JohnBM:Liberal

Little piece on the front page of the Hebden Bridge Times this week on a campaign I’m pursuing – Getting Mytholmroyd and Cragg Vale recognised in the Royal Mail postcode database.

This is not a call for the unilateral declaration of independence of the Royd and Cragg, just making sure our post goes to the right place.

My address is :
10 Cleveley Gardens
Mytholmroyd
Hebden Bridge
HX7 5JE

not:
10 Cleveley Gardens
Hebden Bridge
HX7 5JE

Hebden Bridge is a wonderful place with wonderful people – I just don’t live there.

Woke up this morning with a line from a WB Yeats poem in my head:

Things fall apart; the center cannot hold

With news of Swine Flu, War, Recession,   etc.  doing the rounds at the moment, I thought it nice to share the thought.

The Second Coming

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

– William Butler Yeats, January 1919

If you see the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse today, please send them my love.

For the last month something hasn’t seemed quite right about politics in the UK. For a while I have struggled to put my finger on what is out of place.

It started with the expenses row and crescendoed during the McBride smear e-mail story.

It was not until I saw the distorted image of  “Uncle Joe” Brown on the Number10 website, that it began to dawn on me what had been niggling in the back of my mind.

Whilst Uncle Joe was telling the amassed peoples of the world how he was going to completely reform politics with his previously undiscussed “pay-as-you-go” expenses scheme (RIP silly scheme), I cruelly chuckled at his forced grimaces. It was at this point that the penny dropped.

What I was witnessing were the last gasps of the New Labour machine trying to circumvent the old media and set the news agenda through the Number10 website.

Labour had lost control of the media and there was no going back.

Since the early 1990s the Labour Party had attempted to morph the news agenda through Mandelson, Campbell et al. Of course this had not always been fully successful but at least there was a feeling that there was someone behind the scenes massaging the shoulders of hacks, editors and producers or sticking the knife in.

On Tuesday evening last week I realised that Gordon’s grimace was a symptom of the death of the New Labour media machine. There was no longer anybody in the government or party able to tell the Dear Leader that what he was doing  was “a very bad idea”.

At no point on Budget Day did Captain Darling and the Government control “the message”. All day the “invest today” and “tax the rich” message was drowned out by the “huge debt” and “tax hikes tomorrow” story.

For about a month now, the Government has failed to seize the news agenda at any point, either in relation to the budget or any other policy announcement.

There is only one point in recent political history can I remember this occurring to the same extent.

1997 and the last days of the Major Government.

We’re in the end game and I can smell the stench of death.

• Mayor’s civic dinner last night. Sensible quantities of the falling juice. A good time had by all. #
• Order order orders!!! #
• Spreadsheet of Mayor Making invites … done. Of course in two days I’ll realise I’ve left someone important like my brother out. #
• Just said to ferdi I would like to watch the budget. He said: “Can I watch? Is it a bit scary?” #
• Have enjoyed a walk up to White Lee Rec. Playground. Reported litter and graffiti to Council. Grrrrrrrr #
• http://twitpic.com/3txmp – Freecycling some stone blocks. Empty wine bottle is for scale but is available for freecycle #
• RT @libdems Our Deputy Leader and Shadow Chancellor Vince Cable will be on Question Time tonight on BBC One. #
• RT @no2id: [Newsletter] NO2ID Newsletter 121: JOIN NO2ID AND HELP US FIGHT THE DATABASE http://tinyurl.com/cf978x #
• Watched first five mins of #ReggiePerrin. Can’t stand watching anything with canned laughter. #Genius in five mins #
• Wondering how to convert an old army kitbag into a heavybag for very little money. Will probably involve sand, rags and an old chinese rug. #
• There is nothing to fear but fear itself #
• Work today…Adverts to write and Nicos to motivate #
• Just joined a twibe. Visit http://twibes.com/libdems to join – What is this witchcraft? #
• V. quiet today – need motivation. Have just bored 16yrold saturday lad to death with dance tunes from the early 1990s #
• Strangely drawn to watching Highlander 5 but feel that it would be a mistake and a waste of 90 minutes. #