Russell Brand has been making headlines recently for things
other than bullying Spanish waiters and marrying plastic popstars. The would-be
pirate took up his mantle of the people's poet from its previous holder, Rick from
The Young Ones. On Newsnight he informed Paxman why he'd never voted, and why
apathy is the only sensible choice - because politics is a two-horse race, and
the two horses are being ridden by very similar jockeys who shout at each other
whilst riding for the same stables. Or something along those lines.
I've never liked Brand. Not for any good reason, but because
I think he'd make a shit pirate, and he made a shit Arthur. The cinematic equivalent of pissing on a
sleeping Dudley Moore's face. An unforgivable
crime against art, humanity, the environment and alcoholics.
But he struck a raw nerve with this pontification. Paxman
gave him a mild grilling, like the shit final flames of a 4a.m. kebab shop heater on the last flaccid slices of
purple donner, only to come out in semi-support a few days later. Many people have liked the clip on Facebook, some have declared him a political genius, and I've even found myself agreeing with him, as his latest crusade to be a
pantomime Jesus coincided with my own falling out with my party.
It will come as little surprise that I am, and always have,
been a Labour voter. They're noticeably a
little more centre than myself, but even in a two horse race you need to bet on
something if you want to get anything out of it. However, the appointment of
Tristam Hunt to Shadow Education, and Rachel Reeves to Work and Pensions was a
Bridge over the River Kwai too Far, or somesuch. One Step Beyond. The straw that ...you get
the picture. I don't like them.
Hunt is a TV historian whose education credentials are the
same as everyone else's - he once went to school. His first pronouncement was to offer support
for Free Schools while insisting he didn't support Free Schools.
Reeves' moment of glory was facing up to Ian Duncan Smith,
flexing her right-of-centre muscles, while laughing at his attempts to dismantle
the Social Security system, and promising that when she got into power she'd
fuck up anyone who even thought the words ' Jobseeker's Allowance' . If he thought he was hard, she'd come over
there, shove his namby-pamby policies up his lily-white arse, and then go and
personally kill anyone with a hint of disability. With her bare hands, while
whistling the Dead Kennedy's ' Kill the Poor'.
At least, that's how I remember it.
I resigned my membership shortly after this, and decided I
couldn't vote for a party which had these two fucksticks on their front bench. If
it was my party, I'd take them to a forest, break their ankles and leave them
for bears.
This resolve has lasted about three weeks. Disgusted as I am
with these two wanktards, the opposite is unbearable. In the last week alone Cameron has let his
fat mates know that austerity is here to stay.
Dressed in white tie, at a five-course meal with the Lord Mayor of
London, sat atop a throne of gold
carried on the back of a tortoise made of fifty-pound notes*, he set out his
plans to keep the rest of the country on the bones of its arse.
At the same time, Gove has written to the teaching unions,
stating that he is prepared to enter talks. Talks about how his plans are going
to go ahead without any negotiation, and that the talks must include not only
the two unions which represent 95% of teachers, but some other pissy little
associations for teachers who are too well-paid, or too right wing, to be part
of a union, but daren't leave themselves vulnerable to being fucked over in one
of the myriad ways a teacher can be fucked over.
There are six of
these cop-out groups, representing under 5% of teaching staff. They can have their
own meeting with Gove. They don't strike, they don't stand for anything . They
just enjoy the benefits the other two unions have won for them over the last
century. Parasites.
Meanwhile, Ian Duncan Smith continues his crusades to eradicate
poverty by eradicating the poor. Fringe Tories propose killing disabled children
to save money**. Nick Clegg continues to
live.
So, even though the two options are similar, they're not the
same. In the middle, it may be a bit Animal Farm - you look at one, you look at
the other, and you can't tell the difference. But move away from the centre fence,
and the differences show.
So I'm voting. Because the people who are likely to have
enough of a conscience to abstain on principle are also the people who would be
more likely to vote Labour. The natural principles of a Tory don't stretch that
far. And the thought of another four years of this gaggle of amateur-night
ideologues is too much to consider.
We're never going to revolt, it's not in our
cultural DNA. We'll grumble, abstain,
maybe even actually go to the polls to write 'none of these dickheads'. But we
won't be out in the streets, shaking pitchforks, stringing the Bullingdon Boys
up from a Downing Street lamppost. So
until the day comes that the people of Britain have their own Odessa Steps
moments, I'm going to use the only weapon I can use legally.
I'm voting Labour.
Hopefully Reeves and Hunt will
choked on their stupidity by then . If you haven't got hope, you haven't got
anything.
* I made that bit up. But for a second, you believed it,
didn't you. Because you can see him
doing it, can't you.
** I didn't make that up, shockingly.
