‘Eugh Damien, you’re so base’

adj

a. Having or showing a contemptible, mean-spirited, or selfish lack of human decency.

b. Devoid of high values or ethics: a base, degrading way of life.

c. Inferior in value or quality.

I was on the phone to my lovely girlfriend earlier, she’s asking me for a favour.  I make a lewd suggestion as to how she could pay me back.  “Eugh Damien,” she replies.  “You’re so base.”

Words come into the common usage, and words go out.  Some words stick around for longer than others.  I’d like to nominate the adjective ‘base’ for re-entry into common English.

Far-right clash with muslims and anti-fascists

It seems that there were clashes in North London tonight, after anti-fascists and muslims responded to far-right demonstrators outside a mosque in Harrow.

Guardian

BBC

The protests were called by the recently notorious far right group the English Defence League (EDL), in association with the less well known Stop the Islamisation [sic] of Europe (ISOE), to mark the eighth anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks.

They were met by a fierce counter protest, including members of Unite Against Fascism (UAF), mobilised to ‘defend the mosque’.

I would have gone; not that I care that much about the mosque, but for a reflex aversion to fascism.  Instead, since I missed it, I’m going to develop some thoughts on the tactics of the groups involved.

Nauseating pensions scandal

Sometimes you find something out, and it just makes you nauseous.  Well, I was trying not to puke the other day when I read a story in the Guardian detailing how the highest earners benefit from a wildly disproportionate share of the nation’s pension tax relief.

According to figures revealed by the TUC, the top 1% of earners accounted for pension tax breaks of £10bn, out of a total £37bn set aside by the Treasury.

Now, it’s true that equality and fairness are out of vogue in British politics, and although we’re ruled by a party nominally for ‘Labour’, they have shown that they are still intensely relaxed about people becoming very rich, despite the financial crisis.

But this is redistribution of wealth of a particularly disgusting kind. It’s social justice turned backwards, government sactioned social injustice.  That top 1% accounts for those earning £150,000 or above.  Do people earning that much money really need to be subsidised by the rest of us?  Of course not.

Recession over? My arse!

The front page of the Grauniad called the end of the recession today, amidst a slew of financial good news. But, not one year after the collapse of Lehman, can it really all be over?

Factory output is up 0.9%, and bunch of mergers saw the FTSE rise to over 5,000 by the end of the day.  Overall, economists predicted that the UK economy start growing again at a rate of 0.4% this quarter.

So is it really all back to business as usual?  You’d think so from the financial pages.  Still, it all seems a bit suspicious to me.  A look at the details reveals that things might not be so rosy.

Go on wit yo bad self Jon Boone!

I was pleased to see my old colleague Jon Boone bylined on the front page of the Grauniad today (- now, er, yesterday; but I can’t sleep due to blogging excitement).

Bloodclaat Nazi Pricks

It’s probably a good thing that the BBC managed to resist the enticing prospect of offering me a job, because I’d be fucking vexed right now.

Some Corporation news exec has decided that it’s a good idea to invite BNP fuhrer Nick ‘Glass Eye’ Griffin on to Question Time.

This is apparently in keeping with the BBC’s ‘impartial’ position.  According to a BBC spokeswoman, “By winning representation in the European parliament, the BNP has demonstrated evidence of electoral support at a national level. This will be reflected in the amount of coverage it receives on BBC programmes such as Question Time.”

Now, there is a long tradition of denying a platform to the far right in the UK.  Credit due to Health Secretary Alan Johnson who has gone on record to say that he will not share a platform with the fascists.  He’s drifted far, but he hasn’t totally forgotten his roots.

You see, this no platform tradition has been wavering, even amongst the those on the left who you would expect to be its strongest advocates.  My soon to be classmate Tom Jackson is one such wavering socialist.  He claims that the no platform policy needs a ‘rethink’.  “The BNP have no [sic] achieved some level of success, suggesting that the previous tactic of relegating it to the sidestream of British politics is not working,” says Tom.  He reckons that the best way to counter the BNP is to give other politicians the opportunity to argue against them on the telly, concluding: “I believe the best way to defeat the BNP is not to act like fascists ourselves, but to challenge them in free debate.”

Permit me to disagree.

It’s ya boy! And my rivals, grrr.

Okay, so I signed up to this MA course in Journalism – because writing’s what I want to do, right?  Then it turns out that there are all these heavy writers going too; and they’ve all got wicked blogs.

My bloggings petered out a bit back.   Now it seems I better get on the case.  Welcome to my eponymously entitled stream of pointless ramblings : Damien’s Blog