TIME TO END THE YEAR ZERO POLITICS

Like most people, I suspect, former British Prime Minster Tony Blair's appearance before The Iraq Inquiry yesterday left me dumbfounded. We were asked to look at events leading up to the war in Iraq from the year 2010. In fact, Blair, like former United States President George Bush, is a "Year Zero" politician, which means that history began with their own election, as leading members "The Elect" (that is God's) themselves.

CULTURE, THE ECONOMY & THE MEDIA

Speaking on an excellent episode of The Culture Show a couple of months ago, the veteran campaigning newspaper editor Sir Harold Evans - who notoriously fell out with Rupert Murdoch - stated that the key task for the news media at present was to understand the reasons for the financial/housing market collapse and what should be done to ensure that this is not repeated.

Sir Harold now lives in the United States and his comments reflect this, but the principle applies equally to the systemic failure of the banking system and subsequent economic crisis in this country.

Since the heyday of Sir Harold's career in Britain between the 1960s and 1980s, coverage of economic issues by our news media has changed dramatically, with increased reporting of supposedly well-performing sectors, such as finance and property, and a steep decline in coverage of industrial sectors, particularly in the regions. However, notwithstanding this shift in focus, much of the mainstream media still failed to anticipate the events which precipitated our longest post-war recession, from which the UK is only just emerging.

One reason for this is the strong tendency of journalists to rely on media releases from major companies and government organisations, carefully prepared for their consumption. Real investigative journalism of the kind promoted by Evans has declined significantly, again particularly where this might require some hard labour amongst Britain's industrial hinterlands. Perhaps this kind of work is now a job for the so-called "citizen journalist". The Blogosphere certainly did anticipate some of problems associated with financial and property speculation.

The very good reason for this is that the Blogosphere is just as much - perhaps more so - about production as consumption. Regaining this balance is the key challenge facing economies such as the United States and Britain. In short, since the 1970s we have lost much of our mass culture of manufacture, with trends in mass consumption being increasingly manipulated through media organisations - including national and international governmental ones - instead.

This is precisely why an enterprise like the search engine Google is so important, and why not so long ago Google was voted most trusted brand by consumers. Let's hope it can retain this status.

SEXING DOWN POLITICS & THE MEDIA

Steve Bell's Guardian cartoon of Alastair Campbell giving evidence to The Iraq Inquiry seems to have raised a few eyebrows, but is unlikely to lead to riots. Campbell denies "sexing up" evidence which contributed to Britain's decision to join the US action against Iraq in 2003. Bell's cartoon takes a difference view. Fortunately we live in a free country, or just about anyway.

However, serious commentators, such as theatre director Peter Hall, have long acknowledged the tendency of the British press to use sex as a distraction from politics. This was the theme of my first post on the subject of "Culture" back in June 2006.

The immediate subject was a play by Mark Lawson entitled "The Third Soldier Holds His Thighs", about the controversy surrounding the original staging of Howard Brenton's play "The Roman's in Britain", which portrays male rape.

Now it seems that Iris Robinson's views on homosexuality may well have contributed to her own manhandling by the media as referred to in my previous post. I suspect we shall hear more from her young man, in "Beau de Jour" style, very soon.

Fortunately, Northern Ireland's politicians seem to be taking a more sensible line on these particular troubles than one might have expected from the media coverage, giving a strong and positive signal that this is now a country which does not want to return to the kind of "Troubles" with which Brenton's play also implicitly deals.

MAD ABOUT THE BOY

Listening to BBC Radio 4's The World This Weekend yesterday, one might have been forgiven for thinking that not just the "First Lady" of Northern Ireland, Iris Robinson, but British broadcasting herself had gone "Mad About The Boy". I refer, of course, to Mrs Robinson's affair with her "teenage lover" and the impact of this upon Stormont politics.

However, whilst Mrs Robinson, in the words of Dinah Washington's great song, has, apparently, be driven"quite insane" by the episode, I do wonder what would have happened if the affair had taken place in the Home of Popery ?

For events in Northern Ireland rather remind me of the recent antics of Italian President Berlusconi. Indeed, I'm wondering whether Mrs Robinson should consider conversion to Catholic faith, which is, I believe, more forgiving. She will in time, I suspect, be regarded as a kind of "New Madonna" who has liberated middle-aged female sexuality for the world media.

THE DEEP STUFF BLOG

Last year, I started a blog partly inspired by the cold weather called - you guessed it ! - http://the-deep-stuff.blogspot.com/ Check out my post on "Nature's Great Events".

On a more mundane level, I was amused this morning to hear a local authority official complain that councils hadn't been warned about the present "3o Year Event", as if "Our Mighty Leaders" could plan for such things !

Government officials both local and national have grown to accustomed to "Soviet-style planning" under New Labour, and I'm looking forward to a "3o Year Event" Regime Change !

NEW SPECIAL RELATIONSHIPS

The Former US & UK Defence Secretaries
For some time I've been reflecting on another E-Pantomime called "New Special Relationships" whose synopsis runs something like this ....

The British Commonwealth and the Commonwealth of Independent States (ie former Soviet Union countries) have merged to form an Anglo-Russian Commonwealth (ARC), whose prime minister is Boris Johnson. Vladimir Putin has been declared the "New Tsar", and the old British royal family have been exiled to Australia. Peter Mandelson has entered into a civil partnership with a Russian oligarch, and Ken Livingstone is the new Mayor of Moscow...

In the meantime, Gordon Brown has invoked "A New Cold War" - Good Timing Again Gord ! - which might have something to do with Britain's growing dependence on Russian energy supplies, and Geoff Hoon has embarked upon a failed coup at home. Now Hoon is described as inconsequential by his former comrades in the Cabinet, but wasn't this the man who as former Secretary of State for Defence helped lead Britain into the Iraq War ? In fact, isn't he due to give evidence to The Iraq Inquiry, along with former Prime Minister Tony Blair ?

Given the leadership problems, past and present, of New Labour and the need for a new politics of pluralism in Britain, might I suggest the following political strategy to the Liberal-Democrats in the run-up to the General Election :

1. A Partnership with Labour in which Vince Cable is identified as Leader
2. A Partnership with the Conservatives in which Vince is prospective Chancellor

This is the kind of new special relationship we need on the domestic front, and there's nothing like a cold, clear snowy day for some blue sky thinking.

Let It Snow Let It Snow Let It Snow

Walking to my destination this morning, the snow blizzard caused me to stop to put on a waterproof layer of clothing. The sign by the doorway in which I stopped - the Lodge of one Whittington Manor, now used for edge of town offices to which people have to drive it seems - said "Liter Life". Let's Lighten Up today, I said to myself ! To others, I suggest walking !

BURJ DUBAI AND "BABEL TOWER"

Welcome to 2010 ! This "first past the post" blog of the New Year continues the "Lessons of Literary Constructions" theme that I began last December, which already seems a long time ago.

Maybe the stratospheric aspirations of the world's tallest building officially opened today - the 818m Burj Dubai whose spatial dimensions are shown here - have speeded up the temporal realm, or perhaps not.

For history, in the person of Scottish poet David Lyndsay writing of the Tower of Babel in 1555, tells us in "The Monarche" :
The shadow of that hyddeous strength
Sax myle and more it is of length.

These lines give the name "That Hideous Strength" to the third book of C S Lewis's Cosmic Trilogy, mentioned in my previous post.

Co-incidentally, I am now reading another book by A S Byatt called "Babel Tower" : a truly Jungian synchronicity !