YOUNG TORIES

I was talking to someone from Conservative Futures in the Bournemouth area the other day. I was straight up about how dissapointed I was that the Tories weren't dying out and that young people today might be attracted to what we always saw as the party of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. I was keen to ask why and the answers were very interesting.

She said she had met the Bournemouth MP who has been recently embroiled in this expenses scandal and she thought he was a really nice guy. She totally accepted that it was obvious he wasn't and she wouldn't be voting Conservative in her area anymore because of the revelations she had heard on the news. Her vote the other day went to UKIP.

She said that although some Conservatives were stuffy, there were a whole load of new people in the party who were really genuine people and interestingly most of them hated David Cameron and thought he was a slick smarmy git but there wasn't a lot they could do or many alternatives open to them- a problem I should imagine most grass roots Labour people had watching Blair on his way up.

She said that what had attracted her to the party at the time was Boris Johnson.

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BORIS MATERIALIZES AT SCENE OF ACCIDENT

Caught on camera! I heard some MPs were shape shifters but I have never heard of an MP materializing out of thin air. This is amazing.

THE STATE OF LONDON

Well that was quite funny. All sorts of people turned up, some with good reason and some without. There was something odd which connected them, and it was oddness. So I didn't stay long. Having someone with a mohican and bones through his ears call a group of normal looking londoners "Odd looking" is ridiculous anyway.

I thought Boris was really entertaining. Everyone laughed. There were a few hecklers but he is obviously popular. I'm not really keen on public schoolboy "wordplay humour". I like Stephen Fry but I can't be arsed with his programme so I was surprised how much I enjoyed Boris' humour.

I thought he was "Doing a Boris" talking about mobile swimming pools, but it turns out he was serious. There was nothing we didn't already know, or anything wildly different to what any other mayor of London would do really, but it was nice to see how much he enjoys his job and how popular he was. It must be a trip cycling through a town you are the Mayor of. Boris said people often shout "You Tory tosser" at him when he stops at traffic lights, so if you see him you know what to shout now.

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ECOBUILD 2009

Went to the first day of Ecobuild in Earls Court. It is definitely worth going, tickets are free. Register online and pick up your ticket on the door.

I arrived about 10 to find a lot of people waiting for the place to open. Once inside I made straight past all the stands for the main “Arena” which turned out to be space for about 600? (I am crap with numbers) with the constant murmur of the surrounding exhibition in the background. This was quite nice actually. It felt like the “Theory connected to the practice” if you get my drift.

There was some pre-Boris debate with the Danish author of The Skeptical Environmentalist Bjorn Lomborg talking about painting all the tarmac in London white. He also spoke about claims that the sea would rise in the Maldives causing a “132% reduction in GDP.” I don't get this. GDP is Gross Domestic product no? Surely if 100% of GDP goes, then your country isn't producing anything. Where is the other32%? I didn't dare ask. I'm sure he would have some long winded answer.

I had jumped out of bed on autopilot and steered myself coffee-less to catch Boris and he was very entertaining. I stuck my hand up to ask a question from my scribbled notes but I don't think the chairman saw me. I wanted to ask him what he thought about squat parties and if he had ever been to one.

Boris was quite positive actually I thought. What can the Mayor of London seriously do? He was big into “Retrofitting” and wanted dugareed people of all ages to be involved in this.

Video of Boris at Ecobuild 2009

I hung around for Roy Hattersley who I actually got to question. He used to be my local MP in Sparkhill Birmingham in the early nineties. He was refreshingly Old Labour, a very strange guy to watch in real life after seeing him on TV and on Spitting Image in particular. He spoke a lot of sense. He said not-for profit landlords- co operatives, housing associations etc is a really good idea for social housing.





I was a bit daunted to start the crawl around the exhibition, but felt that after hearing the talkers I should have a look at the do-ers. It was all a bit bewildering to me. I was trying to look at all these strange devices, shapes, walls covered in ivy and sloping roofs covered in plants with an eye for how they might fit into my life. My head was swimming with shapes.

I don't get this suited people selling ivy and trays of succulents to other suited people. Surely if I want to grow ivy I can plant the bloody stuff, same as planting a grass roof.



Talking about Coporate bolloxdom my personal low point had to be this.

Who told Ferolli they needed a lit "Think outside the box"?

There was some dreamy college led stuff about Hurricaine proof "Woven Concrete" and some really nice experimental building.

There was a stall advertising some beautiful natural pools, probably the sexiest thing in the exhibition. The most real thing to me was the Amazonails stand, these chicks just make beautiful houses out of straw.

I didn't know what I would make of Alistair Campbell, why he would be invited to, or what he would be speaking about at this sort of event.

When he took to the stand at 4 in the afternoon he spoke about what he knew best- campaigning and I am surprised to say I was impressed. He started on Obama's successful sloganeering, and pointed us to the fact that Al Gore was more influential out of office than he was in.

He was raving about a coming film, The Age of Stupid . He hadn't seen it, but was excited to have been invited to see it by the producer via Twitter. He thought that this would be a film that would have a huge influenece over everyone that saw it. He then went on to tell how he had interviewed Clinton during a series of TV interviews of famous people he undertook when he became an "Unemployed AntiChrist".

This turned into another anecdote about campaigning.

Know your objective,
Be clear about your strategy.
Work out your tactics.

He was applying all this to the object of "Greening the world". He defended Tony's record on all this which was quite sweet. He mentioned the film Milk (about gay rights politician Harvey Milk) again in relation to campaigning. He seemed to be preaching people power, consumer power. He said that in his time if you captured a front page in a couple of newspapers and the lead on the BBC news, you dictated the agenda. He didn't believe this was the case anymore, and thought that this was largely due to new media and he told all the politicians who still spoke to him about this at every opportunity.

There was a merger between political and consumer culture, people expected and drove standards through participatory media. We can all be campaigners and no one dominates the agenda as people consume media in different ways. They want to think for themselves. Information is infinity.

He said the fuel crisis was the worst thing to happen whilst he was in power. He was impressed that it was led by people power, a campaign by a relatively small number of people totally dominated the agenda in an era of 24 hour media. Groups could co ordinate as they watched themselves on TV.

During the questions the host (environmental journalist Roger Harrabin from the BBC) said that if Campbell was against people dominating the agenda he must have had a change of heart as this was exaclty what he used to do. Campbell didn't agree. I think he was thinking outside the box a bit there, but overall he was very good. Very inspiring to people who want to orchestrate change.

Video of Alistair Campbell at Ecobuild 2009

Where I live we are struggling with all this technology. We have wood chip burners, Solar Hot water, Cavity wall insulation, recycled glass worktops, all that. Some of it we are happy with, some not so happy but with nine people per house and occupants moving in and out all the time we are a really tough use environment. We have yet to reach our C60 targets. All of this is technology which consumer demand will push. Just get stuff which works.

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London Tube Party

Boris Johnson blamed for Tube party violence
Facebook Tube party that ended in drunken riot...
London Tube Party Closes Six Stations, Sparks Arrests

I got there a bit late and they had already closed Liverpool st tube. This was the scene outside and inside Liverpool st station. Everything I saw was good natured if very very raucous. There were people of all ages there.

AHHHHH MOP!!!!

I've been reading Rachel and Chicken Yoghurt's reactions to the election of Boris as Mayor. I'm very unfussed. If I thought it would make any difference who was Mayor of London I suppose I would have voted. As I was half heartedly running a campaign for Gay Leik on this blog, maybe I should have registered. Obviously I'd love to see London grind to a halt with Boris on the steps of city hall bumbling. It may yet happen. I can't see why no one voted for Gay Leik as he was obviously the best person to run London, but- you know, fuck 'em.

I just get the impression people are a bit bland at the moment around here. Wake me up when something is happening, particularly if anyone wants to do anything about stopping terrorism. Meanwhile check out Snoop Dogg's new single- this is fucking gold dust.

In Rishikesh where I first met Mr Camel I was hanging out with two Australian chicks who were complaining about getting over sensualised massages from Old Indian guys who were conning them they were enlightened. The conversation widened into song lyrics which we thought sounded enlightened. One of the girls mentioned Whitney's

I believe that children are our future
Teach them well and let them lead the way...

I thought everything with a vocoder in it was enlightened

ITS A FUCKING LIBERTY THATS WOT IT IS

I was a bit slow to pick up on Chris Atkin's Taking Liberties but I finally got to see it this afternoon and really enjoyed it. You should see it just for the included footage of Walter Wolfgang's removal from the Labour party conference and the subsequent attempts to suppress filming of his friend getting hit by New Labour bouncers as well as the hilarious coverage of the EDO protest complete with a protester “serving” an angry Policeman who jumps out of his van and chases after him. The Ricin story is also collated very well here including its place in time as a device for Blair and Bush to crow about in Washington which proved to be empty. It was great also to see an extensive big up to Rizz MC's post 9/11 blues which should be a big hit. Rachel North (pictured) is also a fairly central character to the spirit of this film and it was great to see Rose Rickford, a fairly central character in my first attempt at film making (Day-X) still experimenting with direct action. She is one to watch.

I've caught up a bit with some of the reviews which are worth looking at. The only critical one seems to be this:

No, Labour has not turned Britain into a police state

I can see both sides in this and as usual take neither.

Chris looked at some footage I had of kids protesting a while back and we discussed his theories. I'm not sure if I also put him on to Barry, the grand designer of the FIT squad (looking a lot younger in the picture) who graciously admitted in the film that if his guys were acting like the paparazzi they were exceeding their remit. I remember the day very clearly because whilst we were in the pub waiting for his equipment to capture my tape Chris informed me about arrests he had heard about on the news in Borough which turned out to be Abdullah and co.

I don't think I was much help because at the time I didn't really agree with his premise, or rather my own experience didn't match it. As I have said before, the Police, by and large behaved extremely sensitively outside Finsbury park mosque over two years. I've got lots of filmed evidence of this. I have been extensively involved with people who are up on charges of incitement to commit murder and I've never been hassled by the Police about it once.

Sure, away from Finsbury park the FIT squad have spoken to me in a manner which made me irate, but, you know, its the fucking FIT squad. They can't help it. I answered their questions honestly and they didn't detain me. I am only briefly offended by being photographed by them and usually try and smile. Maybe I should be a bit angrier, I don't know. The FIT team all recognise me as I am a bit distinctive. I recognise them. I just don't give a flying fuck.

Seeing how the Police have behaved towards protesters elsewhere I can see a lot more why Chris holds the views he does. They have overstepped the mark, and assumed they were allowed to because of new laws. The FIT squad are an institutionalised bunch. This doesn't surprise me. They use a few laws which they think make their job a bit easier, a lot of people who have been victims of this have pursued them in the courts and won. Not easily, but eventually. That doesn't mean to me that the Blair government secretly want to control us. I think it is likely that they are obsessed with terrorism.

Maybe I should be worried about a Police state. I wonder sometimes whether “The powers that be” are aware of whats coming and are passing laws to be ready for some kind of "Children of men" nightmare scenario. The thing is I am the type of person who if I let such thoughts take hold would very quickly be driven mad by them. So perhaps for my own mental health I remain skeptical about a “Police state”.

Here Chris argues about phone tap evidence. As far as I know the laws about phone tap evidence are under scrutiny because of one guy- Abu Hamza. Same as the law about demonstrating outside parliament was brought in because of Brian Haw. Chris is right that people in government are remote and law obsessed and the wrong people are being caught up in these laws by over zealous Policemen, but I don't really believe it is their intention. I should imagine that going over to the States and being wanked off by Capitalists in Washington was just all too much for Blair and he can see a future as some sort of hero over there. Unfortunately in Britain today "Labour" have to behave like Thatchers teet suckers to stay in power, and thats a shame.

My guilty secret is that even before seeing Boris Johnson's performance in this movie I was dangerously close to wishing he was Prime Minister. Everyone must know that if he was leader of the Tory party no one else would stand a chance. Imagine that propelled onto the “World Stage”.