Horizon

I didn't write much about the UK General Election because the whole thing couldn't be taken seriously: it was an extremely tiresome media controlled pantomime: the manufactured furore about the tories' immigration policy and the worn-out language that it was conducted with- 'playing the race card'; the fact that the tories had grabbed hold of immigration because an Australian spin doctor had told them to (I can imagine them at tory head office, looking up from the FT with a 'might it work?' eyebrow cocked; the manufactured narratives of New Labour: smarm, lies, bribes both public and private, electoral fraud; the Lib Dems marching about with figures and statistics and the kind of twee-left social ideas (send juvenile car thieves go-carting; give murderers the vote etc) that New Labour used to bandy about back at the time of 'Tough on Crime, Tough on the Causes of Crime'--my, that seems a long way behind us now.
Of course people were right to ignore the tories: they wouldn't do anything about immigration or crime even if they had been elected: they would have simply picked up the game from where Tony left it: economic micromanagement, public money splurges and a war of attrition with reality, fought with media weapons, with the goal of obstinately staying in power as long as possible.
Marr, the BBC's political editor (in fact a sort of commissar providing what John Birt, from his office in Number Ten, would probably call a 'media interface' between New Labour and the British people) did look kind of worried on Election night: in the first few hours after polling ceased it seemed, for a while, that New Labour's vote might have completely collapsed and as each new result came in from the north, signifying a drop in Labour support--even in the constituencies that would vote for a loo brush with a red rosette--you could see him looking a little bit viridescent about the jowls; you could see him thinking 'f*ck my old boots, supposing we've got a googly here?'
(According to reports, the public sector aristos at the BBC election night party were saying the same thing: worry was in the air.)
Part of that you can put down to journalistic excitement, but a bigger part was obviously Marr's commitment to the New Labour project. When he recently announced on Radio Four that it incensed him when people say politicians lie (yeah, can you f*cking well beat that?) he was revealing that he sides with the political classes, the mandarin Mandelson classes, the sort of operators who can get in a revolving door behind you and come out in front, rather than siding with the people.
The only other really enjoyable bit of election night came at Tony Blair's count as Sedgefield: there stood Mr and Mrs Blair, fresh from their limo and their chavspeak boasting in The Sun about Tony's cock artistry and in front of them at the lectern stood Reg Keys, who'd run against Blair and who's son was killed in Iraq. As Mr Keys made his various points about our supremely mendacious Prime Minister, Mr and Mrs Blair stood behind, looking scared and slightly ill: years in Campbell's spin circus have made them acutely aware of the potential damage of being thus exposed: they squirmed and Reg Keys went on. You could see them thinking 'can't anyone spin us out of this or get us out of this?' It was uncomfortable but cathartic.

Watching from afar, I too enjoyed seeing the Blairs having to take it from a calm and very dignified Reg Keys. I don't want to get too philisophical or misty eyed but the PM having to stand there while Reg wiped clear the fog of war is really what democracy is all about. One of those moments like Mrs Thatcher being quizzed on the sinking of the Belgrano live on Nationwide that will stick around for a few years.

I also enjoyed George Galloway's performance. Good to see someone giving as good as he got from Paxman. And although I am not that keen on our George or his friends it's better to have them inside the democratic process than out.

Galloway! Scotland's answer to Mussolini: give that crook enough rope and by the time he's finished those Islamic supremacists that were giving him the bumps last Friday will be have him hanging from a lamp post- bad moon rising in Bethnal Green.