It’s remarkable that the same Conservative Party that was the first to radically deregulate the City in the 1980′s and agreed to match Labour’s levels of public spending as recently as 2008, can actually come into power in 2010 blaming Labour for an economic crisis caused by a greatly unregulated financial sector, and then – as the media go to sleep – repeatedly claim that this was all the incompetence of Labour. If you repeat it enough, it’ll become accepted as truth, thinks public relations whizkid David Cameron, it seems, as he sells off the state and puts power into private interests.

The cuts? The Tories claim they’re just cutting state spending and privatising not for the elites that they entirely depend on for party funding of course, but because ordinary people have to suffer the consequences of repaying a banking crisis bill that reached £1.5 trillion.

But people aren’t buying it any more. The successful election campaigning strategy of blasting the discredited Blair/Brown New Labour project worked at a time of post-crisis confusion, which is when – as Naomi Klein explains in her book The Shock Doctrine – shock therapy is administered: ramming through radical reforms of neoliberalism while a people are disorientated.

The shock now, though, is starting to wear off, with the dust settling, the smoke clearing, and people emerging from the proverbial smokescreen recalling that Britain only ever pulled itself from a crisis via economic growth stimulus – just look at the greatest crisis ever, the Second World War, after which we literally rebuilt Britain and formed a National Health Service that David Cameron promised he wouldn’t cut. Of course, you don’t have to cut it when you can sell it off – the process of which has begun for the first time in British history, thanks to the Liberal Democrats-backed Health & Social Care Bill, to little media attention.

While U.S. President Barack Obama tries to introduce the principles of universal health care in his country, over here in the U.K. we’re headed in the opposite direction – and ignoring his largely successful economic crisis recovery strategy of stimulus. The Tories can ignore history, but people are starting to recollect it, and regroup to mobilise against the establishment. Today, on May Day, people are preparing to vote later this week in local elections for councils that have suffered their own budget cuts thanks to central government. The wealthier town councils which, of course, tend to be Tory, are getting by on their vast reserves, while the poorest are hit the hardest.

My city council – Sheffield – was the first one to ever go “red,” that is, Labour. It was that spirit of International Workers’ Day that brought the labour movement together in the first place a century ago to form the Labour Party – to protect the working class mass majority from the greedy bosses and bankers. Yes, Gordon Brown could have done more to stop tax avoidance, and could have done more to re-regulate the financial sector, albeit provoking the wrath of the corporate media, but he did help rescue Britain from the threat of complete economic devastation. The failed New Labour project was always going to be unpopular, and unsustainable, but domestically, what they did was some good, some bad – yet nothing compared to a Conservative Party that owes no explanations to any worker; they answer to different interests.

As Britain enters the choppy waters of a double-dip recession, the Tories are running out of excuses anyway. Their entire strategy – hidden by the premise of deficit-reduction – will struggle to connect to people wondering why they are paying for a bill racked up not by the public spending that Tories endorsed just over three years ago, but by the bail-out of the top-heavy banking corporations. It can’t keep being Labour’s fault in local elections after two years, and it certainly won’t be in the general election after four or five.

I don’t want to see the Tories get elected any more than the next rational person, but if it comes as a result of them implementing Plan B via a u-turn from their raiding of community libraries, youth centres, and community projects, I’d stomach it somewhat better. They may soon have no choice, unless they’re content to win the loot for their rich buddies at the expense of a longer stay in power, hence their rushed radical reforms ransacking the country.

The media propaganda can only do so much – the sleeping giant of a working class is starting to wake up, and the Tories are in trouble, with those navigating them through dangerous territories perhaps now calling out, “May Day…we’re going down.”

Share this:

“Deliver us, lord, from the fury of the northmen.”

- 8th century prayer.

Here in the People’s Republic of South Yorkshire, I reside in the birthplace of modern association football’s written rules of the modern game we watch today, not to mention the home of the world’s oldest club, Sheffield FC (that clever bit of fence-sitting should sufficiently appease my fellow Sheffield citizens of both Wednesday and United persuasions).

Of course, this all came after the 1845 Enclosure Act made it difficult for ordinary people to find places to play the game. The sport – once banned in its basic form by Edward II for the “hooliganism” surrounding township free-for-alls associated with the game – became less organic and of the land, so clubs formed to create specific spaces to play. Sheffield FC were founded in 1857, and the rules of Assoc. Football (or soccer for short) were based on the ones drafted by the club. Naturally, being from South Yorkshire, no matter where they traveled they wanted to literally play by their own rules, though they eventually accepted the later broadly agreed laws of the game, in 1878.

The era saw South Yorkshire give birth to a number of now-famous clubs:

In 1889, Sheffield United were formed by Cricket Club president Sir John Charles Clegg (no relation to Nick Clegg), and later became the first person to receive a knighthood for services to soccer. The club was born out of necessity to fill a void on the Bramall Lane ground, since the site’s original tenants had moved away, and to take advantage of the possible income generation – since it had hosted an FA Cup semi-final game between Preston North End and West Bromwich Albion that had brought in 22,688 paying people. As homage to Sheffield’s world-famous steel industry, Sheffield United were nicknamed “The Blades” – imagery of which appears on their crest. These days, I can hear the roar of the crowds from my current residence.

A couple of years before, Barnsley created their club in 1887, put together by none other than a clergyman – Tiverton Preedy, who named the team after his church: Barnsley St Peters. Within their first year they were playing their home games at the Oakwell ground, on which they still play to this day. Ten years later, the fanbase had grown beyond just Preedy’s parish and after his departure, they were renamed simply Barnsley FC. Both sets of my grandparents were from Barnsley, so I have a soft spot for them.

As I wrote about in my book Pissing in the Mainstream, Doncaster was home to railwayman Thomas R. Steels when he helped draft the proposal to the Trades Union Congress to have organised Labour representation in elections, leading to the creation of the Labour Party. But even older than this, further back – in 1879 – Doncaster had created a soccer team from the railways, where rail works fitter Albert Jenkins founded Doncaster Rovers.

Back further, in Rotherham in 1870, Thornhill United were formed, but by the turn of the century had superseded the previously prominent Rotherham Town to the extent that they dared change their name to Rotherham County. Rotherham Town later collapsed, but another team adopted the same name. Eventually, though – in 1925 – the two clubs merged, and were Rotherham United, the club that still plays to this day. Sadly, just as the town’s shoppers have been going to nearby shopping complexes such as Parkgate and even Sheffield’s Meadowhall since (or due to) the increasing demise of town centre businesses, so Rotherham United fans have had to travel to Sheffield recently to see their homeless team play at Don Valley Stadium. Fortunately, that’s about to change, with the opening of a brand-new stadium later in 2012.

But older than all these was grand old Sheffield Wednesday, founded in 1867 to keep the Wednesday Cricket Club fit during the winter months when cricket wasn’t being played (they were called Wednesday literally because that’s the day of the week they played cricket). This team was actually Sir John Charles Clegg’s first soccer enterprise: they were the above-mentioned club that left Bramall Lane, leaving it vacant for the creation of a rival team, an act some in the city rue to this day! Wednesday are the only club in historically socialist South Yorkshire to still go against Sheffield FC’s red colours (today, counterparts Sheffield United, Barnsley, Doncaster Rovers, and Rotherham United all wear red).

What changed the course of soccer history even more than Sheffield Wednesday’s move away from Bramall Lane was, a few years later, Woolwich Arsenal being “elected” to simply join the top tier of the sport, despite finishing in just fifth place at the division below (thus not actually earning promotion). This was after considerable persuasion of unknown detail by wealthy Arsenal owner and Londoner Sir Henry Norris, who insisted the club be promoted “for their long service to league football,” by which rationale you’d have to elevate lowly Sheffield FC to the upper echelons of the game before the likes of bloody Arsenal.

But the rest, as they say, is history: Arsenal have remained the highest division ever since, and today they are the third most valuable soccer club in the world – valued at over £730,000,000.

It’s stating the bleeding obvious that South Yorkshire has never been conducive to a creation of millionaires at the rate London has.

Televised soccer has meant revenues generated for the teams that play games the general public want to watch. Naturally, this means that the sport becomes top-heavy, because the larger teams attract fairweather fans who will follow clubs simply for their success and likelihood to win games – thus the larger clubs sustain significant income generation; smaller clubs will rarely get a decent opportunity since fewer members of the national audience care to watch them.

In American football, the NFL distribute television revenues evenly amongst all the teams, and the top teams get to the back of the line when getting picks on the up-and-coming college players ready to be drafted up to the NFL; it’s “first to the top – back of the queue, sunshine.” It evens the proverbial playing field of all the clubs. If this sounds somewhat socialist to you, it’s worth wondering if we’re doing something wrong here when I write this in what’s called the People’s Republic of South Yorkshire and yet the Americans are doing something more socialist than us. (Mind you, these days, they’re trying to introduce universal healthcare; we’re trying to privatise it.)

As more and more money flooded into the working class sport of soccer, where ordinary lads went from kicking a can around their streets to overnight stardom, players themselves understandably wanted a cut of it. Wages have shot to heights never before imagined for a position most people have traditionally considered a hobby of exercise and entertainment. Given that these players, like any of us, must “speculate to accumulate,” regardless of the duration of their careers, they have opportunities for entrepreneurship and sustained success that their working class mates – particularly under a Conservative government agenda – could only ever dream of. It’s now out of control: many are sports car-driving celebrities in their own right, with the egos to match.

One of the posts in my collection of blogs in another of my books includes a piece titled “The Very First Division,” in which I look at the resurgence of “hooliganism” after the Second World War – what’s known as “The English Disease” reaching crisis point in the 1980s – a tumultuous time when the working classes were being thrown out of work for daring to be in unions; Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher declaring war on workers’ rights for the purposes of corporate exploitation, as per her Chicago School doctrine and Ridley Plan plot.

With the absence of an industry that not only actually generated fuel for their homes, but also provided secure employment with solid rights, not to mention literally built communities such as colliery villages, and all the camaraderie that this reinforced, young working class men with their expectations destroyed then found other ways to feel part of a common group – the soccer club. This, though, pitted working class groups, or “firms,” against each other, the result being violence of all kinds, at and away from the stadium. It was a nice little Tory byproduct of conquering a class divided, and a great justification for tougher law and order that also cracked down on hooliganism, as the sport’s working class demographic also decreased (Arsenal now charge anywhere from around £50 to £100 per ticket).

Being born and raised here in South Yorkshire – in Doncaster, named after and built upon a Roman fort – I saw firsthand the effects of the colliery closures and the depression that the subregion’s population fell into, both economically and emotionally. Where there were once coal mines and steelworks, there suddenly stood shiny shopping complexes and corporate call centres, providing often short-term, part-time jobs dominated by women who began to overtake men in the workforce via these forms of employment that offered far less stability than that of the previous industries.

I doubt it’s what the wonderfully empowered feminist groups of “Women Against Pit Closures” dreamed of as they stood in the cold damp streets of striking South Yorkshire pit villages, holding it together while the men fell apart; men who were being emasculated in the region, turning to alcohol abuse and violence in vain attempts to alleviate their fears and frustrations.

With this history and a sense of pride, then, I’ve supported Doncaster Rovers (alongside their female counterparts, the world-famous Doncaster Rovers Belles) since my childhood. I was born there, so they were my team just as they were my dad’s team since his youth, watching his first game live in 1947, when they were doing pretty well (setting a record by winning 33 games in one season), and continued a good run into the 1950s. After that, though, the old fashioned fellows running the club simply looked to sustain the status quo rather than reinvest revenues to expand the home ground and the club in general, and it was downhill from there for the most part.

As the decades saw subsequent generations turn to other Yorkshire towns like Sheffield and even Leeds to watch high-profile soccer, the decline became sharper; Doncaster was no longer in the running as a definitive soccer town, despite the remarkable success of the Belles – their manager Paul Edmunds said of rivals Arsenal, “These soft Cockneys never done a hard day’s work in their life,” adding that they’d “never been down the pit,” while striker Karen Walker later suggested, “There’s a feeling here that we are representing the north.”

In the 1990′s, as I covered in my film Escape from Doncatraz, Doncaster Rovers were being run (into the ground) by businessman Ken Richardson. After the equally notorious Doncaster Council that had already inadvertently given the team a redesigned “Viking” logo by denying them further use of the town’s coat of arms also stalled on development of a brand-new stadium, the owner hired a mob to actually burn to the ground what was left of the dilapidated Belle Vue site, like Nero watching Rome in flames. The hapless crooks left their mobile phones at the site in the failed attempt, exposing the entire plot and sending “Nero” himself to jail for four years in the wake of a mock funeral held for Doncaster Rovers by the few hundred remaining hardcore fans as the club approached extinction, having achieved another record of 34 defeats in a season, and plummeted to the semi-professional conference level – dark days indeed. But in the ruins of Rome and the midst of the fall of this Roman Empire plagued by corruption, came hope: the Viking became a symbol of the next dominant force for the club; its logo no longer one of shame, but of courage.

Lifelong fan John Ryan, a plastic surgery magnate, took over the club, not just promising give them a facelift (reviving the team’s traditional red-and-white hooped shirts), but also vowing to get them back into the league, starting with the fourth tier, then through the third and eventually up into the second (now the “Championship”) – ambitious stuff. It would be the August Revolution of 1998, and it changed the club forever.

And he achieved it all – in addition to something else Ken Richardson couldn’t: a stadium sponsored by Doncaster Council, built and completed in 2006, with the first Doncaster Rovers game taking place on New Year’s Day of 2007, which I attended. We won 3-0 against Huddersfield, where fans were now traveling from every couple of weeks to come and see us, according to conversations they had with my dad (bloody fairweather fans – they should be supporting their own town’s team, even if we were beating them!) It was alien to us, this idea that people were traveling from other towns around Yorkshire and elsewhere in England to watch our Rovers.

Under the cool, calm and collected management of former professional Sean O’Driscoll, the team even started playing beautiful soccer, a passing game that earned us the amusing tag “The Arsenal of League One” as we rose to the Championship in 2008, defeating mighty Leeds in the play-offs as I followed the game online whilst living in Canada and people wondered why I was running around punching the air. For a brief time, we were even the best team in Yorkshire. This was stuff of the Rocky movies.

Being the Championship’s smallest club, though (and, with Peterborough, one of only two Championship teams this season who had never played top flight soccer), the odds were still stacked up. This season, we started with a good team – yet were still the bookies’ favourites for relegation. On the Football League Show, you’ll notice they rarely gave Doncaster Rovers much attention or conversation. And why would they? Doncaster lost its fans over the last several decades, and has only recently been rebuilding its base, but it’s impossible to have it happen quick enough to accumulate the resources necessary for survival. Again, the entire sport favours those who already have the money – a beautifully cruel reflection of the capitalist system the Tory government champions as they widen the gap between rich and poor. Even our mascot is an underdog – the infamous “Donny Dog.”

After star player Billy Sharp got taken out by a violent tackle in the season’s opening game against Brighton, the team faced more adversity, with other players injured, too. O’Driscoll continued inspiring great passing and finesse, but we weren’t scoring goals – and on the few occasions we were, we weren’t winning games. He was fired and replaced by another former professional player, Dean Saunders, who I remember watching on television (and at Sheffield games while playing for or against the city’s teams) in the 1980′s and 90′s.

But with no significant resources at his disposal, Saunders was influenced to take advantage of the loan player policy crafted by agent Willie McKay, where top players missing major first team action would come to the club on reduced wages to what they’re used to, and play “to keep Doncaster Rovers in the Championship” whilst exhibiting their skills in the “shop window” to the Premiership. The claims that the club’s long-term best interests were not at the forefront of their minds were understandable, if cynical – it individualised these players’ motivations even within a team sport.

These top “temp” players from countries like Senegal and Guadeloupe – and called “mercenaries” by racist fans – meant that the amount of different men pulling on the red and white shirts in this last season totaled a ridiculous number of 40. I had my doubts from the start that a team in a constant state of flux would not be sustainable long-term – eventually you’re left with those who are Doncaster Rovers players on the books. But the short-term quick-fix arguments became overwhelming.

South Yorkshire-born Billy Sharp returned from injury, but left for more money at high-riding Southampton, who were bearing the promise of giving him the potential to play in the Premiership. There’s little loyalty for lads playing this sport, but when you’ve come from nothing, the extra noughts on a cheque mean so much more – even more than helping keep alive the dreams of your mates back home. In a business dominated by money and agents, this is the culture. Sharp’s never looked back since.

As has been typical all season, the game against Portsmouth on April 14th saw the Donny team playing well – and scoring three goals – but after being in the lead, conceding four goals following a red card and two penalty decisions against them, in addition to one Pompey goal that appeared to be handball. Even psychologically, referees, despite their difficult role (my dad referred non-league games) often think of the Rovers as inconsequential underdogs perhaps undeserving of playing Championship soccer. And when John Ryan complains about this as his fans chant “we only get shit refs,” he faces charges of misconduct.

The Portsmouth game sealed our fate: Doncaster Rovers were officially relegated back into the third tier, back where the pundits and elites said we belonged all along; small fish in a big pond seemingly with no right to fulfill the dreams of a town population browbeaten for years. John Ryan has suggested “we don’t have the fanbase” for the Championship – after fulfilling the goals he’d set, this was a dig at young fans from the economically depressed area being reluctant, in a recession, to part with £27 for each game at the somewhat inaccessible Keepmoat Stadium (positioned on the outskirts of the town beside a man-made lake and named such due to sponsors Keepmoat Insurance – who apparently weren’t put off by the fate of the last stadium under Ken “Nero” Richardson…perhaps the presence of the lake helped). But it wasn’t the fans’ fault. They were likely the last to take legitimate blame, in truth.

These attendance issues make it difficult for the newfound fanbase of Doncastrian youngsters to sustain and grow, something John Ryan needs to understand. But at least he’s now admitted that the Willie McKay “experiment” failed, prompting resigned directors Dick Watson and Terry Brammall to contemplate returning to the board of the club, and Dean Saunders able to look at building his own squad of permanent players who must be “proud to play for Doncaster Rovers, and feel really lucky to be pulling the shirt on,” he says, essentially suggesting all the loan players made available to him wasn’t necessarily his idea of an ideal situation given the circumstances. Interestingly, we’ve arguably played better since the relegation – with a team full of players on our books, rather than the temps.

Portsmouth, though – like Glasgow Rangers – are a telling tale of the times: a premier club threatened with extinction, burdened by a wealth unsustainable in a world where even the greatest companies like the banking corporations collapse under the weight of the greed forced on them by the rules of the top-heavy system that mean those at the bottom take the most strain to keep their elite rivals on top.

The other week on the way to the stadium, in the midst of discussions about the disappointment around Rovers’ relegation, I heard a supporter defend fairweather fans on the premise that people want to pay money to be entertained, “because if you saw a poor theatre performance with bad acting you wouldn’t want to watch it again.”

But soccer isn’t theatre. We don’t attend the event because it has a predetermined, rehearsed performance, or a happy ending. It isn’t pro wrestling. It’s Assoc. Football. As Matthew Bazell suggests in his excellent book Theatre of Silence: The Lost Soul of Football, there is another way for “the people’s game.” That way is based on a set of values shared amongst all those who don’t choose a team, but have a team choose them, rooted in the fabric of their own community’s history. It’s about holding on to those community values that were pulled away from us under Thatcher.

We’ve already been relegated, yes, but I’ll be making the most of my season ticket and attending yet again on Saturday for the last game of the season. Because to me, supporting Doncaster Rovers means the same to me as it ever did: it’s the red, white, and black that represents where I came from, no matter who owns the club, manages the team, or plays for it. That’s where I’m from. I was born in Doncaster Royal Infirmary kicking and screaming at 3pm – kick-off time – on Monday, November 15th, 1976. Nothing will ever change that fact.

I support Doncaster’s Rovers – literally – by attending the games and by being a member of the Viking Supporters Co-operative that gives us fans a share in the club and a say in how it’s run. Because it’s our club. By being loyal to it, we’re rejecting the concept that might makes right, that greed is good, and that only success is worthy of praise. We’re staying true and loyal to all the values of not just Albert Jenkins, but those of Thomas R. Steels, too.

Share this:

In this edition of What Ed Said recently, we find Miliband making bold promises about the Tories, vowing to defend ordinary people, and calling the bluff of those criticising him for the usual “union barons” link…

With Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron in the comfortable position of making first moves on the political chess board, Miliband has matched him move-for-move, with the cash-for-access scandal covered in the last installment of What Ed Said here prompting the Tory leader to publish the names of major party donors he has entertained, putting the pressure on Ed to do the same.

As it happened, Miliband outmaneuvered him: Cameron’s list only included those donating more than £50,000 to his party, whereas Ed included on his own lists anyone giving as low as £7,500. The odious Baroness Warsi – the Tories’ terrier on issues related to workers’ rights – was immediately wheeled out to minimise the damage, claiming the prominence of unions on the Labour list showed that the party “is the political wing of ‘Red’ Len McCluskey’s Unite trade union.” We can only assume she didn’t want to make it an economic recession-era pissing contest of who funds which party: bosses, or workers. And it’s no shock that Ed’s party will have links to organised workers, since they’re called the Labour Party. (The Guardian) “It’s not just that working people founded the Labour Party,” said Ed, “but they keep us rooted in those communities now.” (BBC)

It is in this context that Ed has continued his talk of, essentially, representing the 99%. In a speech to activists in Birmingham, Miliband said: “Labour is changing so that we can change the country. This Government has abandoned the pretence that they can govern for the whole country. They have betrayed middle Britain. They are spending their time listening to their donors, the people who give millions of pounds to the Conservative Party, cutting taxes for millionaires, not the millions of people of this country.” He added, “We are determined to govern for the whole country, not just the wealthy few. They are the values that the people of Britain demand.” (The Independent)

With that, and in light of the party donations scandals while Occupy protesters are calling to take money out of politics, Ed boldly suggested that all party donations be capped at £5,000. The Tories dismissed the whole suggestion. (The Guardian) The Telegraph then moved into action, quickly claiming that the “£5,000 cap on political donations…would hurt the Conservatives three times more than Labour” echoing Warsi’s cries against the removal of corporate interests when workers’ unions working under those interests would apparently still retain influence (God forbid). Nice enough move by the elitists there. Ed’s response? “All political leaders are going to have to make difficult decisions on this,” he began. “When I talk about a £5,000 donation cap it has got to apply to donations from the trade unions. (Their) large donations would no longer happen under this system. It does need to be a comprehensive reform. I am not making a unilateral act.”

Ouch. Not what the Tories wanted to hear – he was calling their bluff. “Let’s take the big money out of politics,” continued Ed. “I hope Nick Clegg and David Cameron will come forward with their own proposals that say: ‘We’re willing to take a bit of pain too; we are willing to make changes which will make things harder for our political party but it’s in the interests of our democracy’.” (The Independent)

As we know, Labour’s massive battle to save the NHS as we know it failed: the Health and Social Care bill went through, carried by the Liberal Democrats towards the gates that opened up all kinds of privatisation possibilities like a Conservative wet dream, remaining as it did the stuff of fantasies even under Margaret Thatcher. The next battlefield takes place all across the country in various communities represented by council elections – and this is where Miliband feels the fight can still salvage something. “I think that Labour councils are now the last line of defence against this bill and they have got to use the public health and well-being boards as a way of trying to prevent the worst aspects of this bill,” said Ed. “Of course, comply with legislation because the legislation has passed. But I think there is an opportunity for Labour councils to stand up for the right principles not the wrong principles in our NHS.” (The Guardian)

Speaking of elections, the Bradford by-election result was reported as a disaster for Labour due to the victory from perennial underdog George Galloway, the anti-war outcast booted from Labour under Tony Blair’s New Labour regime for his controversial views, but put into perspective it’s not such a big deal, especially compared to the local elections. Ed called it “a very bad result but there is a big picture about where politics is and I think people will look back on the last few weeks and say, ‘that was when the Cameron project hit the buffers and this was when Labour had their chance’.” He went on: “Opposition is a long and difficult haul. It is going to be a one-term haul, I am confident about that.” (The Guardian)

Of course, as always, you could be forgiven for missing quotes such as these – because the likes of the Telegraph were busy pointing out that Ed Miliband met with rich people from the City, just as he met with Rupert Murdoch as part of his role in the Opposition. We can only assume they frown as much when David Cameron and his cronies do the same to generate all those generous donations for themselves, giving private functions in return.

Share this:

One week ago, I had the pleasure of seeing The Hunger Games at a cinema in Liverpool with my partner Jane Watkinson. I’d seen ads on buses for a couple of weeks prior to viewing the film, and wrongly assumed it was going to be some sort of rehash of The Running Man, where convicts were pitted against fighters to gain their freedom and Arnold Schwarzenegger played the hero. Oh, how wrong I was.

The Hunger Games was originally a 2008 novel written by Suzanne Collins, aimed at young adults and – not surprisingly with the author’s experience in the television industry – heavily inspired by the modern “reality show” phenomenon. It beautifully translated to the big screen, green lit by Lionsgate for its action-adventure science fiction ingredients.

What makes The Hunger Games so important is its series of messages – sometimes grossly misinterpreted, which I’ll discuss later. Building on the reality show theme with inspiration from Roman gladiatorial games, the Iraq war and authoritarian regimes, the movie raises several questions.

The film is set in the post-apocalyptic future of fictional dystopic nation Panem, which has its wealthy Capitol and a dozen districts, all impoverished and each of which has to offer two members of its community as “Tributes” via lottery at a “Reaping” event to represent their district in “The Hunger Games” – a televised fight to the death – as punishment for previous rebellions against the establishment. The contest draws sponsors and gambling odds, and provides much entertainment for the elites in the Capitol.

Katniss (played by Jennifer Lawrence) and Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) are the two Tributes from District 12. Interestingly, particularly for the action genre, Katniss is the main protagonist of the whole movie, isn’t sexualised, and is portrayed as somewhat ordinary, down-to-earth yet cerebral by Ms Lawrence (who dyed her hair from blonde to brown for the part), despite Kat’s skills as an archer from having to scavenge and hunt for animal flesh in the forests of her district.

On the other hand, meat – far from representing the desperate necessity of the districts – is plentiful in the excesses of the rich Capitol, whose inhabitants feast on fatted calves and spitroasted swine and are presented, via the costume designs of Judianna Makovsky, as something from France before the revolution – Effie Trinket, the presenter of the District 12 Reaping and games escort for Katniss and Peeta, more than sightly resembles Marie Antoinette. The Capitol is full of what we’d consider to be “the 1%” – enclosed from the rabble of the 99% who reside in the twelve districts.

The Capitol’s love for The Hunger Games may be based on flash-in-the-pan subjects as celebrities and the concept of watching poor people fight each other to the death, but this sickness isn’t grasped by its audience, and this seems like the writers’ attempts to show us a logical but extreme conclusion to the current course of reality show programming, where ordinary oppressed citizens are exploited and degraded as they figuratively stab one another in the back for a proverbial fifteen minutes of fame and the enjoyment of audiences watching their idiot box.

In order to manipulate the viewers of The Hunger Games, the story shows the producers positioning Katniss and Peeta as “Star-Crossed Lovers” on the road to certain Shakespearean tragedy, since there can be only one remaining in this survival of the fittest. Katniss at first avoids confrontation or killing, and shows nothing but solidarity with not just her own but other poverty-stricken districts, while demonstrating subtle disrespect towards the establishment.

When one district loses its young Tribute, its impoverished people rise up in anger, rioting and railing against the brute force of the state. This is quite poignant at a time when, in our world, many countries are experiencing civil unrest – including the United States and moreso Britain, who last summer saw widespread rioting as state powers cut resources and shot citizens.

Despite all of these progressive themes raising questions about inequality and injustice, I’ve read the odd misinterpretation of the film as anti-state and even anti-Obama, which is absurd considering the particular angle of the film as I’ve described above – and which hopefully you’ll see for yourself when you see it – and the fact that major left-wing actors like Donald Sutherland and Woody Harrelson signed on to be a part of the project.

The Hunger Games is about an elite few powers oppressing the poor and offering them fifteen minutes of fame while the system of imbalance is retained throughout the distraction of the whole spectacle.

What it might, I find, lack in style, it most certainly makes up for in substance. Suzanne Collins wrote three books, and The Hunger Games was the first in the trilogy. Here’s to more of Katniss and her people.

Share this:

For anyone who thought the New Labour project’s inner circle had machinated enough the last decade to cause bloodshed overseas, it’s worth pointing out that the current Conservative-led coalition in power in Westminster are happily perpetuating what has long since lost any credibility – that being our campaign in the Middle East.

Forget South East Asia; forget Latin America: the obsession with the oil-rich region is something this generation will recall the rest of their lives, ever since Tory leader John Major went along with George HW Bush Sr into Iraq in 1991 before boosting military contracting with their Carlyle Group who, ironically, would be in-meeting as their TV screens showed the Twin Towers collapsing into their own footprint ten years later, taking only two hours further to pin the World Trade Center 9/11 attack on Osama bin Laden via the irresponsible corporate media who were seemingly only responsible when it came to providing propaganda for the right-wing.

Given the New Labour project’s Murdoch-friendly approach attempting to keep the City wolves from the door after years in the post-Winter of Discontent wilderness, it’s little surprise this strategy continued with Tony Blair as Prime Minister, invading Iraq again – this time with Bush Jr – in a mission bankrolled by the treasure chest of Gordon Brown, who later softened his stance on the “special relationship” and their Coalition of the Killing Willing. Of course, there’s now another coalition of this kind in the UK – thanks to the ConDem government that hasn’t particularly given us much change (though taken plenty from our pockets).

After Barack Obama’s moves towards Brown’s Britain – valuing universal healthcare; aiming for economic stimulus and growth – David Cameron had to do something to assure the press that the “special relationship” was still strong.

What better way than to exploit the deaths of three thousand people on 9/11?

9/11 was said to be orchestrated by Al Qaeda, led by the CIA-trained Osama bin Laden who had been strengthened by the United States in their quest to kick out the commie Soviets from Afghanistan in the 1970′s, teaming with the Islamic extremists to rid the region of red atheist Russians. There, the Afghanistan connection slips away like sand through the fingers – since most of the plane hijackers on 9/11 were Saudis.

So, last month, David Cameron and his wife visited “ground zero” in New York City, laid some flowers at the memorial there, not coincidentally near the engraved name of British victim Katherine Wolf. His words? “Here is the place to remember why what we do overseas is so important.”

That’s right: former public relations man Cameron didn’t just pay his respects for those who died there; he used the moment to attempt to justify campaigns such as the one in Afghanistan which has cost the lives of over four hundred soldiers, failed to help puppet leader Hamid Karzai, and only fans the flames of hatred towards us and our mission of what is seen as Western imperialism. This is exploitation at its most sickening. It is using one incident – and the grief and pain attached to it – for the pure purpose of political gain, in this case attempting to justify more bloodshed for overseas meddling, dominance, and control of resources.

After the Second World War, much of Britain had had enough of such violence and suffering. With the conflict over, the electorate removed Winston Churchill’s Conservative Party from power and gave Clement Attlee’s Labour Party the mandate to rebuild Britain through economic stimulus despite massive debt. And, of course, Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson turned away American calls for help in Vietnam while Tories supported what was perceived as the fight to cleanse the world of the communist perspective. The New Labour project took a different approach to international conflict.

Since Brown’s resignation, the Labour Party has further distanced itself from that Middle East mentality that saw it take Britain into Afghanistan and, once more, into Iraq. Post-New Labour leader of the party, Ed Miliband, has stated they were wrong about Iraq, but in the aftermath of such sentiment faces more pressure to back Britain’s presence in Afghanistan.

George Galloway was booted from Labour for his own opposition to the party’s decision to invade Iraq, but took Bethnal Green from party loyalist Oona King while riding a wave of Muslim support. Last week, he did it again with a similar strategy, running in a Labour constituency in another successful attempt to take a seat from them.

The irony of this is that – while many of us cheer on the brave, controversial Scotsman – it weakens the only opposition to the current coalition government led by Tories that supported the invasion of Iraq and also now the current presence in Afghanistan. By supporting such chipping away at the Opposition, we strengthen something even more right wing; we strengthen the status quo.

The Conservatives are damning a young generation of jobseekers, removing welfare safety nets, throwing disabled people off benefits, privatising healthcare – and all the while continuing to do what they’ve always done: fight wars.

The War Party is in power, incredibly able to suddenly find funds to kill people abroad, while people are dying here, and getting away with it. If that wasn’t a PR victory in itself – exploiting the deaths of thousands to kill thousands more overseas – then the “victory” for smaller parties to undermine the Opposition certainly is.

Share this:

In this installment of “What Ed Said” recently, Miliband speaks out on Conservative corruption, calls their treasury plans a “millionaire’s budget,” attacks Tory economic strategy, and reiterates his vision to tax bank bonuses to fund young people’s job placements…

The Conservatives are, as I’ve outlined here before in some detail, using deficit reduction as a veil for their privatisation ideology. After stopping at just selling off the likes of British Airways, British Rail, British Telecom, and British Gas under Thatcher, the Tories now have their sights set on the NHS, universities, the roads, the police, and even access to the Prime Minister himself, making us wonder if they will actually decide to float the entire country of Britain on the FTSE100.

Peter Cruddas, former co-Treasurer for the Tories, allegedly implied to party donors that for the right price, they could win the attention of David Cameron. “It’s no way to run a government or a political party,” said Ed. “There needs to be a proper, independent investigation on what influence was sought, what influence was gained and what impact it had.” (The Telegraph)

Despite the Tory love of Social Darwinism where greed is good, the British public were apparently expected to swallow the release of their budget as though it was going to stray away from such an ideology. But funnier than that, the budget didn’t even attempt to hide the Tories’ loyalties: while on one hand they’re still talking about the deficit as though it’s bigger than anything we’ve ever known when in fact it’s pretty minor in historical terms, they’ve now on the other hand shamelessly released their budget that gives tax breaks for the rich!

Ed repeated his recent suggestion that Cameron represents the 1%, as cuts to child benefit and tax credits went ahead while “an income tax cut for the richest 1 per cent” is made. In the House of Commons, Miliband pointed the finger at the cabinet of over a dozen millionaires opposite him, urging them to ‘fess up by raising their hands if they were going to personally benefit from the budget: “Just nod if you’re going to benefit from it, or shake your head if you’re not. Come on – we’ve got plenty of time!” Calling Liberal Democrats leader Nick Clegg a “hapless accomplice,” he accused the Deputy Prime Minister of going from “following Lloyd George to following George Osborne.” (Belfast Telegraph)

With the budget released, Ed’s been on the attack, saying Osborne had no “compelling vision” for the economy, and urging a change to the Tories’ deficit reduction plans. “It’s not working for the people of this country,” Miliband said, while calling for growth with an emphasis on training, and industry. (BBC)

This goes hand in hand with his idea to tax bankers’ bonuses to fund strategies that get young people into work at a time when youth unemployment figures are frightening. “No young person should be left languishing on the dole for a year, two years, three years,” said Ed. “It is not the Britain I believe in, it is not the Britain you believe in, and it is not the Britain we would have under a Labour government. And that’s why my ambition is this: to conquer long-term youth unemployment. The first line of a Labour Budget would be a tax on bank bonuses to get young people into work.” (The Independent)

However, you may have missed much of these statements, because the likes of the Daily Mail were busy reporting on the break in at Ed’s office.

Share this:

In this installment of “What Ed Said” the last few days, we find Miliband calling for a patriotic resurgence in British manufacturing in the Thatcher-induced post-industrial era…

It seems strange to call for a renewed sense of pride in British production, since when you travel the world, citizens of other countries remind you that Britain no longer produces much, just consumes. This is, as I’ve written here before, a result of not just post-war capitalism, but also Thatcherism that sought to replace citizens with consumers. Part of this – as Thatcher decimated industries that had strong unions – was exemplified by the transition from coalmines to call centres in South Yorkshire, chosen for its trustworthy accent.

It is in this area, of course, that Ed Miliband is MP – in my birthplace of Doncaster. In a speech to the EEF, he expressed a desire for a comeback of the British manufacturing industry: “We should not be embarrassed about the need for more patriotism in our economic policy,” he said. “It is patriotic to have an active government using all the means at its disposal to give competitive British firms every chance to succeed. That patriotism should be rooted in our knowledge that British firms can and do compete with the best in the world, in the belief that they deserve our backing, and in supporting fair competition so that British firms can make it on to the pitch to compete in the first place. There are three words we don’t hear enough, or see enough. Those three words are ‘Made in Britain’.” But he warned against protectionism as “what governments reach for when they don’t believe firms can compete.” And he wasn’t just talking about factories, either – calling for “pride and patriotism – infusing everything from government to culture – if British business is to succeed.” (BBC)

Unfortunately, almost every major media outlet (including the BBC within their EEF report above) switched attention to a Radio 5 phone-in where callers were brought onto the air by the producers to attack the Labour leader (callers are almost always asked by the station what their angle will be before being forwarded onto the air). You will be forgiven for failing to recall this kind of airing of abuse at Tony Blair while an overwhelming majority of the British public were vehemently opposed to the invasion of Iraq.

So, you may have missed the crux of Ed’s not insignificant “Made in Britain” speech, because everyone from the Telegraph to the Daily Mail (and, yes, The Guardian, in addition to the BBC themselves) amplified these critical calls on a random radio show and framed them in the narrative of supposedly reflecting ordinary neutral voters – something the polls show is not the case.

Share this:

In Ireland, tenants ostracized the land agent Captain Charles Boycott from his community to the extent that the postman even refused to deliver mail to his home, after Boycott undermined their campaign for more rights—and the concept of the “boycott” was born.

Recently, the UK ConDem coalition government introduced American-style “workfare” to a Britain struggling under the strain of high unemployment in the aftermath of the ingenious – if nefarious – post-crisis transfer of private debt to public debt.

Despite Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron sending out his deputy, Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg, to fulfill his role as an apologist for the most right-wing British government since the Second World War, by in this case excusing the scheme on the basis of its potential to get people into jobs following their period of slave labour, protests commenced. One, in Westminster, saw the closure of a branch of Tesco (just one of the companies using workfare subjects). Tesco, of course, have for years enjoyed massive domination of the UK grocery shopping market.

In the wake of these demonstrations – and as companies taking advantage of the plan denied that people were being kicked off benefits altogether if they refused to take part, despite evidence to the contrary – I joined others on Twitter in expressing outrage at Tesco: in my case, by suggesting to Tesco via a tweet directly to them that they may wish to reconsider their part in the government-created programme, if only for the reason that a retreat would be better public relations long-term, rather than continuing to exploit people for a few paltry extra digits in the profit column (the same motivation behind their removal of cashiers and introduction of “self-help” checkouts, where customers check out their goods themselves, yet pay the same high prices while doing so).

Retreat as part of a PR move was, I felt, the only reasoning; the only rationale: Tesco, like other participating partners, were simply joining in with something that was implemented by the government in power. The actions of the company were well within the law. Surely the coalition government itself were to blame? Perhaps the Westminster protesters should have been across the road, at the Houses of Parliament. And here lies the trouble with boycotts, as I looked at in my book:

For the ordinary consumer, the obvious solution to these problems would seem to be to simply stop supporting these corporations by refusing to buy their goods in their town; a boycott. But it’s not that simple. The poor generally have less time and money for further travel (by car or by bus), and might shop at the local convenience store, where average prices are much higher, because the owners can’t afford to buy wholesale on the scale of the major supermarket chains.212 So, when working class families are struggling to pay their bills and feed themselves, the arrival of a big, bright store where almost everything on your shopping list is cheap and under one roof is often welcome. Their challenges as families—day to day, week to week, month to month—are far more imperative than the possibilities of the chain vastly affecting their town; it simply isn’t an issue when the difference in prices means you don’t have to choose whether to pay your bills or buy your groceries—for the first time, you can do both. It’s a matter of survival. Ultimately, poorer people just want to be able to get by, and since the local convenience store has to charge more, the campaigns calling for a boycott of, say, Wal-Mart—despite the fact smaller stores keep the money in the community—becomes less appealing and even less sensible. Chains like Wal-Mart simply charge less, because of their ability to make wholesale deals, and until their dominance is diminished, until these corporations are heavily regulated and local concerns are supported, this cycle will largely continue. That’s capitalism.

So, boycotts can be incredibly flawed.

These are, of course, different to international actions against apartheid in South Africa or Israel, where economic impacts are inflicted on a nation whose people can potentially rise up against their own government. This is because those targeted are not just consumers, but citizens: a citizen of a country condemned internationally can put pressure on their government in democratic ways that a consumer cannot do with companies, when they are instead restricted by their own economic status.

This is another reason why, after the Second World War, many western countries sought to supplant citizens with consumers – the latter are more powerless, and not just because they’re disengaged from the democratic process, but because their actions are dependent upon their own available options, which are vastly reduced when in poverty.

That’s the crux: citizens have power; consumers do not. That’s something that has to change, and it’s achieved through information and empowerment, as I explain further in the book.

For more, you can buy Pissing in the Mainstream in hardcover, paperback, or ebook here:

Share this:

In the second installment of “What Ed Said” in the last week or so, we find Miliband continuing to lead the way on Leveson Inquiry issues, still defending the NHS or “socialised health care system,” and meeting with France’s socialist candidate François Hollande…

After the Leveson Inquiry into press practices following the Rupert Murdoch-owned News International hacking scandal, Education secretary Michael Gove had the audacity to suggest there were already sufficient laws in place to deal with “rogue reporters” (who had, in fact, apparently been operating directly under the nose of James Murdoch), undermining the investigation. At last week’s Prime Minister’s Questions in the House of Commons, Ed challenged Prime Minister David Cameron to distance himself from Michael Gove in the wake of his asinine remark that the Leveson Inquiry had a “chilling” effect on press freedom. In response, Cameron simply delivered a standard line about the support he and Gove had for the investigation, which arguably wouldn’t have enjoyed so much momentum had it not been for Miliband’s relentlessness on the issue. As a result of Ed’s challenge, Gove was described as blushing “like a scolded child.” (New Statesman)

Meanwhile, Ed spent much of his week blasting the Liberal Democrat Yes Men who have decided to support the NHS privatisation “reforms.”  When he accused Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg of sitting on the fence on the NHS bill, Clegg actually admitted, “I support it.” Ed exclaimed, “He supports it!” – exposing the LibDems further as enablers for the Tory machine that’s running roughshod over Britain. (The Independent)

Ed had, of course, brought up the frightening NHS reforms proposed by the Conservatives at least three weeks in a row at Prime Minister’s Questions, and as I reported here last time, ridiculed Cameron’s Downing Street “summit” on the proposals that excluded “the GPs, the nurses, the midwives, the pathologists, the psychiatrists, the physiotherapists and, just for good measure, the radiologists.” Cameron’s response, after Ed had been interrupted and stopped from speaking numerous times, included the joke, “Any longer and I think we would have to put him on a waiting list for care.” (Telegraph)

Cameron’s already-damaging, out-of-touch public schoolboy persona has only been amplified by his performances in the House recently, sneering, smirking, and sniffing disdainfully even more than usual, and this week the rich Prime Minister countered a question from Dame Joan Ruddock on the shame of removing disability benefits by not only denying it through semantics, but playing the card that he has a child of his own with cerebral palsy and has filled out forms – despite the fact he’ll never personally have to worry about lacking money to have his child cared for. It’s ironic, then, that even staunch right-wing Tory Norman Tebbit – whose own wife has two carers, since her injuries sustained in the Brighton IRA attack – opposes Cameron’s NHS reform plans. So personal stories aren’t always solid, and don’t always work. Cameron also failed to answer a direct question on personal debt, posed to him by my very own MP, Paul Blomfield, which made me realise why they call it “Prime Minister’s Questions,” and not “Prime Minister’s Answers.”

Miliband offered a different personal example to Cameron: of a delivery driver who works twenty hours a week so will lose tax credits under Cameron’s plans. The perception that Cameron isn’t very likeable was again emphasised when he essentially blamed the driver for complaining instead of supporting all the cuts his government are making. When Ed said this is why people don’t believe the Tory spin that “we’re all in this together,” he added an accusation that the Prime Minister has broken promises, which he didn’t deny. (The Guardian)

And, of course, Ed met with François Hollande, who has said that the financial world has “gone mad,” and promised to regulate it, which prompted Ed to praise his French counterpart for his “leadership, energy and dynamism” on the issue. (The Guardian)

As always, you may miss such reports as these, because much of the media was busy drawing attention to “union barons” calling for protests during the Olympics, and Ed’s criticism of this in order to yet again distance himself from the unions and his “Red Ed” tag.

Share this: