Comments on: Brian Eno's next big thing?!

Brian Eno's next big thing?!

insomnia_lj — Tue, 29 Mar 2005 17:46:52 -0800

Brian Eno's next big thing?! Politics, it appears. Brian Eno, an outspoken opponent of Tony Blair's administration in Britain, has started up http://www.libdemthistime.org, encouraging prominent Brits to show their support for the Liberal Democrats. If that isn't enough, he's helping bankroll the father of a British soldier killed in Iraq to run against Tony Blair in his constituency, in the hope of unseating him. Could Labour win and Tony lose?

By: inksyndicate

inksyndicate — Tue, 29 Mar 2005 17:53:04 -0800

I've followed Reg Keys a little. One of the most eloquent voices I've heard on the war.

By: alms

alms — Tue, 29 Mar 2005 17:53:35 -0800

This is good.

By: insomnia_lj

insomnia_lj — Tue, 29 Mar 2005 17:54:16 -0800

Oops, a correction. Although another article I read said that Eno was bankrolling the campaign, this is not the case... he is merely helping organize and support it. Says Keys - "He's given us his moral support and let us use his studio in London, but he isn't backing us financially. So far we're just surviving on minor donations of £100 and £200, but hopefully we'll get some bigger donations as the campaign goes on. I'm struggling to pay the £50-a-night bed and breakfast bills." This site contains information on how to join and/or financially support Mr. Keys's campaign, for those who are interested.

By: mk1gti

mk1gti — Tue, 29 Mar 2005 18:07:58 -0800

I hope Blair gets his ass handed to him as a beginning of the end of the crap going on there and across the pond in Maoist Bushland

By: undule

undule — Tue, 29 Mar 2005 18:11:18 -0800

I'm not an Englisman, but hasn't Tony done a pretty bang-up job sans the war/propaganda bits? I'd be interested to hear some UK mefites on that score. I guess what I mean is, socially, economically, he's done a much better job than Bush, certainly? Seems like the UK is doing pretty damn well from over here -- but then again, I'm over here.

By: Steve_at_Linnwood

Steve_at_Linnwood — Tue, 29 Mar 2005 18:46:46 -0800

I am not British, and not am I an expert on British politics. But, I find it hard to believe that the people of Blair's constituency would removed a MP who is Prime Minister for a new MP who, politically speaking, is a nobody. Surely the pork and power of having the Prime Minister for your MP is a very good reason to re-elect Blair, regardless of how you feel about the war.

By: fenriq

fenriq — Tue, 29 Mar 2005 18:52:48 -0800

Good for him, personally, I respect Brian Eno's opinion alot more highly than most people's.

By: 1016

1016 — Tue, 29 Mar 2005 19:00:37 -0800

Yeah, 'fenriq. cos Eno's opinion (as opposed to debate, argument, thesis, hypothesis) is so brilliant. I actually like Eno, having been a charter Roxy Music fan...but I know that music and politics are not necessarily good bedfellows. Steve_at_Winwood, it's very different in Britain from the USA. mk1gti: Maoist Bushland? Um...What the FUCK are you drinking/smoking/inhaling/ingesting?

By: Steve_at_Linnwood

Steve_at_Linnwood — Tue, 29 Mar 2005 19:02:09 -0800

it's very different in Britain from the USA. Please explain how so. All politics are local, no?

By: delmoi

delmoi — Tue, 29 Mar 2005 19:32:48 -0800

ought to lose the 'stash and get a more modern haircut, though. Is it legal for americans to donate to a british MP candidates?

By: Pretty_Generic

Pretty_Generic — Tue, 29 Mar 2005 19:55:29 -0800

Sadly, because we don't vote directly for the Prime Minister, I can't advise everyone to vote for my favoured party, the Liberal Democrats. Vote tactically and keep the Tories down. If Blair lost his seat it would be the story of the century.

By: Pretty_Generic

Pretty_Generic — Tue, 29 Mar 2005 20:04:46 -0800

I remind the Brits out there who support Blair personally: we now know the Attorney General's advice was that the war in Iraq would be illegal without a second resolution... right up until it was realised a second resolution would not be achieved. At that point the advice magically altered. If innocents die in an illegal war, it's a warcrime.

By: orthogonality

orthogonality — Tue, 29 Mar 2005 20:10:58 -0800

"Freedom is on the march" posted by George W. Bush at 8:10 PM PST on March 29 [!]

By: orthogonality

orthogonality — Tue, 29 Mar 2005 21:04:33 -0800

Steve_at_Linnwood writes "I am not British, and not am I [sic] an expert on British politics. But, I find it hard to believe that the people of Blair's constituency would removed [sic] a[n] MP who is Prime Minister for a new MP who, politically speaking, is a nobody.

"Surely the pork and power of having the Prime Minister for your MP is a very good reason to re-elect Blair, regardless of how you feel about the war." Well only if pork and power are more important to you than principle. That can't be true of the Bush Administration; I mean, we started Operation Iraqi Liberation expressly to cultivate the principle of Democracy in the Middle East, right? And we passed that bill to "liberate" Terry Schiavo because we believe in a "Culture of Life", not to propitiate our base with what we (incorrectly) hoped would be a politically potent "wedge-issue". (Admittedly, I haven't seen this week's copy of "College Republican Justifications for the War Talking Points", so I may be wrong -- correct me if we've rolled back around to "yellowcake" and WMDs, or if it's "Saddam had ties to Osama" again, but I was sure our current excuse was one of the highest principle. But, I am not a College Republican, and "not am I" an expert on College Republican principles (if any).)

By: Steve_at_Linnwood

Steve_at_Linnwood — Tue, 29 Mar 2005 22:51:35 -0800

Lets see:

Lame 'NO BLOOD FOR OIL' talking point .... check
Topical Schiavo talking point ... check
Lame 'Saddam - Osama' talking point ... check
Attacking my age ... check

It's official! You meet all of the qualifications for official "Troll" status! You may have earned "400+ fans" at Slashdot with this, but this is not Slashdot. It is funny, else where on the site you say: "Steve, famous for adding to threads snark but never a substantive argument, apparently can't even generate his own snark these days." Yet I see you make the same prepackaged MoveOn-ish comments again, and again ad nauseam. And even worse, none are original thoughts of your own. Those who live in glass houses....

By: fenriq

fenriq — Tue, 29 Mar 2005 23:56:31 -0800

1016, no, I respect his opinion and thoughts because he's not the kind of stupid asshole to spout off just to hear himself talk. He's actually got things that important and substantive on his mind. Just because he is/was a musician, doesn't mean he can't also give a damn about his country and the morons running it. Unlike a lot of celebrity types, I don't think he's doing this to get his name in the paper, he's actually trying to affect change, perish the thought. So yeah, I'll hold his opinions above your average dumbfuck on the street who couldn't pick Tony Blair out of a lineup. (Bear in mind that I'm in California where most people think England's a new attraction at Disneyland).

By: salmacis

salmacis — Wed, 30 Mar 2005 00:08:47 -0800

Let's be realistic. Blair is not going to lose his seat. The LibDems are not going to form the next Government. They aren't even going to form the next Opposition. The Tories are not popular, and cannot make political capital out of Iraq, since they also supported the war. The Tories are going back to their spiteful core themes of immigration, anti-Europeanism and big spending cuts to try and outflank Labour. I live in a fairly safe Labour constituency. I'm not sure whether the Tories or LibDems are more likely to be the main challenger in Oxford East. What I do know is that I'm voting LibDem because of the war. Iraq apart, how has Blair done? The economy isn't too bad, but that's Gordon Brown's accomplishment. I hate the way Labour is wedded to the Private Finance Initiative for building new hospitals, which is a financial timebomb waiting to go off in 20 years. I don't see any real improvement in Education. The best that can be said for New Labour is that they aren't the Tories.

By: fshgrl

fshgrl — Wed, 30 Mar 2005 00:56:17 -0800

hasn't Tony done a pretty bang-up job sans the war/propaganda bits? Not really. In the UK you only get to vote about every 5 or 6 years so once they're in they do whatever the fuck they want and hope everyone forgets by the next election. At least that's what I got out of my time in the UK. The US system is more responsive to the people because of the frequent elections. Whether that's good or bad, I don't know. Personally I am kind of amazed that Blair can get away with his "I'm a left wing, man of the people" spiel anymore when he demonstratably is not and when his government has failed to address the issues most concerning the public: education, NHS, immigration, crime etc. But he's totally going to get re-elected. Voting for Labour is an automatic action for a lot of Britons, akin to voting Republican in Texas. You might not like them at all but you really hate the other guys.

By: comraderaoul

comraderaoul — Wed, 30 Mar 2005 01:23:46 -0800

...I find it hard to believe that the people of Blair's constituency would removed a MP who is Prime Minister... Nope, they won't remove him. Parties almost always reserve their safest seats for leadership figures and so even if an election goes drastically wrong you hardly ever see Prime Ministers lose their seats. Even if they do they are usually dropped back into the house at the next available favourable by-election (usually provided courtesy of some low end flunky willing to give up his/her seat for the leader). The aim with this run against the PM isn't to oust him however (that's simply not practical), but to give him a good scare - his majority is currently 17000 and could do with a bit of reduction. Since Labour itself is proving too tribal to deal with Tony we have to settle for nibbling away at him with smaller gestures like this and hope the attrition eventully prompts some action from somebody. It's a pretty wretched system really, but there is simply no democracy within parties here to hold leaders to account. The emphasis is entirely on electoral success at the expense of ideology, to the extent that the Labour party of today looks more like the Liberal party of 1912 than the Labour party of twenty years ago but Labour supporters still vote for them as if, despite all the right-wing policy, they are still the party of socialism, redistribution etc.

By: salmacis

salmacis — Wed, 30 Mar 2005 02:30:08 -0800

fshgrl writes " Not really. In the UK you only get to vote about every 5 or 6 years so once they're in they do whatever the fuck they want and hope everyone forgets by the next election. At least that's what I got out of my time in the UK. The US system is more responsive to the people because of the frequent elections. Whether that's good or bad, I don't know." In the UK, the term of office is 5 years, although the sitting Government can call an election any time before that. It's generally accepted that hanging on for the full 5 years is a sign of desperation, so 4 years is more common. About the same as the USA, in other words. Fortunately, we only have a 6 week electioneering period, whereas you have about 2 years. I know which I prefer..

By: fshgrl

fshgrl — Wed, 30 Mar 2005 02:48:33 -0800

I'm not American or English but I've spent extended periods of time in both countries so I'm familiar with both systems. I don't know which is "better" or which I "prefer" so lets leave that out of it. In the US there are midterm elections too, so in reality you have major national elections with the potential to change the govt majorities every two years. And you also have elected state assemblies, governors and local officials so you get a lot more chances to vote. I do think that, contrary to popular opinion, American voters are just as informed as UK voters if not more so and are less likely to vote entirely along party lines, IMHO. The blind aversion to anything branded as conservative isn't doing the UK any favours. And I say that as a dyed in the wool liberal.

By: verstegan

verstegan — Wed, 30 Mar 2005 03:18:08 -0800

The LibDemThisTime website is interesting. It doesn't argue that the Lib Dems should replace Labour as the new party of government; it argues that they should replace the Conservatives as the new party of opposition. In other words, it seems to be aimed at Labour voters in Conservative-leaning parts of the country, encouraging them to vote tactically in order to keep the Tories out. (Quite sensible, too. If I were a Labour supporter in Guildford (Lib Dem majority: 538), I'd certainly vote Lib Dem to try and stop the Conservatives getting back in.) Tactical voting could be one of the big issues of this election campaign. The sarcastically-named Backing Blair website wants everybody to vote tactically against Labour, even if this means voting Conservative. (A grotesquely stupid idea, if you ask me; I may be mildly disillusioned with New Labour, but I could never vote for Michael Howard or his party, not in a million years.) Two other websites, So Now Who Do We Vote For? and Strategic Voter, are also asking disaffected Labour supporters to vote tactically, though they stop short of advising them to vote Conservative. The anti-Blair campaign in Sedgefield hasn't a hope in hell. Reg Keys sounds like a nice man, but the Guardian interview portrays him as a political innocent who isn't prepared for the hard fighting ahead.

By: talos

talos — Wed, 30 Mar 2005 03:54:17 -0800

Tariq Ali spells out the tactical LibDem voting rationale for the Left.

By: teleskiving

teleskiving — Wed, 30 Mar 2005 04:23:46 -0800

The best that can be said for New Labour is that they aren't the Tories. Labour policies, in particular the minimum wage and Working Families Tax Credit have made a huge difference to the lives of Britain's poorest people. Overseas aid has increased massively since 1997. No political party is perfect, but I think to say the idea that there are no positive reasons to vote for them is not really fair. Of course many people would have liked to see them do more, but I think the progress they have made is significant given that this is still quite a naturally reactionary country as evidenced by the circulation of the Daily Mail. I'm not going to say that the Lib Dem opposition to the Iraq war was opportunistic, but it was a relatively easy line for them to take from their position as the third largest party and I'm personally not confident that they would have viewed things the same way had they been in government. It seems kind of a shaky basis on which to risk further progress towards eliminating child poverty in the UK, to give one example.

By: pracowity

pracowity — Wed, 30 Mar 2005 05:11:58 -0800

A recent LRB piece ("What is Labour for?") has this description of New Labour:

Perhaps the first thing to understand about Labour, or if not to understand then at least to get used to, is that it is, in crucial respects, not the party it used to be. In that sense at least Tony Blair is not just preening himself when he talks about New Labour. The Labour Party of semi-fond memory was a broadish church but it had some consistent currents within it. It was left of centre, socially liberal, anti-authoritarian, anti-American, pacifistic, anti-big-business, keen on benefits for the poor, and in favour of nationalisation. In government, New Labour has been right of centre, moralistic, authoritarian; it has been involved in three wars, is slavishly submissive to big business, is keener to promote the distinction between the deserving and undeserving poor than any government in the last hundred years, and is bent on extending into health and education and transport an experimental programme of private-public partnerships which allocates risk to the public sector and profits to the private. As for its attitude to America, that is comparable only to the 'coital lock' which makes it impossible to separate dogs during sex. In all these ways, New Labour is less like Labour used to be than it is a British version of Europe's various Christian Democrat parties.

By: verstegan

verstegan — Thu, 31 Mar 2005 07:21:22 -0800

If you think you're so much better - YOU prove it. This is getting a bit silly .. but here, for the sake of discussion, are a couple of relevant links: This MORI poll suggests that while many people in Britain supported the Iraq war, they did not do so unconditionally. In February 2003, on the eve of the war, 75% said they would support military action if (a) the UN Security Council voted in favour of it, and (b) the weapons inspectors found proof of WMDs in Iraq; but only 25% said they would support military action if these two conditions were not met. This, to me, is evidence of a fairly well-informed electorate. This Guardian article, from last August, highlights a significant difference in public opinion between Britain and America. In America, a sizable number of people regarded foreign policy and national security as the most important pre-election issue. In Britain, by contrast, Iraq came last out of a list of ten issues that voters considered important when deciding how to vote in the next election. These findings are open to more than one interpretation; but they do seem to suggest that a fear of terrorism is not an overriding concern to many British voters in the way it obviously is to many American voters. In general I am a believer in the wisdom of crowds. Every so often, an item will appear in the media claiming that 80% of people believe the moon is made of green cheese, or 90% of people can't find their own country on the map, or whatever .. always leading to the conclusion that the vast majority of people are stupid ignorant sheep. I am not convinced. I tend to believe that, while people are often ill-informed on matters outside their own personal experience, they are usually capable of accurate judgement in matters directly affecting their own welfare. So that is where I stand. I am not particularly interested in discussing whether the British public is smarter or dumber than the American public; but I am very interested in discussing the differences between British and American public opinion, and the reasons for those differences. what I hear almost universally are variations on "That lying sack of shit Blair needs to go" FWIW, that's not what I hear. I remember the last days of the Major government, when there was a palpable feeling that it was time for a change. I'm not getting the same feeling now. What I'm picking up instead is what I remember the late Paul Foot describing, several years ago, as 'the sullen acquiescence that Blair mistakes for popular support'. Many people are still going to vote Labour, but not with any sense of enthusiasm; they're going to vote Labour because, frankly, neither the Tories nor the Lib Dems are in any position to offer a credible alternative.

By: Decani

Decani — Thu, 31 Mar 2005 10:32:15 -0800

verstegan: oh, I think Bliar will get in - largely for the reason salmacis mentions. But what I meant was that there's a strong desire to see Blair replaced as leader. A lot of Brits just do not like or trust Blair. They'll hold their noses and vote Labour - but they will hold their noses. fshgrl: as others have pointed out, numerous links and stats have been provided to back up the assertion that the UK supported - and supports - the war to a far lesser extent than the US. You haven't provided anything against this but your own unsupported opinion, based on your own circle of acquaintances. Not good enough, I'm afraid.