One Staffroom or Many?

One more point and post, before I move onto playing everything with a straight bat again.

I likened the ruling class to a school staffroom, but is there just one group of "adults," or are there many? Essentially, are there different factions at the top? Or is it just one group of people, who are all on the same page?

In my personal opinion, I think there are different factions. (Though, no doubt, the lines naturally blur somewhat.) I think this is to be expected whatever the situation. There are always factions at court, even if it's just a single court.

Looking at the "riots" through this lens the single group notion would suggest a Hegelian dialectic type thing. The David Icke classic line, "Problem, Reaction, Solution." Meaning the riots were stirred up completely to manufacture calls and justification for the response - facial recognition and whatever else.

The factional view would posit something different though. That the faction stirring up the riots were trying to put pressure upon the faction running the current British government.

Again, it could be a complex mix of these things. Such is the 'wilderness of mirrors' nature of our modern political world.

One thing that lends weight to the different factions idea is the heavy-handed way Keir Starmer's government has dealt with the rioters. (If reports are to be believed.) This suggests that the government wants to nip the riots in the bud and quickly put a stop to them. Personally, I think the response has been disproportionate and unfair to the individual idiots caught up in these riots. However, anything other than a heavy response would give the green light to further protests. So the government has to do this really. It's the right thing to do from a pragmatic point of view.

Fortunately, things seem to have calmed down now. Hopefully, they stay this way.

Potemkin Riots

I haven't posted on here in a while. In that time it's been eventful, so you would expect I would've done so.

We've had riots in the UK.

Including in my own town: Middlesbrough 😡

I haven't posted as I knew it would be wise to wait until I'd chilled out a bit and gathered some perspective. My general view is that the riots were djinned-up i.e. that they weren't entirely organic. I had my little hissy fit about that on Twitter at the time though, so now I want to leave any 'conspiracy theories' behind and get back to playing things with a straight bat.

I do try hard these days to avoid poking behind the veil online. Sometimes though, these things go far too far, and I get sucked back in. The fiery big-mouth of my younger days suddenly reappears. I think when houses, cars (and sometimes people) in your own home town are being damaged it's probably justified, but now the moment has passed it's probably also time to let sleeping dogs lie. (Or lying dogs sleep maybe.)

On here before I've compared governments (and the media) to school headmasters.

The school headmaster steps up during school assembly. He tells a sombre story about some serious event.

In a faraway town, in another part of the country, 'little Billy' and his friends thought it was funny to go and play games down by the railway lines. Unfortunately, one of little Billy's friends didn't realise a train was coming when he jokingly pushed Billy onto the tracks..

The story itself is made-up. Little Billy never existed. His tale entirely fabricated by the headmaster.  However, the headmaster doesn't tell this story in order to mislead the children. He's not rubbing his hands together like some evil genius in the school staffroom behind the scenes. He tells it as he doesn't want the children playing on the railway tracks and getting hurt. Yes, the made-up "Billy" doesn't exist, but elsewhere, other children - real children - have fallen victim to such tragic circumstances. It would be somewhat morbid and disrespectful to use those actual examples though. Dramatising and sensationalising a real child's death, just to make a point in a lesson or school assembly would be quite crass. So the tale of "Little Billy" serves as a more appropriate stand-in. And the headmaster presents it as real to the children listening, as a real story has a much more emotional impact than one that is admittedly fictional. So will be much more likely to dissuade the children from heading down to the railway tracks.

From Headmaster to Music Teacher.

We can take this example further. Let's say you're a child sat in that assembly, and you don't quite believe the tale your headmaster told. Maybe there were inconsistencies, or the plot just didn't ring true. Perhaps the headmaster hammed things up a bit too much in his dramatic performance of it.

You then cheekily ask the music teacher about it in your following lesson. "Sir, the headmaster just made that story up, didn't he."

What does the music teacher respond with?

Obviously, he isn't just going to say, "Yes, the headmaster is a liar." For a start, he wouldn't last long in his profession if he was going around calling other teachers liars. But more importantly, he understands perfectly well why the headmaster was telling the story. It was done with a wider good intention in mind. The point of the story much more important than the white lie it contained.

So he gently tells the child off for accusing the headmaster of lying, and advises him to focus on the actual message of the story.

[Incidentally, (and I am poking behind the veil a little bit here 😈), when people ask, "How could so many people take part in such a BIG conspiracy?!" This is part of the answer why. Because all those people are teachers in the staffroom, so to speak, who understand it's perfectly normal and routine for adults to tell stories to children (the public) to get children to take on board a message, or behave in a certain way.

It's just the way of the world to some extent. A thing most people only learn when they become parents themselves. If you get my drift.

Likewise, just as real children sometimes get killed playing on train tracks, there are sometimes real terrorist attacks too. Carried out by real terrorists. And similarly, it's difficult to use real, actual examples to promote awareness, or to help the public understand the dangers.

- (As with earlier) it's distasteful using real deaths.

- The families might not want the deaths being used in such a way.

- The families might not want the public attention.

- They might not be very good at speaking in public, or appearing on camera (as most people aren't).

- Publicising a real terror event may compromise spies/whistleblowers/informants/witnesses/etc.

- It may take years for such crimes to be processed through the courts, meaning they can't be publicised immediately.

- Real life is often very messy. So it's much harder to present the public with a clear, easy-to-digest narrative when using real life examples. With a simplified, scripted imitation of a real event it's much easier.

- And so on.

So there are logical reasons why "tales from the headmaster" are sometimes used at the national or international level. Again, it's not because the headmaster is evil, and enjoys deceiving people (though he might take it to an art form at times). It's because he wants to protect the children or maintain order in the classroom. The only problem is, we, the childlike public, have to trust that the stories are solely being used as illustrations to inform the public about similar, real life situations. And aren't just being used to push the interests and personal politics of the people telling them.]

Anyway, that big detour aside, this is where I find myself these days. Do I want to be the honest, but brattish child, disrupting the class, and pointing out holes in these various dramas? Or do I try to be more like the sensible, but slightly less honest music teacher? Paying lip service to the stories of the headmaster. Understanding that this is just the normal way people higher-up in the social hierarchy manage those that are lower down; and that they're trying their best to manage difficult and sometimes dangerous situations.

Personally, I don't agree with it all in principle. Adults shouldn't be treating other adults the way adults treat children. Especially in supposedly democratic countries. Were I school headmaster I wouldn't be doing it, and I'd get the cane out and ban all the other teachers from doing it too. However, maybe I'm just naïve. Perhaps the response would come, "Ha, good luck with that, you try managing and keeping safe millions of sheep-like and emotional people without using these techniques."

Either way, I've reached a point where, though I discuss the wider methods, I never discuss the specific individual events anymore ..unless those individual events are happening in Middlesbrough, that is.

Boom Boom Boom

So Biden has dropped out. In a whoosh everything has happened, rapid fire.

June 27th: Trump/Biden debate - which led to the clamour for Joe to go.

July 13th: Trump assassination attempt.

July 15th: Trump VP announced

July 21st: Biden out

It looks like Kamala Harris will take over. So now the last slot to be filled is the Democrat VP pick. Which should tell us a lot.

Obviously, with the Trump brouhaha, it seems Trump is nailed on for victory. That these stars are being aligned directly for that. The powerful people at the top have made peace with him, and now we're all going to get some type of closure. A release valve. Discontent pacified. A great smoothing-over. The cancellations of leftists adds weight to this notion. The people at the top now willing to pull their levers on behalf of the right. A visible shift. The talk of prison sentences for Trump gone. (And, of course, the simple fact that they could've gotten rid of Joe long ago, and stuck an A-list Democrat candidate in, but didn't.) So the Hollywood stars align.

It makes so much sense. I think it's totally wrong to be cancelling Home Depot workers because they've said something nasty about Trump on Facebook, but that aside, the general trend I can applaud. It's the sensible course to chart.

Having seen so many twists and plots, I always feel like I'm sat at the Red Wedding though. That I'm sat hearing Hulk Hogan tell me how great I am, with a big smile on my face, as daggers hide beneath cloaks. Ready, not only to do me in, but to mock my naïve stupidity as they do it. My mind can't help but go to the worst case scenario.

So, at the moment, I think the best, but fear the worst. Some of the instant cope I've seen from people on the right lends itself to the fear. People saying that Kamala will be easier to beat than Biden, which obviously isn't true. Biden was literally senile. Anyone, even Kamala Harris, will be an improvement. How can they not be?

Kamala Harris actually reminds me of Rebecca Long-Bailey. Likeable, but a bit light in the head. The Labour leadership contest seems such a long time ago now. As that was taking place, Covid was springing up from the ground, like a maleficent aether. On this very blog those two things overlap. The one seeming so very innocent compared to the other. I remember typing those Labour leadership blog posts at the time. I had the dread of the coming Covid nightmare all through January and February, but I was trying so hard not to be a conspiracy theorist. This time I'm also trying hard not to be a conspiracy theorist. Though with Covid there was instinctive dread in my stomach, here there's instinctive hope. My instinctive judgement - my reading of the tea leaves - says things will indeed be smoothed-over.

Is it any wonder my mind can't help but race towards Red Wedding scenarios though? We've seen so many events, moments, and shakedowns - and three months is a long time, so a lot can happen. Plus, the world - and human culture - is a complex thing. So organic events can overtake written scripts. When the right surrendered the moral high ground, by advocating the cancelling of people on the left, they made a big mistake in terms of culture war. They surrendered moral authority. You'd think people wouldn't be so stupid to do this when fighting a culture war. You almost assume it must be deliberate. However, people find it hard to read culture - it requires a bit of female-brain. Men tend to be analytic. They love rules and theories. "Machiavelli said this ..therefore we must take this course of action." Ideologies are always inferior to real life though. And they dull the senses. A person operating on instinctive real-world judgement instantly sees that harassing a middle-aged woman who works at Home Depot makes you look like an idiot, but if you're subsumed by a set of rules that says you must do it, the instinct takes a beat seat. And real life takes a back seat to memes and theories.

I'm getting a bit far from the original intent of the article, as I often do, so I'll leave it there.

Learning To Lie

It's super hot. Sleep is a virtual impossibility in this heat. I was in work today, so last night I had to force myself to sleep through it. From a possible eight hours I think I got about three. However, I'm off tomorrow, so I have the luxury of not caring tonight. So, with tired eyes, I'm posting..

I'm not sure what I have to say, but I feel I should post. Over the last few days or so I've been a little arsy and impetuous over on Twitter. Watching the right behave as badly as the left in response to the Trump brouhaha was annoying. Of course, I also promised to try to show goodwill towards the new Labour government as well, but seeing the media love-in over that has made that difficult too. I think I've exhausted my humpiness now though, so my pragmatic self can regain control of the wheel. I must admit it was nice to shoot from the hip a little. You feel so much more alive and youthful when you're acting on your actual emotions.

It stills amazes me how much I care about the truth. I always wonder where this feeling comes from. Is it something innate I was born with? Or is it a consequence of how I was raised? Was the importance of honesty just drilled in to me? Did all those Christian school assemblies I scorned make a difference after all?

I really hate lies. Though, saying that, what actually triggered me was seeing lies being enforced. I watched one livestream where audience members in the live-chat were shut down pretty aggressively by the talking heads taking part. I just can't stomach it. The desire to dumb the inquisitive senses of others. That a course of action has been taken, and everyone else must pay lip service to it. The pecking order is never more visibly apparent than in moments like these. Suddenly the talking heads that feign friendship and common cause show their teeth.

Also, this idea that, because the lies are being told by people on your side, you'll be cool with it. Like this idea that it's now somehow okay to censor the left, "cos they're the enemy." It almost goes beyond right and wrong. The ego takes over. It's an insult to me personally. I don't want to be a snake.

I'm getting hyperbolic again now ..and I shouldn't. I know how the world works. I've learnt that we live in an imperfect world. I've even written pieces like this one: The Spring, showing how natural and inevitable (even necessary) systems of secrecy and lies are. Yet still, I hate it. I just want to live in a world where I can have honest, open conservations with other humans, without having to worry about hitting the tripwire.

Manier Things To Discuss

On election night there was a moment that summed up post-Brexit politics quite neatly for me. Alastair Campbell corrected the grammar of Nadine Dorries live on air. The classic, "It's not less, it's fewer."

https://x.com/lemonadelush/status/1808976529440878641

There were subsequent back and forth points made on Twitter about who was correct, as though Nadine was talking about numbers, she used less in the phrase "less than a handful" - and a handful isn't a discrete amount. Personally, I don't care. It's a silly language rule that I just completely ignore anyway. I'm not bothered about the brownie points.

(You can kind of see how silly it is by the fact that we don't hear similar debates when people use more. If someone says, "there are more people," no one interjects, "Akhschully, it's greater people." Which wouldn't work anyway. Many is pretty much the opposite of few - too few, too many - so we'd probably need to invent the word manier. "..Akhschully, it's manier people." Imagine how annoyed these language nerds would be if we just started inventing words though.)

Anyway, it was just the latest example of people on the anti-populist side of the divide making appeals to technicality. It's been a recurring theme, that I've mentioned on here before (The Remain Brain vs The Leave Perceiver - 2019, didn't realise it was so long ago!).

Seeing the media coverage, and the number of seats the Lib Dems won, got me thinking about this class of people once again. I'm not quite sure how to box them. Remainer is a bit specific, and doesn't fully capture it. I was thinking unserious people that take themselves seriously, but that's probably unfair - and incorrect too. What inspired that descriptor was another media snapshot. This time an exchange involving Steve Baker, Ed Balls and George Osborne.

https://x.com/GMB/status/1809114873894228261

Osborne and Balls were laughing and giggling, like it was all just a big game, as Steve Baker was making a serious point. To be fair, their party had won, and Baker had lost his seat, so naturally moods would be different. And yes, Osborne and Balls are of the same party. Technically Osborne is a Conservative, but these party structures and labels don't reflect actual political reality anymore. This is another theme I've touched upon before.

https://x.com/NeilSco17180435/status/1759197809515925952

I feel like this election finally crystallised many of these things. Which, I guess, means it's the end of one era and the beginning of something else..

//////////////

More, More, More

This is a bit off topic for this blog, but I can't help but make mention of the words less and more in regard their mechanics. That is, the way we make these words using the mouth.

More is a very natural word. We make the "M" sound by simply opening and closing the mouth. It's an easy consonant to make. I'm almost certain that this is why so many words denoting mother begin with M. More is the sound a child naturally makes when it wants more milk.

Likewise, less is similarly fitting. We make the "L" sound by lifting our tongue to the roof of our mouth. We have lots of lifting type words beginning with L - lift, lower, level, levitate, layer, lever, etc. The word less begins with us lowering our tongue from the roof of our mouth to make the L sound. Then ends with us bringing or teeth together to make the "S" hissing sound. Making our mouth smaller - almost closed. (If you make these words in your own mouth and note the position of the tongue and the lips this becomes easier to understand.) So, with less, we lower the tongue, then make the mouth small. So the physical action of the mouth mirrors the actual meaning of the word.

I should really do fewer for thoroughness. Here the "F" sound is made by biting the bottom lip (again, try it with your own mouth to see). I guess you could say that grabbing the bottom lip fits neatly with the idea of something being lower or less. With the "R" we then curl the tongue backwards, though often people don't pronounce the R. (With my terrible Teesside accent I pronounce it few-a.) So the R doesn't really add too much in regard mirrored mechanical meaning - though you could maybe make the claim that bringing the tongue inwards - the recoiling motion - naturally implies a lessening or retraction. (The "W" in the middle, though technically considered a consonant, is actually just a transition between two vowel sounds.)

Vowels are open mouth vocalisations. Essentially letters/sounds we can sing or sustain. Aaaaaah, Ooooo, etc. So the relative openness of the mouth could also be said to carry meaning. With "Aaaaaaah" we open the mouth wide - so it's fitting for big or wide things. With e or i sounds - "eehhh" - the mouth is smaller. So you could say the "eh" in less and fewer also fits with the concept of less-ness.

(Actually, phonetically we pronounce the word fewer very differently to how it's spelt. For a start, that initial "F" is immediately followed by a "Y" sound. Then, the first e is pronounced more like an Ooo. We write fewer, but we say F-you-er. Written language is messy.)

In regard the mechanics of the mouth the word less seems more apt and pleasing than the word fewer. Perhaps this is why people naturally reach for it. Maybe it just feels more intuitive.

My Advice For Reform

Firstly, congratulations to Labour. This isn't what I wanted, but we do live in a democracy, and they've won. So they do have a clear mandate from the people - at least a mandate to deliver the things they've pledged to deliver.

(In fact, on that topic, Starmer did make this statement the day before the election, which seems worth making note of:

("I've been really clear about not rejoining the EU, the single

market or the customs union..")

That seems pretty emphatic.)

So, I'm happy (or, at least, I'm going to try) to give them a period of grace and goodwill. Obviously, my fear is things will be bad. We now have a parliament entirely dominated by managerial technocrats - 412 Labour MPs, 72 Liberal Democrats, and 121 (for the most part) wet Tories. People like Jacob Rees-Mogg, Liz Truss, Steve Baker, and my local MP Simon Clarke all gone.

This was a terrifying prospect before the election, but now it's a reality I calmly accept.

I think it's important to act in hope after an election. Again, to offer some goodwill towards your victorious opponents, and to not prejudge their efforts in government. To give them some time to prove your fears wrong. To acknowledge if they get things right.

Perhaps it won't be so bad after all.

REFORM

Reform picked up five seats, which is a huge silver-lining. I think five is a very impressive total. Even after the exit poll predicted thirteen I wasn't confident they'd get more than one or two.

My immediate thoughts are two-fold:

Firstly, Reform need to make sure they diligently serve these five constituencies. They need to be present, do the boring things, and resist the temptation to simply use these seats as a platform for wider activism. If they get a reputation for not being local, loyal and serious it's curtains for any grander ambitions.

Secondly, I think they would be wise to be absolutely forensic with any statements made going forward. Cavalier mouthing off and high drama might undo them. As if they cause too much trouble in parliament, the committees and kangaroo courts will be back in no time. "Disrepute!" "lying to parliament!" "financial irregularities!" Don't think in this current era that only the public can remove people from parliament.

(This is quite a negative suggestion, and it goes against my earlier desire to offer goodwill to Labour & Co. However, I'm not saying this type of chicanery will definitely happen, I'm just pointing out that there's a very realistic possibility that it could.)

Tony Blair: The Cristiano Ronaldo of Politics

What does Tony Blair actually believe?

In that last post I mentioned I'd been watching a documentary about the Blair/Brown years. At the point of writing I'd only watched up until the third episode, so the Iraq War hadn't been fully dealt with. Since then I've watched the last two.

What struck me the most was the emotion, especially of Blair. It's easy to forget these politicians are human beings. When you're reminded of this fact it's hard not to feel a greater sympathy. It also returned me to a topic I've considered a few times over the last few years. Namely: what does Tony Blair actually believe?

He can be difficult to pigeonhole. Is he a Neocon? A globalist Europhile? Is he a Marxist revolutionary hidden beneath the guise of a moderate centrist? Is he a Tory Boy in Labour clothing?

(In fact, I'd forgotten about this last one. I remember, vaguely, from my teenage years accusations that he was a Tory - a child of Thatcher, that had somehow snuck into the Labour Party to transform it. A lot of the footage from the 1980s and early 90s I'd never seen before, and watching it, it was very easy to see why people would have thought so. He was indeed very "Tory Boy" back then. I can see why he fooled so many actual Tories into thinking, "Don't worry, we can give him a few years running the country, he's basically one of us.")

Anyway, I've generally come to the conclusion that Tony Blair doesn't really believe in anything. These documentaries only confirmed this notion. (The "Tory Boy" recollection being the clincher.)

What I think defines Blair is personal ambition. A sheer desire to be successful. It's easy to assume that politicians must have some kind of ideology. Some worldview that they want to implement. However, this isn't really how humans work. We have an inbuilt impulse to be successful. A will to thrive and survive. A gorilla doesn't become the dominant gorilla because he wants to implement capitalism or communism in the jungle. He just does it because it's his nature. He doesn't know why he does it. He doesn't stop to ask.

We're all like this to some degree. If I play football I want to win. I rarely stop to consider why. I just do. And, of course, we all know people that are very competitive. That can't stand to lose even if it is just a friendly game of football. We naturally want to win in life, whatever we find ourselves doing - some people more so than others.

If we take a very driven footballer as an example, let's say, Cristiano Ronaldo, we can see how extreme his will to win is. The lengths he goes to. The amount he pushes himself. His eagerness, you could even say need, to score the most goals, or win the most trophies. To be the centre of attention. But why does he do this? Is there a grander purpose to it all? Does he want to acquire all this fame, money and reputation so he can implement some utopian political world order? Of course not (at least, I don't think he does!). He just wants to be successful. It's human nature. And in the field he finds himself in: football, that means scoring goals, breaking records and winning trophies (along with signing mega contracts and sponsorship deals).

(Actually, as another aside, there was a nice moment in the Euros last night where Ronaldo unselfishly passed to set up a goal for another teammate, from a position where he would've normally had a shot. It was almost a redemption arc, noted and memed by people on Twitter. As if, in the winter years of his playing career he's suddenly realised he can get a deeper joy from being a team player, as opposed to the star attraction.)

I think Tony Blair is a Cristiano Ronaldo type politician - and in politics one of the benchmarks is "progress". Particularly for politicians born in our era of history. So I think if he has a political leaning it's more just a vague attraction to the notion of "progress." His messianic (this term was actually used to describe his personality in the documentary series) ..his messianic desire to be personally successful manifesting as a need to be on the progressive side - that is, the winning side, in terms of historical narrative - of any particular issue.

If we look at some of his defining themes or decisions we can see this.

Pro EU/wanting Britain to join the Euro

At the end of the 20th century the general consensus was that nation states were an outmoded thing of the past, and that big regional blocks (if not single world governments) were the natural way of the future. So, naturally, Blair took the side of progress.

Iraq War

Likewise here. We'd reached the end of history after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The march of democracy was inevitable. It was just a case of pushing over the last few dominos of the past, with their little Hitler-esq rulers. Again, the right side of history was obvious.

Technocratic Solutions

Blair has always been a big technology guy, be it digital IDs or whatever else. Alas, a recurring sentiment you'll often hear from Blair when he addresses forums, and I'm paraphrasing a little bit here, goes along the lines of this:

"Listen, I don't have a clue about mobile phones, I have to get the younger guys to help me use the damn things, but, y'know, it's the future, and we have to embrace it."

Normally, it's the job of older people to be a break on change - partly as a consequence of this natural confoundment at the latest trends and fashions. However, the 1960s generation - the boomers, so-called - absolutely defined themselves as change-agents. In complete opposition to the old fuddy-duddies and squares that were the previous generation - who resisted the "inevitable" march of progress that came in the 20th century. So, the hippie generation grew up with this ingrained way of thinking, "..When I'm older, I'll be down with the kids - even if I don't quite understand what exactly it is they're doing. I'm not going to make the mistake the previous stuffy generation made, when they stood ignorantly in the way of progress."

So, as technology is viewed as the future, and pushing against it is seen as luddite, once again, Blair chooses to be on the side of progress.

Thatcherism

Finally, we can return to the "Tory Boy" accusation that I'd so forgotten and disregarded. Here too, the same was true. Thatcherism and the liberalisation of the markets was the future. The Labour Party, on the other side, very much stuck in the past. So we see yet another variant of Tony Blair seeking to be on the winning side of history.

And the notion of "winning" really defines Blair. He won three terms, and in his various Labour speeches he returns to the theme time and again. That desire to be successful overriding everything else. A few months ago I posted on here, recollecting a memory of someone calling Blair the literal Anti-Christ. The comparison with the Devil, and labels such as the "Dark Lord," pop up in relation to Blair quite commonly online, at least in more conspiratorial spheres. Obviously, it's a tad silly. However, there is definitely a slight Faustian spirit to Blair. The will to power, the ambition, the sheer desire to breakthrough and achieve success.

I've criticised Blair many times in the past. I think I've been wrong to ascribe malign intentions though. Watching the documentary series I couldn't doubt the humanness and sincerity. I have to admit it seems like he sincerely wanted to achieve peace in Northern Ireland, and I don't doubt he wants it for the Middle East now.

I always think the human ego is like a wild horse. It can get you to places, but you have to learn to tame it and keep it under control. Some people advocate the complete suppression of the ego. The rationale of this initially feels attractive, but to me it always seems like a rejection of life. A desire to retreat into neutrality and nothingness, instead of actively seeking goodness. I think the wild horse of the ego can be employed for good and for bad.

The sheer horsepower of Blair (and Ronaldo) is impressive to behold.