You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye,
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you'll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go.
-Siegfried Sassoon.
Thursday, 11 November 2010
Monday, 8 November 2010
Drop Everything. Read This. Seriously.
Something that my friend Joel posted this morning on the Ramsey Campbell messageboard as part of a discussion. It's something that deserves being very widely read, before it's too late.
Let's put a few current facts together and see what they suggest in combination.
1. The Government has announced that a million public sector jobs are to be axed.
2. The Government has also announced that a high proportion of people on disability benefit will be reclassified as unemployed, quite regardless of their chances of finding work.
3. Now the Government has announced that people who have been unemployed for a long time will be... not trained, not helped to find work, not given even temporary jobs, but rather forced to do unpaid work that corresponds to the most basic of public sector manual jobs.
4. The DSS estimates the annual cost of benefit fraud to be £1.1 billion. The Inland Revenue estimates the annual cost of tax evasion to be £40 billion.
5. The Government is cutting back staffing levels heavily in the DSS and the Inland Revenue, showing that neither helping people find work nor catching tax evaders is a priority. Catching benefit fraudsters is, however, such a priority that David Cameron has announced that private sector bounty hunters will be hired to track them down.
6. The Chief Executive of the Tory-controlled Birmingham City Council has notified 26,000 employees that they may or may not be made redundant – but their current contracts are null and void, and they will not even be considered for re-engagement unless they sign new contracts that radically diminish their terms and conditions – effectively casualising the Council workforce.
7. Kenneth Clarke, current Justice Secretary and onetime Home Secretary, famously commented that a very high level of unemployment was "a price worth paying" to break the trade unions.
What these facts show in combination is a minority Conservative Government, propped up by LibDem quislings, trying to do as much damage to our public services, the people who provide them and the people who receive them as possible. This is open war on the rights and living standards of the non-rich. It will greatly increase the crime rate, the suicide rate and the mortality rate among the non-rich. It will create a gangster economy of vicious profiteering, with every area of the public sector – most especially healthcare – being carved up into franchises.
The Government has said that the NHS budget is "ring-fenced". However, it will have to be spread much thinner to cover the community healthcare being cut out of the social services budget. Over the next few years there will be a wholesale shift from the NHS budget being used mostly to train and pay NHS staff to the same budget being used mostly to pay private sector health providers... who, as New Labour's Independent Sector Treatment Programme proved, are a lot more expensive than their NHS counterparts. They are also a lot less accountable, because they refuse to disclose their clinical and financial performance data on the grounds that it is "commercially sensitive".
The question is not when the ConDem Government will stop destroying everything that is decent about our society. The question is whether anyone will stop them. It has to happen soon. By the time of the next general election, the damage done to our social fabric and to millions of lives will be irreversible.
This is war.
Let's put a few current facts together and see what they suggest in combination.
1. The Government has announced that a million public sector jobs are to be axed.
2. The Government has also announced that a high proportion of people on disability benefit will be reclassified as unemployed, quite regardless of their chances of finding work.
3. Now the Government has announced that people who have been unemployed for a long time will be... not trained, not helped to find work, not given even temporary jobs, but rather forced to do unpaid work that corresponds to the most basic of public sector manual jobs.
4. The DSS estimates the annual cost of benefit fraud to be £1.1 billion. The Inland Revenue estimates the annual cost of tax evasion to be £40 billion.
5. The Government is cutting back staffing levels heavily in the DSS and the Inland Revenue, showing that neither helping people find work nor catching tax evaders is a priority. Catching benefit fraudsters is, however, such a priority that David Cameron has announced that private sector bounty hunters will be hired to track them down.
6. The Chief Executive of the Tory-controlled Birmingham City Council has notified 26,000 employees that they may or may not be made redundant – but their current contracts are null and void, and they will not even be considered for re-engagement unless they sign new contracts that radically diminish their terms and conditions – effectively casualising the Council workforce.
7. Kenneth Clarke, current Justice Secretary and onetime Home Secretary, famously commented that a very high level of unemployment was "a price worth paying" to break the trade unions.
What these facts show in combination is a minority Conservative Government, propped up by LibDem quislings, trying to do as much damage to our public services, the people who provide them and the people who receive them as possible. This is open war on the rights and living standards of the non-rich. It will greatly increase the crime rate, the suicide rate and the mortality rate among the non-rich. It will create a gangster economy of vicious profiteering, with every area of the public sector – most especially healthcare – being carved up into franchises.
The Government has said that the NHS budget is "ring-fenced". However, it will have to be spread much thinner to cover the community healthcare being cut out of the social services budget. Over the next few years there will be a wholesale shift from the NHS budget being used mostly to train and pay NHS staff to the same budget being used mostly to pay private sector health providers... who, as New Labour's Independent Sector Treatment Programme proved, are a lot more expensive than their NHS counterparts. They are also a lot less accountable, because they refuse to disclose their clinical and financial performance data on the grounds that it is "commercially sensitive".
The question is not when the ConDem Government will stop destroying everything that is decent about our society. The question is whether anyone will stop them. It has to happen soon. By the time of the next general election, the damage done to our social fabric and to millions of lives will be irreversible.
This is war.
Saturday, 6 November 2010
The End Of The Line- The Guardian Review!
Wotcher folks. Just a quick one, this. The End Of The Line has been reviewed for today's Guardian by Eric Brown . It's a short review, in which only four stories are name-checked. These are Stephen Volk's 'In The Colosseum' (one of the most savage and disturbing stories I've read this year), Nicholas Royle's 'The Lure' (a subtle and elliptical psycholoigical... chiller? Thriller? I don't know what to call it, but it's great), Paul Meloy's magnificent 'Bullroarer' (further proof, were it needed, that Meloy is one of the finest, most original and idiosyncratic short story writers working in the field right now)... and 'The Sons Of The City'.
To say that I am delighted would be a dramatic understatement. But I won't say it... no, I won't...
Must... hold... back...
No, it's no use:
SQUEE!
Ahem. Sorry about that.
We now return you to what is laughingly called reality. Unfortunately this includes David C*ntmoron being Prime Minister and Simon Cowell existing. Sorry. It's not my fault.
To say that I am delighted would be a dramatic understatement. But I won't say it... no, I won't...
Must... hold... back...
No, it's no use:
SQUEE!
Ahem. Sorry about that.
We now return you to what is laughingly called reality. Unfortunately this includes David C*ntmoron being Prime Minister and Simon Cowell existing. Sorry. It's not my fault.
Sunday, 31 October 2010
Happy Halloween, Folks!
Tonight, I'll be staying in, turning the lights off, and watching as many horror movies as I can. Have a good 'un, folks!
Monday, 25 October 2010
Cut This, You Bastards
One week on from the spending review, and I'm still too angry to write anything about it that doesn't involve the words 'hang the bastards from lampposts'. I will, eventually. (The writing, not the hanging from lampposts. Obviously. I've got a bone in my leg, or something.) In the meantime, though, here's a nice little fuck-you to David C*ntmoron, Gideon Osborne, Nick 'Judas' Clegg and the whole damn jackal-pack of greedy, vicious, right-wing millionaire scumbags and their plans to destroy our public services, create mass unemployment and generally crucify the rest of us for the bankers' gambling debts:
La Lotta Continua!
La Lotta Continua!
Thursday, 7 October 2010
There Is Nothing Wrong With Your Internet Browser...
...but I'm not here.
Today, I'm over there. At that nice Mr Simon Marshall-Jones' blog. Being very grumpy about chavs and reality TV and other signs of the impending cultural apocalypse. However, I also reveal why Julie Burchill actually serves a useful function, so you might find that interesting. Warning: there are rude words.
Today, I'm over there. At that nice Mr Simon Marshall-Jones' blog. Being very grumpy about chavs and reality TV and other signs of the impending cultural apocalypse. However, I also reveal why Julie Burchill actually serves a useful function, so you might find that interesting. Warning: there are rude words.
Sunday, 3 October 2010
New Model Army
Never Again was launched at the Fantasycon on Saturday 18th September, and I'm glad to say it went very well. Plenty of copies shifted, and plenty of good publicity for this anthology, which deserves to sell widely and well- both for its content, and for its cause.
The Quietus picked the anthology as its Book of the Day on October 1st. Joel and Ally are hoping to get Amnesty International to make it available in their online shop. But the proudest moment of all...
I make no bones about it: New Model Army are, quite simply, my favourite band in the world. Their blend of musical excellence, powerful lyrics, politics, emotional commitment and love of nature (among many other traits) has meant a hell of a lot to me over the years, ever since some saintly soul first played the Thunder And Consolation album to me. They're the best- a great band with guts and integrity who've ploughed their own furrow and gone their own way over a career spanning thirty years and whose latest album, Today Is A Good Day, is as good as anything they've ever done.
New Model Army have listed Never Again on their website, here.
This is- purely personally- a very proud moment.
So if you get the chance to buy this anthology, it is well worth buying. And if New Model Army are playing your town, it's worth going to see them, especially if you've never seen it. I think you owe it to yourself.
The Quietus picked the anthology as its Book of the Day on October 1st. Joel and Ally are hoping to get Amnesty International to make it available in their online shop. But the proudest moment of all...
I make no bones about it: New Model Army are, quite simply, my favourite band in the world. Their blend of musical excellence, powerful lyrics, politics, emotional commitment and love of nature (among many other traits) has meant a hell of a lot to me over the years, ever since some saintly soul first played the Thunder And Consolation album to me. They're the best- a great band with guts and integrity who've ploughed their own furrow and gone their own way over a career spanning thirty years and whose latest album, Today Is A Good Day, is as good as anything they've ever done.
New Model Army have listed Never Again on their website, here.
This is- purely personally- a very proud moment.
So if you get the chance to buy this anthology, it is well worth buying. And if New Model Army are playing your town, it's worth going to see them, especially if you've never seen it. I think you owe it to yourself.
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