Gordon Brown is about to begin his latest relaunch.  (Is this number 7?  8?)  But, as with all of his previous attempts in the last 15 months, a relaunch will be extremely costly for the public purse.  Joey Jones, on the Sky News Blog:

Imagine you’re Alistair Darling. Right now you’re need cash for all this…

-The anticipated u-turn on vehicle excise duty.

-The 10p tax compensation package (funded by borrowing for now, but that’s not a goer forever.)

-And now of course Gordon Brown’s make-or-break/last ditch/not a relaunch, honest/”we feel your pain” energy giveaway.

Now don’t forget, the Treasury is shorter of cash than it would have been having cancelled the 2p rise in fuel duty. And it’s widely understood other taxation revenue is drying up.

So how to pay for the splurge upon which Gordon Brown is pinning his hopes of remaining in Number Ten? Goodness only knows….

The government tried non doms…. then retreated. They tried capital gains tax reform…. retreated again….

So who else has got deep pockets?

Political parties ravaging the economy to protect their own backides is nothing new.  But in Brown’s case, the economy is being ravaged to keep his backside in the Cabinet Room despite most of its other occupants wishing it were not there.  Apart from being disgustingly selfish, this is simply bad government.  I do not begrudge paying tax, but I think it should be spent sensibly.  To see Brown borrowing money that my generation will be paying for, at inflated rates, just to stay in office for 18 months longer - that’s a disgraceful misuse of an election mandate.

If only I could believe that any of the opposition wouldn’t do the same…

Apparently, the absurd policing at Kingsnorth might cost up to £3 million. £3 million, that is, to intimidate protestors, assault liberty and break their own rules beyond repair. Who’d like to start the list of where that money could’ve been better spent?

Oh no, another toss-up between my virulent anti-theism and desire to allow free expression to flourish is required. How irksome.

Complicating this matter there is the whole “Multi-Cultural” angle, with this one calling herself “A proud Welsh and Punjabi Sikh girl.” Why exactly she would be proud of being Welsh or, more seriously, feel the need to distinguish herself from others who share the affliction is beyond me. Regardless, the model I have always admired for integration is that offered by the Zorastrians while seeking entry to India. They assured their potential hosts that they would dissolve “As honey into milk” when entering their new home. I suppose that a few bangles are modest enough to be deemed appropriate remnants of such a solution.

But this ruling still troubles me. It claims that the school was guilty of “Indirect discrimination” and in breach of race laws. Exactly how does it constitute discrimination to enforce rules equally upon Sikhs to upon those of other or no faith? Surely this is the total reverse of discrimination?

Perhaps the optimum solution would be the school simply taking a less hard-line stance and relaxing uniform policy. That she was suspended for so minor an offence is the root cause of this nonsense. I see no reason, though, that the school should honour irrational leaps of assumption and their sartorial implications over any other piece of reasoning. Where precisely is the distinction between somebody who has a “Lucky” bracelet and one that thinks it is representative of some fictional creature lasting for infinity?

I have no doubt that Singh is sincere in her conviction but there is no cause to imagine that her choice in garb is any better supported besides theology. It was an immensely petty to have her so severely punished over, but the same is true of any student.

Sophie Platt, writing for The F Word, has an irritating but valuable article here.

Irritating because it is filled with typical vindictive puerility:

I would love for them to turn the tables round one night and end a sexual encounter before their partners had come. A friend of mine tried this once, and reported that the incensed rage and sulking that followed could only be likened to that of a three-year-old who has been told Christmas had been cancelled.

Also due to the prejudiced, sourceless bigotry that somehow imagines that an Austen reference that was long ago faded through overuse constitutes a valid substitute for anything beyond the most meagre of anecdotal evidence:

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that teenage boys on the whole are more concerned with their own satisfaction than that of their partners

Let’s see if I can give this a go: It is a truth universally acknowledged that Afro-Caribbean men care more about stealing car stereos than raising their bastard children. Does that sound in any way acceptable to everyone? No matter, I shall just generate a false consensus in lieu of an adequete proof and make pretence that my view is that of the entirity of universe denizens. Does this not make a refreshing change from the mainstream press and its ceaseless distortions?

Furthermore her phallus obsession is seemingly total, as well as less than benign:

It’s just that so many are made to look like a penis, some disturbingly realistic, that they seem rather sinister as a tool for us to become better acquainted with our own bodies.

Where to begin with this? Is she stating that she finds real phalluses realistic? Or is it the prospect of women using items which resemble the organ used for the act that they are stimulating with it that unsettles her? Is it really appropriate and wise to label the sexual predilections of others “sinister” in such an article? Or any article? Is it in pointing out her failure to mention the rise of the “Fleshlight” devices for men that are now plastered all over the internet?

More harmfully still she has made a deep error in her analysis of “Raunch Culture”. Platt attempts to stage a forced division, of sorts, between the elements she truly disapproves of (lap-dancing legality, pole-dancing lessons, girls wearing mini-skirts and so on) from those she can not help but muster begrudging respect for (the popularity of a programme revolving around the sex lives of a set of vapid egoist females, the mass marketing and cultural strength of an item designed purely to bring women vast amounts of pleasure, vibrators on sale at Boots).

Such a dichotomy quite simply does not exist.

Both sets of phenomenon are part of a cultural motion away from the moralistic confines of the past and towards a state of personal liberty to pursue physical pleasure via carnal means. They are not divisible and any efforts to consider them along some form of “Pro” and “Anti” patriarchy lines is bound for failure, as are all other strictly partisan assessments. Women pleasuring themselves and feeling no shame and men resorting to bandwidth over charm and discussing without generating horror their nights at lap-dancing clubs are not in the slightest phenomenon which can be held apart. Their origins are precisely the same: formerly residual Christian morality dominated Britain’s views of carnal union, but since this is rapidly disintegrating people are beginning to act far more as they please and are in acceptance of far less restraints or restrictive mores. To divide this tendency into two separate paragraphs and imagine that it can somehow be split apart is the height of foolishness: they are simply differing manifestations within near identical circumstances. But Platt becomes wound up in her tiresomely hackneyed depiction of Raunch Culture:

it has become about appearing to be sexual available simply to please men and not to fulfil their own desires or fantasies.

The rise of so-called ‘raunch culture’ means that for many girls, merely looking ‘pretty’ has taken a back seat for looking ‘sexy’: supermarkets stock pole dancing kits as children’s toys, glamour modelling is in the top five career choices for pre-teen girls and hundreds of girls all over the country are counting the days until they are 18 and are legally allowed breast enhancements. Girls are being sexualised at an increasingly younger age, and it seems to be more about self-esteem than sexual satisfaction. The pleasure that comes from sexual experiences at this age is often the feeling of being thought attractive and being desired by a male than actually getting off.

Has she no conception of the positive effects of banishing shame in exposing more flesh than our present 1950s hang-over hegemony permits? Is she unaware that the frequency of exibitionism has always matched voyeurism? Obviously not: it is required that all shifts be made somehow in favour of the Patriarchy. Thus pole dancing kits suddenly are related to skimpier outfits for young women and are entirely unrelated to alterations that increase women’s pleasure.

As flawed a view as this unquestionably is this article is valauble because Platt has hit the nub of this issue: it is simply not expected of girls that they will entertain themselves, while with boys only (fittingly paired) certain fundamentalist Christians and some extremist feminists would argue otherwise. This is a strange and harmful double standard, in that it denies half of the population the assumption that it is correct to pursue their personal pleasure. The consequences are young (and occasionally even elderly) women who have never experienced an orgasm, a highly unfortunate state of affairs that leaves the men in a strong lead.

It would seem that Platt, then, is excellent at identifying the problem before us but fails in terms of solution. She, for instance, disparrages the shift that has eradicated the near total silence on matters of female pleasuring that reigned previously, through her offensive against the surgingly popular sex toys, now sold by a variety of mainstream stores and chains. For how can something remain a taboo when it is upon the evening news? Having the act she fears girls are not expected to participate in directly alluded to on chemists shelves is surely going to break the culture which she outlines.

The silence is thus effectively already breached.

BoJo pretends to be a liberal Conservative. He’s transparently not; first, he banned alcohol on public transport, and now he wants to restrict access by under-21s to it. Thus:

Young adults will be banned from buying alcohol in shops under a scheme being backed by Mayor Boris Johnson.

Off-licence owners are to be asked to stop selling drink to under-21s, even though they are legally entitled to buy it at 18.

The voluntary scheme will start in Croydon and is likely to be rolled out across London.

Mr Johnson said that it was the type of solution that Londoners would welcome to the “huge problem” of binge-drinking by the young.

Let’s explore what this actually means. BoJo wants the state to encourage shops to actively discriminate against a group of adults on the basis of a factor beyond their control. That group has the legal rights of every other age-group - and potentially has done for three years.

And, of course, it won’t work. 18-21 year olds have been drinking for as long as can be remembered, and show no desire to stop. They’ve quite possibly been drinking since before their 18th birthday, and most will know how to get alcohol without the state’s consent. So, it won’t eliminate drinking; it’ll simply drive it underground, beyond any reasonable hope of regulation.

So - discriminatory, ineffective and generally illiberal. 18-21 year old are adults with full legal rights and who pay taxes - and yet BoJo wants to treat them like children. He’s not a liberal. He’s a disgusting paternalist willing to sacrifice the rights of a minority for populism’s sake.

From an account of anti-racist festival Rise. Apparently, some discontent:

Did you know Boris Johnson actually got rid of the anti-racism message of the Rise festival this year? Every single thing he’s done since he became mayor I despise, and I was pleased to see a conga of people at the festival singing “Boris is a cunt, Boris is a cunt, na na na na, na na na na”. Only in London.

Quite right.

(Via Dave Hill)

Brown suggests we waste less food and money. Eminently sensible, if a rather obvious point. So, presumably, he’ll be the first to tighten the belt? It’d be totally hypocritical to go on a long, entirely unnecessary trip to Japan (via Russia) to conduct a meeting which rarely achieves much beyond irritating a few anarchists. And, of course, while under protection from those anarchists by 21,000 police, he wouldn’t dine luxuriously on a menu like this.

Oh. Wait. Perhaps he will.

Time for some “militant secularism”; another shredding of faith schools, I feel. Observe the latest obscurantist wail from their defenders:

Selective, divisive, a law unto themselves: faith schools have been depicted by Ed Balls, secretary of state for schools, families and children, as a danger to Britain’s 9.8 million school-age children. Balls made his allegations last March, and has commissioned Sir Philip Hunter, the chief schools adjudicator, to investigate the 7000 faith schools in England and Wales. Hunter’s report is scheduled to reach ministers in September – and will, once again, stir up the row over faith schools.

Ball’s charges against faith schools can be dismissed one by one.

Really? They seem justified to me. Faith schools ground pupils in a seperate religious community, and so are divisive; they virtually require pupils to hold that faith, and so are selective; and raise hell (hah…) whenever the state which funds them imposes the same controls as it does on other schools it funds. Selective, divisive and a law unto themselves? Just a bit.

But, let’s hear what Ms. Odone has to say:

The schools do not select middle-class pupils or reject troubled ones. The intake of Christian schools reflects a broader ethnic range than comprehensive schools in the same area.

Class and race are synonymous? Look, we all enjoy a decent non-sequitur now and then, but to cite one phenomena and cite evidence (strangely without validated statistics) from another defeats itself. Balls’ point isn’t even addressed, save with unsupported assertion - so it isn’t addressed.

Moving on:

The schools are not divisive. Fully 76 of the 77 British citizens convicted under the Terrorism Act of 2000 attended a secular state school; the exception was home-schooled.

And this is meant to be serious journalism? When an author manages two complete non-sequiturs in 6 sentences, they need to be denied the oxygen of publicity. It doesn’t matter how many citizens arrested under the Terrorism Act attended secular schools; that’s simply not the point.

Faith schools are inherently divisive. They encourage pupils to conform to the tenets of a certain religion and inculcate a sense of community with others of that religion; they thus perpetuate faith communities. These faith communities are seperate and frequently opposed to each other. In a word, they’re divided - and faith schools perpetuate this. So, actually, it’s got nothing to do with arrests under the Terrorism Act of 2000 and more to do with the socio-cultural implications of telling a child they’re different to other children because of what’s written in an ancient tome.

But there’s more:

Faith schools do not charge parents for places. Although some schools did ask for voluntary contributions from parents even before admission, these pay for extra teaching for religious studies and, in the case of Jewish schools, for protection.

So, what you’re saying is that they do charge parents money and so exclude low-income families? A “voluntary contribution” before admissions sounds suspiciously like one on which admission could hang. Nothing would need said; the very fact that the charge comes before admission would simply worry parents, who then pay out just in case something goes wrong with the application goes through.

Not that those charges would be necessary in a secular school anyway; surely, “protection” money is required because of the school’s very insularity? The group seperates itself off from the community; that community is left in ignorance of that group’s traditions and finds it harder to challenge prejudices; the prejudiced, meanwhile, have an easy target in the isolated group. They’re not asking for it - but they’re hardly making the problem better.

Ed Balls’s attack fed, and amplified, the strident secularist stereotyping of faith schools as ghettoes that teach a backward mentality.

Let’s check a popular definition of the term, “Ghetto”: “a part of a city, especially a slum area, occupied by a minority group.” Substitute, “education system,” for, “city, especially a slum area,” and, actually, that’s about right. A faith school sets itself up as a seperate entity within the state education system justifying its existence by its religious status - an educational ghetto.

In fact, Labour’s own Commission on Integration and Cohesion found that faith schools support local communities in terms of sharing their resources, and generating social capital.

Note the strange jargon to confuse the uninitiated; “social capital,” is an evasive non-phrase straight out of a sociology textbook. The author again misses the point; the schools might support their own, local communities, but their perpetuation of an insular, religious mentality seperates them from the national community (such as it is) and so is divisive.

Moreover, faith schools are crucial in the emancipation of Muslim girls: those who attend Muslim schools are more than twice as likely to go on to higher education than those who attend secular state or independent schools.

Perhaps more importantly, they’re more than twice as likely to have the doctrines of a religion elements of which treat women as second-class citizens forced on them. As they would do with a Christian or Jewish school; the patriarchal elements of Abrahamic faiths are inescapable.

Very emancipating.

As for the urban myth that faith schools teach creationism in science classes, this is precisely indeed a myth.

Now this just needs editting; “precisely indeed”? Ugh…

Faith schools have an excellent academic record, serve their local communities, and ground their students in a religious as well as national identity. Why squander this force for good?

Because they ground their students in a religious identity, and because that grounding is tax-funded. Parents have the right to educate their children as they wish, so long as that doesn’t harm the child; but they don’t have the right to do so on other taxpayers. All parents fund the education system. That system should thus be open to the children of any parent at any point, regardless of faith. That requires universally secular state schools; that requires an end to state funding for faith schools. Simple, really.

Oh - and since when was a religious and national identity a force for good? Division is the word she’s looking for.

For Ed Balls – and Gordon Brown – the answer is obvious: to woo the “old Labour” rump of the party, equally committed to secularism and comprehensive education.

Or maybe it’s because they believe in an open and fair education for all children?

With an eye to the No 10 succession, Balls is setting himself up as the old Labour candidate by bashing faith schools.

This is just laughable. Balls is setting himself up as Old Labour - by bashing faith schools? Odone could at least do the scaremongering properly and realise that the Labour left aren’t very well disposed to Balls because of City Academies and more. They care about socialism as well as secularism.

He deserves to fail.

Oh, look, another unsubstantiated point. Typical, no?

Rather infuriatingly it has happened again. Hari has written a fine article on a topic which needs more attention, yet crippled it with minor but endlessly infuriating selections of wording that act like the grit within an oyster save without the generation of any pearls.

Witness this attempt at a stirring call to arms:

And yet, for all the evidence, it still seems like an implausible story. Can a powder mix of misogyny and unregulated corporate power really induce women against their will to harm their own children? It does, baby, every day. These are still shockingly powerful forces. Now suck on that – or fight back.

What on Earth or beyond it possessed him to include that bizarre, “baby,”? Why did he think that a poor pun was an appropriate ending for an article in which he dealt with an entirely serious issue of corporate deception resulting in massive amounts of death?

Indeed his idiosyncratic writing style also means that we endure an unsettling account of his mother’s treatment of him, breast-wise, that I could have done without reading and seems solely to serve as a lead up for him to reference how fat he is. I am aware that Johann Hari is fat. I do not care. His apparent fascination with his weight is seemingly shared by only the most crude and infantile of his critics so why precisely he feels the need to reference it so persistently in columns that his by-line picture will usually appear in anyway is entirely beyond me.

I trust that this will not be perceived as mere bitchiness. I simply consider a man who makes so many fine arguments as to be hindered in a fashion I find displeasing and one which could be easily enough amended. All it would take would be a few strokes of the editor’s key or perhaps a few moments of consideration and deliberation over tone by Mr. Hari himself.

With substance so fine being hamstrung by style is a damn shame.

City Hall’s counter-propaganda over Rise found its way into Comment is Free today. BoJo’s cultural underling, Munira Mirza, claims that removing the anti-racist message means they’re now “Doing anti-racism for real.”

Really, Comrade Mirza? Let’s have a look at her argument:

To give some background: in 1996 the Trades Union Congress and various political groups organised Respect (later renamed Rise), intended as a festival against racism. One of the organisations involved was the National Assembly Against Racism (NAAR). In 2000, the then newly-elected Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, effectively nationalised the event by giving it large sums of public money. Several of Ken’s key aides at City Hall had links to NAAR, including Lee Jasper.

Do I detect the none-too-subtle presence of a strawman or five? Apparently, heavy state funding equals nationalisation. Which is strange, given that nationalisation is usually taken to mean state-ownership and direction of an event - not funding. The NHS is nationalised. The railway network, which receives heavy state subsidisation but is directed by private companies, is not. You’d hope that someone who held public office might know the difference, lest they attempt something risky like allowing vicious asset-strippers into the GLA for a period of public service (Oh. Wait…)

Or could it just possibly be that Mirza wants to associate Rise with nationalisation, and consequently with us bastard socialists? Nothing selective about her use of language, not at all…

Oh - and the same goes for her mention of Lee Jasper. The clear intent is to associate NAAR with Lee Jasper and thus with corruption, despite the rather glaring fact that NAAR isn’t under investigation for such.

Over the years, Rise was proclaimed by Ken & Co as a key weapon in the fight against racism and fascism. In reality, it became an annual jamboree for Ken’s favourite political activist groups, many with no clear link to anti-racism. The Cuba Solidarity Campaign, Socialist Workers Party and CND, among others, brought in their armies of volunteers to man stalls, hand out leaflets, sell newspapers and rattle donation buckets. The “community” area of the festival looked more like Sussex University freshers’ fair circa 1970. Not without good reason did Rise become known as “Kenstock“.

So, Mirza objects to the presence of political groups? Fine. Never mind the fact that those groups weren’t there because Ken asked them (perhaps she should ask the SWP for their views on Ken…), but because they wanted to be. Or that they’ve stalls at a host of other, entirely apolitical events, for much the same reason.

Oh, and the fact that most people simply ignore the stalls and wander straight off to the music - and have the choice to do so.

No, it’s clear that because Ken was a socialist, he allowed these groups in to peddle their pinko-peacenik ideologies on his behalf. Perhaps Mirza’s bitter because the RCP didn’t have a stall?

But, apparently, these bearded commies are a serious problem:

The deterrent effect of this highly politicised atmosphere should not be underestimated. Although the event was supposed to be inclusive and attract people from ethnic minorities, the GLA’s own research (conducted while Ken was mayor) shows that 65%-70% of attendees in the last two years were white. That is disproportionately whiter than the population of London.

Yes, very true. Unfortunately, Mirza then leaps to:

It seems reasonable to conclude that the political baggage and relentless sloganeering was actually putting people off. And no doubt many individuals and families who did come on the day were there primarily for the music or a nice day out.

No, it’s not reasonable to conclude that a few ill-attended stalls on the fringe of an event should drive down attendence by ethnic minorities. Where’s the evidence to suggest that? None. The GLA’s research did not report that potential concert-goers were put off because a few deranged Trotskyites might waggle their beards at them. There’s no evidence for that, or any other hypothesis as to why attendence isn’t very mixed - because the GLA didn’t ask.

It could easily be the previous choice of artists, or the weather in different part of London, or any number of factors. We can’t know, as we haven’t got anything to base our assertions off. But that hasn’t stopped Mirza…

Londoners deserve a great, free music festival with excellent bands from around the world. They don’t need to be hectored about why racism is bad or accosted by activists explaining why Castro is a hero. We don’t have anti-racist fireworks on New Year’s Eve and we don’t need to organise an anti-paedophile concert to prove our moral credentials on the issue.

Who mentioned paedophiles? Mirza looks to be playing games with language to make false associations again. Perhaps to compensate for her inability to make a consistent or logical argument. She’s entirely missed the point, here; Rise is, and always has been, about anti-racism. That’s why it exists. The concert is a means to communicate that message. The other groups that fund the event - particularly Unison and the TUC - know that and are committed to it.

If Mirza wants Londoners to have another free concert, then that’s great. But when she wants to cut the anti-racist elements out of an anti-racist festival with music attached - that’s not.

Sectarian political festivals are not the way Londoners want their money to be spent.

Anti-racism’s sectarian? The last person I heard make that argument was Richard Barnbrook.

Most of us, I suspect, just want to be trusted to get on with other people and not be instructed by activists about the dangers of racism.

Tell that to Barnbrook, and all of the 128 609 fascists who voted for him.

That’s why the GLA has decided to go ahead with Rise this summer, but to change the emphasis. We are stressing the cultural aspects of the festival and keeping the vibe positive. We are also bringing in grassroots ethnic and community organisations that have not previously been involved. Above all we are making Rise fun. As a result, the festival will hopefully attract a more diverse audience.

Let me translate that “keeping the vibe positive”: We’re going to ignore racism in public from now on. That’s what she means, as borne out by the total excision of Rise’s original purpose. And it won’t work. I hope Vamp won’t mind me quoting his original comment on this, but he has it exactly right:

Defeating racism is not purely a matter of dissuading those with such views but also mobilising those in opposition to it. I would refer you also to my write-up of Love Music Hate Racism: there is nothing more disastrous for the far-right than a gathering which loses them any of the young and I reckon that the sight, for instance, of Skream and Benga annihilating any notion of cross-racial incompatibility during their collaboration could well have such an impact. If you know of a better way to get a horde of youths together than a free music concert then be sure to let me know, as well as Richard Barnbrook who seems to have been struggling lately.

Mirza is absolutely correct that a concert is a great way of getting everyone together; that’s the original organisaers chose a concert in the first place. What she misses is that many are unaware of just how pervasive the problem is, and the fact that it needs challenged. Not everyone will come to the concert itself, mix with each other and solve the problem magically, as she wants - simply because not everyone will make it to the gig. It won’t have the desired effect.

But a festival combined with an anti-racist message will. Those who turn up will hopefully wake up to the danger of racism; they might become involved, and will certainly tell their friends. And so people become aware of racism, and something actually gets done.

Londoners voted for change on May 1 and the new Rise is part of that change. Out will go the political sloganeering and heavy-handed propaganda but by bringing Londoners from different backgrounds together to share their love of music Rise will be doing anti-racism for real.

She’s spelled those last two words wrong. What she means is we’re “doing anti-racism to death.” The original concerts brought people together and achieved the soft-power affect desired; the overt anti-racist message capitalised on that and actually drove the message home. The new festival will lack that extra impact, and so may well simply be wasted as an opportunity to challenge division and hate.

Perhaps turnout may be higher or more diverse this year. But that won’t be because the political message died, as Mirza suggests. Her assertion that this put people off was just that; an assertions with no reasonable basis. It’ll probably have more to do with the presence of truly excellent artists like CSS - or maybe just a decent weather forecast.

One thing’s for certain, though: it just won’t be the same.

EDIT: And, oh look! Barnbrook welcomes the move.