Pointlessly combative

Here's a laugh.

Not such a lovely bloke | Review | Guardian Unlimited Books: "It's hard, of course, to keep an altogether straight face while reading such an apologia, and anyone who has ever bumped into the man whom Charles Moore memorably described as 'the most pointlessly combative person in human history' is going to pick this book up with an outsize pair of tongs, wondering at exactly what level of honesty it is meant to be operating. Campbell does self-doubt in the same way that Nixon did repentance and Clinton contrition. Campbell himself has damaged his own claims to authenticity by admitting to excising from publication anything that might either advance the cause of the Conservative party or damage the standing of the new prime minister. The account of the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq is so gappy as to be historically valueless."

The levels of honesty are many. The impression of unvarnished, first-hand is probably accurate; but the facts are obviously not all there and the judgements are all over the place.

The main illusion is that Campbell manipulated the media. What really happened was Blair and Brown did a deal (tacit, explicit?) with Murdoch and got the Sun off Labour's back and onside by handing Murdoch most of what he wanted in terms of regulation and policy.

Ozzie-man(d)ias

erk alors

Ray Ozzie, Scott Guthrie: MIX '07: "You can also go ahead and set up what we call autoplay mode, and this is going to let .NET run against the browser, native JavaScript inside the browser. (Laughter.) The difference you can see in terms of the number of nodes that .NET can go ahead and process versus the -- 1.5 million per second versus JavaScript. (Cheers, applause.)"

New statesmen

Published in the Morning Star

(Thursday 12 July 2007)

MALCOLM BURNS

MALCOLM BURNS wonders whether the Scottish Nationalist win might finally force Labour to take stock north of the border.

GREETINGS from the new Caledonia! Well, maybe not quite. We are all still trying to come to terms with what really happened in the Scottish elections in May.

This is just my take, as an active Labour Party member and a socialist now living with a new minority nationalist government.

What I am going to write - I actually think that the SNP government is a breath of fresh air and, so far, appears much more democratic and open than its predecessor - will be dismissed as an illusion by many Labour supporters.

So, I am going to start with a quote about the May election.

"This was a campaign that showed Labour at its best - Tony Blair magnificent, leading from the front, finding exactly the right words, always able to change the political weather."

That grand fantasy, that touchstone of self-delusion, is nothing less than the post-election assessment by Blair's own in-house polling guru Philip Gould. You could find the full insane monty in the May 14 New Statesman.

With advisers and hubris like this, it is not surprising that Britain is mired in the disaster of Iraq.

Oh dear. Where to start? It's almost as though Blair had actually won us the Scottish elections, despite our whinging Jock uselessness.

Labour lost. The SNP won. Gould's "arrogant and presumptuous" Alex Salmond is first minister, capably exercising executive power. Gould's "street-fighting" Jack McConnell is somewhat shell-shocked - gamely still leading the opposition, but with no power left, not even in local government apart from Glasgow and North Lanarkshire. Hell will freeze over before they go, McConnell probably hopes.

Maybe I just feel more cheerful about everything because Gould's "magnificent" Blair is now our leader no more, effectively forced out of office, despite the tedious extended exit. Good riddance.

In fact, so far, the new Scottish government has not put a foot wrong.

What did you expect? Chaos in the streets? A sudden cataclysmic parting of the largest British isle, between Gretna and Berwick?

In Scotland, the shallowness of our official Labour campaign could exactly be measured by the fears which were spun in desperate tabloid campaigns. The election-day Sun splash showed an SNP noose around Scotland's neck.

Fear may indeed have shored up the Labour vote in the last day or two. But it looks increasingly irrational, as the SNP government effortlessly eclipses the previous administration in being sensible, capable and even likeable - yes, Salmond's irritating smug duckling has turned into, if not a swan, then at least a statesperson. A new statesman, in fact.

The election was never really about independence, which is anyway not supported by the majority of Scots. Salmond's masterstroke was to effectively remove the issue through the promise of a referendum.

Now, we are not talking about independence anymore. But we are doing politics - and some of it opens to the left.

I know that we are far from abolishing Trident or cancelling its replacement. But I am glad that our new government has that as a policy.

I am an agnostic in the debate about restructuring the NHS which poses a few big centres of excellence against many local general hospitals. Why can't we have sufficient of each?

But I know that I support the aim of ending privatisation in the NHS in Scotland. I know that I support the aim of ending PFI/PPP in public-sector projects.

I should also say that Salmond has been sensible and wise in responding to the recent Glasgow airport bomb attack and has calmly and astutely included and represented the whole Scottish people in his response. He also opposed the war, which adds to his credibility.

I hear old new Labour hacks - even those who recently were Holyrood ministers with executive power themselves, even some still in power in Westminster - desperately waiting and hoping for the SNP train to come off the rails. But I just don't see Salmond gifting power back to a hackneyed McNuLab. Labour needs to change to win Scotland back.

True, a lot of the SNP promises and decisions already taken will be costly to implement. Doubtless, there will be painful cuts or cancellations to pay for some of these. I do also know that the SNP is pinning unrealistic and quite right-wing hopes on big capital and low corporation tax.

That sounds familiar. We don't have a left-wing government in Scotland and I am under no illusions.

I have the impression that many beleaguered socialists down south, whether Labour supporters or not, have over the years harboured hopes that there was a left-wing lion in the far north which would rise and show the way for the whole of Albion.

True, the SSP as led by Tommy Sheridan had five MSPs in the last Scottish Parliament. But hope in the shape of the SSP was always illusory. This is the official SSP post-election assessment.

"We fought in hope and we got beat. Big time. But (the) electoral rout does not mean that the Scottish Socialist Party is a spent force, or that we're about to implode."

Dream on. Even the Socialist Labour Party, which has no organisation at all in Scotland, got more votes than the SSP. And that wasn't a lot.

The Labour Party needs to learn the lessons of the defeat in Scotland. It's worth looking at the refreshingly realistic approach being taken by Labour in Wales, where - much to the chagrin of the party leadership at Westminster - Rhodri Morgan has been negotiating a coalition with Plaid Cymru on the sensible, even modestly left-wing, One Wales platform.

In fact, Scottish Labour could and should have had more sensible, even left-wing, policies before the last election, of the kind regularly voted for in trade union and even Labour Party conferences.

Labour lost in Scotland because our generals were out of touch with the Scottish people, having even failed to deliver for many of our core voters - percentage turnout in many safe Labour seats in the election was in the low thirties.

The SNP, cleverly led by Salmond, exploited Scottish Labour's hopeless enslavement by the London machine.

Labour needs to change. And the left in the Labour Party and the unions - north and south of the border - must lead that change.

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The network will pick up the whole of human history

Yeah, this is what we think...

BBC NEWS | Technology | The Tech Lab: Charles Stross: "We've had agriculture for about 12,000 years, towns for eight to 10,000 years, and writing for about 5,000 years. But we're still living in the dark ages leading up to the dawn of history."

Charles Stross says we (humans) are about to lose the bad habit, and even the capability, of forgetting.

I see Charles lives in Edinburgh - maybe he would like to drop in on Dropping The network Out Of The Dakota...

Other thoughts... Clearly the remembering and the forgetting have a close relationship. Would you prefer to forget? Is it more painful to remember? Is it an open door to tyranny if we forget? And of course, what is true?

Dropping the network out of the dakota

Wouldn't you love to go to a Mysterian night with Andrew Back and Scott Savage DJs, and a special appearance by The Drugs, and this band:

Mother and the Addicts Press Release:

"In the studio, the band sought to get the most out of a limited range of equipment: guitars, bass, drums and an old Yamaha CS5 – resulting in an album that’s resolutely modern whilst throwing affectionate nods and winks to the ghosts of classics past. It’s rooted in the type of music that offered an ‘eight-hour escape’ from the drudgery of the working week; that celebrated the lure of the dance floor, the soundtrack of a Saturday night. Mother And The Addicts are very much a throwback to all of those bands that were skilled at what they played and knew how to get a party started…

“The best music always recognises the clash between the sweet and the sour – disco always had its hangover. I’ve never managed to fully get the American ‘rawk’ thing and have always felt more drawn to the kind of acerbic intelligence you find in British and US post-punk bands, there’s also an affinity with reggae, soul, and disco - a lot of my family had been skin heads and soul boys when I was growing up and they introduced me to that type of thing.”"

We should call it Dropping The Network Out Of The Dakota...

Here's the old Mysterian "flyers"...

Maeve Mackinnon - Don't Sing Lovesongs (Foot Stompin' Records)

Published in the Morning Star
(Friday 06 July 2007)

An artful blend

ALBUM: Maeve Mackinnon - Don't Sing Lovesongs

(Foot Stompin' Records)

"DON'T sing love songs, you'll wake my mother" is the gently ironic refrain from Maeve Mackinnon, the young Celtic singer stepping out here with an accomplished first album.

Mackinnon's artful blend of Scots, Irish and US ballads around an eclectic core of traditional Gaelic songs is backed by musicians who range easily from folk to jazz and even classical moods.

She also finds room for some Gaelic puirt-a-beul - mouth music.

As a Scot with political as well as musical roots, Mackinnon credits Dick Gaughan as an influence, which is clearly heard on her version of Child ballad The Cruel Brother.

And the album's cool, modern feel is emphasised with a refreshing take on hackneyed pub chant The Wild Rover.

MALCOLM BURNS

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