-banker party, which might work if they were more honest and said: "Over the last 13 years we've thoroughly licked every wealthy banker's arse. And do you know we're worn out, so if we're elected we're going to have six months off before starting again! Vote Labour".

And if the Lib Dems win, nothing fundamental would change, but at least we'd have the novelty of having to work out why the Prime Minister is a tosspot rather than knowing it from the start.

First published in The Independent on 21st April 2010

The assumption is that, if someone's a religious leader, they're wholesome by Mark Steel

Mark Steel"The Vatican should be thanking Rowan WIlliams"

Gordon Brown has one genuine chance left. He must employ the Vatican, as their public relations team operates at a level of utter genius. Somehow, while they're embroiled in an international paedophile scandal, they've fixed it so the person who's had to apologise is the Archbishop of an entirely different faith, for suggesting on Radio 4's Start the Week that the scandal has caused the Catholic church to lose credibility. Gary Glitter must have been straight on to 118 118 to gasp "Give me the number of the Pope".

The Pope's own preacher managed to make life even trickier for his boss, complaining that criticism of the Catholic Church on this issue was similar to anti-Semitism and "Collective punishment for Jews." Of course. I'm sure when a priest is told the children he abused want action to be taken against him, he thinks "I tell you what, now I know exactly how Anne Frank felt."

Still, I suppose we should be grateful he didn't add "But none of the priests used condoms so at least they're all good Catholics."

In a way this follows the history of the church, which has never been keen on owning up to its bad behaviour until the last minute. As a guide, having threatened to kill Galileo unless he withdrew his astronomical discoveries, they did manage to apologise, in 1996. So if the child abuse victims can be patient for three more centuries that should get everything cleared up.

You could argue there's something in the nature of the priesthood that makes this sort of activity more likely. A shrink for example might suggest that if you're seen as a conduit between your parishioners and the creator of the universe, and have to be celibate and even masturbation lands you with an eternity in unimaginable agonising torment, that could lead to behavioural issues in certain cases.

The Vatican has objected that the percentage of paedophiles in the priesthood is lower than in society as a whole. Who knows what polling company produced those figures but the problem isn't that some priests abuse children, it's that the ones who do it have been protected by their holy bosses.

It may be that a similar percentage of gas fitters are child abusers, but if they're caught they're sent to the police, and not told that as long as they quietly slip off to a different parish they can still advertise themselves as Corgi registered.

For example, one Father Lawrence Murphy is said to have abused around 200 boys at a deaf school over a period of 24 years in South Wisconsin, and when this was reported to the Vatican he was asked to move to North Wisconsin. And if they'd thought of it they'd probably have suggested he tried the blind school instead as at least they wouldn't be able to identify him in court.

Or there's the government commission in Ireland that concluded in one institution: "For six years priests and nuns terrorised boys and girls with physical, sexual and mental abuse."

If that was any other body, the press would plaster photos of all the abusers on their front pages under headlines saying "Boil this scum." And with your normal paedophile case, if someone suggests the institution that protected them will lose credibility as a result, the media reaction isn't "Hmm, well that seems a little strong."

But there's an assumption that if someone's a religious leader they are by definition wholesome and a bit saintly, so even a paedophile priest must mean well. And the person in charge of the branch of the Vatican that dealt with these misdemeanours was Cardinal Ratzinger, the current Pope, so it must all be a result of a bureaucratic mix-up or something.

So the Pope will just have to offer a semi-regret, send a couple of the worst offenders to a clinic, maybe suggest in future if a priest can't help himself with a bit of child abuse, he should use patches to wean himself off it, and then complain how upsetting it is if in spite of all this someone suggests his church is losing credibility.

Or maybe we've all been fooled and the Archbishop's comments were part of a publicity stunt for the show he made them on, in which case it was a huge success and similar tactics will be used for other shows. So the first question on next week's Gardeners' Question Time will be: "Can the panel tell me why my hydrangeas have been riddled with greenfly since the Church of England has been effectively finished as a religion? And that comes from the Dalai Lama?"

First published in The Independent on 7th April 2010

Morality Policing By George Monbiot

The police treat protests and festivals as a threat to their power

This Thursday a year will have passed since Ian Tomlinson died after being assaulted by a policeman at the G20 protests. No charges have been brought; no one has been punished. Despite 300 official complaints about the policing of the protests on April 1st, and plenty of video and photographic evidence, no officer has faced serious disciplinary proceedings(1,2). Those who removed their identification numbers, beat up peaceful protesters and bystanders, then repeatedly lied about what had happened remain untroubled, either by the law or their superior officers. There has been no apology to Tomlinson’s family.

Contrast this with another case, in which a Nottinghamshire police officer caused two deaths in June. As soon as it happened, the police reported themselves to the Independent Police Complaints Commission and launched their own investigation. A chief superintendent told the press that “we will certainly take any lessons we can get from this process and make sure we put them in place so this sort of thing never happens again. It has caused immense sadness and immense shock.”(3) The papers carried pictures of officers paying tribute, saluting the flowers left outside police headquarters(4). There was no cover up, no botched post-mortem, no lies about the victims or their families. The officer responsible was quickly charged and, though his victims died as a result of neglect not assault, last month he was convicted over the deaths(5).

There’s a significant difference between the two cases: the Nottinghamshire victims were dogs. The officer had left two police dogs in his car and forgot about them while he completed some paperwork. Judging by their response to these two tragedies, both police and prosecutors appear to care more about dogs than human beings.

Later this week the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) will publish its draft manual for policing protests. Expect police forces to assure us that the bad old days of beating up protesters are over. And don’t believe a word of it.

Seven days before the G20 demos last year, the parliamentary committee on human rights published a damning report on the policing of protest. It proposed that “counter-terrorism powers should never be used against peaceful protesters”; and that “the presumption should be in favour of protests taking place without state interference”(6). Police chiefs insisted that they took the report seriously. A week later the Met deployed the tactics the committee had criticised.

In November the chief inspector of constabulary lambasted the way protests are policed. He urged the police to stop treating protesters as the enemy and reminded them that they have a duty under human rights law to facilitate peaceful assembly. The policing of public events, he said, “demands more than a rigid response within a conveniently harsh legal environment.”(7) But little has changed.

Last week at Isleworth Crown Court the prosecution abandoned a case brought against a protester called Jake Smith(8). Smith had been charged with violent disorder at a protest outside the Israeli embassy: the police accused him of throwing a stick at them, and produced video evidence which appeared to support them. Though Mr Smith found some material on YouTube that told a different story, they stuck to their line, and denied that they had any more footage of the incident.

Two days before the case was about to begin, the police admitted that they had a further seven and a half hours of videos. What they showed was that another man had thrown the stick then run away; Smith, by contrast, had committed the traditional offence of having the crap beaten out of him by riot cops. Just as dead civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan become terrorists, protesters beaten by the police become guilty of violent disorder: how else can their treatment be explained, and what other means do the police have of silencing them? Smith’s lawyer maintains that the video evidence the Met had used was a “cut and paste job”: a bit like the story they codded up about Ian Tomlinson.

A fortnight ago, the Cambridgeshire force won the battle it has been waging against peaceful assembly, when it forced the cancellation of Strawberry Fair, a free festival that has taken place in Cambridge every summer since 1972. At the beginning of March the fair was licensed for this year by the city council, against the protests of the police.

In order to show what a terrifying threat to public order it presented, Cambridge police posted up a video of scenes from the last festival: a few hippies skinning up and some people pissing against a tree. They took it down again when they realised that it made them look like total wallies, breaking up picnics and arresting people for microscopic particles of hash(9). But though they had told the local paper that they were “not aware of any major incidents at the event”(10), they lodged an appeal against the licence.

As the alternative magazine Schnews points out, the appeal couldn’t have been resolved until soon before the fair was due to begin(11). If the police had won, it would have forced a last-minute cancellation of the kind that bankrupted the Big Green Gathering last year(12). The organisers had no choice but to cancel. The police told the BBC, “we are surprised that the Strawberry Fair organisers have decided to cancel this year’s event … we are not against the event in principle, and never have been.”(13) This looks disingenuous on both counts. The chair of the city council’s licensing committee attacked the “unelected and unaccountable police force” for countermanding a democratic decision(14).

Schnews also reports that Durham police have just lost their case against Andrew Norman, the organiser of Thimbleberry Festival, who was charged with allowing his premises (a field) to be used for taking cannabis. The case should never have come to court(15). It is hard to see what protection policing of this kind offers the public. Every summer the cops spend millions of pounds patrolling and disrupting peaceful festivals like this, for no obvious purpose except to spoil people’s fun. This is morality policing of the kind you’d expect in Iran or Saudi Arabia.

In both cases - protests and festivals - the police trample our legal right to peaceful assembly, cause trouble where none existed before, cobble together evidence against the people they want to stop, deny responsibility for their actions and treat peaceful citizens like enemies of the state. No recommendations - from parliament, the chief inspector, ACPO or the Home Office - are likely to change this pattern much, because this is about power. The police believe that they should exercise unchallenged control over public space: any gathering is a threat to their hegemony.

The reviews and proposals published so far have failed because they treat the problem as a tactical issue. It’s not: it is deeply rooted in the politics and culture of the police. We must demand much bolder reforms than these if we want the police to stop behaving as if they run this country.

http://www.monbiot.com/

published in the Guardian 20th March 2010

References:

1. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/mar/26/ian-tomlinson-g20-protests-anniversary



2. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/mar/18/g20-protest-officers-not-disciplined-report

3. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/nottinghamshire/8129826.stm

4. eg http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/22/police-dog-handler-animal-cruelty

5. http://www.metro.co.uk/news/814373-pc-s-depression-blamed-for-excruciating-death-of-two-police-dogs



6. Joint Committee on Human Rights, 3rd March 2009. Demonstrating respect for rights? A human rights approach to policing protest. http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/jt200809/jtselect/jtrights/47/4702.htm

7. Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Constabulary, 2009. Adapting to Protest. HMIC. http://www.hmic.gov.uk/SiteCollectionDocuments/PPR/PPR_20090706.pdf

8. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/25/israel-embassy-gaza-protest-video

9. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghoHFgXR3WY&feature=youtube_gdata

10. http://www.schnews.org.uk/archive/news715.php

11. ibid.

12. http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2009/08/04/the-busybody-state/

13. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cambridgeshire/8577053.stm

14. http://www.schnews.org.uk/archive/news715.php

15. ibid.

The way they behave, they must want to lose the election by Mark Steel

Mark Steel"It's hard to find any other reason for insulting Joanna Lumley."

Long ago the Labour Party decided to abandon its "outdated" values, to become obsessed only with winning elections. So it may have trashed its founding principles, but at least it became a master of how to win at the polls.

Which is why it's been able to carry out the classic election-winning strategy that goes: a) six weeks before the vote, get caught on secret cameras offering to do anything for Tesco or an arms company as long as they slip you a monkey, then b) before that's died down, publicly slag off Joanna Lumley.

All the great campaigners perfected this technique. Franklin D Roosevelt always fought on the slogan "Give us two grand and I'll do anything, I mean ANYTHING". And Gladstone started every speech during election campaigns with "Oi, Lumley, say that to my face, you slag."

One explanation for this strange behaviour might be that they've been paid to throw the contest by a Far East betting syndicate. Because it's hard to find any other reason for accusing the adored Joanna Lumley of being "silent" about the plight of the Gurkhas, when she was the most vocal campaigner for them, against the government now complaining she's silent.

Gordon Brown has apologised, but his next statement on the matter will go "And I tell you who else has been silent – Sir Steve Redgrave. Oh, it's different when there's a gold medal in it, then it's chatter chatter splash splash, but on this issue nothing. He makes me sick."

Then Alistair Darling will agree to be interviewed on Blue Peter, and say: "The way the economy works is you encourage businesses to invest, to stimulate growth, and I'll illustrate that by setting fire to a puppy."

Jack Straw will be caught on CCTV stealing a packet of éclairs from a petrol garage. And Brown will begin his first TV debate by saying: "Before we start with the politics, have a look at this," then drop his trousers and say: "I've had that rash a week now, does anyone know what it might be?"

But the Tories keep finding ways of proving themselves just as useless. Their current plan appears to be to make something up every day. So Cameron has suddenly announced a penny off national insurance, made possible by £6bn of cuts he's just thought up, that will come through "Efficiency".

But this obviously came out of nowhere, and he might as well have chosen any random words, boasting: "We'll make a further £9bn of cuts through gravity, and another billion through paranormal activity and a bit more behind square on the off-side and you'll be paying hardly any tax at all."

Next week he'll suddenly say to Paxman: "I've got it. We'll get a cheaper army. I bet the Chinese will send us one for half the price we're paying. Then we can cut VAT by, I don't know, ten or something."

The tax-cut theme seems to be part of his plan to randomly introduce policies that have worked for the Tories before, which is why immigration has suddenly popped up. Two days before the vote he'll announce we're leaving the Gold Standard and going to war with the Zulus.

So maybe they're both being paid to lose by gambling cartels. Which is why Labour hit back by bringing in the discredited Blair to campaign for Brown. They might as well say: "We are proud to announce our latest supporter, Peter Sutcliffe", and have a video-link of him in his cell saying: "At least I'm only the Yorkshire Ripper. If Mr Cameron gets his way he'll rip up the sound recovery that Gordon Brown has begun that will lead this country back to prosperity."

The result of this is that they are all despised equally, even the Liberal Democrats, whose manifesto should begin: "This country is sick and tired of two identical parties squabbling over nothing. What the British people need is THREE identical parties squabbling over nothing."

What makes this so frustrating is there's widespread contempt for the bankers and the high-level fiddlers, and anyone who led us into the war in Iraq. In a few cases, such as Respect's Salma Yaqoob in Birmingham, or the Green Party's Caroline Lucas in Brighton, candidates who've campaigned on these issues have won enough credibility to stand a good chance of winning.

But nationally the major parties have all supported the crooks and warmongers, and we've got six weeks of them going on like this, so if the Liberal Democrats were smart, they would take this opportunity to bring back Charles Kennedy as their leader. Except instead of hiding his drinking they could celebrate it. During the TV debates he could be sick across the stage, and the whole country would go: "Do you know, what he said was exactly what I was thinking."

First published in The Independent on 31st March 2010

London 2012 is a mess already, but they could still make it fun by Mark Steel

Bit by bit, the promises of the organisers are becoming cloudier

You can now register to be in the queue of people who'd like to hear about when you can apply for tickets to the Olympics. But there should be a vetting process, to make it fairer.

For example, during the Beijing games I once watched five uninterrupted hours, and only turned off when the commentator said: "And you have to say, that is a pivotal moment in the history of Algerian judo." Surely that gives me some priority. Points should be awarded to anyone who's stayed up to 2am to watch handball on Eurosport, or stood all day holding cups of tea for warmth in the drizzle, hoping play might begin at a county cricket match in Maidstone.

Instead they'll probably allocate them the same way they sort out school places. Families will move next to the Olympic pool to be in the catchment area. And some tickets will go to churches, so people will start going along every Sunday in the hope they'll be granted a seat at the semi-final of the canoeing.

Whatever they do, it's hard to appreciate the event as a festival of sport, when you see the priorities of those in charge of the franchise. One reason the Vancouver Winter Olympics is regarded as a success is because the sales of McDonald's, one of the main sponsors, rose by 5 per cent during the games. Even the city's libraries were sent memos advising: "Do not have Pepsi sponsoring any library events, as Coke and McDonald's are the Olympic sponsors."

Maybe for the London Games we'll do even better, and pensioners will be told: "This Catherine Cookson book is two days late, Mrs Tomkins. Instead of spending all day steaming carrots you should try a McDonald's Chicken, Bacon and Onion 3 in 1 multi-burger, then you might have time to bring your books back."

For London there are seven "tier-one" sponsors, such as Lloyds, BT and EDF, and the committee's marketing director has advised that now is the time for the, "Seven first-tier sponsors to lock down their market masterplan." Because there are so many opportunities.

They could sponsor tennis players that grunt, so instead of "Yaeeeuuugh", Maria Sharapova can yell "Llooooyds TSB" with every backhand. And the pentathlon could involve the 100 metres, the 1500 metres, the long jump, the discus and persuading someone in the crowd to get their gas supplied by EDF in a 12-month agreement with a completed form for the direct debit.

The Games have been sold to us partly as an opportunity to leave an "Olympic legacy", of stadiums and facilities. But bit by bit these promises are becoming cloudier. For example, the £9.3bn cost of the Games was supposed to include a new park stretching across East London. And this was promoted with one of those virtual films swooping across implausibly green trees and palatial arenas of jollity.

But this week it was announced this won't be built unless someone finds an extra £450m on top. So what will go next? Maybe there'll be no athletics track either, and the athletes will be told it doesn't matter as there's a marvellous virtual one, and these days you can throw a javelin with a Nintendo Wii and hardly notice the difference.

You can guess the underlying spirit of the Games from reading the names of the Olympic Committee. There's HRH Prince Nawaf Faisal Fahd Abdulaziz who, and I'm guessing here, may be there because of his links to Arab royalty. Or maybe I'm being cynical and he's an expert on bloody badminton.

There's the son of former Olympic President Juan Samaranch, once a member of Franco's government. There are some fetching photos of the former president giving a Nazi salute, but maybe he did a special twisting curling one with a degree of difficulty of 5.9 and that's what made him an ideal man to run the Olympics. The current chief is Count Jacques Rogge, and we can all agree the trouble with modern life is our committees don't have nearly enough Counts.

These and more like them run the show, which is why every Olympic decision is based on money, then power, and sport a distant non-qualifying seventh. That's why they introduce daft events to boost the sponsorship, and it won't be surprising if the London Games includes a lap-dancing event, with Barry Davies sent to commentate and gasping: "Oh my goodness, terrific wriggling there from the Latvian."

Or maybe the bankers who profit from the Games will get jealous and demand sports they can compete in, such as coxless offshore accounting and a three-day hedge fund investment event.

But somehow, for reasons beyond the finest of shrinks, there will come a moment when I'm utterly delirious because I've got a ticket for Holland versus Namibia in the water polo.

First published in The Independent on 24th March 2010

The anti-union brigade are just a bunch of hypocrites by Mark Steel

 Mark Steel

The rage against the unions takes some spledidly imaginative forms

Here we go. It's time to blame everything on the unions again. So Gordon Brown calls the planned cabin crews' strike "deplorable", but the Tories and most newspapers scream this isn't enough. Presumably David Cameron will make a statement that starts, "This is much worse than deplorable, Gordon Brown, it's shit. Absolute shit. And I don't mean like a cow pat, that can be quite endearing in a rural setting, I mean a great squashy dollop left by an untrained Alsatian. So why doesn't the Prime Minister go ahead and say so."

Every news report seems to start with someone explaining their distress about the possible cancellation of their journey, and you expect the reporter to finish by turning to the camera and saying "See what you've done, you unions? I covered the war in Bosnia but this beats anything that happened there. I hope you're pleased with yourselves you bastards. And with that, back to the studio."

The strange part is that BA cabin crews don't generally come across as the selfish wrecking thugs they're now portrayed as. They mostly smile and bring you stuff, so why would 80 per cent of them vote twice for a strike? Perhaps it's because the company wants to bring in new staff on inferior terms to those offered to current employees, with less security and lower wages than the current basic rate of £18,000.

The most common response to this complaint is the current terms can't go on, because Easyjet and Ryanair pay their staff much less. And it's not fair if some people are being treated horribly, so the answer is to treat everyone horribly and then no one feels bad. Maybe charities should work like this. Oxfam could go to Mozambique and say, "So you're living on a bowl of rice a day are you? Well in Somalia they're living on half a bowl of rice a day, so we're taking half your rice away you greedy pigs."

The anti-union rage takes some splendidly imaginative forms. The Conservatives are demanding that Gordon Brown refuses to take funding from Unite. This seems reasonable, as Unite have never shuffled their assets to Belize, never lied about bringing them back, have open votes about political donations and represent the interests of one-and-a-half-million people instead of one person, so they clearly know nothing about how to run a modern business.

And The Daily Telegraph informed us the strike is part of a plot for the unions to run the country, and as part of the evidence one of the Unite offices is "A few doors down from the old Communist Party HQ". Even McCarthy, as far as I know, didn't bellow, "Have you or have you ever been or have you ever lived a few doors down from a communist?"

But that's because he was too soft. Everyone knows the old trick of living a few doors down from the old headquarters, then you only have to nip back in time and you're only a few doors from the current headquarters, with a short walk to ask advice on how to turn the country communist in the future by calling a strike of cabin crews. As it's only a few doors away this means there must be other places, a Boots the chemist perhaps, that are even nearer. Buy a tube of toothpaste from the place and you're as good as selling the old Soviet Union our nuclear missiles.

The people who foam with rage about the union say, "Now is not the time for a strike" as if they want to offer it strategic advice. But if a management imposes a new set of substantially worse conditions, what is a union supposed to do? Does it wait 20 years for a quiet moment, or maybe only bring out the retired and dead members on strike, so no one will notice, in the hope this will win over public opinion?

The anti-union lobby claim they don't mind unions as long as they're responsible, but it's more accurate to say they don't mind unions as long as they're ineffective. They'd be happy if a union was like a church group, and told its members "We've all been given a 40 per cent wage cut, so in response we're going to have some lovely Madeira cake and a game of whist."

So now we should prepare for the next phase, once the strike's begun, in which every news report begins by telling us "Heroic passengers on one plane beat the strike by dishing out their own chicken and unidentifiable pudding, and pointing to the emergency exits while no one took any notice themselves. 'We beat Hitler so we can trounce this lot,' said one woman, who has now been recommended for the Victoria Cross".

My advice to Obama - throw away the kid gloves by Mark Steel

One result of the American system is that a third of health employees are in marketing.

Mark Steel

When you watch Barack Obama make these speeches to try and introduce healthcare to America, you have to wonder whether he might improve his ratings if he lost his temper and chucked things. Because the opponents of health reform are getting away with whatever they want, such as Sarah Palin’s claim that “My parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel’.”

And somehow she and the Republicans have convinced millions of Americans that if everyone has healthcare, a panel looks at each patient and decides whether or not to kill them.

Next she’ll say, “Under Obama’s plan, patients on life support will be forced to race each other for their lives down a bobsleigh course. They’ll be pushed by a relative and the one who finishes in the slowest time will have their machine turned off by a socialist, like what happens in Britain.”

It seems extraordinary that so many people can be opposed to universal healthcare that would clearly benefit them, because it contradicts their attitude to the free market.

If a health service was established there, you’d get farmers from Tennessee complaining, “I was out in the back yard, felt kinda peculiar an’knew I was havin’myself a heart attack. Well I’ve laid down by my pigs a-gaspin’ an’ the next thing I’ve got paramedics a-pumpin’ away on ma chest savin’ ma life. Now I ask yer what right did they have interferin’ with ma business like that? Them state-run sons o’bitches made me fit as a fiddle without even askin’, what happened to my freedom o’choice?”

The objections have been organised by a “grassroots” campaign, called the Tea Party, that’s so grassroots it had a convention at which Sarah Palin spoke that cost $549 a ticket. And it’s backed by businessman Steve Forbes, who once boasted that his father spent $5 million on a birthday party. But this is a movement of grassroots millionaires, who are sick of being pushed around by the posh ones.

In their defence, it’s not easy to stick up for the US health system without making up stories. One result of their private system is that one third of employees in US health are in marketing. It’s as if the NHS shut down one third of its hospitals and turned them into advertising agencies.

Because when you’re rushed to Aand E in agony you don’t need a surgeon, you need an actor in soft focus saying, “Nobody wants pancreatitis, but when you’ve got it you want to be in a place where you can relax. Unlike in other health outlets, here your drip is installed by professionals, and you get a free top-up of coffee whenever you want. Hmm, that smells good. Because at DCK Healthcare we make a breeze out of liver disease.”

Millions of Americans have no healthcare at all, while US health companies spend $189 million a year lobbying politicians, and billions of dollars a year on administering the insurance. So almost anyone with experience of the British system wants Obama’s plan to get through.

The trouble is, the scheme has been diluted so much it’s now little more than a device to enforce everyone to take out private insurance. And so many concessions have been made to the health companies they’re likely to charge 50 per cent more for insurance to anyone with a record of illness. What sort of a system is that, which tells people “We’d be more than happy to give you healthcare, but the only thing is you seem to be occasionally ill.”

It’s like a baker who tells you his prices, then says, “But obviously it’s a good deal more if you ever want to take any bread.”

To be fair, some people have already benefited before the bill is passed. For example Ron Williams, CEO at healthcare company Aetna, trousered $2.4 million in a year, and he didn’t even have anything wrong with him. Still, there are bound to be winners and losers in any scheme I suppose.

Shares in the health insurance companies are going up in anticipation of the bill, so the mania raised against it has probably not really been about health, but part of the drive to undermine Obama.

But instead of confronting those health companies, he’s tried to win them over, just as he tries to do with the Republicans in general. And that’s where he’s coming unstuck.

So I’d be tempted to make a speech that starts, “Sarah Palin has accused me of wishing to implement death panels. Well Sarah, you’re right, and we’re starting with you. The moment you get a runny nose you’ll be dunked in a flotation tank full of morphine, then used as a drill bit in a search for oil in Alaska.” But that’s probably why I’m not a politician.

First published in The Independent on 10th March 2010

Just who do you vote for given this appalling choice? by Mark Steel

The moment you think of voting Labour, up pops the unregretful Blair

Mark Steel

There are many questions a population asks itself before a General Election, and the one that many people are asking before the one this year is, "Which of these rancid heaps of sewage will be slightly less repulsive than the other?" Maybe that's the way it should be phrased on the ballot paper, to increase turn-out.

This might be why the Tories can't climb decisively ahead of their unpopular, feuding hopeless opponents, because, like Labour, they're not even competently dreadful. For example, Cameron announced they would cut tax, then changed his mind three times, but said we should now vote Conservative because they still "aspired" to cut tax. Next week he'll say, "Last week I even had a dream about cutting tax. One of those really lucid ones it was. And that is the difference between us, because I bet Alistair Darling can't say that."

The only thing stopping their original promise, they say, is the economic conditions. I'm the same with my commitment to buy France. At the moment it could add to my debt burden and prove economically unsound, but it remains an aspiration and that's the main thing. There must be many people realising he doesn't seem to stand for anything, except outrage for reasons he can't decide.

A typical Cameron speech goes "Like you, I am fed up of all those things this government keeps doing. Ooo. I mean, have you seen him, that whatsisname. You know what they should have done? Well there's all sorts on the economy just for a start. And you can call me old-fashioned but that, quite frankly, is common sense. And as a Conservative, that is something I am committed to aspiring to put right."

His main problem must be that they've agreed with all Labour's most disastrous ideas, from the war in Iraq, to handing the economy over to the bankers. And whereas Labour had to confront their history to act like this, Cameron and his party went along with it automatically. But while cutting tax and attacking public spending is popular with long term Conservatives, most people don't approve of it, so he trumps normal politicians by making promises, then breaking them before the election's even started.

In the past a vote for Labour would at least have been a protest against such greed, even if the party didn't do much about it. But 15 years of grovelling to Hindujas and Murdochs and assorted bankers and being "intensely relaxed about people becoming filthy rich" have punctured that slightly, and now if you mentioned to someone under the age of 30 that Labour's origins were in fighting for the poor against the wealthy, they'd look at you as if you'd said something truly surreal, such as "Did you know the Church of England started out as an aquarium?"

But for the odd moment you might resign yourself to voting Labour, then up pops the unregretful Blair or you recall Mandelson on the yacht and you realise that's impossible. And there must be millions of people doing this, thinking "Well I can't vote for them so I'll opt for the others", until they remember the others and think the same back again, like if you were captured by a sadistic tribe that gave you the choice of being mauled by a leopard or buggered by a yak.

The nearest I come to this dilemma normally is when someone asks who I'd like to win when Chelsea are playing Manchester United, and for a moment I try to figure a way they could both lose, and then change the subject. But the electoral equivalent, of not voting, isn't appealing either, given the almighty battles that took place for the right to do so. So the problem of who to vote for has become one of those conundrums, like the puzzle of where the universe ends, that you can only think about for two minutes at a time or you start going fuzzy in the head.

One consequence of this is that each time a party gets publicity it does itself damage, as it reminds people how appalling they are. If the parties realise this is happening, during the election we'll see a five minute film of Gordon Brown telling us why we should vote Labour, then a voice will say "That was a Party Political Broadcast on behalf of the Conservative Party."

So if Peter Mandelson is the shrewd election campaigner he claims to be, he'll take every penny of the campaign fund and spend it on sending the whole Labour Party to Mexico for the next four months, and not come back until the day after the vote, or if he's really astute, five years after, and they'll have won the election after this as well.

First published in The Independent on 3rd February 2010

Help save Christmas from the dreaded X Factor by Mark Steel 'What makes music powerful is being systematically removed'

Mark Steel

There is still hope for the planet. The odds are against us but we have 10 days left to save the world and stop X Factor from creating another putrid Christmas number one.

Because these people are not only trying to destroy music, they're trying to make us surrender to their unstoppable naked power. We watch them package an act until their entire identity has been moulded into a corporate Cowellite auto-crooner, then let them sell the resulting warble back to us as if it's in some way natural. It's like falling for the three-card trick but when the cards are face up. We're going "Is that one the Queen?" and need someone to scream "No it's THIS one you dozy morons, that's the three of clubs – you can SEE."

All that makes music powerful is systematically removed by the X Factor process. Anything dirty, painful, eccentric, scary, in other words individual, is scrubbed away, so if Janis Joplin or Kurt Cobain or Eminem had ever applied, they'd have been chortled off in the first audition.

Instead everyone's made to look a mild variant of the same, so someone could ask to sing "Strange Fruit", the Billie Holliday song about a lynching, and they'd end up doing it as a jolly ballad with 20 dancers doing twirls while dressed in hoods, then bounding up some glittery stairs where a noose would be hanging.

The contestants are asked to strive for the sort of perfection displayed by Janet Jackson on Saturday's show, in which every jerk and twizzle of her and her 8,000 dancers was choreographed with tedious mathematical precision as she span about in one of those microphones that make performers look like they're working in a call centre, and seeing as she was presumably miming she must have been wearing it so she could do a bit of extra work for British Telecom while she was on.

So while we hear her yelp "Oo ya ya yoo," what she's saying is "Your broadband should be reconnected by 6.30 this evening." All spontaneity and expression was meticulously flushed out and the result was a soulless mess that left me thinking I'd rather be watching her brother, and I don't mean as he was but as he is now, just tipped on to the stage.

But it's not just the songs. The whole soap opera element is carefully planned, so stories emerge that this week Olly had to battle on with extraordinary courage following the death of his favourite tadpole, or Lucie has had to overcome the childhood trauma of being exorcised after being taken over by demons. But the worst part is it's addictive. A three-minute glance and you can't help following it for the rest of the series; it's more dangerous than crack.

Maybe this is because some of the performers do have a passion and individuality, that survives despite the fact that progressing depends on keeping it suppressed. Stacey, for example, is brilliant because she looks as if she's said "Here Simon, can I go on first otherwise I'll miss the District Line back to Dagenham." But if she ever wants to write her own songs or do something dark she'll run up against the business plan being built for her. Whoever wins will be like the great blues singer Robert Johnson, they'll have to sell their soul. Except at least he sold his to the devil, who does have the best tunes. In X Factor you have to sell it to Simon bloody Cowell.

The plan is that next week a single will be released, in which the winner sings a Miley Cyrus song, which they may or may not feel applies to them but it's been decided, and that will become the Christmas number one, and it will be on all the time, in cafes and taxis and shopping centres and they'll find a way of downloading it into your dreams. But there is hope. A campaign has been launched by fans of the iconic anti-capitalist band from the Nineties, Rage Against the Machine, to make their glorious volcanic anthem "Killing in the Name Of" number one instead.

Already the bookies are making it favourite to be X Factor's main challenger, so what an end this could be to a decade. We might be facing indefinite Etonian rule, and ceaseless unwinnable conflicts that would beat the Hundred Years War except the planet will have disintegrated by then, but we can beat them on this. So buy the single between the 13th and the 19th. And if it works, next year in the X Factor final there'll be a double act called Fit '*Wicked singing a romantic version of "Killing in the Name Of", while 60 dancers descend on ropes setting fire to a banker's bonus.

First published in The Independent on 9th December 2009