Category: News and politics

It has gone on a remarkable journey in the last decade, from a liberal society to one as poisoned with fascism as their Flemish neighbours.

The Netherlands has a general election tomorrow, when a new Parliament will be elected by the voters. On the eve of the election, a good chunk of Dutch primetime television is being given over to a televised debate between the leading candidates of the various political parties. I tried to watch the programme, but I’ve given up in disgust. It is coming across as more of an entertainment show than a serious attempt at laying out and debating the issues. Perhaps it’s inevitable in this day and age that it would turn out to be a circus, but I had hoped for something better than this dross.

Update: The second half is turning out somewhat better. The debates are better controlled by a more experienced pair of chairpersons. We are still getting irritating cutaways to someone who gives pointless updates on what the Twittersphere is saying – as if I could give a damn. However, on balance I am just about sticking with the programme. Wilders is still as annoying as ever, however.  

So David Laws has gone. Unlike some, I have no sympathy with the man whatsoever. A multi-millionaire who takes £40,000 from the public purse and pays it to his partner as “rent” for the room in the house that they share? Give me a break.

I don’t have a phobia about Tories. That would suggest an irrational response. I hate them for a reason. For lots of reasons, actually. For the miners, apartheid, Bobby Sands, Greenham Common, selling council houses, Section 28, lining the pockets of the rich and hammering the poor – to name but a few. I hate them because they hate people I care about. As a young man Cameron looked out on the social carnage of pit closures and mass unemployment, looked at Margaret Thatcher’s government and thought, these are my people. When all the debating is done, that is really all I need to know.

Cameron is 100% something. He isn’t even a man; more a texture-mapped character model. There’s a different kind of software at work here, some advanced alien technology projecting a passable simulation of affability; a straight-to-DVD retread of the Blair ascendancy re-enacted by androids. Like an ostensibly realistic human character in a state-of-the-art CGI cartoon, he’s almost convincing – assuming you can ignore the shrieking, cavernous lack of anything approaching a soul. Which you can’t.

Tony Blair has a phosphorescent quality. He is a will-o’-the-wisp, an emanation of rotting marsh gas that flares and glimmers in the dark, leading stray travellers into deeper and deeper mires. His power is almost supernatural. He managed to lead an entire party into supporting policies that were utterly alien to its nature; he took a movement that had once been proud to feel itself socialist, and made it into a fervent supporter of low taxes, private finance initiatives, and people getting filthy rich.

The trial of Geert Wilders began yesterday. Personally, I can’t stand the man, and loathe his opinions, but I am far from convinced that this trial is necessarily a good idea. Russell Blackford also has his reservations. Wilders is clearly guilty of making inflammatory anti-Muslim statements, but the question before the court is whether they are illegal. The NRC published an overview of the situation just before the trial began. The key point is:

Wilders is charged with slandering a group and sowing hate, and discrimination on the basis of race or religion. He has targeted Muslims on the basis of their religion, the prosecution will argue, and non-western migrants or Moroccans on the basis of their race.

I suspect that with courtroom theatrics, such as attempting to call Mohammed  Bouyeri (the murderer of Theo van Gogh) as a witness, Wilders will get the oxygen of publicity that he desires.

The opening days of 2010 have brought an outbreak of schadenfreude, centred around Northern Ireland. Yes, it’s the Iris Robinson affair – quite literally so, as the object of her affections, 19 year-old Kirk McCambley, has attested. My friends from Northern Ireland (both Protestant and Catholic) have been following the unfolding of events breathlessly, and with dangerously high levels of schadenfreude. We all agree that it couldn’t have happened to a nicer couple than Peter and Iris Robinson. After all, it was she who publicly stated that being gay was an abomination, and used Leviticus to justify her stance, whilst conveniently forgetting the equally stern strictures against adultery in the very same chapter. Add to that the shenanigans over money and politicians denying any wrongdoing, and we have a truly heady brew of scandal.

The only person who seems to be coming out of this with any semblance of dignity is Kirk McCambley himself, whose apparent naivety seems to be protecting him. Inevitably, he now has an Appreciation Society on Facebook with nearly 6,000 members…

I’m feeling very low in spirit at the moment. This is because the media, both in the UK and the Netherlands, are buzzing with the news that Tony Blair may well become the President of the EU. Well, here in the Netherlands, there’s also the fact that some are pushing for Jan Peter Balkenende, but even here, there is strong support for Blair. As I’ve said before, the thought of Blair being President of the EU makes me hang my head in shame. The reasons why are very well summarised in the opening paragraph of an article by George Monbiot in today’s Guardian:

Tony Blair’s bid to become president of the European Union has united the left in revulsion. His enemies argue that he divided Europe by launching an illegal war; he kept the UK out of the eurozone and the Schengen agreement; he is contemptuous of democracy (surely a qualification?); greases up to wealth and power and lets the poor go to hell; he is ruthless, mendacious, slippery and shameless.

But then George made me do a double-take; he ends the paragraph with:

But never mind all that. I’m backing Blair.

Eh? Monbiot then goes on to explain that with Blair as EU President, it may in fact be our best chance of finally getting him brought to justice. It’s a crazy plan, but if it works, it will be brilliant. If it doesn’t, then we’re stuck with bloody Blair.

It’s like gazing through a horrid little window into an awesome universe of pure blockheaded spite. Spiralling galaxies of ignorance roll majestically against a backdrop of what looks like dark prejudice, dotted hither and thither with winking stars of snide innuendo.

Blair is seen by many as someone who has the strength of character, the stature. People know who he is, and he would be someone who would have this role and step into it with a lot of respect and I think would be generally welcomed.