Mark Higginson

staccato signals of constant information

Fear and parochial politics

I picked a leaflet up off the doormat from Brighton's Labour parliamentary candidate, Nancy Platts, attracted by the stern warning in capital letters on the back that read "Don't risk it". I could guess what it was going to say. Apparently "voting Green will mean a Conservative MP for Brighton". Nancy is no mathlete as that isn't what is borne out by the figures she quotes. The Greens were apparently only 867 votes behind the Conservatives in the 2005 General Election which by my reckoning actually means it is wide open for either party. Behind the fear-mongering statement is genuine worry; the Labour party is clearly terrified that a 'minority party' is actually in with a chance. Labour obviously feel they're unpopular and that a majority of a few thousand last time isn't enough to guarantee victory this time around. Big events have caused this unease, though if you read Nancy's leaflet you'd be forgiven for thinking she was running for the local council rather than national office. 

Let's remember that under Labour, a party in which Nancy plays an active part, this country committed the crime of aggression against another nation and remains embroiled in a nine year long fight involving some of the poorest people on the planet. I can't forget this when I vote and it makes me sick that Nancy is, in essence, asking me to tacitly approve of what Labour has done in government these past years. I suggest that you don't either. Nancy looks a decent enough person, she makes the right noises, appears to be acting on behalf of local interests, is a member of any number of laudable organisations. But then again she might be a career politician, arriving in Brighton as recently as 2007 to take over from David Lepper, to live here with the express goal of running for office.

When I vote I'll vote for the candidate I want to win or, in the absence of a meaningful way to express my dissatisfaction, 'spoil' my ballot, subject as we are to the vagaries of our first-past-the-post system. Nancy recognises this though; she supports voting reform, but only after Labour win the next election will they hold a "referendum on a fairer voting system". Jam tomorrow from the party that has held power for going on 13 years. Whatever happens, we the people get the government and the representatives we deserve, so vote with your conscience and don't be swung by an idiotic appeal to party rivalry that means nothing changes.

A heartfelt work of staggering genius...

My musical listening history is dotted with artists who went from being the next great inspiration to just having one early album as the defining moment in their career. The mark of the true artist is not one of a discrete act of creation, but of development and ascendency. The Kleptones had that one great album, A Night at the Hip-Hopera, an exercise at once both thematically complete and diversely eclectic. This was an album so popular it was stolen from the hi-fi while it was playing at our house parties. What marks them out is that they have built on this success with each subsequent release.

Their latest work, Uptime / Downtime, scoops up a great armful of my most favourite tunes for a hug that delights as much as it surprises with a continuation of the double album concept of 24 Hours. As my friend Joe would say, so retro, so future... to a point where the vital feeling I had when I first listened to these old friends is recaptured in these multi-layered self-referential slices of pop (culture). The Kleptones are successful at recycling the inherently disposable into something greater than the sum of their parts; making the tunes that really meant something into genre and time-spanning dancefloor fillers, whether that floor is a club or your own front room.

Note: all albums are free to download. So get to it!

Billy Bragg: 'Who really runs this country?'

via guardian.co.uk

"Paying my income tax is an expression of social solidarity, a means of making a contribution to the common good.
Paying taxes is a way of recognising that in any society we all of us have some degree of responsibility for one another."

Great rousing speech from Billy Bragg. I need to investigate PAYE tax and why we happily allow this to be paid monthly on our behalf by our employers. Imagine the pressure on a government if everyone withheld their taxes until the end of the financial year. Problematic and inefficient for sure but an interesting thought exercise. Collectively we really do cede control of the financial wherewithal we grant our so-called representatives without so much as a peep of protest.

In a similar vein I'm intrigued by Michael Moore mentioning that his new film contains previously unseen footage of Roosevelt:

"President Franklin D Roosevelt was ailing. Too ill to make his 1944 state of the nation address to Congress, he instead broadcast it by radio. But at one point he called in the cameras, and set out his vision of a new America he knew he would not live to see.

Roosevelt proposed a second bill of rights to guarantee every American a job with a living wage, a decent home, medical care, protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness and unemployment, and, perhaps most dangerously for big business, freedom from unfair monopolies. He said that "true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence".

The film was quickly locked away."