Citizens or Consumers?

Did you know that in the United Kingdom at the moment you can be arrested for eating a cake in parliament square if it happens to have words iced on it that politicians don't like? And not even words that they legitimately might take offence to either, for example if your icing of choice spelled out "Ruth Kelly is a creepy mad manboy bullshit muncher" you might at least understand why the Government wouldn't be impressed although even so you might find it a bit extreme if the tourettes baker had their collar felt.

So which delicious iced words will get you arrested then? "Freedom of Speech" is one example. It's true. In 2005 a group of "protesters" were arrested in parliament square. Their protest comprised eating politically decorated cakes.

If you are reading the above and thinking "well I already new that and it's a fucking disgrace" then you are either more tuned in to the more sinister activities of the shower of weasel piss that we've given power to for the last 11 years than most of the zombie consumerist drone people that modern Britain has created, or you might have read Dan Kieran's "I Fought The Law" which has recently been released in paperback. If you've not read it, you live in the UK, and you weren't aware that cake is now a crime then you need to get down your local library and borrow a copy because the entire situation is far more bleak than you might expect.

What makes Dan's book stand out is that it started life as another novelty Christmas gift of the type he written in the past (Crap Towns, Crap Jobs, Crap Holidays...etc). This time he was planning to find ridiculous bylaws left on the statue book as a result of lazy legislative housekeeping and break them but as he started his research he found another far more important story, that is the sheer extent to which our freedoms have been eroded as a result of laws passed by the current Government. "Erosion of freedoms you say...change the record...you'll be tin-foiling your hat next" - but because of the way this book came about from someone who was just discovering what the Government had done in his name it's all the more convincing for it.

On his journey Dan explains how we have all become consumers of the country rather than citizens of it, a wide reaching hypothesis that is applied to all manner of shittiness in society. It also demonstrates the extent to which we as UK citizens can no longer be considered "innocent until proven guilty", including the law abiding IT consultant who was arrested for nothing more than failing to make eye contact with a policeman.

Buy a copy of this book for anyone you know who has voted Labour in the last 10 years so you can show them the dark times their X on the paper has plunged us into. Maybe they'll exercise a bit of democratic responsibility next time.

Gordon Brown, The Dalai Lama, And the trouble with politicians

In the UK news over the last day or two there has been occasional mention of Prime Minister Gordon Brown's refusal to meet the Dalai Lama.

This puts the exiled Tibetan leader in the company of such horrendous wastes of flesh and blood as Robert Mugabe as the previous newsworthy Brown non-meeter.

Of course there is absolutely fuck all the Dalai Lama has in common with Mugabe. One is the exiled leader of an occupied country who advocates peaceful action, the other has presided over 3 decades of human rights abuse, corruption and economic mismanagement that has destroyed the quality of life and halved the average life expectancy of the population of an entire country.

Of course you can understand Brown snubbing Mugabe, who is clearly a grade A cock, but why does he want to snub someone who despite intense provocation has refused to stoop to violent conduct in the face of human rights abuse? The very reason Mugabe is off his Christmas card list.

1 reason. Most of the influential countries in the world agree that Mugabe is a plum, therefore Brown feels that he can do what he likes as far as he is concerned. He's like a mid-ranking School bully only picking on the kids that the bigger kids say it's OK to wedgie.

Unfortunately for the Dalai Lama one of these bigger kids in the form of China is his own personal bully so Brown has no choice but to steal Tibets dinner money and flush it's head down the toilet otherwise China might call Brown a soft lad and push him off his bike.

In short Gordon Brown, like the majority of politicians is a 2 faced cock who only gives a shit about the suffering of foreign nationals if the people causing the suffering aren't ever going to be of any (usually economic) benefit or cause any ripples in his power pool. It makes me proud to be British.

And here endeth politics 101.