Local and European Elections May 2014

Saint Etienne - Who Do You Think You Are?

Sunlight has beat down on my goth-pale skin all day, and yet lobsterish hues have not set in. Yes, it's the final push for the local and European elections. I am quietly confident that Newcastle-under-Lyme, our next door constituency, will see returned a net gain of Labour councillors. I'm going to stick my neck out and go so far to say Labour will top the polls in Newcastle and Stoke-on-Trent both. But of that another time. Right here, right now I want to get lazy. And you know lazy here normally means a music feature. On this occasion, you can chillax. It's not trance. Instead grab your feather bowers and shimmy those hips into PVC pants. Let's take a trip to the indie disco.

Near Future Fiction: Two Novels

I've taken time out from highfalutin social theory to read some science fiction. So a visit to Hanley Library at the weekend found me check out a couple of books: Heaven's Shadow by David S Goyer and Michael Cassutt, and Descent by Ken MacLeod. They are both examples of near future fiction - the former set five years hence, the latter between 10 and 30 years from now. Sadly, that is where the similarity ends. .

The Goyer and Cassutt effort. Where to begin? I'm afraid to say it's an awful book, so what follows will be replete with spoilers. In 2019 two ships, one American, the other a Russia/India/Brazil collab race each other to reach a Near Earth Object. But upon landing and following a series of eerily-timed eruptions from the asteroid's surface, it becomes apparent that our NEO is a UFO. Jeepers! The intrepid crews find a passage to an interior that switches on at their presence. And what greets them is a rapidly evolving biological environment. Why do plants begin growing? What's that pyramidal structure in the distance? Is that something pupating in those hexagonal chambers lining the wall?

Up until here the story is passible, albeit one in which a cliche stands behind every sentence. It quickly goes south from there. One of the chambers is growing something, something alive! It comes out, sheds a layer of skin and takes a breath. The creature is human! But not just any old homo sapiens - she's the dead wife of the leading character! Rather than piquing my curiosity, this was more a roll eyes moment. The long and short of it is the alien civilisation behind the ship are post-biological beings who can manipulate the quantum structure of the universe. It turns out that sentient creatures create impressions in the sub-atomic foam and these, more or less, constitute our souls. What the aliens, or 'the architects' can do is read the space/time grooves and fashion appropriate bodies for them. However, there is a malevolent force abroad in the galaxy that wants to systematically scrub this information and, you guessed it, only humanity is the species that can thwart it. Not, it seems, millions-of-years-old super-civilisations.

There's nothing wrong per se with afterlife themes in science fiction. But when it has been done before, the words imagination, flare and aplomb come to mind. See Peter F Hamilton's Night's Dawn Trilogy, for example. What I find most objectionable about Heaven's Shadow is not so much the plot or dreary writing, but the narrative structure of the book. You see, Goyer is a screen writer, video game storyteller and sometime director. Gassutt is a TV writer and occasional SF novelist. And after five minutes with this book, you're struck by how desperately it begs to be made into a movie. Unnecessary tension, unlikely disasters, improbable cliffhangers - they pile up on one another in a gangly, unreadable mess. To think there are two more books in the sequence after this too. Ugh. File Heaven's Shadow as 'Phil has read it so I don't have to'. You'll thank me for it.

In a different league altogether is Ken MacLeod's Descent. Right, I'm going to embarrass myself now. Ken, if you're reading this you might want to look away. As far as I'm concerned, Ken is the finest exponent of near future fiction writing anywhere. His work has a warm, sharp, dynamic quality. He is our most contemporary writer too. No one else has the knack of seizing the present and shaking it until social and technological trends spill all over the place. What his novels do is track them to all possible destinations, be they banal or profound. And, of course, for us lefties there's lots of Trotty, trainspotterly references too that somehow add to the urban glamour of Ken's writing.

As the cover implies, Descent is about UFOs. Sort of. Unlike this review's other book, I'm not going to spoil a single thing. Except to say it involves lots of conspiracy construction and unravelling - Ken has great fun playing with alien abduction, men in black and cover-up tropes. This world is heavily surveilled by drones and netbots, but think more social media's voluntary self-surveillance than Nineteen Eighty-Four. Sure, the powers that be might be monitoring too. But they could also be objects scrutinised by rival elites, revolutionaries, or their own. Sounds messy? Yes. Yet Ken's exploration of a world in foment as it segues from neoliberal depression to Keynesian expansion is absolutely flawless, and everything ties up with a little bit left to the reader's imagination.

Near future fiction is a tricky genre to pull off because real world developments habitually threaten speculation. Yet Ken's novels, even the stuff he published in the 90s, remain endlessly contemporary and just slightly beyond our time; out of reach but all the more tantalising for it. Descent is an excellent novel and an excellent way into Ken's works. If you see it, pick it up or download it and leave the likes of Heaven's Shadow well alone.

Calling UKIP Racist Won't Stop Them

It's become a daily thing. Every day a new UKIP candidate is exposed as a racist, a homophobe, a Holocaust denialist. It's like we've been here before. The establishment is all sixes and sevens as an upstart far right party makes waves, but this is 2014, not 2009. The debates that have rippled across countless Twitter feeds and clogged up party and paper-branded blogging platforms are retreads of arguments had about the BNP. Yet every screwball and screw up leaves UKIP spotless. Just how do you deal with them? There are two broad schools of thought. There's one camp devoted to pinning the racist tail on the bigoted donkey. And there are those who think that will do nothing to stymie UKIP.

In the former camp we find strange bedfellows indeed. We have my favourite Blairite blogger Dan Hodges, who as recently as Friday decided Farage was finished off the back of that now notorious interview. Far be it for me to rain on anyone's parade, but looking at things from the perspective of Monday evening the wheels of the UKIP bandwagon are still turning. More's the pity.

Sharing the tent with Dan are our friends the Socialist Workers' Party. Keen to be the best builders of something - anything - that can help stave off their terminal demise, we have a new front group: Stand Up to UKIP. Now, to be fair to the SWP, their literature is better than what I expected. Unlike Unite Against Fascism material that was all about exposing Nazi Nick and chums as such, SUtU takes aim at UKIP's opposition to same-sex marriage and dalliances with overt racism. Okay, there's more to it than that. The flat tax, banks, scapegoating immigrants, it's a roll call of left touchstones the SWP thinks would resonate with Farage fans. Also, SUtU have protested outside UKIP meetings in scenes reminiscent of UAF pickets. Unfortunately, while it's a more active opposition than Dan urging people to vote LibDem, I don't think it will do much to dissuade prospective UKIP voters.

Many comrades, such as Sunny, argue that highlighting UKIP's racist hues is not likely to smoke the 'kippers. There are two reasons for this, in my opinion. First, voters have already factored in UKIP's less-than-PC approach to a range of issues. It's part of their appeal. It's how voters can rank them the most racist but the most honest of the parties. They are the only ones who will say the unsayable. And second, when immigration is the biggest self-reported reason why UKIP voters will be voting UKIP, any racism row makes the party look tougher on this issue. When this is stirred with a widespread anti-Westminster nihilism, you have a potent mix. Pulling the rug from under UKIP is not a case of aping them, but addressing the contradictions, problems and anxieties that feed their support. That cannot be done with a few soundbites; it takes patient, methodical work and demonstrable policy delivery.

It's obvious which approach I prefer. But the 'UKIP is racist' campaign need not be a waste of time. The key point is a matter of focus. Instead of addressing putative UKIP supporters and trying to shame them into voting for one of the mainstream parties, it would be more effective if the campaign targeted non-UKIP voters and mobilised them to give Farage a kick in the ballots. Because European election turn outs are so low, so UKIP's strength is exaggerated. Yes, it's not ideal to try and drag voters to the polling station by wholly negative appeals. At best something like this can only a stop gap, a temporary tactic while politics gets its act together. And by politics, of course I mean Labour. Because looking at the rest, the Tories and LibDems both remain committed to the privatisation of everything, and insecure, low-waged labour markets. They aim to deepen the social pathologies from which UKIP draws strength. Only Labour has the policies and the capacity to turn this around.

Godzilla's Love Letter to the US Military

Godzilla and I go back. When I were but a nipper in the early 80s, one of my favourite cartoons was this. I used to crouch by the family Betamax and flick the record switch before we left for the Satday morning shopping trip. However, in a confession what may strike a telling blow to my geek creds, I never bothered with the rubber-suited Japanese originals. They just didn't appeal. I did go and see the 1998 Hollywood reboot but it was all very meh. When you can remember the Godzilla toy egg merchandise better than the movie, you know you're dealing with something eminently forgettable. So expectations weren't too high when we went to the multiplex this afternoon to see the latest iteration.

Thankfully, 2014's Godzilla is miles ahead of the late 90s effort. It doesn't have Jamiroquai for a start. Totally mindless, of course. But beautiful mindlessness. As a top drawer blockbuster, it was a tour-de-force of perfect cinematography and special effects. The acting is never allowed to get in the way of the action, as hunt-the-monster gives way to scraps between Godzilla and the baddies. These are the MUTO monsters, giant creatures from the Earth's deep prehistory who consume radioactive materials. Reactors, nuclear warheads, they're cheese straws to these things. The plot, such as it is, involves stopping all three monsters before they lay waste to the USA's West Coast. Only very late in the day do the powers that be realise Godzilla is a good guy - as per the cartoon and original films.

One thing that fascinates about Hollywood is how it plays fast and loose with real tragedy for thrills and spills. The opening scene has a Japanese power station going into meltdown and collapse after a monster-induced earthquake hits. Fukushima much? Then when the beasties run wild in Honolulu, Vegas and San Francisco, collapsing and pulverised skyscrapers fall with the redolence of a certain pair of towers. However, it's long been observed that the profusion of over-the-top explosions in video games and anime is a trauma that's been working its way through Japanese culture since 1945. Have American studios been more willing to trash their cities since that September morning?

Naturally, there are a number of angles Godzilla could be read from. A cautionary tale of tampering with nature. Of the fear of the atom. Or if you want to get a bit religious, our gargantuan saviour is basically Raptor Jesus. Or are the MUTO's global capital run amok, and Godzilla the great scaly leviathan of Keynesian interventionism? There's something to be said for a feminist reading as well. The earthy Godzilla vs the pregnant MUTO and her weird cravings for fissile materials. And then there is the destruction of her brood by the masculine GI hero.

Ah, the army. You see, if Godzilla is anything, it's a $160m love letter to all three branches of the US military. This isn't because they're particularly effective. Just like the Japanese originals, the puny efforts of humans count for naught. MUTO monsters can take bazooka blasts to the face with nary a scratch. Depleted uranium-tipped shells fired point blank do nothing. You might as well launch candy floss. Nor do the military have a handle on the situation. Their plan is to lure the monsters 20 miles north of SanFran to nuke them, but it goes awry at every step. They're as helpless and they are hopeless. Not a great advert for the armed forces, you might think. On the contrary, the film is stuffed with vignettes of military courage. Faceless GIs are offed by the wagonloads. Ships, jets, helicopters, tanks - someone do a tally of the totalled hardware. But time after time, despite certain death, the military puts itself in harm's way. The MUTO monsters can disable electronics with their own EMP blasts, but still jet fighters fly at them. Ordinance is so much a minor irritation, but tanks and infantry interpose and fruitlessly fire away as those jaws chow down on their positions. The military does not stop. The scenes are slightly reminiscent of Spielberg's War of the Worlds. Taking on the baddies, be they radioactive behemoths or Martians, maybe hopeless for heroes, but they'll gladly do it.

You can't buy spin as good as this.

Revisiting No2EU

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Stoke Central Labour Party Arrives

On that there Twitter?

Want all the latest Labour info from Stoke-on-Trent, the axis around which world politics pivots?

Then this might turn out to be the best news you've seen all year:

This is Stoke Central Labour Party calling.
— Stoke Central Labour (@StokeCentralCLP) May 15, 2014

You know what to do. Press follow. Get your friends to press follow.

Learning from Stephen Sutton

Practically everyone plugged in to some form of social media will have heard of Stephen Sutton, the 19 year old teenage cancer fundraiser who died earlier today. It's very sad news for his family and friends, and for everyone who followed his story. His life was short, but he set an exemplary example of altruism. It must have been very gratifying for Stephen knowing that years of fundraising finally paid off and that others will benefit from the £3.2m he and his supporters were able to raise for the Teenage Cancer Trust.

People who write about the social uses of the new media technologies all too often dwell on the darker side of the internet. It's easy to see why. The utopian yearning of escaping the meat, and cruising the information superhighway en route to your electronic homestead collapsed the very moment people started waxing lyrical about them. Besides, dystopia's cache of cool is way more beguiling than the positives the internet allows for. Then again, melancholy never built anything - something Stephen certainly realised.

For progressive people who want to use the power of networks to mobilise people for a better society, Stephen's example highlights two positives, and one negative.

First, there is strength in weak ties. It's long been common sense in the sociology of social movements and networks. Mark Granovetter, the author of the aforementioned 1973 paper, argued that myriad, micro-level ties between participants in various groups were key for transmitting information and mobilising solidarities. For example, all too often the relationship between trade unions and the Labour Party is presented as either a) a bureaucratic relationship, and/or b) points of contacts between party and union tops. The real strength is the unsaid c) the tens of thousands of ties between trade union members and Labour, ties that ultimately count for more than formalised relations. Stephen's campaign, though totally different from this example, harnessed the power of weak ties. Thumb upping, retweeting, pins, blogging, whatever the social media platform you chose, constant coverage of Stephen's Story by his supporters saw the latest update being diffused among friends, followers, etc. It costs virtually nothing to pass a story on, and it snowballs from there.

Yeah, yeah. An observation as sharp as noting the Pope's Catholicism. Online networks, however, are not rarefied free-floating things. They roughly map on to really existing weak ties. As embedded but latent patterns of potential social interaction, different packages of information will excite them differently. For example, last week during Eurovision I cheekily retweeted my post about the UK's 1995 entry, Love City Groove. Later on I tweeted that Conchita Wurst's victory was a big eff off to homophobes, transphobes and bigots. Which received the thousand retweets? The latter, of course. It struck and mobilised the emotional content of the moment better than a brazen plug did. Likewise with Stephen. Cancer and other charities promote appeals all the time, but Stephen's campaign was able to alight the affective potentiality of the networks in all kinds of ways. The tragic backstory of a healthy-looking young lad struck by disease combined with the warmth and positivity his images embodied. The empathy his situation elicited from tens of thousands, and the solidarity others felt with this struggle. Sympathy, empathy, affection, admiration, these were the emotions Stephen's successful campaign were able to mobilise and transform into donations. It establishes that what you might call a 'solidarity swarm' can be just as potent on the networks as a twitchfork mob.

The second point is that simultaneously, the emotional charging of social networks in this way can collapse time and distance and, subjectively, bring into very close personal approximation someone you haven't met. It's not dissimilar to the passing of a celebrity, but is not exactly the same. In the sad case of Peaches Geldof, for instance, hers was a face and a story that appeared from time to time in our heavily mediated everyday lives. We didn't know her, but the media/social media complex generated a simulation of familiarity with her person. When she died, it was only natural people - even bone-deep cynics like me - were thrown. That this caused upset for some doesn't mean their pain was inauthentic. Stephen's case was different in that he only captured the popular imagination for a short time. The mediatised everyday collapsed social distance in the usual manner, but the emotionally charged character of items about his condition, latest initiatives, and so on dredged up memories - sometimes quite raw - among those who had lost loved ones to the same disease. The connection (the status, the tweet) was more than updated Stephen-related information. For many it was a trigger, a reminder of how analogously relevant his situation was to their immediate lives. Simultaneously this was action-oriented. Touching and upsetting, yes. Yet Stephen did not offer the contemplation of sadness and loss, but the opportunity and means to prevent others from suffering by the cathartic exercise of giving.

Networking, emotion, immediacy. These are the foundation stones of Stephen's successful campaign. Ways of mobilising people around progressive causes with social media can learn from this, but there is one element that does not transmit straightforwardly. Stephen's was a charity campaign. The cost of participating in time and, if you were so inclined, donations, were negligible. Less than a second to retweet, like or pin. Less than a minute to give. Sure, as purely information awareness exercises politics can do the same. But ultimately, social movements and parties have to mobilise people in the real world, from the bare minimum of voting to activism of some description. The personal cost of participation is greater and can never, by itself, get anywhere near Steven's campaign. Nevertheless, if there is one thing Steven's example tells us, one should never underestimate the potential of weak ties.

Sleep well, Stephen.

Labour's Poll Setback

Political people are a fragile lot. It doesn't take much for herds of us to start quaffing at the Last Chance Saloon. Two polls - admittedly "gold standard" polls - place Labour two points behind the Conservatives. Not ideal at all, far from it. Then one of the them, the ICM poll for the Graun, puts Labour trailing UKIP AND the Tories in next week's European elections. Not the music of an election victory party echoing from the future to the present. Naturally, two swallows don't a summer make but the excellent reputations ICM and Lord Ashcroft have, and these results' congruence with converging poll trends point to movement in the minds of the electorate, and that movement is not to the red team's benefit.

So what on Earth is going on, and what can be done about it? As you might expect, everyone's offering their two penneth and dispensing advice. My stat-happy comrade Éoin Clarke offers 10 points for consideration. They include atoning loudly and often for past mistakes - a stratagem which, in my opinion, hands the Tories both the initiative and a get out of jail free card for their own record. And something called "economic nationalism". Hmmm. Mark Ferguson writing on LabourList demands all hands on deck. The party needs shaking out of its torpor, he argues. Mary Dejevsky sets her sights on personnel change and calls for Ed to drop his Balls. And, as usual, Dan Hodges rolls us some finest despair and invites Labour supporters to take a drag.

Dan argues in a fashion the most mechanical Marxist would find embarrassingly clunky that an improving economy = incumbent poll leads. He also argues that part of Labour's problem is that it expects the electorate to come to it, rather than the other way round. That may well be true. For example, voters are in favour of renationalising rail, utilities, and Royal Mail. They want more people to pay a 50% income tax rate. And, among other things, they want to see the back end of Academies. Labour are only shuffling towards those positions, if at all. Dan also notes the party "isn't credible" on the economy; that talking about a 'cost of living crisis' gifts the Tories an open goal. I imagine his advice would be for Labour, say, to commit itself to the government's projected spending plans for a post-election interval to dampen down jitters and uncertainty. Someone tell Ed Balls. And, Dan being Dan, there's Ed Miliband's hex-factor, of which more in a moment.

While these rebuttals undermine Dan's argument for a re-run of 1997, the point is on his two crucial measures - listening to "the people" and establishing "economic credibility" - Labour is already occupying that ground, so why has the poll lead melted? I think the arguments by Andy and Hopi are persuasive. First off, the general election polls are inflected by the hype surrounding UKIP's surge. Its "sod the lot of them" message has and will continue to attract support among "normal people". And despite the hopes of some professional commentators who should know better, UKIP ain't going anywhere. Both Andy's and Hopi's argument point to the same problem - for Andy, the way our antiquated electoral system works incentivises the chasing of a putative middle ground in key marginals which has a blanding effect on politics. Hopi's points build on this by suggesting that the disjuncture between a perceived Westminster elite and the rest means people have little faith in politics any more. Hence whether you shrink or widen Labour's "offer" doesn't really matter, no one believes things can change. And in that situation the incumbent holds all the advantages.

Then there is the Ed factor. Moan as much as you like, despite efforts at making British elections more presidential people tend to vote for the party, not the leader. In fact, a study based on the 1992 elections - the last time 'leadership' was deemed a significant factor by the media - it was found to have a negligible effect on overall outcomes. Is it likely to have changed qualitatively in the years since? With the declining power of unaccountable media frames, I doubt it. Sure, Ed is awkward and wonky, but do people seriously think replacing him with Yvette Cooper, who - let's face it - is pretty much the same, will make any difference? Time and again, history shows ditching leaders in the short run up to elections is doomed. Remember Australia?

Unfortunately, there is no quick fix. There are no magic wands to hand. The only way to tackle anti-politics, as Lord Ashcroft's study of UKIP voters found was for Tories, and by extension Labour, is for parties to keep their promises, demonstrate evidence their policies are working, and show leadership on a range of issues. That's easier for an incumbent. For Labour, to win demands we turn up the activism - it's no accident bad polling comes at a time the party hasn't really made an effort in these European elections. It's necessary to tackle the Tories, UKIP, anti-politics, and voter abstentionism head on. They're the enemies. The LibDems, the Greens, the far left; they're distractions. And finally, I've blogged many times about Labour being trapped between principle and expediency - in short, we need more leadership. More unambiguous 'Labour will do this, Labour will do that". No shilly-shallying, no prevarication, no denying the radicalism of what's being proposed. Let's grab UKIP's ground and show the world what a real alternative looks like. In short, though the tinder is damp with cynicism Labour has to strive to capture the popular imagination. Difficult, yes. But there is no other way.

The Meaning of Conchita Wurst

Eurovision is merely the continuation of politics by other, musical means. Usually, the popular perception is of nepotistic voting, of kindred nation supporting kindred nation. Witness Greece and Cyprus, the Scandinavian countries, and so on. Another persistent trope is to read the blunt force trauma of geopolitics into the granting of points. Everyone east of the Vistula, for example, habitually votes Russia because Papa Putin will turn off the gas otherwise. Or so the argument goes. But last night something different happened. The blocs of old melted as gender and sexual politics came to the fore. Against the backdrop of Belarus and Russian protests, hostility at home, and homophobia from a fellow contestant, Austria's Conchita Wurst swept the board and lifted the Eurovision crown.

Rise Like a Phoenix is a great song, and was the best on offer last night. But even had it not Conchita's victory would have been the most positive possible outcome, especially in light of the above (though it's worth noting Armenia's Aram MP3 later apologised for his remarks). There is a ugly homophobia abroad at the moment, particularly in Eastern Europe and Russia. Much like the new misogyny, I believe it's a reaction to the normalisation of same sex relationships and "non-traditional" ways of living. Except in the East, it is being seized upon and reinforced legislatively by bigoted, authoritarian politicians. You have to ask yourself why such people are obsessed with what goes on in others' bedrooms.

Of course, Eurovision is no stranger to gay culture nor it to the contest. We all remember when Israel's Dana International struck a blow for trans acceptance way, way back in 1998. Her entry was accompanied by talk that it could spark civil war between secular/liberal and orthodox Israelis. I'm not entirely joking. Nor was last night the first time Eurovision has played host to a drag act. Verka Serduchka represented Ukraine back in 2007. It too caused protests, but ostensibly because Serduchka sent up middle-aged peasant women rather than saying anything about sexuality. However, that performance was more pantomime dame than anything else and so was deemed "safe".

Wurst's revolutionary quality lies in being queer. Being queer as fuck. She's an arresting, nay stunning woman, who happens to also be a bearded man in a dress. No fake boobs. No bum padding. Her very figure takes gender boundaries and straddles them in defiance of the conventional rules of drag. Is she a man? Is he a woman? Wurst constantly keeps that question in play and stubbornly refuses to answer it, as if it doesn't matter. In so doing Wurst forces everyone ill at ease with the liquefaction of gender and sexuality to face up to their lingering discomforts and make a choice about what is and what isn't tolerable to them. Increasing numbers are taking the tolerant road, hence the signpost of history is definitely pointing in the direction of acceptance, to a destination where such questions matter no longer.

The fact Wurst's presentation wasn't a barrier to her winning and, in fact, will have contributed toward that victory in a major way sends out a clear progressive message. For the 160m Europeans who tuned in, for those in Belarus, Russia and elsewhere who have to hide their sexuality and gender identities, it shows them a possible image of their own future, that the countries to the west are riding a cultural wave of acceptance that will eventually wash up on their shores too. As painful and frightening things are now, the bigotry Putin and co are egging on are the death spasms of moralities and norms on their way out. There is every chance that after last night, the distance between it and its final resting place has foreshortened.

(NB 1. Co-author creds are due @catherinebuca - some of these ideas are hers).

(NB 2. 'Conchita Wurst' means 'Vagina Sausage')