Gladiators and Nostalgia

Ah, another trip down memory lane. Is it possible to feel nostalgic for a programme that last visited our screens a short eight years ago? Sky One certainly thinks so. The changes made to Gladiators from last time around are merely cosmetic. Gone are the irritating double act of John Fashanu and Ulrika Johnson and in comes the twee pairing of Ian Wright and Kirsty Gallacher. Meanwhile the old (classical?) Gladiators have been pensioned off and new blood taken on. As you would expect they're hard bodied, rippling with muscles, athletic and very, very sexy. The events haven't really changed either, but this is nostalgia so would we really want them to?

We were treated to just five events in this debut. The new Gladiators showed their mettle by easily disposing of their opponents in the one on one events. Wielding the pugil sticks Panther to send the hapless female contestants flailing into the waiting pool below, while Spartan ("the flirt in the skirt", apparently) made short work of the men. And on the Pyramid our contenders were, as they say in parts of Derbyshire, given a good shewin'.

They fared slightly better on Hit and Run and Powerball - events that put the contestant against a team of Gladiators. The latter involves running around and dumping a ball in glorified buckets, while avoiding rugby tackles, grapples and the like. And the former sees our plucky contenders sprint across a bridge, trying their best to dodge attempts by the Gladiators to bump them off with a foam padded demolition ball.

With the end of the show in sight, the new Eliminator was revealed. The old Krypton Factor assault course had nothing on this. Swim a length, climb a cargo net, get on the monkey bars/hand bike, run up the pyramid, glide down to the travelator, scramble up it and over the line ... and into the quarter finals! In short, harmless fun for all the family!

The return of Gladiators is symptomatic of the deep nostalgic tendency within contemporary Anglo-American culture. The fluidity and rapidity of change, the heaving complexity of social relations stretched across the surface of the globe, the unchecked dominance of capital; all conspire to generate cultural economies of great uncertainty. The paradox of the erasure and absence of tradition is the creation of a longing for it, and it is a longing capital tries to fill to feed its eternal hunger for more profits, more accumulation. And so capital meets existential crisis with packaged titbits of nostalgia: Rick Astley's Greatest Hits, limited edition Whispers, skinny leg denim, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and Gladiators.

But this is commodified nostalgia. It anchors you temporarily in the illusion of a time when things seemed so much simpler. And so for an hour Gladiators trod the well worn path of the first series, minus the 80s hair hang overs that afflicted many of the original bunch. Oblivion is Wolf. Spartan is Warrior. Atlas is Hunter. Inferno (pictured) is Jet, etc. But this is disposable nostalgia. As new TV shows fill the nostalgia vacuum, the short-lived celebrity of the cast will disappear with the inevitable demise of Gladiators, until a third revival at an unspecified point in the future with a new cadre of built bodies, and so on for as long as capital stands as the arbiter and driver of culture.

You want Gladiators forever? Then you need socialism my friend ...

Worst Election Leaflet Ever?

Can you believe this was one of the official election leaflets Labour put out in Stoke Abbey Green ward? This is an electoral communication of one Gary Elsby, a regular at Guido's and Bob Piper's blogs, and regarded as something of a joke by the good people of Abbey Green. It's not difficult to see why after you've glanced at this incoherent jumble. Also bear in mind this was a candidate Labour chose to stand in a ward regarded as a national priority by the BNP. Makes you wonder how seriously Labour regard the fascist threat in Stoke when they stand someone of the calibre of "brother" Elsby.

All mistakes and spacing are as they appear.

New Labour for Britain

Political Parties for 2008, Policies and Candidates:

BNP: Racist party offering a 'one trick pony' policy of racism and fail everyday in their quest of hatred. Put a leaflet out across the country with BNP members dressed as Muslims and sticking two fingers up. A bunch of maniacs who are on the Internet gassing themselves with Zyclon B (Auschwitz gas) to prove the holocaust did not happen. Only in the press regarding Shelton and never about the Abbey or Bucknall, and continue to do nothing as our schools and care homes are being shut by the Mayor and his coalition.

Green Party: They want everyone to be vegetarian. Wants to ban angling. Consider NATO to be 'war criminals' and want Richard Branson to close his airline because he pollutes the skies with people holidaying abroad. Wants the speed limit on Motorways reduced to 55 mph. Wants family tax credits withdrawn, job seekers allowance removed and PAYE increased from 22% to 35%. You pollute the air, so get your wallets and purses out. (NB. There is more ice in Antarctica than in the last ten years and the Ozone layer, healed its self).

Conservative: Andrew Wragg's new party. This is his 6th Party in 5 years. I entered him in a National contest to find the most parties in one man. He came second, but I've asked for a re-count as the winner re-joined one party 3 times. My own view is that Andrew Wragg has been in more Parties than George Best! Andrew has no political credibility. Didn't attend the local public meeting on crime. Tories and bnp love those that don't vote around here.

Independent: (Independent of what? winter fuel allowance? family tax credits? free bus travel? minimum wage? New Hospitals and schools? Free eye tests? More police? More nurses?) A wasted vote.

This area has been done over by the BNP & A.Wragg.

They are discounted in the Town Hall and therefore, Abbey Hulton and Bucknall has no voice or proper representation.

What we need is someone who will represent this area in the best possible way. That person is myself because I live in this area with my wife and children. I am appalled at the possibility of Dimensions closing and I hammered all councillors for even thinking of it.
I am totally against the idea that the Mayor and his coalition have for the reorganisation of our Schools. I would never vote for their proposals. They ignore local needs and hide behind statistics that do not exist. My vote would reflect my upbringing in this ward and I challenge everyone, to prove my words wrong! I'm up for this fight so vote me in, sit back and see what happens. First stop, the Mayor and to challenge his views.
A vote for me is a fair vote for this area. If you disagree with my politics, then vote for me, as a local person who will fight everyday to challenge and voice opinions for were I live. Believe me, I will be heard!
Please come out and vote for me, as I almost did it last time, and this area can swing it for me.
People still believe that Labour runs this City. It doesn't! A coalition of Tories, Liberals and Labour does.
I believe they have got it wrong on Dimensions, as there isn't a financial argument for its closure .I would vote to keep it. On Schools, I fear for a two tier education system unfolding and reject the numbers given for closure. I would vote against this plan. There are more Labour members who oppose these plans, than there are other political parties and members, combined. The Sentinel and Radio Stoke don't tell you that! As a Labour candidate, you can rest assured that I have a priority of public service delivery and not a desire to shut a kiddie's paddling pool.
Let's get rid of this coalition of Tories.

There is more Labour support here than for any other party
VOTE GARY ELSBY, LABOUR

Blogs and Sods

These last few weeks I've felt oddly disconnected from the blogging world. It seems all I have time for is scribbling the odd post and nothing else. No commenting elsewhere. No perusing new blogs to any depth. And it looks like the same could happen this weekend too. Once again I will be exiled from the internet as my dear beloved assumes control over the computer to write the final essay of her degree. But then you never know, I might just be able to squeak on.

Since I last went over the blog roll, I've added Climate Change and Trade Unions, Dreaming Neon Black, Enemies of Reason, Green from Below, Harpymarx, Random Blowe, Occasional Dugsie, Spoof Akehurst, and The G Spot.

And in the establishment's corner the roll welcomes pro-capitalist musings from "celebrity" LibDem blogger, Alix Mortimer and even more yellow belly aching from Quaequam Blog.

If there's a blog not on the rolls that you think should be, let me know.

I've also decided to skip two posts I announced previously. You can view the Socialist Party's election results here. Though do so with a word of caution - it has us Stokies down as scoring 3.5% when in fact we polled a massive 5.3%! Who knows what other percentages were mixed up? And practically the world and its leftist uncle have talked over the SWP's election results. I wouldn't really be adding anything new.

I wasn't too impressed with the new releases this week, so I plumped for Benny Benassi's pervy classic, Who's Your Daddy over in the top tunes section. Definitely not safe for work.

But while we're on the subject of music, I've been waiting a long time to stick this vid from Orbital up. Back in the day when I used to do things like getting drunk and kissing girls, Satan was a regular down our old union on the main meat market nights. Was the DJ trying to let us cool kids know he wasn't really into the Take That/Oasis/The Rembrandts/Alex Party pap of the day?

(F)Right Night

This post was written last weekend and I've had no internet access since. It may be old hat, but there you go.

Discounting the victory for Dave Nellist of the Socialist Party in Coventry St Michaels, the win for Respect in Birmingham Sparkbrook and a few other creditable results for the left up and down the country, the results that came trickling through last Thursday and Friday were grim reading for leftists of whatever political persuasion. This was particularly so in London where Ken Livingstone was turfed out of office, Barnbrook got a seat on the assembly for the fascists and as a rule the left performed comparatively poorly. Even Respect's association with Galloway was not enough for it to overcome the electoral fall out of its split with the SWP.

It was also the case that May 1st, the day of the workers, was the occasion when the mantle of the preferred political 'A-Team' of British capital passed from an organisation rooted in the organised working class to the organic party of Britain's ruling class. At this point it looks as if David Cameron's Tories will be the government after the next general election.

It's not difficult to see why. New Labour are a busted flush. 10p tax ... perception of dithering ... non-doms ... post office closures ... the list goes on and on. And yet, incredibly, none of Labour's leading figures seem capable of acknowledging where it all went wrong. Brown appeared on practically every politics chat show going to claim he's the "listening" prime minister. And yet you also had ministers such as Yvette Cooper and Ruth Kelly doing the rounds indicating that it will be business as usual. Leading New Labour blogger Luke Akehurst is typical of this tendency. In his world Labour lost because it hadn't been listening to Middle England enough. To win them back from the Tory fold Labour needs to "triangulate" more and tack even further to the right. So expect the government to use the Tory front benches as its personal think tank with greater unseemly regularity. You don't need to sit through a thousand focus groups to tell you this prescription is suicide for Labour. Why would a Tory supporter back a pale pink version of their party when the real thing appears in rather rude health?

Akehurst couldn't be more mistaken. If Labour wants to return to winning ways it needs to inspire its working class and 'progressive' middle class cores to turn out and support it, and they only will if it consigns its neoliberal dogma to the bin where it belongs. But this is unlikely. A cursory look in Akehurst's comment boxes reveal there are clued up members of his party who know the lie of the land, but they are not the one whose hands are on the steering wheel. The party machine is stuffed with clones, hacks, careerists and time-servers. Though I somewhat optimistically wrote of the prospects of the Labour left earlier in the year I can't see them getting very far, let alone affecting a sea change before the next general election. This will probably take being ejected from office, but given the grip the Blairite-Brownite bloc have on the apparatus, it is by no means certain we will see a return to social democratic principles.

And so, the Conservatives are starting to look like a government in waiting. Any opposition would benefit from having to put up with the same bunch of chancers in government for the last 11 years, regardless of their political character. But there might be something deeper going on. For some, Cameron's Toryism can appear superficially attractive to a wide range of voters. It is socially liberal - the acceptance of civil partnerships comfortably sits beside its soft pro-family focus. The 'Cameroons' are environmentally friendly, tough talking on crime, anti-authoritarian and measuredly euro-sceptic. Cameron possesses an inoffensive Etonian charisma which is unashamedly establishment, albeit an establishment (officially) reconciled to meritocracy and the presence of minority communities. It is also an establishment that want to be seen to be taking its responsibility toward those it rules seriously. This is all guff - it just so happens the velvet glove covering the Tory mailed fist is particularly frilly these days. But to those who aren't confirmed politicos this can look many times more attractive than New Labour's grey managerialism.

Already much ink has been spilled on Boris Johnson's victory in the race for London mayor. Some have predicted a four-year long nightmare has settled on the capital and blogging Tories have been urging the new administration to pursue a radical (i.e. reactionary) agenda from the outset. Making predictions in politics is a very risky business, but I cannot see Johnson pursuing a hard right trajectory, at least not for the first couple of years. He may occupy the second most powerful elected office in the land but he is not his own man in the same way his predecessor was. From the moment Johnson walked through the doors at City Hall on Tuesday morning the reign of Tory central office began. BoJo the Clown will be on a very tight leash because nothing can be allowed to jeopardise Conservative election chances. So measures that have been associated with Johnson's campaign, such as the scrapping of the congestion charge and the London minimum wage for city employees, are not likely to be enacted. If they were, it would sit rather uneasily with Cameron's new patricianism. That said they wouldn't be so reticent about taking the RMT and the capital's unions on if it came to the crunch.

Going for a Nap

Over the next few days my access to the computer will be fleeting at best, so a short break from blogging is being forced upon me. Please don't judge AVPS too harshly if you happen to see tumbleweed blowing through these parts. Posts have been written on what the elections mean for Labour and the Tories, and where now for Respect and the SWP. I also have the full results for all the SP's election contests. All these will be posted up as soon as I can.

In the mean time feel free to chatter about any kind of guff that comes to mind. Might be an ideal opportunity for Dave Festive to practice his trolling techniques.

Labour Cracks in the Potteries

Stoke-on-Trent didn't buck the national trend. Here, the Labour vote collapsed along with everywhere else. Of the sitting 11 councillors defending their seats, only two were able to hold on to them. Compounding the disaster, group leader Mike Tappin and his deputy, Mervin Smith, were two of those ejected from the council chamber. This was the third year in a row Labour had lost their leader. As a consolation it picked up two more seats from elsewhere, but this will do nothing to dispel the gloomy great cloud hanging over the local party.

Stoke Labour's fortunes are not all the doing of Brown's gross ineptitude. Since last year, Labour have been the senior partner in a grand coalition of the LibDems and the Conservative and Independent Alliance groups. Existing as a glorified committee dedicated to rubber-stamping the elected mayor's neoliberal plans, its most high profile policies have been met with anger and opposition. For example, the mayor's office are determined to drive through a "shake up" of the city's high schools by closing and merging some of them into New Labour's flagship City Academies. This has provoked a storm of protest from those set to be affected by the changes. The depth of the opposition was such that the local party bureaucracy granted recalcitrant Labour councillors permission to fight the programme ... as long as they fell into line and voted for the closures at the council's budget meeting. Every single one of them fell into line, and in so doing many of them sealed their fate at the polls. Labour have also suffered from its attempt to close the popular Dimensions splash pool in Burslem, for the sake of a £60,000 shortfall in the council budget. Announcing such a measure in the lead up to local elections wasn't the smartest of political moves. But such blunders are typical of the mayor's office. He has presided over forced demolitions, care homes closures, more council job losses ... while thinking nothing off frivolously wasting money on overseas jollies and stays in five star hotels. Shamefully, all this comes from Mark Meredith, ex-Militant and ex-Socialist Appeal. It makes you wonder if he ever feels a twinge of guilt from whatever remains of a Marxist conscience.

These are the reasons why Labour got such a kicking. And yet, incredibly, it has learned nothing from the defeat. In Saturday's Sentinel Meredith opines about making "some very, very difficult decisions in the last 12 months in order to get the city's finances in order". He's backed up by the likes if Roger Ibbs and Jean Bowers, of the Tories and LibDems respectively, who signal it's business as usual where the coalition are concerned. Not that Labour councillors currently care that much - it will be another two years before any of them face election again. Instead it's the turn of Meredith himself in 2009 as the mayoral election swings round again. If the rumours are true about him upsetting luminaries in the local party it will be very difficult for him to secure the Labour nomination again, let alone his grip on office.

Thursday also threw up some other interesting results. In Norton and Bradeley, former Labour leader Mick Salih was returned as an independent. Known locally as a fiery critic of Blairism-Brownism, his inclusion should galvanise opposition in the council chamber. Also, some may remember Dave Sutton, who along with his brother Paul paid Stoke Socialist Party's ranks a flying visit back in 2006. After being voted out last year in Tunstall as the sitting member for the short-lived LibDem Alliance grouping, he squeaked back in as a full member of the yellow party by a single vote! In the same ward Barry Stockley, yet another former Labour council leader humiliatingly trailed in last 100 votes adrift. In Stoke and Trent Vale, "independent" fascist, Spencer Cartlidge, polled a poor 45 votes. In Longton North Labour were able to get back in as the far right vote was split between the incumbent former BNP'er, Mark Leat, and Pauline Smith of the BNP proper.

Speaking of which, the fascists had another good round of results. They took their councillor tally to nine, winning seats in Abbey Green, Bentilee and Townsend, and Meir Park and Sandon. Local fuhrer, Alby Walker, has pledged his party will contest all 20 wards in Stoke-on-Trent in two years time with the medium term view of capturing the council itself. As Labour continues to ignore and hammer its core constituency, this is not beyond the realms of possibility. However, two years is a very long time in politics and the BNP could become victims of their own success. As they've won councillors with depressing regularity they've had to expand beyond the key cadre who kept the show on the road during the bad times. The BNP has a proven track record of winning elections and is now seen as a vehicle for careerist aspirations for those prepared to say anything for a taste of power. Take Stan Leese in Northwood and Birches Head for example. In 2006 he stood as a localist independent against the Socialist Party in Abbey Green and probably cost us a couple of hundred votes. But desperate to get back into the council chamber he's realised there's a better chance of getting in if he hitches a ride on the fascist bandwagon. Also, with power comes responsibility, and there will be many in Stoke - not least among its own support - who will be scrutinising what the BNP say and do on the decision-making committees they have access to.

Internal problems aside, how are we to combat the BNP? Labour are not in a position to arrest their corrosive influence, being utterly committed to a neoliberal programme. And unfortunately, the local anti-fascist campaign, North Staffs Against Racism and Fascism (NorSCARF) remain "politically neutral" and bound to a strategy that limit themselves to pinning the Nazi tail onto the fascist donkey. It is a strategy that has failed to stem the BNP tide time and again. It has not challenged the BNP politically and nor has it mobilised non-BNP voters to come out in sufficient numbers to 'swamp' BNP support. Turns outs remain at the usual 20-30% local election benchmark. A counter-strategy has to take into account the unpalatable fact that many in Stoke (and nation-wide) now see the BNP as 'their party'. There are layers of young workers who have only ever put a cross next to the fascists on the ballot paper. No amount if moralising will shift them from this position.

Stoke SP's result in Burslem South of 130 votes (5.2%) signifies a good beginning in a ward we've never stood in before. To put things in perspective this is around double of what we poll when we have staked out virgin territory in the past. Accounts of the campaign can be read here and here. Over the coming weeks we will be following up contacts, arranging a public meeting and leafleting. But we're not daft enough to believe this is anywhere near the scale of the far right's challenge. We cannot fill the vacuum to Labour's Left by ourselves, and we certainly won't be in a position to offer a socialist alternative in every ward within the next two years, barring unforseen events. This will take a good deal of long-term work building our influence and alliances with the rest of the Stoke left, and we are already taking steps to this end. We pledge to ensure the ruling coalition and the BNP get as bumpy a ride as we can possibly give them.

Burslem South Election Results

Burslem South Election Results

Electorate: 8,916
Turnout: 30.5%


FALLOWS Gareth Con - 349
GILTRAP David Ind - 189
MELLALIEU Jane Soc - 130
NAJMI Javid Lab - 968 Elected
OWEN Ted Pot - 688
THOMAS Diane Lib - 141

We're very pleased with this result! Will write more later this evening.

Late Flavour of the Doorstep

Belated May Day greetings to all AVPS readers!

I won't have the time to write a lot of the next few days - my wife's hogging the computer for her dissertation. So, with election fever still in the air, here's a vignette from the Burslem doorsteps. Mini-ethnographic accounts of this sort will pepper my PhD when it gets converted into book form.

“Hiya duck, very sorry to bother you. I’m from the Socialist Party and we’re going door to door this morning to get signatures on this petition. Royal Mail are planning to close the mail centre on Leek Road and transfer the sorting work that takes place there down to Wolverhampton. What this means for Stoke is the loss of 200 jobs and more of a chance your mail could get lost in the post because of the greater journey it has to make”.

“I’ll sign that”.

She takes the clipboard off me and begins signing her name followed by her address. The pen then wavers pregnantly over the donation column before finally writing down 50 pence.

“I’ll just go and get a donation for you”.

She returns with the money, and I hand over a copy of the paper to her. I also get out the second election leaflet the branch had printed.

“Also, are you planning on voting in the local election?”

“I don’t know yet, I haven’t decided”

“Well, we, the Socialist Party, are standing a candidate in this ward”. I unfold my leaflet and use my pen to point out its headline and the picture of our candidate. “Jane’s a postal worker at Burslem, and part of her round is in this ward. She’s here every day and knows the people and the area very well. Also she along with her workmates took six weeks of strike action over Christmas and New Year. Whether you agree with the strike or not, at least you know with Jane you’re getting someone who’s prepared to stand up and struggle, instead of sitting on the council benches and watching the allowances and expenses flow into her bank account. Do you normally vote?”

“Yes, always voted Labour in the past. I don’t know now”.

“Well we used to be in the Labour party but we left and set up the Socialist Party because we could see which way it was going. Jane also left the Labour party because she was fed up with what it’s doing nationally and locally. The abolition of the 10p tax band, bailing out failed banks with taxpayers’ money … and locally, the attempted closure of Dimensions, the demolitions, schools’ closures, the mayor’s stays in five star hotels at public expense. It’s not really a labour party any more”.

“Okay duck, I’ll have a read of the leaflet and see”.

“Thanks for your time, take care”.

I marked a P for paper sale against her name and looked down the street. A was still standing at the house he’d been at for the last ten minutes. “They must be good, he never usually spends very long with someone”.

The next door that opened was by a small guy who had no qualms in signing the petition, but no money was forthcoming this time. I asked if he was voting this time and he replied “Liberal”. But he agreed to take a leaflet and have a read through. A heavily pregnant woman clad only in a cream dressing gown opened the next door. I explained again what the petition was about, which she signed and I asked her about voting.

“I don’t normally vote, I hate politics”.

“I know all the parties say this, but our kind of politics are different. You can watch them down at parliament waving their bits of paper and scoring points, but that politics is boring and puts people off”.

“Yeah”

“For the Socialist Party, our politics is about street activity, about talking to working class people and finding out what they want”. I took out another leaflet and handed it over, giving the same spiel about our candidate.

“My husband will enjoy looking at this, he does take an interest in politics. Oh yes, we’ve had one of these through before. My father-in-law said he was going to vote for you”. Just then another woman came out her house at the same time a dog darted out from the living room of the one I’m at. I managed to grab it by the collar and ushered it back inside.

“Thanks for your time, duck”. She closed the door and I turned to the woman standing next to me.

“I’d like to have word. I’m sorry for how I look; I was just about to get into the shower when I heard you talking to my husband. I couldn’t believe he told you he was voting Liberal - we’re both socialists. I was hoping one of you would call when I saw in The Sentinel that you were standing in this area. I used to be a member – A knows me. We moved here from Newcastle six years ago. How’s the campaign going so far?”

Because she was an ex-member I felt it best to be open and honest.

“It’s difficult to say. We’ve put out two leaflets so far, but because of limited activist numbers we haven’t done all that much canvassing, so it’s hard to draw any conclusions from the responses we’ve had. Very few people have admitted they’re voting Labour and a lot of people are angry about what’s going on. Whether we’ll benefit from that feeling remains to be seen. I’ve spoken to a couple of people who said they would vote BNP if they were standing, but would now vote for us instead”.

“It’s strange how you could have supporters of something socialists stand against happy to support socialists."

“I know, but generally a vote for them is a protest. They pose as defenders of the white working class and often they are the only ones who articulate the issues working class people care about. Their vote isn’t a solid racist vote by any means. Plus when I was down Abbey Green a couple of years ago it wasn’t too difficult to talk BNP voters around by showing how they scapegoated immigrants for Stoke’s problems, and how they themselves have consistently failed to stand up for working class people of any kind, white or otherwise”.

The conversation continued for about another 10 minutes. We talked about the branch, our candidate, the sitting councillor and the local anti-fascist campaign. I sold her a paper and she told me we could count on two votes from her house at least. I marked the P and two stars against her husband’s name for votes. Because she was so enthusiastic I decided she would be someone worth revisiting once the campaign is over.

A few doors down I came to a house next to an alley, with the door in its side as opposed to the front. I knocked on it and a middle-aged woman opened. I started speaking but it quickly became apparent she was Polish. She started talking to her husband who was watching a dubbed American drama on TV. They beckoned me in. He shouted upstairs. In a few moments a 12-year-old girl came down and was asked to act as our translator. Her English wasn’t very wide ranging and I had difficulty conveying to her the post office issue and standing in the local elections. Her father looked at me and said “jobs?” I nodded and he signed the petition, and gave me a pound. I handed him a copy of our paper, wondering if they will be able to understand any of it.

Eventually A caught up with me and I asked him whether the guy he’s spent so long with was any good. He shook his head.

“Not really. He’s an Iraq war veteran so I thought it might have been worthwhile spending some time talking to him. He had some good ideas and others that were very funny. Once he started it was very difficult for me to back down. I get the feeling if you spent a long period of time with him he would come round to our view”. He then knocked on another door.

I felt an element of trepidation as I started on the next row of terraces. The house on the corner had a company car outside, emblazoned with adverts for one of the local lap dance clubs, so I wasn’t expecting a warm reception on that doorstep. This was compounded when the door was answered by a skinhead wearing what I could only describe as standard issue Nazi bovver boy wear – heavy black boots, black trousers and a loosely-fitted black bomber jacket. But as is usually the case with canvassing, first impressions can easily be confounded. I rattled off my patter about the post office and he was more than happy to sign our petition. I then told him about the local election and who the Socialist Party were standing and he said he’d have a read and think about voting for us.

Not long after we finished the row, and decided to call it a day so A could catch that afternoon’s crucial Stoke City fixture.

It's All Over!

That's it. The last door has been knocked on. The final leaflet folded and posted. The campaign is over. Between 0700 and 2200 hours tomorrow, in one small corner of Stoke-on-Trent, approximately a quarter to a third of the electorate in Burslem South ward will find their way to a polling booth and mark a cross against one of six names on their ballot paper.

For once I'm at a loss. I have no idea how the Socialist Party will poll in this ward. We could get anything between seven votes and 700. There's just no way of knowing. We were unable to canvass the whole ward even once - I would estimate we covered approximately one quarter of total households. I will say the response on the doorstep seemed more favourable than the last election campaign I seriously worked on (good old Abbey Green). But you can't extrapolate on the basis of the limited returns from this time round.

Andy on Socialist Unity has ventured that results below 4% are poor, and those above 10% are good. I would concur, but counsels wiser and more experienced than I have said they'd regard anything above 100 votes a decent outcome!

In this ward, we're not the only ones likely to benefit from the local disaffection toward the three party coalition who rubber stamps the mayor's decisions. Ted Owen is the sitting councillor for the Potteries Alliance group, a small scale split from the local Labour party. It is very localist and its leaflets are almost a politics-free zone. Owen's campaign strategy has been to trade heavily on his reputation as a "community councillor".

Then there is the independent, David Giltrap. Again no politics are to be seen in his leaflet, unless you count the rant he launches against the PA (who he brands as loony lefts). Very strange for an independent not to have a go at the mainstream parties too. Is something going on behind the scenes? However, despite a rubbish leaflet and nothing of a campaign to speak of he will probably get a respectable vote. In Stoke there are large numbers of voters prepared to give self-described independents a punt because of their perceived distance from party politics.

Stoke SP has had two advantages over these "alternatives". First is activists on the ground. We have managed to out out three different leaflets. There is no house in the ward to have gone without at least one. And second is their content: our material articulates a clear political alternative to mainstream business-as-usual politics and the localism of our other opponents.

Whether this translates into a decent vote remains to be seen. Sadly, to avoid paying workers over time, the city council will be holding the count on Friday morning so the party has to wait until lunch time to find out. I'll put them up as soon as I have them. Watch this space!

University and Utopia

This afternoon the Keele sociology research seminar series heard Mark Featherstone speak on his ongoing project on utopianism. In this session he concentrated on the utopian dimensions of the university campus, or rather the contradictory demands placed on it as a utopian space.

He began by outlining the difference between the commonplace understanding of the term and that deployed in the burgeoning field of utopia studies. Its object is not so much visions of the perfect world or the ideal society, but rather the key characteristics of utopias: spatial order and the control of thought. Utopia is an enclosed space constructed through executive power and authoritarianism, which rules out certain modes of thought and prescribes correct thinking. There is no room for internal opposition.

Unfortunately this vision of utopia has leaped off the pages of 1984 and become real blueprints that are layered on to reality. We are not talking large scale utopias here of the kind that led to the gas chamber and the gulag. (Post)modern utopias are small and comparatively limited, but for all that more pernicious and widespread. Drawing on the ideas of Castells and Virilio, Mark suggests contemporary capitalism is too fast and too interconnected to allow new stable certainties to form in the spaces vacated by the old. The viscosity of fluidic social space has allowed greater freedoms and opportunity for the few but these same processes also engendered a coagulation of 'paranoid reaction formations' which aspire to orderliness against the backdrop of global uncertainty. This is where utopianism comes back in. Utopias are the dominant species of reaction formations. Their control of space fosters illusions of certainty and safety. Paranoid anxiety underwrites calls for more prisons, more detention centres, more gated communities. The utopian promise is security in an increasingly insecure world.

Hence far from dying with the passing of Nazism and Stalinism from the stage of history, utopia is back with a vengeance. We live on Planet Utopia, a global society where the conditions for the formation of new utopias are always overdetermined by the operation of the networks that criss-cross the world. Speed, superconnectivity and volatility render the dominant tendency of mainstream politics toward technocratic management utopian in the original sense of the word. The idea society can be shaped by a pragmatic approach to reform is out of date. Long term planning is impossible. But here lies a paradox. The philosopher kings of old have been dethroned, but the only modes of governance deemed practicable to the new society is premised on intuitive thought. And it is only existing elites who are capable of exercising it.

Mark argues intuitive thought is thought at high speed, without deliberation and unencumbered by democracy. To give an example, American foreign policy is based on pre-emptive action. We don't need evidence to show Iran is up to dastardly things, we just know it is. This governance is well-suited to an unpredictable world. If the world is too complex, if social relations are moving too fast, if the causes of crisis cannot be fathomed and their origins are impossible to pin down, why bother?

As one node among many in the global network, the campus university lies across contradictory social processes. It has its utopian dimensions. Thought and modes of thought are segregated through spatialisation. Research and experimentation are separated from the library, the lecture theatre and the seminar room. And these are separated from accomodation, eating areas, administration and recreational facilities. Through the control of space thought is compartmentalised and disciplined. But the functions demanded of the university are different from other utopian spaces. It cannot retreat into itself. It always has to look beyond the campus to the world to produce adequate knowledge about it to feed the insatiable appetite of global capital. Therefore the university campus finds global contradictions telescoped into its tightly regulated social space. The utopian impulse is locked into antagonism with the possibility of freedom. This tension is expressed in a series of oppositions - outer space vs inner space, democracy vs enlightened despotism, developing critical thought vs the vocationalisation of degrees. Unfortunately, the utopian is in the ascendent and the balance of forces tilt in its favour.

Utopias are riddled with irony, and this case is no exception. Utopian campuses evoke market fundamentalism to legitimate the measures they take. However what is done in the name of the market is often not what's best for the market. To reap the rewards of global network society requires an ability to think imaginatively and creatively. One cannot take up an entrepreneurial position if the skills one has acquired have trundled off an HE assembly line. The global marketplace may generate utopias, but they can and do undermine its efficacy. Capital's gravediggers they're not - instead utopia is a sympomatic of fatigue.

A number of questions were raised. One asked about the operation of time in utopian settings. If you close of space, you close off history too, which is next to impossible in the era of turbo-charged global capitalism. What utopianism does is slow down time and, within an enclave, offer a possibility of micro-scale management. From my perspective, what was interesting was the seeming absence of agency in this world. Mark suggested there does remain a space for radical politics, and it lies in resisting the seductive qualities of utopianism. The aim is not to seek positions within the quai-natural relays of the network but finding ways of bringing them under control. He didn't elaborate further, but at least this model shows alternative possibilities to the postmodern totalitarianism of global capitalism. And one good place for alternatives to flourish are in the problematic environments of the contemporary campus university.