A "Who's Who" of Party Animals and general bewilderment: what the chuff was all that about then?


Well, it’s over. And to be honest I’m at a bit of a loss. Firstly, what was it actually about? Aside from the fact that it was set in Westminster (and the sets were really good) there was only a nodding acquaintance with, well, politics.

Secondly, anybody who has worked in Parliament will know that it’s an absolute rumour mill, with stories flying like sheep shit. And yet, the writers couldn’t find any. They presented us with a series of lazy stereotypes and boring personal relationships and told us nothing new, nothing that we don’t hear on the comments pages of the BBC or Guardian.

Thirdly, it just isn’t like that. But that’s for the full “Were You Still Up For The Norks” minute by minute account tomorrow. Stand by your beds!

Poor as The Amazing Mrs Pritchard was, and it WAS poor, it at least attempted to engage with political issues. This simply used the concept of politics as a vehicle to give us “Hollyoaks in Westminster” which was a distinctly unedifying experience.

At the risk of sounding like a geek, there are some parallels with Star Trek: after a while, space and the mysteries of the universe just weren’t interesting enough. So they invented the Holodeck, where the really important issues (ie personal relationships) could be played out in a variety of different locations. The infinite possibilities of space, at the end of the day, became less important, less of a focus, than whether the one with the beard was going to sleep with the counsellor in 1930s gangster Chicago.

A missed opportunity. And I feel a bit disappointed as well. After all the build-up, it just wasn't worth the bother really.

Anyway, here’s the character break-down for future use.

Fat Tony
Patrick Northcote MP (James Baladi)
He’s a smooth operator, on the way up. And he’s sleeping with his foxy bag-carrier. All over London the sounds of “eeeeewwww!” could be heard, as bag-carriers everywhere imagined themselves in such a horrendous position (arf!) with their own boss. Will probably grow a moustache he can twirl evilly by episode 2.





Posh Spice
Ashika Chandiramani (Shelley Conn)
Fit: Check. Stilted explanations as to why she’s a Tory: Check. An attempt at a shocking example of how Labour’s traditional supporters are melting away to the Tories, but is given little script-wise to work with and emerges looking like a sphinx without a secret.



Julian
Matt Baker (Pip Carter)
Tries to chat up Skeletor, after peeking at his gentlemen bits in the loos of the boozer. But then he spots the Top Secret Document [gasp!] nestled around the urinal cakes. John Kampfner clearly likes his Chardonnay crisp, his penne hot, and his homosexuals stereotypical.


Cruella
Jo Porter MP (Raquel Cassidy)
A crap Minister who throws a flounce when Fat Tony responds to her statement on ASBOs by saying “bit shit, innit?” Spends the rest of her time persecuting her bag carrier because he left a piece of paper in the St Stephen’s tavern pisser which had “we luv ASBOs” written on it in crayon.






Skeletor
Danny Foster (Matt Smith)
A cross between a failed Storm model and a gazelle who hasn’t quite got control of his legs yet. He wears glasses which, in Beeb terms, is an indication that he is both an Interleckshual and has a High Moral Purpose.









Jojo
Kirsty MacKenzie (Andrea Riseborough)
Fit and a bit thick. Erm, that’s it.












Austin Powers
Scott Foster (Andrew Buchan)
A sharp suit, a pocket of coke, an expense account and a way with the ladies? Not like any political consultant I’ve ever met; I bet Austin wouldn’t spend fifteen minutes outlining in passionate detail the importance of National Neuter Day. This boy has MOJO BABY!




Barbie Cholmondley-Warner
Sophie Montgomerie (Clemency Burton-Hill)
I am not quite sure what Barbie lends to the plot (apart from her norks in all their generous abundance) but every time she tries to act, you can hear the gears grinding.

Jesus Wept

For the first time in my life, words fail me.

http://www.villagevermin.co.uk/

UPDATE: Has it been pulled? The link doesn't seem to be working any more

Okay, I lied

...when I said I woudn't mention this again until it aired; I'm a filthy politico NuLab backstabbing hack...etc, etc, what can you expect? But I am SO EXCITED about the Party Animals (tonight, BBC 2, 9pm) debut that I really can't restrain myself. Afterall, this blog was established when news of this series finally reached the ears of Hamer back in the autumn, with the aim of laying to rest some of the myths that surround the noble profession of bag-carrying.

Buried at the back of the Guardian on Monday was an interview with Raquel Cassidy who is to play the Labour Minister and the scope of the research that was undertaken in order to accurately portray our murky world. This seemed to consist of:

(a) watching extracts from the TUC Conference (errrr...?)
(b) watching the Parliament channel (because the House was in recess).

Apparently the senior research consultant on the show was John Kampfner of the Noo Statesman (spiritual home of Robert Fisk and John Pilger), and Martin Bright (of the same abode) was one of the writers. From this we can deduce:

(a) the show will contain the sparkling wit of those sketches that have recently appeared in the Noo Statesman depicting life at No10. Hi-LARIOUS!
(b) I am perfectly placed to write a BBC drama on the behind-the-scenes life of the Statesman staff on the basis that I once saw Martin Bright outside the Strangers' Bar bogs and I read it when Westminster WHSmiths has run out of the Economist.

It's already received some moderate slapping from the Mirror (can't seem to get the review on line but apparently it "doesn't really hold the attention") and the Observer (again, can't seem to find the bugger online but Gary Hinscliff says that it "lacks humour"). Nonetheless, it should be entertaining.

I excitedly told my boss all about it this morning and she laughed unflatteringly hard at the premise. I left our office in high dudgeon for the coffee run with the words, "you and your mates couldn't pull a muscle let alone anything else!" ringing in my ears.

UPDATE: Ouch!

The Strange Death of Democratic England
Neal Lawson, "Make it an Issue" and the Power Inquiry

I was going to entitle this post "Neal Lawson - flatulent oaf", but given that this isn't news, I went for something slightly more salubrious. It was a difficult decision, however, as anybody who has read this post on the "Make it an Issue" site will testify.

It's worth beginning, perhaps, by recapping what "Make it an Issue", the discussion forum for the Power Inquiry, sets out to achieve. Helpfully the site does just that by describing its primary purpose as one that "will elevate the voice of our supporters" over all other competing discourses in order to accomplish their end which is, apparently, to elevate the voice of their supporters. Oh, and PR and some other constitutional reform thingies. That'll help with the ol' elevating.

With this lofty aim in mind, Lawson advances his argument with gusto, using that famed literary technique of flogging an analogy to death; turkeys voting for Christmas is the metaphor of choice, and I will spare readers who aren't prepared to take a hot shower at work (thus precluding them from reading the article in its full horror) the hideous details as much as I can.

"So, it's bleedin' obvious innit!" roars Lawson, gamely jumping into the fray, "we need electoral reform and a written constitution." Give that man a PhD, Watson, he's cracked it! Blimey, how easy the solution is: wholesale constitutional reform, a "leap in the dark", a re-working of our centuries old system to encompass new voting systems, a new representative model (although it isn't clear that either Lawson or Power are in favour of representative democracy), and a complete overhaul of our democratic settlement. It should make politicians of all hues ashamed at their laziness and lack of insight. There's the Government, pissing around with House of Lords reform - why! Neal solved that this morning during his coffee break. Book the boy Lawson in for ten minutes tomorrow and he will have sorted us politicos out and jotted down the first draft of the British Constitution before the Lord Chancellor's secretary returns with the tea order.

But, hints Lawson darkly, lest we are in any doubt as to why we are not already singing "Heal the World" in the Elysian Fields of his constitutional utopia, there's a reason why this bleedin' obvious idea isn't already a reality. Can you guess it? Can you? That's right: politicians. Those lazy, good for nothing backsliders are at it again.

I promised that I would try to keep Lawson's literary conceits to a minimum, but I think this paragraph requires repeating in its entirety simply to lay to rest the recent contention that educational standards are worse today than they were when Neal was in short trousers:

"It might be what we want - but it's not what we are getting. Why? Because turkeys, of course, never vote for Christmas. It's not an edifying life - being a turkey or a politician. But there is a difference - turkeys aren't given a vote about Christmas - or at least I've never seen them vote. They are just carted off to the butchers to have their throat pulled or what ever it is you do to kill a turkey."

Makes the spirit soar, doesn't it? Anyway, onwards! Politicians, Lawson informs us, are motivated not by a desire to pursue their version of the common good, but because "they know best" and want to "lord it over everyone". Common good? Don't make him laugh, it's "elitism, centralism, and control freakery" that's their game, and don't you forget it. "Changing the democratic system and letting the people in goes to the heart of what it means to be a politician, a leader, and a change maker." Good to know.

Far be it from me to question the intellectual colossus behind the Compass project, but I am not sure that this is quite right; a necessary evil of representative politics is that you can’t always get what you want. Not good enough! trumpets Neal. All problems will be solved, all walls will fall and all voices will shout for joy. All we need, according to his analysis, is a 21st century version of Benthamism; that is not the greatest happiness of the greatest number (which is flawed anyway, but that's for another day) but the greatest happiness of the most vocal number. This, in essence, is what Power is all about.

He claims that four million - funny, I thought it was closer to 2 million at a charitable guess - people marched against war in Iraq, but it "didn't stop the invasion", evidence that democracy isn't working. Except...sixty odd million didn't march and Labour got re-elected in 2005 so where does the argument stand on that basis? Could it mean (whisper it) that even though all roads seem to point to Iraq from Lawson's pad at London Bridge, it is not the principal topic of conversation in supermarkets up and down the land? Silly me, what he means is that if it's not what Neal and his mates see as the desirable outcome, the system cannot be working because he isn't getting what he wants.

Lawson's big solution is that - uh - people pressure their MPs to press for a new constitutional settlement. If hapless Joe McBackbenchshire refuses on the grounds that he has a plethora of casework on such boring and irrelevant stuff as mesothelioma, poverty, inadequate home adaptations for the elderly and disabled and yes, possibly he's busy trying to hold the executive to account over the Iraq fiasco, then it is our duty to Vote Him Out. "If enough people bothered," Neal tells us, "a difference could be made." Therein lies the fatal flaw of his plan, one cannot help but feel (see previous paragraph).

Nevertheless, there is a counter plan. "Power has to be taken through struggle, through organisation, commitment and resolve. From the Chartists to the Suffragettes - people have had to fight for the extension of democracy." Hmmmm. John Bright, Emmeline Pankhurst, and Neal Lawson? Jesus wept.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: when the adherents of Power talk about the extension of democracy, they do not mean for the genuinely dispossessed but for themselves. The ones who cannot understand why the Government aren't doing the "bleedin' obvious", because if it's their idea then it is automatically right, obvious, and easy to execute. The Independent reading, carbon footprint obsessed members of the already engaged, connected, and powerful elite. The ones with all the answers, the ones with the means of controlling the democratic process to a disproportionate extent already at their fingertips. The ones who don't care about any of the stuff that that doesn't have any resonance for them, their way of life, or their lofty world-view.

He concludes by citing an old saying in order to galvanise his readership: "we are the people we have been waiting for."

Or perhaps more accurately: "I am Neal Lawson: I am the resurrection and I am the Light."

What about MY freedom of conscience Mr Blair?

Listening to Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor on the radio (again) this morning, one would be forgiven for thinking that:

(a) there is a hitherto unexpressed burning desire amongst our homosexual comrades to adopt children from Catholic agencies;
(b) the "gay lobby" comprises of more than Peter Tatchell's occasional article in Comment is Free and the Stonewall disco at Labour Party Conference;
(c) the best way to circumvent pesky laws that you don't agree with is to claim that your conscience won't allow you to accept them.

For this reason, I have emptied the cat's litter tray on the windscreen of the bugger who's parked in my spot outside my house as a statement of my genuinely held belief that it's my space, get yer bloody own.

This is the Gospel according to St Jeremy Clarkson. Amen.

Party Animals: Totty Watch

Okay, so this is the last (I promise) post on this series before it airs this Wednesday and I have to say that I was most disappointed by the talent. Although, having witnessed the advert in which Barbie Cholmondley-Warner and Austin Powers (pictured: can't remember their actual names but they are the journalist and the lobbyist) are meant to be having hot sex, I think I can honestly say that neither of them would have any difficulty in getting jobs as extras in Hollyoaks. Check out the character profiles here.

Frankly, in terms of shock value, nothing is going to top Mattie Storin in House of Cards telling Urquhart that she was going to "call him daddy" or for sheer gratuitousness the phone sex in The Politicans Wife so why - especially as everyone in Beeb dramas seem to do it fully clothed - why bother? I suppose it takes some of the pressure off the writers to develop credible storylines and guarantees the ladies a couple of shoots in FHM before the panto season starts, but still.

Let's put it this way: the initial signs augur ill for this series. Not least because we all know that the truth is stranger, more exciting, more hilarious, and more dangerous in some ways than fiction. But our version probably wouldn't have involved Barbie taking one in the broom cupboard, so would be unacceptable as a concept, doubtless.

As ever - thank you P. for the links. I think. You're making me obsessed with this drivel.

The Judges are revolting

What follows is an interesting story about tortured Judge John Rogers who, after much internal agonising, decided to release a man who had downloaded images of abused children, because of the Home Secretary's recent guidance on sentencing. This comes as another Judge gets excited about the possibility of a full-page with photograph - uh - I mean interprets Mr Reid's guidance as he understands it.

Now, given that Mr Reid is not known for directing bon homie in the direction of paedophiles and violent criminals, I suggested yesterday that perhaps Justice Rogers was thinking more about which was his best side for the inevitable full-page photograph in the Independent under the headline: JUDGE TELLS OF HIS AGONY AT HOME OFFICE GUIDANCE, rather than what Mr Reid was actually getting at.


So it was with great interest that I saw Tom Watson MP's blog this morning which carried a picture of his brother Peter, a former Conservative assembly member for Wales.

Now, you might think that Justice Rogers, like other members of the judiciary, enjoys the privilege of a job for life without having to answer to anyone except the Lord Chancellor who is hardly going to wade in to give him a bollocking in this case, politically sensitive as it is. You might think that this Judge was thinking more about hitting the headlines and the publicity from the inevtiable interviews by the Sundays than he was about doing his job and protecting the public from serious offenders. You might think that he feels secure in his position because of the ludicriously high esteem the legal profession is held in by the likes of St Shami Chakrabarti's crowd and Guardian readers everywhere, even though their pronouncements on cases of sexual violence are often misjudged at best and downright misogynistic at worst. You might think that the sudden horror that the judiciary are displaying as they release sexual criminals is pretty hypocritical, given that they usually demonstrate such glee in doing so when they think that nobody's looking which is why the conviction rates for rape are a piss-poor 4%. You might think that the fact that Justice Rogers' brother's political opinions are so strong that he stood for elected office (putting him in the 1% of the population who does so) gives some indication as to which political party the good Judge thinks should be in power. You might think all of these things.

I couldn't possibly comment.

ATTENTION FELLOW BAG-CARRIERS!

Apparently we have sex with each other in broom cupboards!

At least, according the trailer I have just seen for a certain BBC drama set to be aired on 31st January we do.

At least, you lot might be; clearly I've been going to the wrong parties.

This is the Gospel according to Party Animals. It's a very, very sexy world.

BBC news insanity

It is a custom, chez Shawcross, that Thursday nights are spent thus: Hamer drinks a lot of wine, gets drunk, spends an hour shouting at Question Time and manages five minutes of This Week (doing rather fine Diane Abbott impersonations) before Mrs Shawcross' patience finally breaks and he is bundled unceremoniously off to bed. There he remains until the 7am alarm ejects him, complaining and hungover, into the wintery bleakness of a Friday morning.

As I say, this is usually what happens.

Unfortunately, Mrs Shawcross was not around tonight and your favourite (ahem) blogger might have hit the wine a little earlier and a little heavier than usual.

This is why I had to phone Comrade A. for confirmation that the following item actually appeared on the Beeb's 10 O' Clock News.

John Reid MP has, apparently, written to judges advising them that the prisons are packed and they should only gaol persistent and dangerous offenders. At the risk of raising the ire of my more right-wing comrades, let's - for the sake of argument - assume that Mr Reid didn't mean that sex offenders should be allowed back out onto the streets immediately upon their guilt being confirmed and yet, one judge has apparently done what comes naturally to the legal profession and let such a criminal back out to re-offend.

Luckily for Judge John Rogers he didn't even need to give the jury a rendition of Judicial Greatest Hits (including such greats as She Was Clearly Asking For It, Grabbing A Kebab At 10pm Means She's Fair Game, and that old classic Well, She Wasn't Exactly An Angel Was She Gents?). No. In this case, His Honour decided to blame the Home Secretary; something of a novelty and an approach that women everywhere will doubtless be looking forward to enduring should she be one of the one in four who suffers from sexual abuse.

Sorry, it's the wine. I digress.

Anyway, Judge John Rodgers let certifiably guilty downloader of kiddy porn Derek Williams go home - under supervision, natch - and said that he was doing so because he was bearing in mind the advice given to him by the Home Secretary.

Cut to Williams' lounge, where he is sitting next to a very uncomfotable looking woman who turns out to be his wife.

Beeb: Derek Williams didn't expect to be home tonight. He expected to be in the cells.

Cut back to Mr and Mrs Williams. The latter looks like she'd prefer to be eyeballing Satan than where she is at that moment.

Williams: Well, I don't blame the judge. I blame the Home Secretary - it was him who changed the rules.

Erm...did I miss something? It's JOHN REID'S fault that you are a reprehensible boil on the arse of humanity? You get your rocks off to images of children being abused and JOHN REID is at fault? Regardless of what Mr Reid's advice was to the Courts - and I contend that it didn't include the words "and borderline kiddy-fiddlers, you know? Let 'em out as well" - Williams is the criminal here and he's blaming JOHN REID for, as he sees it, letting him go? Presumably if he offends again it will be Mr Reid's fault, as it's the state's job to stop him offending because the notion of personal responsibility is like, soooooo 20th century as any fule no. Not my fault, it's the politicians fault, the lazy drones - they're all the same y'know, et cetera ad infinitum.

Far be it from me to suggest that a member of St Shami Chakrabarti's favourite profession was more concerned with hitting the headlines (and giving one of those non-Oxbridge educated Labour bozos a bloody nose) than doing his job. Okay, so I am suggesting it. Jesus wept.

There is so much, so much wrong with this story and the way it was presented that for once I am at a loss for words. Oh, Lord preserve us, Question Time has started.

Roll on Friday morning; I'm even looking forward to the hangover.

Irregular verb of the day

This is for all of you who were listening to the Today programme this morning, and heard the debate on the thorny issue of the Catholic church wanting to opt-out on anti-discrimination laws in relation to gay adoption (won't somebody PLEASE think of the children?).

I am a man of conscience.

YOU are a man with beliefs that are incompatible with British values.

HE is a religious extremist.

Cameron stands up for the oppressed!

Well, it seems like the Boy Cameron has finally capitulated to his critics and binned the A List, thus handing the future of the Conservative Parliamentary Party over to the likes of Jacob Rees-Mogg and assorted members of the county set.

As their birth intended.

The A List as a concept was a bit shite anyway. It stopped short of actually introducing measures that would in the short term disadvantage white, middle aged, middle class men but would, in the long term change the composition of the Tory Party and encourage egalitarianism in the selection process. The A List simply plonked only the blondest and most bosomy of all political opportunists, erm, I mean intelligent young ladies who have made a real contribution into safe seats.

Still, it’s hardly surprising and I am torn between irritation that minorities continue to be a non-issue for the Tories and smugness at the predictability of it. At least it means that we aren't going to be subject to the musings of too many Bagshawe-alikes come 2010, by which time their Parliamentary party is going resemble cross between a bunch of ninety-eight year old blue rinsers and the failed contestants of Celebrity Big Brother 392847234.

Nadine Dorries MP said that she “[had] never seen the reason for the A list: all candidates should be top-drawer candidates.” See, you’re writing the jokes yourself now, aren’t you?

But, nonetheless, another victory for that much under represented group: the white man, even though they still bear some of the chains of their oppression. Dave has insisted that, whilst all selections will be open, local branches will have to ensure that half the candidates in for each seat are women, resulting in a final face off between two women and two men. As one contributor to ConservativeHome raged, “this is now the final nail in the coffin for anyone thinking this version of the Conservative Party is about meritocracy, equality of opportunity and not about political correctness and feminist gender politics.”

Indeed. Someone page Nelson Mandela.

On Beauty, and the advantages of the publication it's contained within

I am taking the opportunity of Mrs Shawcross' absence to peruse the article in the Saturday Times that I have been - uh - saving on Lily Cole.

Of course, if this were in the Sun it would be reprehensible of me to be reading the musings of "Lily, 19, from Hammersmith", but given that this is in the Times and Ms Cole is a Cambridge undergraduate, it's like reading Suetonius, innit?

Something Rotten in the State of Democracy
“Make it an issue” and the Power Inquiry

The Power Inquiry was set up under the chairmanship of Helena Kennedy in 2004 and its report, entitled Power to the People, was published in February 2006 amidst the predictable apocalyptic coverage in the media about the report’s conclusion that British democracy is facing “meltdown” because people “don’t feel they have a say over how they live their lives”.

Plenty of academic articles have been written about the Inquiry, pointing out it was highly selective in the evidence it chose to receive, and relied quite a lot on how people “felt” about the political system rather than on any kind of empirical evidence (except, of course, when it fitted the agenda of the panel). I am not an academic, being the possessor of a mere BA, but you don’t need a PhD to be able to see what is wrong with “Make It An Issue”, the website launched yesterday to assist in making the recommendations of Power a reality.

My first response to seeing this site was, “Jesus wept, is that real?” on the grounds that it reads like The Middle Classes Say The Funniest Things.

By way of introduction we are asked: “do you feel that nobody in politics listens?” and then assured – the website assumes of course that we take their question as a rhetorical one –that we are “not alone”.

Nothing, and I mean nothing, raises the blood pressure of bag-carriers of all political hues than the downright lazy assertion that “nobody listens”. My boss spends most of his weekend and all of his Fridays in surgeries, local residents meetings, and even makes house visits to those for whom it is inconvenient to come to the office. His contact details are up in every school, library and public building in the constituency and he has a website. And he’s not alone, MPs are just about stopping short of tapping random constituents on the shoulder and saying “can I personally mend your drains for you?” but only just. "Nobody listens"? What are you doing, whispering your requests into the ground?

MPs have never, ever been more accessible than they are today, never more desperate to raise the concerns of their constituents with Ministers. Departments are grinding to a halt because of the sheer volume of letters from MPs enclosing the musings of their constituents, all requiring an answer.

So what can Power mean by asserting “nobody listens”? Ah, that’s it. You mean “you aren’t doing what I want PERSONALLY.” Which is a little different, and somewhat problematic in a representative democracy when a spectrum of views needs to be taken into account and incorporated within policy. Back to the website, which declares that we need “clear democratic rules designed to make democracy work for us – the people – and not politicians.”

Damn those evil backsliders who aspire to political greatness in order that they can smirk at the plight of the working classes who, as Mrs Pritchard reminds us, could run the country so much better if those nasty MPs didn’t have a stranglehold on power. I swear to God that if the modern day musings on the state of democracy were dug up in five hundred years hence, our descendants would come to the conclusion that the 21st century was a Dark Age for political thought and the pre-1832 era was a haven of enlightenment.

“Local power that means something”? What, you mean like Foundation Hospitals which were introduced – whatever you think of the more controversial measures – to allow people to have a say over the provision of their local medical services? How many people bother to get involved in the wielding of “local power” in order to “have a say over big decisions”? What’s “bugger all” to the nearest zero? Because there's a difference between feeling that you ought to be engaged and saying the right things, and actually doing something about it. That's why people lie about whether they voted in the last election: they're a bit ashamed about not having done so because they recognise it as a duty. Engagement: yes please! Actually doing some work: no thanks!

The fact of the matter is that this website, like the Power Inquiry before it, is a long whinge by the “people”, by which the Inquiry takes to mean “people like us”. The website, as a means to encourage engagement and discussion on political issues, suggests starting a book group. A book group? Who joins book groups? Oh yes, the self selecting middle class.

This is the group that Power caters for, people who get terribly worked up about the Iraq war, read the Independent newspaper, and favour proportional representation because it gives them “more of a say”. And that is what Power is all about, power to those who already have it but don’t think they have enough. My boss has run a number of initiatives in his constituency on issues which concern the local populace and importantly, those who would not usually get involved in such things: the elderly, the unemployed, the first generation immigrant. He’s listened, discussed, raised the concerns with Ministers and occasionally he’s affected change. It isn’t perfect by any means but he has sometimes been able to demonstrate how democracy can and should work in this country. But bugger that, eh? Mrs Cholmondley-Warner wants to know why HER views aren't being heard and acted on to the letter; further proof, Mrs Cholmondley-Warner tells Helena Kennedy, that Democracy Isn't Working. God bless consumerism.

Political discourse cannot allow the adherents of Power to skew the political debate on engagement to focus on - not the genuinely disenfranchised; those who do not have access to the means of communication that Power seems to take as read that everyone does, such as the internet - the enhancement of the disproportionately loud voice of the already engaged. For example, do you think it’s a coincidence that municipal tips are located in poor areas rather than near gated communities? No? Why do you think that is?

Representative democracy can be a bitch. It’s about incremental change and never getting exactly what you want. If politicians aren’t doing what you want PERSONALLY, it’s because – and try and imagine this – there are other people contained within this Sceptred Isle that might have a view too, who might be adversely affected by what you propose to make life better for yourself. It's not that you are "not being heard", it's just that sometimes Ministers are not in the position to do precisely what you want. These two things are different.

As the website concludes, “we are left with the same old problems”. Indeed. The definitive text on the state of democracy in the twenty-first century is a clichéd howl of rage by the affluent that they don’t have more influence than the vast amount they wield at the moment and want to tear the entire edifice down in order that this outrageous situation can be rectified. Because when the genuinely disenfranchised opt out all together, we can do what's best for the remainder. A nice little polis perhaps, with the rich taking it in turns to hold positions of power.

True democracy at last!

Is there anything worse than a Monday in January?

Possibly; the words "and now a few thoughts from Bono on the failings of Blair's international aid agenda" would certainly do little to improve the situation, but there is something particularly miserable about today.

Still, there's an Iraq debate on Wednesday to look forward to (Campaign Group Bingo Cards at the ready, comrades!), and it's worth listening to Friday's edition of Today in Parliament to hear John Spellar MP dispelling the notion that democracy is tumbling about our ears because the Gov't has only just agreed to an adjournment debate on the issue. As he points out, they all have plenty of opportunity to table motions for Opposition Day debates, and it ain't the Government's fault that the Tories choose subjects solely on the basis of the ease to which the phrase "great clunking fist" can be used as much as possible and the LibDems want to talk about tax-free kelp burgers or whatever.

It's interesting, though, the way in which the garbled grammar of political badinage makes it into contemporary discourse:

Great Clunking Fist trans: Regardless of the old rule that a joke that is unfunny the first time continues to be unfunny the second, third and all subsequent times it is repeated, I plan to use this phrase as much as possible, thus emphasising the Chancellor as a man of Iron as opposed to his opposite number who looks like he might burst into tears if the Strangers' Bar runs out of sweet sherry.
Sexed up trans: To exaggerate, but also makes me sound quite tough because I am talking about Doing It [snigger]. Also a Robbie Williams song of the same name.
Not Fit For Purpose trans: Don't look at me, I only just got here.
Briefing trans: Vote for me as Deputy Leader!
Blog/Facebook trans: Vote for Jon Cruddas as Deputy Leader!

Okay, so I made the last two up.

Finally, I was relieved to see in the New Statesman (hat tip Comrade P.) that the author of Party Animals cited encouraging young people to go into the world of bag-carrying as one of the major motivators for penning this epic and, "as you would expect from the production company that made This Life, Party Animals does its best to lift the lid on the sex-drugs-and-rock'n'roll-fuelled lives of Westminster's back-room staff". Ah, bless. So it's dealignment and disengagement and their consequent effect on the smooth running of Parliamentary democracy, rather than images of wanton sexual debauchery that are motivating him.

That's a relief.

Ruth Turner arrested in cash for honours probe
Political correspondent: Hamer Shawcross

A senior Blair aide was arrested earlier today on suspicion of perverting the course of justice, but released later without charge.

Ruth Turner is Director of Government relations at Downing Street, and an important link between Blair and the Labour Party.

Blogger Guido Fawkes who is, according to Iain Dale, the second cleverest Conservative on the internet, said that he was "relieved".

"Frankly, I've been banging on about this for the last six months to the exclusion of everything else, regularly promising that Blair was about to get his collar felt by plod, but when Blair was released without charge just before Christmas I looked like a right plonker," Mr Fawkes said.

"People were beginning to take the piss, and as my approach to comment moderation demonstrates, I can dish it out but I can't take it. Hopefully they'll bang her up good and proper now, and I can recover some of my tattered reputation as a reputable investigative blogger with reliable sources."

In other news: Satan was seen going to work in a snow plough.

Who do you contact when nobody else can help?

There has been a lot written about the racially motivated bullying of Bollywood star Shilpa Shetty in the Big Brother House, much comment made about how C4 should intervene in spite of their reluctance to do the right thing in the face of unacceptable behaviour when the ratings are sky-rocketing...er...I mean their reluctance to inhibit the freedom of speech.

And yet, don't they realise that the BB house contains one of the A Team, imprisoned there after his capture in the LA underground?

What we need is for Murdoch (in a reversal of the traditional bust-Murdoch-out-of-the-asylum motif) to rescue the Face-Man whilst Hannibal concocts a plan of devillish cunning to liberate Ms Shetty along with those inhabitants who don't think it is acceptable to bully and abuse someone on the basis of their skin colour and/or country of origin.

Hannibal: All we need, BA, is to book the flight to the Big Brother house. Murdoch should have busted Face out by now and then we'll put my plan into action.

BA: I ain't getting on no plane, Hannibal!

Hannibal: No, of course you're not. Now, drink your milk.

BA: Okay. [BA thuds to the floor as Hannibal smiles and lights another cigar]

Ten hours later finds our heroes in an abandoned warehouse, just outside the Big Brother location. BA is lying on the floor, still under the effects of the drugged milk. A door opens and a local BNP activist throws in Face and Murdoch.

Face: Watch the suit! This is Armani, you know.

BNP activist: We've scuppered your little plan Colonel and we've called the Military police - Decker is on his way here now. This abandoned warehouse is surrounded and surrounded good. We're going to leave you in here and retreat to a radius that puts us slightly out of earshot of any hypothetical hammering and welding. You can't get away this time, Smith.

[The door slams]

Murdoch: [wearing a blue cape and a red face mask] Don't worry, Colonel. I am Captain Planet, natural ally of Conservative leader David Cameron who will fly to our aid as soon as he realises I have been detained.

BA: [Awakening] Shut up, you crazy fool!

Hannibal: BA's right, Captain: a rescue mission would require Cameron to actually do something apart from mouthing platitudes. No, if we're going to rescue Ms Shetty, we're going to have to do it ourselves, with a little help from this convenient pile of pipes, sheet metal, an old lawnmower and this acetylene torch that someone has left lying around.

Ten minutes later, and the bad guys are chatting outside the warehouse. Suddenly the doors are burst open by an armoured tank that is firing on all cylinders. The bad guys dive for cover as it blasts a hole in the Big Brother wall, and rumbles in. BA fires a grenade into the house and begins helping Jermaine wot used to be in the Jackson Five and H from Steps onto the tank.

Face: [With a flirtatious smile to Ms Shetty who's watching in amazement] Hello again.

BA: Face, get a move on, man! This place is gonna blow.

With barely seconds to spare, Ms Shetty and Face dive for cover behind the tank as the Big Brother house is consumed by a huge explosion and a fireball that rises fifty feet into the air, with Jade and the other two non-entities inside. Surely nobody could have survived?

A moment passes and then out of the wreckage stumbles three figures, a little soot encrusted but essentially fine. They stagger right into the arms of the waiting OfCom officials.

Hannibal: There you go officer. Make sure they don't get any opportunity to broadcast their offensive opinions for a long time.

OfCom bloke: You got it, Colonel!

Hannibal: [Lighting cigar] I love it when a plan comes together.

"Men in tight suits, with jaws that could cut cheese? Visit Portcullis House and you'll soon understand why...it's dead exciting!"

So says Andrea Riseborough (who plays an intern in upcoming Parliamentary bonk-a-thon Party Animals) on the attractions of bag carrying. Well, we've just strolled past the Dispatch Box in Portcullis House and have seen Simon Hughes MP, and Nigel Evans was wandering around the upper waiting hall area earlier, so definitely we see young Andrea's point. Indeed, the female members of the Shawcross entourage had to be brought to with smelling salts and the ministration of a damp cloth to the forehead, such was the swooning that took place on the 4pm caffeine run. Dead exciting.

Anyway, again thank you to Comrade P. who has once again provided us with information on the drama that is to lift the skirt - er - lid, sorry on the world of the bag carrier on 31st January, 9pm, BBC2. And yet all is not well in the offices of the Hamers. One of our female colleagues, on perusing the male talent, wailed "but they're all ugly! I don't want to see those mingers in their pants!"

Initial emailing would indicate that Comrade A. does indeed have a point. Check it out:

James Northcote MP played by Patrick Baladi


Character: Tory MP
Doing TheSex with: Ashika Chandiramani, his researcher. Don't we all, eh?
Wit and Wisdom thereof: "He's a man!" (Mr Baladi's reasoning behind the extra-marital shennangians, the old dog. Arf!)
Eye candy rating: 4/10 on the basis that the mask he appears to be wearing in this photo (look closely) doesn't conceal some sort of Phantom of the Opera style horror.


Jo Porter MP played by Raquel Cassidy

Character: Labour Minister
Doing TheSex with: Well, her husband seems to be having it away with a younger model as he's emasculated by her career, but I am sure I heard rumours of lesbo-action at some stage. Fillies in the buff, eh? Where would the flagging careers of BBC drama writers be without them?
Wit and Wisdom thereof: "She isn't a feminist". No, of course not, because nothing is less attractive in a fruity young filly than feminism. Puts the chaps right off, so it does.
Eye candy rating: 7/10. She gets an extra few points for doing as she's told...er...I mean not being a feminist.

Danny Foster played by Matt Smith


Character: Bag carrier to Jo Porter MP. Also seems to handle her Departmental portfolio, in spite of the fact that Ms Porter would have a veritable army of special advisors and civil servants to do this for her.
Doing TheSex with: Kirsty the Intern.
Wit and Wisdom thereof: "Drugs don't turn him on, work does!" Ah yes. Nothing like that intoxicating feeling of arriving back in the office on a Monday morning to find your boss has got at the post, there's envelopes and correspondence all over the office, four disgruntled messages from the organisers of National Neuter Day telling you that they've received no RSVP for their photocall this afternoon with a tadgerless dog, and a mountain of emails about everything from asylum to broken streetlights. Maybe the Government could work in a stint as a bag-carrier as part of its tackling drugs agenda?
Eye candy rating: 5/10. The Creator can, on occasion take the concept of "chiselled" too far.

Scott Foster played by Andrew Buchan

Character: Brother of Danny and a lobbyist.
Doing TheSex with: Ashika Chandiramani and Sophie Montmorency.
Wit and Wisdom thereof: "Scott never seems to take his foot off the gas. He's one of those city lads who are constantly trying to do the four minute mile in three." And I thought being a lobbyist was all about glaring at bag-carriers turning up at their posh receptions and eating all the food. You learn something new every day.
Eye candy rating: 3/10. Okay, potential was shown when he played glacial St John Rivers in the Beeb's Jane Eyre adaptation last year, and the female Hamers were anticipating eagerly his return from being a missionary to doing the missionary (geddit?!!!?!?) in Party Animals. Sadly, we can only assume that he undertook spreading the word of the Lord in a part of America not known for it's health food.


Ashika Chandiramani played by Shelley Conn


Character: Bag-carrier to James Northcote MP.
Doing TheSex with: James Northcote MP (he's doing better out of that arrangement than she is) and latterly Scott Foster.
Wit and Wisdom thereof: "It's much more exciting to be on the attack with a rising Party than defending the one that's in crisis." Many Labour Party meeting-goers would agree with you, love.
Eye candy rating: 8/10.


Kirsty MacKenzie played by Andrea Riseborough





Character: Intern to Danny Foster and Jo Porter MP
Doing TheSex with: Pretty much everyone and everything by the sounds of it.
Wit and Wisdom thereof: "Kirsty's drive is career-based rather than morally or even politically-based at the core, so her initial attraction was about working in an exciting environment of up-to-the-minute decision-making, the effect of which changes people's lives. Whether that's for the better or worse is initially incidental to her". Really? My intern spent most of his time flicking bits of blu tak at me and trying to engage me in debates on the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Clearly our office was sold a pup.
Eye candy rating: 9/10


Sophie Montgomerie played by Clemency Burton-Hill

Character: Journalist.
Doing TheSex with: Scott Foster
Wit and Wisdom thereof: "When I auditioned for the part, they had no idea I was also a journalist. Increasingly, I have found myself in real-life Westminster, interviewing politicians over coffee in Portcullis House one day, and then the next day on set in the fake Portcullis House in our studios, playing a journalist who is interviewing an actor playing a politician." Indeed.
Eye candy rating: 10/10. Blonde and posh. Nice. She's playing a tabloid journalist apparently, and is far easier on the eye than Richard Littlejohn.

Remember people: 31st January. It'll be like looking in a mirror.

UPDATE: Sorry about the formatting. Blogger doesn't seem to like pictures very much and it plays hell with the text.

Like farting in church

Apologies for the lack of posting; the BBF Head Office has been decimated by illness, inertia, and in one case a visit to the constituency office, a land which internet broadband and digital coverage has apparently forgotten. In addition, the Hamer concerned was unable to tune in to last week's Question Time, but has been assured that this was, in fact, a blessing in disguise.

Anyway, we are back online and wish to bring you this gem from Bruce Kent's (former chair of the CND and its current Vice President) evidence to the Commons Defence Select Committee yesterday.

Now, mea culpa, I find it very difficult to get worked up one way or another about the advisability or lack thereof of the nuclear deterrent, slavish NuLab Blairite clone that I am. However, it was Brother Kent's handling of Conservative Robert Key MP's attempt to demonstrate his Party's new desire to put the opinions of the Great British Public (TM) at the heart of their policy agenda that caused hootings of laughter chez Hamer yesterday.

Robert Key MP: The British Public believe that there is value in having a nuclear deterrent. Do you think the British Public is wrong?
Bruce Kent: Yes.

Those weird popping sounds we heard yesterday afternoon are thus explainable: the collective employees of Demos and Compass having heart attacks.

O! Jon Cruddas, how shall we know thee?

The unseemly struggle for a position within the Labour Party that is not yet vacant continues apace, consuming the entire Labour blogging community in heated exchanges in the various comments sections whilst the rest of the world - uninformed about the REAL issues as such people always are - continue to labour under the misapprehension that Iraq, the future of party funding, and management of the NHS is where political discourse is really at.

To recap on the candidates:

First up is Hilary Benn MP: Secretary of State for Hugging Poor People (DfID) and a nice chap by all accounts.

Second, the veteran of many Departments: Peter Hain MP of the Ireland Office

Third, Harriet Harman MP who is, as she reminds all her potentia