Marxism and Chicken Sheds

The overwhelming majority of us are economically compelled to sell our labour power for a set period of time in return for a wage. The conditions under which we work are seldom of our choosing, and the things we produce do not belong to us. They remain the property of the employer. In advanced capitalist societies we are separated out in an ever more complex division of labour. The production of "useful things" is increasingly displaced by work with less tangible outcomes. To this sector belongs banking, finance, marketing, journalism, services, retail, education, etc. In these circumstances, the social distance between producer and product, established by the private ownership of the means of production, is widened even further as more and more sections of our class are drawn into "unproductive" activity. The process of and conditions under which commodity production takes place are probably more hidden and mysterious than has ever been the case.

What has this got to do with Hugh's Chicken Run? All will become apparent. Our eponymous crusading cook, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, has a bee in his bonnet about supermarkets. In Axminster, the home of his River Cottage restaurant, the high street has been emptied of butchers and grocers by the local Tesco. After asking around why so many people shop there, he discovers the obvious: convenience and low cost. To his mind, this is unfortunate for two reasons. It gives the supermarkets tremendous power to dictate our diets, and, being a small-scale free-range chicken farmer, the pile 'em high and sell 'em cheap ethos brings terrible suffering to animals who are a mainstay of British meat consumption. For example, the two for five pounds special offer on whole chickens is made possible by breeding large numbers of edible chickens in a very short period of time (egg to slaughter in 39 days). Consequently this method sees birds packed together in very large numbers - industry regulations allow for 17 chickens per square metre. They shuffle about in their own waste, never see daylight, and are known at times to turn to cannibalism, but these appalling conditions are necessary to keep the supermarkets supplied with vast quantities of cheap chicken.

Appalled by this abuse, Fearnley-Whittingstall wants to see intensive chicken farming replaced by free range production. Part of this involves weaning Axminster residents off their cheap chickens and getting them onto premium, free-range birds. He puts his favoured bird on the canteen menu at Axminster Power Tools, the town's largest employer. He claims the results are impressive: a normally empty room was full with workers, and the largest ever profit was turned in. Not bad, but it's more likely they came to see their celebrity chef rather than the "superior texture and taste" of free range. He also organises a group of residents off the working class Millway Estate to set up their own free range chicken run so they can understand how chickens end up on their dinner plates.

The second part of his scheme involves a close examination of factory farming. Unsurprisingly, no local farmer will grant him access to their own operations, so he decides to set up on his own to prove his point. The experiment proceeds with one side of the shed turned over to intensive techniques, and the other free range. The former sees 2,500 chicks exposed to lamp light for 23.5 hours a day (the industry recommendation) and confined indoors; while the 1,500 free-rangers can potter about in the run outside if they so fancy and enjoy more space. Very quickly he comes up against some of the brutal realities of the industry. When one chicken develops a swelling on its knee joint, it gets its neck broken. Cost/benefit analysis callously deems its continued existence an uneconomical waste of seed. To underline this, the programme ends with a shot of a small heap of dead days-old chicks, lying at the bottom of a wheelie bin. How the experiment develops will be screened tomorrow and Wednesday on Channel Four.

From the standpoint of the consumer, chicken appears as if by magic on the shelves because commodity production is "invisible". But Fearnley-Whittingstall is convinced if intensive farming of chickens is exposed, people will change their buying habits. He's not the first, and certainly not the last to travel this road. Exposing a commodity's "biography" is a standard tactic of activist groups, writers, NGOs, "concerned" celebrities, and so on. High profile examples in recent years would include Naomi Klein's exposure of highly exploitative sportswear production in China, the Philippines, Vietnam, and elsewhere for top brands like Nike, Adidas, Reebok, etc. NGOs and other activists have climbed on the bandwagon and forced these firms to demand certain standards of their suppliers, though adherence to them has been patchy. Although raising awareness of commodity biographies has caused some large corporations serious embarrassment and may have helped radicalise a few people here and there, nevertheless production continues under more or less similar conditions and sportswear continues to fly off the shelves.

So it will be with chickens. Even the shock value of Jamie Oliver's upcoming programme on slaughter and processing won't make much difference. True, some of the audience will be shocked into buying free range birds, and others might give up on meat altogether. But ultimately Fearnley-Whittingstall's on a hiding to nothing, and not only on grounds of cost (a couple of Millway chicken run project volunteers were quick to note a £7 chicken is not an option for most working class people, a point our Hugh is oblivious to, despite it being repeated on several occasions throughout the documentary). The problem comes back again to the nature of work in a capitalist society. The ensemble of commodities appear disembodied and ready-made not just because each worker occupies their particular niche within the division of labour and is only connected to commodities produced by others through the cash nexus; but also because of the private ownership of production. As a worker does not own and has no control over the fruits of their labour, more often than not they will be indifferent to its fate in so far as its subsequent trajectory does not impact upon them. If indifference exists here in the workplace, it is difficult to show anything but indifference toward the origins of commodities produced by others elsewhere unless, again,that impacts directly on the worker as a consumer.

Sadly for Fearnley-Whittingstall and chums, consciousness raising will not have the desired mass effect. Theirs ultimately is a pious wish, to make humane the inhumane character of capitalist production. This is not to say propaganda of this character does not have its place, indeed it does - as part of a mass movement aimed at fundamentally changing the nature of the system - but by itself, it becomes yet another good cause whose price puts it beyond the means of most working class people.

Is This the Campest Video in Existence?

This is Crucified by Army of Lovers, one of my all-time favourite early 90s dance tracks. Is there anything camper than this? I doubt it.

No doubt Darren will be worrying about my musical sanity. Again. Not least because it's my top old tune of the week. (Cue the sound of AVPS being dropped from blogrolls all over the shop).

Big Brother: Celebrity Hijack

It's bloody cold outside and Britain is shrugging off its seasonal hangover. That can mean only one thing: it's time for a new series of Celebrity Big Brother. Let's face it though, the Big Brother brand has got very stale. Not only do audiences know what to expect, so do the contestants. If you're smart and you want the hundred grand, you act like the slightly dumb kid next door and do nothing to offend the good folks at home. A bit of faux romance, preferably unconsummated, won't harm your chances either. Alternatively you could play the super bitch and guarantee yourself front page of The Star everyday. You might get spat at in public but hanging out with celebs and getting heaps of cash for flashing your baps has got to beat working for a living.

Endemol and Channel Four are caught on the horns of a dilemma. They know Big Brother needs to avoid treading the same insipid  path as the last formulaic outing. It needs to be exciting and compulsive viewing. But neither can C4 risk another scandal of Emily or Jade Goody proportions. So what to do? You can almost see the bright young things at Endemol towers, lounging about on left over BB4 furniture, running out of barrels to scrape. And then, the killer idea!

"I know, why don't we  hand pick the contestants?" exclaimed Tarquin.

"Yes" chimed in Jemima, "we can make sure they're all gifted and clever like us! There's no way mummy or daddy down The Telegraph can think we're dumbing down if we fill the house with young entrepreneurs, politicians, intellectuals, sportsmen, artists, and acrobats!"

"Hey you guys, sorry to rain on your parade" sighed Darius, "but this is Celebrity BB - where are we going to find Z-listers with talent?"

"Good point, hmmm, I know. How about dropping the idea of celeb housemates, and have them running the house as Big Brother instead? They can set the tasks, enforce the rules, make contestants do crazy things ... it will be hilarious!"

There we have it. 12 contestants. One celebrity Big Brother. Would you like to meet the housemates?

1) John is the chair of the Scottish youth parliament. He's a LibDem in case you were wondering. Not to worry, he'll grow out of it.

2) Calista, a singer/song writer who's "taking over the house scene". Apparently. 

3) Anthony (with a th) is a boxer.

4)+5) Emilia and Victor, a brother and sister acrobatic roller skate act. Victor's added talent is his knack of "making my sister bleed from her eyes".

6) Jeremy races cars.

7) Amy is a 'conceptual installation artist' who likes to clean things, such as rocks. And used condoms.

8) Nathan's a MOBO nominated singer/song writer (another one). He's sold 28,000 albums in Japan.

9) Liam runs a consultancy/web design/web hosting/branding company. He claims not to be a geek, wants to inspire other youngsters, and employs a life coach.

10) Latoya dances for a living. She seems pretty sorted actually.

11) Jay is a fashion designer whose ambition is to dress every woman in the world all the time. He believes you can "change lives through fashion". The revolution WILL be stylised. 

12) No CBB would be complete without a Jade. But this Jade is a beauty queen and has been a member of Mensa since she was four, and claims an IQ of 178. How very refreshing to have a housemate who doesn't display their stupidity like a badge of honour.

In what must be the worst kept entertainment secret of recent months, Matt Lucas has assumed the Big Brother mantle for the week. Future hijackers include Joan Rivers, Brian Sewell(!), and professional wastrel, Kelly Osbourne. 

How did the first episode survive the "radical" makeover? Any sign of a significant departure from previous series? Of course not. Matt Lucas first BB act was to call John into the diary room, whereupon he revealed a secret task. He was to wear a discreet earpiece to receive instructions when the other housemates arrived. If John is serious about a career in bourgeois politics, this is useful practice for when he has his implant fitted. 

And so began one of the most toe-curlingly awful BB moments ever to have been transmitted. As new people entered the house, Lucas commanded John to boast about writing The Sound of Music score, to whisper 'Cake!' into housemates' ears, give massages, do the Riverdance, claim to be shit-hot with a kazoo and make like he was a boxer. True, John may be the only politician in history who had to be told to lie, but the "japery" was clearly humiliating and had a nasty, exploitative  undercurrent. As an Urban 75 regular noted, it had to be the fat ginger bloke who got singled out. 

I have a sneaking suspicion, just a hunch, that BB: Celebrity Hijack probably won't set new standards for reality TV, but it could well take it to new lows. Start as you mean to go on eh, C4?

Some Musings for the New Year

It has been another hard year for the Left with John McDonnell failing to get nominated for the leadership race, the split in Respect, and no let up in New Labour’s neo-liberal attacks on public services.

Stoke Socialist Party, to whom I give too infrequent support, has had a reasonable year. It has recruited some enthusiastic activists and continued to fight vigorously on local issues such as supporting the Burslem posties in their ongoing struggle against bullying management. Incidentally, they are on strike at the moment, losing pay over Christmas in a fight to reinstate colleagues whose only crime was to effectively represent fellow union members in the workplace. Either me or Phil will post more details of this dispute soon, so that visitors to this blog can lend support.

Nationally, I can’t really evaluate what sort of the year the Socialist Party has had. How do you evaluate success? Membership numbers are an inaccurate barometer, because, as we all know on the left, while all fringe parties welcome members, it is the amount of activists prepared to give up their time on a regular basis that really counts. Paper sales are also used to measure success. I agree that paper sales are vital, not least financially. However, from my experience on manning stalls, people stop to sign a petition, give a donation and are presented with a paper. I am not knocking this, most people make an additional donation which swells the Fighting Fund. My point is that most people aren’t actively ‘buying’ a paper for it socialist content, or don’t go away, read the paper and become committed socialists! So, paper sales are a must, but they don’t generally build the party in and of themselves. You can attempt to measure success by votes cast in elections. The SP has had some electoral success, but they are few and far between. There is an argument that may you not win the seat but canvassing builds the party. Yes, I am sure people are recruited on the doorsteps, and I am not arguing that the party shouldn’t contest elections, but I feel you have to carefully consider the benefits against the drain on resources.

My view is that party members can contribute most as trade union activists. I am currently doing a PhD thesis on Militant’s successes in the Civil and Public Services Association (one of the forerunners of the PCS). A small, but well-organised cadre of Militant members punched well above their weight, as SP members now do in the PCS. My experiences with the SP have shown me that one thing it does very well (and I'm not without criticisms of the party) is organise. It will always be there! I feel we are sometimes criticised for organising too well. I am not naïve enough to believe all SP activists don't at times act in a sectarian way, and has never tried to dominate a movement, but you couldn’t criticise the party for not giving enthusiastic organises support to workers in struggle or potentially significant movements. For instance, there have been suggestions the SP is over-represented in the National Shop Stewards Network. I wasn’t at the founding conference, but my understanding is that without the SP it would have been a poorly-attended event.

This brings me to the way forward for 2008. I strongly believe that a national shop-stewards movement is the best way to mobilise the left against neo-liberalism. The Liaison Committee in Defence of Trade Unions was very effective in its opposition to the Industrial Relations Act back in the 1970s. There are some good ‘awkward squad’ leaders out there - Mark Serwotka, Matt Wrack, Bob Crow and Brian Caton. And there are still some fine trade union activists out there (whether they are SWP, SP, CPB, Labour, non-aligned or whatever). The Left Unity grouping in the PCS has shown that the left can combine successfully. Let us make 2008 the year the left accepts that we have our differences, but that we have a lot more in common, and that united we can fight back against the ravages of neo-liberalism.

'A Graphic Description of Trade Union Life'

I came across this passage while reading Glorious Summer: Class Struggle in Britain in 1972, by Ralph Darlington and Dave Lyddon. This was originally quoted by Sidney and Beatrice Webb in their The History of Trade Unionism as "a graphic description of trade union life". Comrades Darlington and Lyddon preface it, noting how "it can hardly be bettered" as a portrait of trade union full-timers:

To the ordinary Trade Unionist the claim of the workman is that of justice. He believes, almost as a matter of principle, that in any dispute the capitalist is in the wrong and the workman is in the right. But when, as a District Delegate [full-time officer], it becomes his business to be perpetually investigating the exact circumstances of the men's quarrels, negotiating with employers and arranging compromises, he begins more and more to recognise that there is something to be urged on the other side.
There is also an unconscious bias at work. Whilst the points at issue no longer affect his own earnings or conditions of employment, any disputes between his members and their employers increase his work and add to his worry. The former vivid sense of the privations and subjection of the artisan's life gradually fades from his mind; and he begins more and more to regard all complaints as perverse and unreasonable. (Darlington and Lyddon 2001, cit. p.26)

This was originally published in 1894. It's as though it could have been written yesterday.

Ten Blogging Resolutions

1) You've just got to change the template to something jazzy, but tasteful. It's too sombre, functional, and dull for my tastes. While you're at it, why not think about following the blogging herd and shifting to Wordpress (what are the advantages vis a vis Blogger?)

2) Accept you're never going to keep up with someone who blogs full time, like Iain Dale. Aim for a more modest posting schedule, like every other day. You really don't want to end up repeating the middle chunk of last year and losing the audience you've built up through burn out.

3) Speaking of audiences, you'll only keep them if you engage with them. That's what comment boxes are for! You should spend more time responding/debating/criticising. A blogger who doesn't address the comments they get don't deserve comments.

4) You need a bigger audience too! December's stats - an average of 132 page loads, 89 unique visitors, and 28 returning visitors per day - are a big improvement on the all-time average (72, 48, and 17 respectively) but surely this is a fraction of the potential audience. A more serious engagement with other sites is required.

5) AVPS is part of the (at times fractious, at times fratricidal) left blogging scene and should embrace the community. This means doing "good works" like participating in (and perhaps editing!) the immanent revival of the Carnival of Socialism, eliciting guest posts from others, drawing attention to new blogs, trying to take the edge out of intra-left blog disputes, etc.

6) Most left blogs are written by comrades who are independent of the various revolutionary groups, so there is certainly more room for SP bloggers. At the moment AVPS, Leftwing Criminologist, The Left News Network, and The Nation of Duncan are the only active SP blogs. You should encourage more comrades to enter the blogging fray (a Scotland-based CWI blog, and one focusing on domestic and international politics has to be top of the wish list).

7) One way this can be done is getting SP comrades to submit guest posts (as well as lighting a rocket under Brother S's arse). Must start approaching others without delay!

8) Local struggles need more coverage. Over the Christmas period some traffic has come looking for more information about the Burslem postal dispute. Though not being heavily involved in it myself (beyond the odd bit of solidarity work), there is no real excuse not to get Stoke SP leaflets, union leaflets, reports, and odds and sods from comrades up on here.

9) Try and get more balance to the topics you write about. At the moment the audience is made up of other left activists and academic/sociology types. The challenge is to make the more political posts, however navel-gazing they may be, interesting to the latter and the stuff on sociology attractive to the former.

10) Make sure blogging remains satisfying and fun. There's no point going through the motions for its own sake as you'll be wasting your own time and those who come here.

What are your resolutions?

Left in Pieces: 2007

By all accounts 2006 was a bad year for the left. Organisations outside of the Labour party were moving forward at a snail's pace, if moving at all. The SWP, SP, and ultra left more or less stood still, and Respect was going nowhere fast. The Tommy Sheridan libel trial saw the Scottish Socialist Party split into two mutually antagonistic and warring camps. The bulk of trade unions were still wedded to New Labour and were prepared to sacrifice their members interests on the altar of Gordon Brown's impending coronation, and all this was overshadowed by the growing influence and support of the BNP. The only things worth being cheerful about was the advance of the organised left in the Greens, and the coalescing of the Labour left around the John McDonnell leadership campaign. 

It would be difficult to pull off a worse 12 months, but when it comes to gloomy forecasts the British left are past masters in exceeding expectations. The main left story is the split between the SWP and practically everyone else in Respect. I don't see any reason to rehearse the whole sorry episode when I've already commented on it here and here, and so has pretty much everyone on the left. What is depressing is the split is far from played out. Maximum left unity is always desirable in my opinion, but you have to recognise it's an empty abstraction if comrades of the same organisation cannot unite around common political objectives. And so it is with Respect. Leaving aside the issue of who orchestrated what, both components need to sit down to negotiate the practicalities of the split so they can move forward. From what I can tell, the Renewal faction around Galloway want to do this, but the SWP leadership does not. This may appear as childishness of the pettiest kind, but I suspect the central committee will not make a decision until the SWP has held its annual conference early in the new year. As the leaked conference bulletins show, the stereotype of SWP members as unthinking trotbots is an unfair generalisation, but whether the CC will be held to account for their behaviour remains to be seen. Until this situation is resolved, I cannot see either faction going anywhere fast.  

On the subject of splits, if anything 2007 was a worse year for the left in Scotland than 2006, and that's saying something! It wasn't enough for the SSP and Solidarity representation at Holyrood to be wiped out, oh no, the whole Sheridan business has to be gone through again now he has been charged with perjury. A lot of the damage may have already been done, but this next round of recriminations will discredit the Scottish left even further. And if that wasn't enough, internal documents show the SWP aren't happy in their home in Solidarity and will probably wind down their commitment to it over the course of 2008. One cannot forget the defection of Solidarity's sole councillor, Ruth Black, to the Labour party, either. It's been disappointing to see comrades shouting 'traitor!' True, she may have been opportunistically inclined, but comrades need to ask themselves if there was anything about the organisation that drove her away. We in Stoke SP did the same after our former Labour councillors had a brief stay in our branch. So, things aren't looking to healthy in Solidarity at the moment but I predict it will still be around this time next year, regardless of what happens to Sheridan.

For the SP, I suppose you can say it had a 'business as usual' year. We lost one councillor in Coventry, but aside from that we carried on as normal, there were no spectacular gains or serious reverses, and there's no indication the SP will be affected by the splits in the left elsewhere in 2008. One possible bone of contention will be the CNWP. After the last conference there have been a number of public meetings called in its name up and down the country, but as far as I know local CNWP groups are a bit thin on the ground. In our own experience we did try and run with it, but the time demanded by the simmering local and then national postal strikes has made it very difficult to combine the two, especially when all that exists of the CNWP is a declaration, a website, and a steering committee. If the CNWP is used as a vehicle to participate in the various elections then it may develop real legs. If not its development will remain stunted. 

One of the few reasons to remain cheerful resides in the Labour party(!) The John4Leader campaign was never going to be successful because of the grip the neoliberal right have on the party apparatus, but what it did do was shake the left out of its torpor and give it a degree of political coordination it was lacking. Now you tend to see many of the same faces active in the Labour Representation Committee, which, at its recent conference, committed it to public campaigning in its own name. The LRC now has a bit of momentum behind it, and could possibly attract many people who've dropped out of activity back into labour movement politics, provided of course it makes good its commitment.

2007 wasn't a bad year for the ultra left either. The launching of HOPOI indicates to me that at least some comrades are groping toward a politics that engages with the consciousness of the working class as it stands now, rather than where they would like it to be. What effect this will have on comrades such as the cpgb, who are used to engaging with other lefts rather than the class, will be interesting. 

This year also saw more stirrings of our class, though unsurprisingly the action it has taken has been defensive in character. As we move into the new year we have disputes sparking up in Virgin and BAA, and also the surreal prospect of the police marching against a pay cap. It would be a joke of history if they act as a catalyst for other workers' struggles, especially as Brown has pledged 2008 will be the year he "sorts out" (i.e. runs down/privatises) public services. The government can also expect a nasty headache from the economy, if the credit crunch begins to bite. There will also be pressure to act on the environment, and the SNP-run administration in Scotland is a constitutional crisis waiting to happen. Given the state of our movement though, I can't say with confidence we'll benefit from any of these.

The one bit of unqualified good news is the split in the BNP. If you thought the left had the final word on splitting, the fascists have shown us how to do it in style: threats to pregnant women, breaking and entering, stealing, tapping phone conversations. It shows us we still have a lot to learn! While we should take heart from their difficulties, one should not be complacent. The passive support the BNP has been feeding off is still out there and most of that base will be happy to turn out for them in May. The split has given the left a breathing space to offer a positive socialist alternative to their hate-filled authoritarianism: it hasn't let us off the hook.

Finally, if 2007 was anything it was the year political blogging came into its own across the spectrum. The "independent" Tory blogger, Guido Fawkes, has stirred up enough crap swilling around Westminster to get on Newsnight, and the other darling of Tory blogging, Iain Dale, has managed to secure odd commentary spots here and there on TV. The split in the BNP has been partly driven by a network of dissident blogs, and the Renewal/SWP schism is probably the first split in British left history to have played itself out on the blogs. There was plenty of internet fallout from the SSP split in 2006, but that primarily reflected interchanges and manoeuvres in real life. In 2007, it was information broken by Socialist Unity, Liam MacUaid, and Respect Supporters that found their echo outside of cyberspace. Unfortunately, where the left is concerned, though the power of the blogs has grown and we now have a relatively dynamic and diverse range of sites, leftyblogland has proven to be as susceptible to schisms and fallings out, as the so-called War of Kylie's Arse testifies. In 2008 it is virtually certain new blogs will crop up and new people will be reading what we have to say, so its important we don't get bogged down in inter-blog disputes among ourselves. Our blogs act as a window on the left. It would be foolish to openly display our movement at its most ugly.

2007 was bad, but because of SWP/Respect and SSP/Solidarity, chances are things will get worse before they get better. But the LRC, the stability of the SP, the move by some ultra lefts away from posture politics, and the movement of our class could mean by this time next year I'll have many more positive things to say.

Top Reads of 2007

As everyone's taking the time out to have a retrospective on the last 12 months, here are the ten best novels I've read in 2007, in no real order.

Time's Arrow - Martin Amis got himself into hot water over comments he made about Islam, but he did used to write good books, and this is one of them. It opens with the death of an old man and manages to work its way backwards to his birth. Superficially it sounds daft and pretentiously experimental, but it somehow works and the result is probably the most unusual novel to have interesting things to say about the Holocaust.

The Bonfire of the Vanities - the blurb says Tom Wolfe's masterpiece is the timeless classic of the 80s, and I'd have to say, its canonical status is entirely justified. Wolfe's meditation on executive culture and the interests that feed off media-inspired witch-hunts manages to hit home without sounding at all preachy. It's probably even more relevant today then when it was published 20 years ago.

The Custom of the Country - Edith Wharton's creation, Undine Spragg is an unscrupulous social climber prepared to manipulate and trample on others as she worms her way into the heart of New York society. Her ruthless pursuit of fortune sees three divorces, a suicide, and plenty of scandal. Imagine Paris Hilton with a back bone. Truly excellent, and justifiably caused a stir when it was published in 1913.

The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne's best known novel is about Hester Pyrnne, a young woman who causes a scandal by giving birth while her husband remained behind in England. Unfortunate enough to live in a puritan community, an A for adultery is embroidered on her clothes as public penance for her sins. Meanwhile her unnamed lover undergoes severe guilt while her husband plots his revenge. Extremely hard hitting for the time, but gripping.

The Brooklyn Follies - A bit of a departure for Paul Auster. Famed for gloomy, postmodern novels about lonely men who are writers, usually writing about writers, this is probably his most "conventional" work to date. Nathan Glass returns to Brooklyn after breaking up with his wife and overcoming lung cancer, and manages to redeem his wasted life. This is probably the best way in to Auster's output.

On Chesil Beach - Ian McEwan may write about "Mercedes-driving cunts", to quote an Urban 75 wag, but he can write nonetheless. His most recent novel is no exception. He details the sexual awkwardness of two virginal newlyweds on their wedding night with painful precision that you almost feel as if you've got vested interests in the outcome, which is no mean feat for a novel well under 200 pages long.

The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro's character, the butler Stevens, is a foil for a meditation on duty, dignity, vocation, and ultimately the price excessive devotion to them can extract. As a take on masculine crisis, other books seldom come as moving.

Alias Grace - Marget Atwood's fictionalisation of a real double murder in mid-19th century Canada is a superb psychological portrait of one of the perpetrators, Grace Marks. Her being a woman meant she was deemed incapable of committing such a crime, and was therefore spared the gallows in favour of life imprisonment. How she recollects the murders and the attitude of wider society toward her allows Atwood to explore the hypocritical gendered mores of the time.

Delta of Venus - Anais Nin's collection of semi-interconnected erotica is a must for anyone who doubts the evocative power of literature. See what I said about it here.

Sophie's Choice - Masterpiece is the only word that can adequately summarise William Styron's magnum opus. Stingo is drawn to the passionate, but violent coupling of Nathan and Sophie when he rents a room beneath them in 1947 New York. As he gets to know them, the tragedy of Sophie's life is gradually unveiled. I very nearly didn't read this on the strength of a radical feminist review I'd read a few years back, but I'm glad I did. There may well be some dodgy things said about women in there, but nevertheless it is one of the most powerful, most moving novels ever written.

What have been your best reads this year?

I Am Legend

Any resemblance between this film and the novel of the same name is entirely coincidental. Perhaps the blurb should be clear this is really a remake of 1971's The Omega Man. It means anyone hoping some of the beauty of Richard Matheson's original making its way into this is going to be disappointed. There's not even any vampires! The following does include some spoilers, so be warned.

This isn't to say I Am Legend is a bad film, taken on its own terms. The premise is simple. A new cancer treatment engineered by a Dr Krippin (ho, ho) is going through medical trials with a 100% cure rate. Unfortunately, the viral agent used mutates into a highly infectious pathogen that ends up killing 90% of those infected. It turns out only 1% of the human race is immune, but the other 9% have regressed to hyperactive flesh-eaters that hunt and feast on survivors. Enter Lt. Colonel Robert Neville (Will Smith), who elected to stay behind on Manhattan Island after it was quarantined, to try and find a cure using his own blood as a basis. By day he forages through the city for supplies while the infected sleep, and by night he withdraws to his fortified compound.

The result is a film that romps through its 100 minutes or so. Its not taxing on the brain as, with most big budget Hollywood productions, it allows the CGI and cinematography to create a real spectacle that dazzles rather than provoke deep thoughts. The scenes of Will Smith racing around a deserted and weed-strewn New York are breathtaking, though lacking the menace of the London of 28 Days Later. Generally speaking, the infected lack the horror of the aforementioned film too. Blood-lusting running zombies coming for you are scary, but not bald and grey men churned out of computers. Still, the pace of the film and the appeal of the plot make it entertaining enough, and it is a must for anyone who (like me) find last man on Earth-type scenarios compelling.

I Am Legend has been read as s War on Terror allegory. For instance, this reviewer notes

Western medicine takes a virus (a bad thing) and manipulates it so that it can fight cancer (a worse thing). Sort of like Western military forces arming jihadists (which they regard as a bad thing) so that they'll fight communists (which they regard as a worse thing). And then the built-up virus - the bad thing - mutates into something much worse than cancer, and it turns on its creators. And this starts where? That's right: In New York, which everyone in the movie keeps calling Ground Zero. And some poor schmoe who didn't start the problem has to try and fix it. But even if he comes up with a cure ... they [the infected] are just going to keep coming ... destroying the civilised world and - here's the kicker - either killing everyone they come into contact with or converting them into monsters just like themselves. And the only solution is to shoot them dead - or withdraw behind metal walls, into a fortress-like homeland.

There is something to this argument, but that is not all that can be said. I would suggest I Am Legend says deeply conservative things about gender relations. The originator of the virus, Dr Krippin, is a woman. And just look, when a woman assumes a position of responsibility she happens to bring the human race to the edge of extinction. She obviously didn't know her limits, so it falls to a man to clear up her mess. In the evacuation of Manhattan, it's a faulty scan of his wife that leads to their rescue helicopter taking off late, leading to a mid-air collision and the death of Neville's family. At one point his dog, Sam (later revealed to be short for Samantha), disappears into a dark building full of infected - Will Smith has to rescue her and escapes narrowly with his life. Of all the infected to rampage through the film, who does Will Smith capture for his medical experiments? You guessed it, the only discernible woman from among their anonymous grey mass. When a couple of other survivors turn up (Anna, and a young boy, Ethan), she confesses it was a message from the great patriarch in the sky that brought them to New York and was spurring her on to a survivor's colony in Vermont. And of course, the agency of one man delivers the human race from the grim fate awaiting it. The film has nothing positive to say about women at all: they have to be subject to supervision by men, otherwise harm comes to themselves and/or others.

I Am Legend is a stunning example of 21st century movie making. But as a piece of social commentary, its message is stuck in the 19th.

The Death of Benazir Bhutto

The assassination of Benazir Bhutto will have deep political repercussions domestically and internationally. At the moment of writing, it appears she was in the process of leaving a Pakistan Peoples' Party election rally in the garrison city of Rawalpindi when her entourage was attacked by a suicide bomber. Along with the bomber and his high profile target, at least 20 other people were killed.

So far, the US state department has condemned it as an attack not just on Bhutto and the PPP, but also the so-called democratic reconciliation process since the lifting of martial law last month. David Miliband, speaking for the government expressed his shock, and called for restraint. David Cameron for the Tories said it was a significant setback to Pakistan's return to democratic politics, and her London-based cousin, Asim Bhutto, paid tribute to her as someone who would bring "peace and freedom" to the country.

You can expect a number of tributes to litter the press and the blogosphere generally over the next couple of days. But let's be clear about this, Bhutto's support by the US and UK governments plus the friendly coverage she's received from the BBC since her return from self-imposed "exile" have nothing to do with her democratic or secular credentials. Our masters remain very keen for Pervez Musharraf to remain in power. From their standpoint he is a pro-Western figure amenable to US and UK imperialism's geopolitical interest in the region. The big problem is his lack of popular mandate, they'd much rather have a friendly face at the helm who's got there by fair means rather than foul. A rapprochement between the two figures - a government position for Bhutto plus a pardon concerning corruption charges - in exchange for her backing of Musharraf's presidency after the elections was possible, despite the long-standing personal indemnity between the two. Furthermore, neither were very far apart politically. On the key issues; the relationship with India, and opposition to the myriad Pakistani Islamist movements and militias, they were virtually one. The passing of Bhutto from the scene has thrown a spanner in the works.

While this will cause the foreign office and the state department a headache, for Pakistan it marks a new intensity to the crisis permanently engulfing its political system. It is no exaggeration to say Bhutto's death fundamentally alters the dynamics of the situation. Where the PPP are concerned, more than one commentator on the BBC this afternoon has noted it was very much structured around Bhutto's person. For example, imagining Forza Italia without Silvio Berlusconi gives you an idea of the predicament the PPP finds itself in. Without the anchoring figure of Bhutto, it's difficult to see how this party - a coalition of convenience between bourgeois nationalists, secularist intelligentsia, and even Trotskyists, can remain a coherent political entity. Nawaz Sharif, the ex-prime minister toppled by Musharraf's coup in 1999, may have ostentatiously wrung his hands of any benefits to be accrued from the assassination in his BBC interview a short while ago, but he did commit his party to sitting down with the PPP to work out what can be done, despite the bad blood between the two. No doubt he will be looking to co-opt as much of the PPP to his bandwagon as possible.

Another casualty will be the shreds of what remains of Musharraf's legitimacy. Speaking to the BBC, Hussain Haqqanni, a former Bhutto flunky, pointed out Rawalpindi is the headquarters of Pakistan's overblown military apparatus. It is a place that, in theory, should be the most secure location in the country. It is widely accepted to be crawling with intelligence operatives. And yet a suicide attacker was able to penetrate Bhutto's security detail in the heart of the military establishment with apparent ease. To the mind of many Bhutto supporters and sympathisers, even if there is no link between Musharraf and the attack (a claim already being made by Asim Bhutto) this, coming on top of his inability to tackle fundamentalist-inspired political violence at the very least positions him complicit in Bhutto's death.

In the immediate term, a postponement of elections is likely, giving Musharraf and his Muslim League some time to horse trade with his opponents. As for a return to martial law, this could be a serious mistake from Musharraf's point of view. It is possible such a move could be supported by some of his opponents as a means of stymieing the fall out, but seeing mainstream politics fall behind de facto military rule would do nothing to challenge the growing influence of fundamentalist political Islam. Whatever the case, it is they who are the winners. By claiming the scalp of Pakistan's most high profile politician, future "martyrs" will be emboldened to make similar attacks.