My Birthday and Comic Relief

So, it's my birthday today, although it does not yet feel like it.  Maybe it will begin to feel so after 17:30.  At 22, you've kind of exhausted all the important birthdays for the next eight years: you feel the 18th, because there's usually a massive party and you definitely feel it because it feels like Rik Waller sitting on you and talking about his problems.  You can taste it too - tastes like vomit.  The 19th and the 20th kind of make an impact, because I was at university at the time and your friends that don't understand the words "I'm not really a clubber" and "I don't like shots" make you feel it.  Again, feels like Rik Waller, and in my case, without the satisfaction of waking up with a Jessica Alba lookalike beside me.  And, as wrong as this sounds, instead with the face of Tony Blair looking back at me with a constipated smile (I own his autobiography).  Then, 21 is usually celebrated with another party, on the premise that the 18th is nothing but the practise run.

As I write this, actually I've just been handed a barrel load of envelopes that were clogging up the door and two birthday presents from my housemates.  So, now I have two new shirts for the summer and a whole load of cash to spend on... rent and council tax.  Lovely.

However, now that I have the money, I am able to do what I was unable to do a few nights ago, and that was donate to Comic Relief.  I felt inredibly guilty as I was watching it on iPlayer that I wasn't giving, though I did have a valid reason.  I was also pleased to see that the result was up by over £15 million from 2009, making up for the slightly less impressive Children in Need outcome for 2010.  In between the bits I didn't want to watch (not the appeal videos, but the bits with the so-called comics or entertainers I can't stand, like that really camp dancer), I continued to think about how much infrastructure is important to these countries, infrastructure that they simply don't have.  Whilst it is vitally imperative to get aid to the poor and malnourished on the African continent, I just wish that more of that money was being put towards larger, more long-term projects, like water pumps and pipelines, surgeries and equipment, hospitals, ambulances, larger housing projects and... well, I could go on, but I won't.  I know that what Comic Relief does do is huge and incredible when you consider the size of the area and the number of people it is trying to save, though I must admit I was overcome emotionally with the video presented by Russell Brand, about mothers and daughters scavenging on a dump site in Kenya.  It was wonderful to see the girls being rescued and sent to schools and growing up in a safe, clean environment - but it was all the more powerful when they returned to their mothers, who had been given the opportunity by the charity to start their own businesses, and that they now had a home to live in.  Lenny Henry's story about orphans in slums was equally as emotional, who did not wait for the fundraisers to give one family their own home.

There are sceptics out in the big wide world who question the ability of Comic Relief to make real change, and I understand these concerns, in fact, I agree with them.  Short term solutions can only go so far, and it's heart breaking to think that Seventy-Four Million Pounds only does so much year-on-year.

I'll admit something to you now.  A deep, dark secret.  I want to get a job that earns me lots of money.  Millions a year, if possible.  Then, and this is the real secret: I want to set up a charity foundation.  But this foundation will not be about handouts, about aid packages and sending vaccinations out to the Third World.  It will be about construction.  Revitalisation.  Africa still has some of richest farming land in the world, that is just not used to its full potential.  This foundation will send people from the "First World" out to places like Tanzania, Mozambique, Kenya and Uganda, and help them build hospitals with fully-functioning equipment, ambulances, and vaccination centres, and train doctors and nurses who in turn will train other doctors and nurses.  They will build schools and train teachers, who will not only teach literacy and numeracy to children, but also basic skills to a potential workforce who could work in their local community to improve it and continue the work the foundation starts.  The initial workers will also build houses with indoor plumbing, put up safety nets and fences along newly lain train lines, and all sorts.  This foundation will call on the help of not just the generous public in Western nations, but the support of wealthy individuals across the globe to fund these projects.  It will also seek to find support within other organisations such as the United Nations to gain political prominence, and co-operate with First and Third World governments to help provide security and administrative support to the foundation.

Call me a dreamer, but is this too much to ask for?  Is this so beyond the realms of reality that no one has thought of it before?  If such an organisation already exists, why do they not receive the same amount of exposure as charities like Comic Relief, Save the Children, Amnesty International, or the Red Cross?  When I watch things like Comic Relief, Sports Relief or Children in Need, above sadness and depression I feel infuriation.  It makes me angry to think that there are people in this world - something brought to light especially recently with the economic crisis - who earn thousands to millions of pounds a year not just in salary but in bonuses, and who splash this cash on Lamborghinis, four houses and five holidays a year, and believe they are helping the world by donating a fiver to charity.  Mark my words, if I ever find myself earning £10 million a year, here's how I'd divide it up (and bearing in mind if I was earning £10 million per annum, I'd be in the film industry - because, frankly, I'd put myself there):

£80,000 salary (woud pay for the house, nice car, family car, family holiday);

£2,500,000 investment for film projects (I like collaboration on these things);

£7,420,000 personal injection into foundation.

Yes, I know, it's easy for anybody to say they're incorruptible when they do not have the capacity to be corrupted, but I like to think I'm principled enough to actually plan my finances as such if I had the income.  Of course, I may never know, but I don't like to think like that.

Let's say you won the lottery, and the jackpot was £75,000,000.  How would you spend it?  Be honest now.

Krishnan Guru-Murthy and the Order of Channel 4 Live Shows, Part 2

Besides, selling off half the stuff talked about would require a referendum, which would cost us even more money for the government to hear the public sound off a resounding "no" to selling off anything, as was the case in the studio audience on last night's show.  Which just made the whole event that little bit more pointless.

Krishnan Guru-Murthy and the Order of Channel 4 Live Shows

Last night was Channel 4's slightly more unorthodox Dispatches episode, called Selling Off Britain.  I sort of stumbled upon it, if I'm honest, waiting for the Being Human repeat on BBC Three.  As I watched it, I realised just how balmy the whole thing was.

I know, I know - so far my blogging history makes it sound like I'm just bitching about Channel 4's political programming, but I have a valid reason for wondering what the processes were behind the commissioning of Selling Off Britain.  The premise behind the show was to select certain assets owned by the state and sell them off, in an attempt to garner currency and heal the deficit.  Now, aside from one of the guests explaining why it doesn't work like this - for reasons I still don't fully understand - one of the problems behind such a plan exists in precedent.  There has been, in the last forty years, another example of the state selling off assets in order to try and bolster its economy.  There were, of course, considerable differences between the privatisation of our national utility networks and the proposals lain down by Krishnan Guru-Murthy, the presenter of last night's programme.  Selling off our gas and electricity grids were ultimately passed on to public limited companies, and shares were sold off bit by bit to investors.  Selling the Birmingham City Council building would be a straight sell to the highest bidder.

There are reasons why people don't like Thatcher.  She destroyed our primary industrial sector; left millions unemployed with no alternative work; introduced fees to higher education making it more difficult for the unemployed to retrain; and piled resources into a war that no matter how noble cost the taxpayer millions.  Looking back, it is hard to ignore the irony that the British public campaigned against Maggie Thatcher for attempting to alleviate the national debt, but boosted her popularity ratings when she spent that money waging a war for a group of islands barely significant to the modern commonwealth.  Yes, her time in office did have some advantages: she was instrumental in preserving British sovereignty - and by extension, other European nations' - in the European Economic Community (now the EU), and potentially stopping the UK from slipping into some sort of deficit by trying to prop up the coal and steel industries.  My beef with Margaret Thatcher is her disregard for the potential unemployment and refusal to do anything about it.  That alone marks her out as being one of the worst 20th+ Century Prime Ministers this country has had.  For me.

In comparison, selling the NEC or parliamentary members clubs is an even more short term solution.  I almost had a coronary when they suggested selling the British Armed Forces.  Whilst we may rely on Private Military Corporations at times in modern warfare, I'm not sure I like the idea anyway let alone have them be in charge of our national defences.  I'll fully admit that there are some things our military could do without.  A £280 million nuclear deterrent consisting of 100+ active warheads is one of them.  When it comes to nuclear warfare, any number above 1 is generally considered reason enough not to attack somebody.  The concept of a Ministry of Defence is rather absurd, when it operates such potent first strike weapons.

As I said to my flatmates yesterday evening, selling off bits of Britain isn't going to solve anything.  It'll create a short term solution that'll be that much harder to rectify years down the line.  Unless something is changed about the core functionality of a national - or even global - economy, these things will continue to happen, no matter how many restrictions or regulations a government tries to impose on its corporations.  The latter entity will find ways of manipulating the markets and the legal system to create bigger profits, and if necessary, can bribe and corrupt a government to ignore them when they flout legal authority.

Get rid of credit.  A debit-based economy doesn't have these problems because it operates purely on existing money, the quantity of which can be adjusted every year when the government agency handling receipts and expenses - to distance the accounting from the central hub of lawmakers - realises that the national income is not proportionate to the cost of national maintenance.  There are complications to this, admittedly, but it's not half as complicated or manipulative as the economy base we currently practise.  It also makes the government and civil service less corruptible, and the corporations, banks and big businesses more managable.

I'm not saying I have all the answers, the above is purely theoretical, and I do not have the ability to actually test it practically.  But I know I'm bound to have somebody say to me eventually;

"Well, come on then, if you're so critical of the way things are at the moment, what's your brilliant solution, genius?"

David Cameron and the Half-Arsed Attempt To Direct Us Away From The Cuts

So, as promised, my next blog is about the radical, mundane, totally uncalled for attempt by the British Government to tell us to do something we already frakkin' do.

Maybe I was a little harsh.  After all, the basic principle behind the Big Society scheme is noble: the government is basically asking normal people to take up the reigns of some local initiatives to help the country through a difficult financial time.  Why should the British public immediately expect the government to take up responsibility for these things when we are all vividly aware that it simply can't without doing one of two things: raise taxes or borrow more money from the banks.  Doing the first will simply outrage the usual suspects, and doing the second will just make the situation worse.  Yes, it is understandable that people already have jobs, and rarely get the opportunity to do any kind of volunteer work, but there are plenty of people that are capable of participating in the activities related to Big Society.

Those that are capable of participating, participate.  Those that aren't, dont'.  I'll admit, having the government tell us what to do can seem rather patronising, but for the love of the gods don't do it for them.  Do it for yourself.  For your community.  I'm hardly a poster-boy for Big Society, but that's beside the point.  I'm finding it difficult to articulate myself... hold on.

Get off your lazy arse and do something to help your community.  You'll feel empowered, informed, make lots of new friends and you might also find that you've just saved your local government a few thousand pounds, which can now go towards either improving the various services it provides for you, the public, or you may also find that your Council Tax bill has been lowered.

I apologise, I shouldn't have called you a lazy arse.  For all I know, your arse is very active and it's just you.  Booyah.

Johann Hari and the Chamber of Society

So, I've started catching up with the Channel 4 programme 10 O'Clock Live, a show that I've consistently (possibly with an intention) missed since watching Episode 1.  The fact that it was grossly misadvertised, and presented me with something that was not reminiscent of Not The Nine O'Clock News or a British version of the genius Onion News Network, and instead was a haphazard mismatch of various spoofs of other political shows mainly broadcast on the BBC was not the reason.  Actually, hold on, yes it was.

However, since then, I've decided to try and catch up with the programme on YouTube and I've been somewhat convinced that it's not as bad as I thought it was.  Yes, I was initially disappointed with its structure, but after watching the fourth episode I thought it might be worth watching more.  In fact, it was the fourth episode that inspired me to start writing these blogs.  Mainly to vent my frustration at Johann Hari.  Now, before all you Independent readers and liberal politicos immediately switch off, let me make one thing clear: I'm one of you.  Sort of.  I am not by any means conservative, nor do I consider myself liberal, instead I choose to place my political allegiance at the centre of the great "Political Pringle" - like the brilliant Professor Stephen Hawking and his envisioning of the vastness of space being shaped like a crisp, I too have arrived at the conclusion that the spectrum upon which politicians like to tack their name to is shaped like a pringle.  Once, I saw it as my A Level Politics teacher did, as a straight line (with a small line poking out the top with the paragraph "Third Way" written next to it), but then I saw it as a square graph.  Then as a circle.  Then came the 3D objects, and I saw it as a small tussock.  Then a hill.  Then a mountain.  Then I decided: what the hell, let's envision the thing as the frickin' Pennine Mountains.  Now, however, due to much thought and deliberation, I see it as a party snack.

Anyway, as I was saying, I'm not a conservative, nor am I a liberal.  I consider myself central, even though I consistently tell people that central politics does not exist.  Contradictory as it may be, just because a political ideology is not practically possible, does not mean that the subject in its entirety cannot be observed from that location.  And so, we turn to the incredibly liberal Mr Hari.  I have read his articles in the past, and found myself occasionally agreeing and disagreeing with him in equal measure, but I do sometimes think he lets his socialism get in the way of a reasonable conversation.  In Episode 4 of 10 O'Clock Live, David Mitchell chaired a Newsnight-esque debate about David Cameron's in/famous (delete as necessary) "Big Society", with Philip Blond, the man behind the vision; Shaun Bailey, head of charity MyGeneration; and Johann Hari himself, journalist for The Independent newspaper.

Blond starts by explaining roughly what the Big Society is - a subject that I will be talking about in my next blog, if you're interested in reading it the next time you've got nothing better to do than read some sad sap's poorly conceived and ill-thought opinions that he dreamt up whilst pondering his own existence/unemployment.  Then Johann Hari strikes up.  First, he says it will kill volunteering, but fails to mention in what way - that people will stop volunteering in an anarchic response to something that amounts to nothing more than a suggestion by government, or that due to the lack of monetary relief for charities they simply will not have the capabilities to support their volunteers, which kind of undermines the definition of "volunteering".  Then he makes a rather bland joke about Marie Antoinette that delivers precisely the point Big Society is making (which in the mind of myself, but obviously not the amused studio audience, thought was rather like guillotining himself in the foot - you see what I did there?  Funny, haha, etc.) that immediately gets everybody onside.  Ashamedly, even me.

Then, Mr Bailey makes a great point about how most charities in the UK are already relying purely on donations and don't get any financial support from the government.  I am not aware if MyGeneration receives such support, but that's beside the very well made point.  The next time Hari speaks, it's to use a different political topic altogether to try and exaggerate his own point.  Fair enough, he's right - who's going to drop everything to try and save their local library for no pay packet?  But it has never been suggested that the people should buy a forest in order to keep it.  That's a government cock-up that has nothing to do with attempting to shift government assets over to popular maintenance.  His point about the coupling of tax levels and volunteering may be valid, but he uses extreme examples, and does not take into consideration the possible lifestyles and average incomes of those American states.  Regardless, the point is largely irrelevant.  Whilst all elements of politics are intricately linked in some way or another, his point is ultimately trying to link the issue of the complicated tax increases/decreases to the issue of Big Society, which he claims (again, perhaps rightly so) to be nothing more than spin.  Hold on, I mean PR.  Remember, spin is dead (thank you Absolute Power).

David Mitchell, rather appropriately, is the voice of reason, and his voice is rather my conclusion.  Big Society is a good idea, but it shouldn't be branded, and I should stop writing it with capital letters as if it is some sort of marketable product.  Blond is wrong because he subscribes to the idea that in order to get people helping out in the community requires nothing more than a massive, multi-million pound marketing campaign when in fact it requires the personal drive from an individual to get them involved in their community.  We already do it to some extent.  Hari saying that people will do these things less is not tied to something financial as he claims, but I believe is tied more to the population's rebellious child-like persona in relation to the father figure epitomised by government.  People will do it less because the man's telling us to do it.  It's as simple as that.  So, if you feel inclined to help out more in your community, do it, but for the love of the gods don't call it the Big Society.  It may be an attempt by government to pull the wool over our eyes in regards to their limp-wristed handling of The City, but don't treat it like that.  Hari seems to represent a portion of our society that thinks anything proposed by government is justifiably challengable.

My observations of Johann Hari, however, were clouded before, and not just by his literature but also by his television appearances.  I remember Stephen Fry's rather dubious tweet claiming Johann Hari was standing up for justice and democracy or some such thing, directing me to a YouTube video broadcasting the journalist's appearance on Sky News, opposite a candidate for the BNP, Jason Douglas.  Regardless of the viewpoints upheld by the British National Party - which I find as abhorrent as the next person - Hari decided that the best way to make his voice heard in a debate focussing on political issues was to launch a personal attack on Mr Douglas.  Then, when challenged by Richard Littlejohn, the presenter, Hari turned on him, questioning his journalistic integrity.  I responded to Stephen Fry's tweet, citing Nick Griffin's appearance on Question Time as another moment when a personal attack was made in the midst of a political debate.  It's a sad day when that happens, and I find it disheartening to think that some people who claim to be reasoned think it detestable when a conservative does it, but cheer when a liberal does it.  And vice versa.

Right, I'm going to prepare myself for all the left-wing hate mail.  That said, if any conservative writes hailing me as a beacon of true blue glory, then I might just have to make my next blog a vicious attack on Margaret Thatcher.

Ciao.