To all Tory Boy sycophants in the media

"If Maggie is the answer, then it must be a very stupid question!"

There are few politicians that leave a legacy that endures so prominently more than 20 years after their tenure ended. There are few politicians that generate as much chatter or discussion. Also there are so few politicians that have caused so much suffering, needless suffering, devastation of traditional Britain values and entrenched an entire philosophy that endangers the whole fabric of human co-existence.

Margaret Thatcher succeeded were Ted Heath, Harold Wilson and James Callaghan failed in the 1970s. She tamed the trade unions. No, she crushed them into pulp, she managed to wholly marginalise their influence and values in British society. Cheered on by the white, Home County Middle Classes and the financiers in the City of London she deregulated the financial markets, liberalised the housing market and began the march towards a service economy. Admirable? Far-sighted? Necessary? Brilliant? Everyone has their opinion  and ideological bias. However, if one traces the roots of most social-economic problems in today's Britain then one could say many of them can be located in the policies of the 1980s.

The London riots which brutally exposed the rife disregard for civic responsibility and state institutions? Well, look no further than Maggie's famous quip "there is no such thing as society, just groups of people". The frenzied speculation and intransparent finanical derivatives that not even Nick Leeson could have imagined? Conceived in the free market hysteria of the Big Bang deregulation in 1986. The phone hacking scandal of 2011? Who let Murdoch buy the Times, set up BSkyB, and systematically attack the BBC? It was all the fairy godmother of John Redwood, Jeffrey Archer and Neil Hamilton.

Something needed to be done after the rampant excesses of Scargill and his minions. They had become an uncontrollable juggernaunt and threatened the nature of British parliamentarian democracy. They needed to be straightened out. However, the nature in which it was executed, the terrible human cost and the economy that succeeded the Keynesian, postwar full-employment mantra has not benefited the United Kingdom and the majority of the British people - it has helped an array of greedy, dishonest, sleazy and unscrupulous people such as Tim Bell and Martin Sorrell to prosper and corrupt Britain's media, institutions and democratic process. Cheered on by the legions of brainless and hollow PR merchants and Murdoch journalists she has been cannonized into someone who not only betrayed English heritage but also ruined the very essence of English decency and respect.

She tore the soul out of England and replaced it with endless Starbucks, Tescos, Sky box sets and reality TV shows. Something to be proud of.

Maggie, my hat goes off to you.

My Homage to Brazil and Brazilian woman

Why are Latino women so charming and beautiful? Is love a productive emotion? Why is the latin spirit so encaptivating and fascinating to someone from a drab, lifeless and protestant country like England?

I'm in love. My girlfriend is so utterly gourgeous. I cannot help but say that she makes me happier than a German World Cup win (you know what they say is the best aphrodisiac, well it aint football). The latin feeling emnating from her smile is just immeasurable. I have not felt like this in my whole life. This country has given me so much in my life.

Ayrton Senna, Ronaldo, Bossa Nova, the soft portuguese language, Gustavo Kuerten. Everything that comes from this country seems to be inspiring to a man starved of passion and liveliness whilst growing up in a reserved, homecountry private school. I never really identified with the British need to conceal every conceivable outpouring of emotion and sentiment. The insincerity and desire of most of my peers to hide and distort all types of conceivable genuine affection was extremely frustrating and in my view, unhealthy. Thats why Brits drink so much.

This is a ramble, but I think this country has so much to give the world, and not just to me. I see this country with its soft socialist government and free market macroeconomic policies as the next model country. The rich and landed classes will need to relinquish some of their power and wealth for Brazil to succeed. This has been the traditional problem for all Latin American states, to modify the class inequality, provide a basic social safety net for the poorest, help foster a middle class through investment in education, build sustainable ecosystems, modernise infrastructure and recalibrate taxation to increase the burden on the richest. Then, and only then will Brazil solve its socio-economic deficits and its longstanding problem with organised crime.

The poverty that is evident in Brazil has been structurally existent since the birth of the nation and initially institutionalised through slavery and its belated abolition. However, if it contains to use centre-left remedies and tackles its usual corruption problems then I see Brazil conquering the world with samba, caipirinha, bossa nova and beautiful women of course. And then everyone will love Brazil.

My Homage to Catalonia

A little time has passed now for me to muse on my brief stay in Catalonia where George Orwell wrote his oh-so-moving account of his time fighting for the disjointed and ultimately fledging republican cause.

Unfortunately Cafe Moka in Las Ramblas did not exude any of the feeling I expected from that period. It has been revamped and completely modernised severing any evokation of the 1930s.

However, the positivity of the city is what has stayed with me since then. The Mediterranean feeling of warmth and optimism can be felt wherever you walk in the city from park to park and street to street whilst people chat from balcony to balcony. It is not the most cultured of European cities - its passions revolve more around its numerous sports clubs rather than the arts. The Picasso museum does not boast his most accomplished work and the architecture, though still fabulous, never really reaches the grandiose climes of Madrid's inner city.

To speak of Barcelona as symptomatic of Spain and spanish culture would be obviously to display huge cultural ignorance. The movement to gain Catalan independence is fully visible and almost all businesses have managed to insert "Catalunya" or "Catalan" somewhere into the title. However, the problems that afflict Spain as whole are also noticable - the overdependence on tourism, the lack of drinking water and the gradual desertification of its arable land. To speak of Spain as an economic powerhouse for the rest of Europe would be wholly misplaced. Though not poor, prospects of great future economic progress do not seem that tenable given the structures of the spanish economy.

Barcelona and Spain are both places of great exuberance and Latin temperament. The future though not overly positive does not dent the general mood of openness and cordiality of Catalonia and its people. If only the food was better, but thats another matter...

The Budget 2010 - tell me now Darling....

The best headline was supplied by the Sun as always. "Darling just screwed more people than JT, Ashley, Mark Owen and Tiger Woods put together". No doubts as to the certainty of their alliance with Cameron's Tories, the Murdoch Press is now engaging in a final onslaught against the incumbent government to try and finish it off. Finish it off it they must in a way.

New Labour has been a huge disappointment and meaning to commit some thoughts of mine to paper as to their legacy and the success of their policies. So here it is a rundown of all New Labour's triumphs and failures.

-Health

Here is where Blair a number of correct decisions. The NHS was falling to pieces under John Major after almost two decades were nothing was spent and not one new hospital was opened during their tenure. Blair spent a great deal to correct the neglect of the two previous Administrations. However, he kept the "internal competition" model, despite pledging to scrap it in 1997 and his "foundation hospital" reform has not really worked either. Watching a party political broadcast from their first term New Labour committed to "not running the NHS like a supermarket". Well, they retained the Tory Management model and expanded it - there have been nominal improvements but really this is were structural developments have not been beneficial and have been very much "consumer based" instead of "patient based". Altogether better than average would be the verdict on health care, but not by much.

-Education

"Education, education, education" hollowed Tony Blair at the 1997 Labour Conference. His record here is exactly that; an empty soundbite to dress up a real lack in substantive solutions. After reversing the most ridiculous and stupid policy of abolishing grammar schools New Labour then embarked on another "Third Way" project of solving bad schooling through more market-based solutions with private academies instead of focusing on projecting good schools and improving and expanding the curriculum and the training of teachers. Now the standards to gain an A at GCSE Maths have become laughable. New Labour did not improve the skills, they improved the statistics. This is really were the accusations of Blair's policy engine being thin on the ground really ring true; his achievements on education were minimal and really just accelerated the dumbing-down of Britain. And this is even before anyone can address the Pandora's Box of tuition fees. Not even Thatcher introduced them and now the talk is of £20,000 a year fees for some vague promise of "sustaining our first class Universities". If anything, New Labour really did not care too much about meritocracy or social justice - that being aptly portrayed by their education policies - nice sounding ideas, with little real bite.

-Foreign Policy

Probably one of the largest moral failings of any British Government - Tory or Labour since WW2 was carried out by the entire New Labour cabinet (Robin Cook excluded). The weak and pathetic submission to Blair's romance with possibly the worst US President in several generations was abhorrent, disappointing and so morally despicable. Iraq will still go down as a colossal and completely avoidable blunder that should never be washed off Blair or Brown's slate. How the Attorney General Lord Goldsmith just fell over and basically gave the green light for an illegal war will be revisited one day hopefully - because it remains one of the most grave excesses of executive overreach. Whatever nice policies Blair pursued elsewhere really just pale in comparison to this.

Northern Ireland happened to fall into place under his Premiership and the majority of the hard work and tussle had already been negotiated under John Major. Blair squandered so much time and effort chasing the approval of a President who will, like him, be remembered for his wanton and whimsical decision to submit to Bush's strange neo-conservative vision for the Middle-East.

-Economy and Transport

Another huge disappointment. Inequality, the inexorable rise of finance as a wealth creator, a blatant attempt to ignore the long-term implications of their policies and a complete exclusion of any progressive ideal. No real investments or encouragements to solve Britain's problems with green energy, waste disposal, energy efficiency, rail travel, alternative fuels. All New Labour did was expand on the Tory market-based model and tinker with it slightly in the fear of appearing "anti-business". Now we have oodles and oodles of Tescos, Starbucks, Costas, Neros, McDonalds providing low-skilled jobs, an antiquated transport system that will be gridlocked in 20 years, rising CO2 levels, an ecology that is creaking badly, a waste problem and an energy policy that makes no sense.

New Labour never committed to a progressive vision for Britain as regards to Transport and Energy because they never were progressive visionaries. All it was was a conservative economic model with little regulation sprinkled with small PR tidbits. The minimum wage is of some consolation, probably the only truly left-wing policy plank New Labour ever pushed for. Tragic in a sense to think of the Labour Party being more pro-business than the Tories - but its the truth.

My summary for these last 13 years is that they were a wasted opportunity for real, substantive change that could have ushered in a genuine realignment in UK society and made it a more liberal, kinder and progressive nation. However, New Labour got bogged down in cheap, PR-related exercises and never had any real interest in adopting a new approach to inequality or social injustices.

The worst thing? They get another term.

"I believe in America".

This phrase just sounds so great, so hopeful. During the Bush years it felt as if America was buried. The palpable rage that spread throughout most of Europe after his reelection in 2004 was depressing and discomforting. The best headlines that I can remember were "how can 52,000,000 people be so dumb" and "And now..... 4 more years". Then came BHO; this seemingly charasmatic, charming and competent man with great teeth and a telegenic family emerged - we all wanted to forget this nightmare of the Bush Administration and quick. "Its great that we have the ability to reboot" said Bill Maher on his show the next week. Alas, Bush has done much damage, and it wont all go away - the emergence of the Tea Party movement and its "populism on crack" fervour has now swept its first darling into Congress.

Oh Massachussetts! Not this state - that gave us the Kennedys, that legalised gay marriage, that has one of the largest Democratic majorities in the State legislature has now decided to turn its back on Obama and his promises that rendered him LBJ-like majorities only 14 months ago.

Much has disapated. It always does. This is not unusual, a President also loses his shine during his Presidency. However, there is not much to see that distinguishes Obama from that great Centrist Bill Clinton. He has chosen not to lurch quickly and deftly in a new direction - eschewing the Wall Street allure. No, he chose to ingratiate himself with the Business community who firstly presided over a period of great economic zealotry with garish arrogance and disrespect and now see themselves as net beneficiaries. Has his chance gone? Has he wasted his time? Health care, Iraq, EFCA, climate change, Afghanistan, civil liberties - the Americans voted for a pariah and they got a bureaucrat intellectual who seems greatly risk-averse, conflict shy and scared.

The Republicans extremely narrow, dubious, cruel and selfish tactic of blocking any reform seems to be working. Instead of the President trying to bully his Congress and shape it in his fashion, has let factions emerge, empowered single Senators, and let the narrative stray. Who presided over this decline? Obama or Bush? Who bailed out the Banks in the first place? Obama or Bush? Who started two wars and ruined the state finances? Obama or Bush? For all his media savvy and relentless exposure he has failed to develop a coherent counter-narrative to his opponents.

I hope this is but a blip, a mere wake up call. But today I remain pessimistic. He took too long and had the bad luck that Ted Kennedy died before he could pass the bill. Yet that is life, and that is politics. Anyone with 250 seats in the House and 60 in the Senate should get his legislation passed. 1994 again? Will we have a new quasi-Gingrich revolution with a Congress full of lunatics for a decade? Will Obama be doomed to a single term and further empower the Right and give away a chance in a generation? I dont hope so, few outside of Europe don't want him to fail. Maybe its too early, the first year is always a challenge, but it is certain Obama is not a caste iron liberal that I hoped he could be.

Oh that emotion called optimism and that thing called projection. I fell victim to it, and so did many others. I think Obama will not sleep well tonight and will be cursing along with Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod - it will be a good read when his memoirs come out. Whether in 4 or 8 years we shall see.

Do I believe in America? I think my personal trajectory is strongly linked to the fate of Obama's agenda. Wait until November and we shall see if he has wised up and starts facing up to the Conservatives or continues his path of appeasal and naive strategy of bipartisanship. Time to see what his true calibre is.

Obama pushes the button, and the Left goes crazy

So there it is. Obama has now done what he would always do in office and what he promised all through the campaign last year. And his dearest followers on the left have now gone berserk. Just go onto Huffington Post this morning and you will see no end of lamenting and mourning from the "liberal" blogosphere. We are an emotional and sentimental old bunch indeed. Very easily disappointed, and sway from one extreme to another without impediment or any deliberance.

And I angry? No, not really. I am not an expert in international relations, the state of tribal Afghanistan, or the inner-workings of the power-ranglings in that part of the world. There are not very many alternatives open to any President - Republican or Democrat. Power vacuum, power struggle, more death, more drones and more civic chaos seem to be the only options at the moment. Watching a video of Daniel Ellsberg of Pentagon Papers fame it was striking to see how forthright and damning he was and how Obama would escalate despite his great intelligence and lack of Bushlike expediency - and that was precisely the wrong course to take. Only 100, 000 more troops could defeat the Taliban and that would be very not only economically unfeasible, but also entrench America into a very protacted conflict that could only spiral out of control. Is he right? Its pretty likely he has some coherent concept and idea of how this war will continue. It is an extremely complicated matter and it needs more appreciation and study, and most probably less troops. We shall see.

To engage in lazy and trite parallels to Vietnam or Russian efforts in the 70s and 80s is too dreary to mention. The only reminder that needs to be rehashed is how keen and trigger happy everyone ran into Afghanistan in the first place, all ready to do Bush's bidding and inflict revenge for the sudden atrocity of 9/11. That enthusiasm has disapated very noticably, yet now other questions arise. What is going on in Iraq? Why didn't we hear anything about Afghanistan until last year? The incessant hyper-narrative of today's news cycle driven media seems to be incapable of posing proper questions.

What happens now? My prediction for this war? Ask me in a year's time.