The Ministry Of Truth

Some folks are born silver spoon in hand.
Lord, don’t they help themselves?
But when the taxman comes to the door
Lord, the house looks like a rummage sale.
- John Fogarty

1 May 1997 feels like a lifetime ago.

I spent Friday 2 May 1997 criss-crossing the country on trains for a series of job interviews and - it’s no exaggeration - people genuinely seemed optimistic and cheerful that day about the profound change to politics and society that the new administration were about to effect in our name.

I do not entirely subscribe to the views offered by some political commentators over the course of the weekend that the Crewe and Nantwich by-election will be seen as one of those epoch-making events that demonstrate a sizeable tectonic eruption to the established political order.

I do not, for instance, believe that one by-election result - however good for the Tories; and it was very good, make no mistake - compares with the Exchange Rate Mechanism debacle presided over by Major, Lamont and - oh yes - one David Cameron. The result of the 1996 or 1997 General Election became a foregone conclusion within the space of a few hours on the afternoon of 16 September 1992: the only remaining question was precisely how large Labour’s majority would be.

But when you consider that the electors of Crewe never returned a Conservative MP when the rest of the country was turning blue - an indication of just how badly the north-west of England’s manufacturing industry suffered under the 18 years that comprised the First Wave of Thatcherism - yet kicked Brown in the goolies at the first opportunity to do so, it is clear that things are changing.

William Keegan pointed out at the weekend one reason why the Labour campaign misfired so badly:

The epitome of New Labour’s misjudgment at Crewe was to have a go at the Bentleys driven by toffs - only to discover that the headquarters of Bentley Motors was in, well, Crewe.

It also didn’t help, of course, that Labour was proffering a candidate describing herself as a “single, unemployed mum” and slating her Tory opponent as a “toff” - when she is listed in Debretts Peerage and Mr. Timpson is not.

That schoolboy error aside, I cannot understand how or why the English electorate seems to be embracing so warmly Posh Boy Dave, a man whose background of wealth and privilege is so impeccable it could have seen him “emerge” as a Tory leader in the 1930s.

Attending public school should absolutely not debar anybody from running for political office provided they can prove themselves to be the best, most trustworthy and most appropriately experienced candidate. But I thought the Sixties cultural revolution had effectively seen a welcome end to the landed gentry lauding it over the plebs.

Andrew Rawnsley (Rugby School and Sidney Sussex, Cambridge) seems to think differently:

Labour’s inability to meet this challenge is a strategic failure that starts at the very top. Gordon Brown can’t bring himself to treat David Cameron seriously so he struggles to comprehend why he is losing votes to him. Because the Prime Minister can only see the Tories as shallow public-school boys he can’t understand why anyone would prefer them over him.

Frankly I’d prefer a lobotomy and an enema over PBD and George “Cunt” Osborne every time. And I’d prefer root canal work over a Shadow Cabinet made up of 10 Old Etonians, with another ensconced as Mayor of London. I appreciate I may be alone in this view.

But after suffering more than a decade of the Second Wave of Thatcherism at the hands of a shallow public school boy-cum-actor, crying out for half that time for a change in the approach to politics taken by its political leadership, why on Earth is the English public apparently so keen to vote into Number 10 another shallow public school boy-cum-ad man who will bring with him a Third Wave of Thatcherism?

Andrew Rawnsley (Rugby and Cambridge) failed to offer an explanation to that conundrum. He did, however, make this astute observation:

You have to be at least 30 years old to have spent any of your adult life living under a Conservative government. Young families struggling with the mortgage, the price of petrol and the weekly shopping bill aren’t interested in ancient history lessons about the last Conservative government. For those who do remember, whatever they feel about the Tories’ past is now eclipsed by their present hostility to Labour.

I still - and always will - remember what the Tories did to this country between 1979 and 1997 and feel viscerally hostile to that party’s continued existence, but there is now a generation of electors too young to know first hand of the Conservatives’ propensity towards corruption, social division and economic ruination.

Shame on Labour - New, Old, Blairite, Brownite, whatever - not only for allowing things to come to this sorry pass, but also for failing to address that particular need for education, education, education.

This is so cool on so many levels. Not least because the media, the security forces and our leaders now not only get to flout the Contempt Of Court Act, but they get to make snide innuendos about people with mental health problems AND Muslims at the same time.

BRILLIANT!

A spokesman said: “Our investigation so far indicates Reilly, who has a history of mental illness, had adopted the Islamic faith. We believe he was preyed upon, radicalised and taken advantage of.”

Last night a neighbour claimed Reilly was known as the “Big Friendly Giant”.

Daniel Turner, 20, said: “He’s schizophrenic. He changed his name to Mohammed Rasheed about a year ago. He was brainwashed into becoming a Muslim by local men. We call him the BFG but he obviously met up with the wrong people.”

Thanks to the Super Soaraway Current Bun, edited by husband-beater Rebekkah Wade, for that considered reportage.

Oh, and in two years time, these people are going to be running the country:

I will not allow anybody to say that I didn’t warn them.

Still, that Mrs. Timpson’s a damn fine looking filly, isn’t she?

Edward and Mrs. Timpson. I feel a mini-series coming on…

The Minister yields to no man in his admiration for the music of Neil Diamond.

Is this too dressy for the Pyramid Stage?

This Christmas will represent the 30th anniversary of my conscious introduction to his music and this time next year will bring the 25th anniversary of my first ever live concert, Neil Diamond at the Birmingham NEC.

But this week has been strange because it’s felt - for almost the first time in those three decades (never mind the 12 years of his career that preceded them) - as though it is socially acceptable to admit to the fact.

First came the news that Home Before Dark, his new album, had entered the Billboard album chart at number one - his first chart-topping album in America.

Then came yesterday’s news that the same album had entered the UK album chart at number one - his first UK chart-topper of original material; his only previous number one album, The Greatest Hits 1966-1992 was, er, a greatest hits compilation.

As I drove home from work this evening, Radio 4’s PM programme - of all places - broadcast an adulatory piece about Diamond’s career by pop anorak supreme Paul Gambaccini.

Confusion reigns over whether or not Diamond is actually playing Glastonbury, but he has been a “mentor” on the current series of Simon Cowell Is An American Cunt Idol and there was last week’s heavily-promoted Radio 2 concert and its availability all this week on BBCi.

(If I were a gambling man I’d suggest that the BBC DG must be a fan.  In which case, I await Mr. Diamond’s Newsnight interview with anticipation…)

Don’t get me wrong - I’m delighted.  This recognition is long overdue and richly deserved.  I hope and trust it finally heralds Diamond’s rightful election to the Rock’n'Roll Hall Of Fame next year and I hope that it causes some people to rediscover the very real pop brilliance and musical innovation that represents a large chunk of Diamond’s early output.

And Home Before Dark is a very good album indeed.  It is not, the Minister avers, perhaps quite as good as its predecessor 12 Songs (which died a commercial death in the States as it was the last CD to be released with Sony’s despised copy control protection).  But it still beats the crap out of 2008’s efforts from - among others - R.E.M. and Madonna.

(The popular comeback and critical acclamation actually began with 12 Songs.  I remember alighting a train at Manchester Piccadilly station in January 2006 to the delicious sight of juxtaposed posters promoting the debut album of Arctic Monkeys alongside - ahem - Neil Diamond’s 12 Songs.  I’ve always regretted not taking a picture of that…)

Yet I also, oddly, feel a little disappointed in that one of my secret pleasures has crossed over into the mainstream.  And yes, I know how risible it is to write that of a man who has sold more than 120,000,000 albums and almost as many concert tickets over the course of a 42-year career.

It is just that Diamond’s utter (and unashamed) lack of cool has meant that many of the owners of the other 119,999,950 albums have tended to keep quiet about the fact for fear of people throwing things at them.

If this commercial and critical re-evaluation of Diamond’s standing becomes permanent, it will have deprived me of one of my guaranteed argument-starters in the pub: that the music written and recorded by Neil Diamond between 1966 (from his debut single Solitary Man) and 1973 (to the release of the Hot August Night live album) is as good as, if not better than, the music written and recorded by John Lennon over the same period.

Annoyingly and coincidentally, this outbreak of unprecedented Diamondmania has also ruined the half-written SMIP #10 which - as drafted - is a lengthy exposition of why the music written and recorded by Neil Diamond between 1966 (from his debut single Solitary Man) and 1973 (to the release of the Hot August Night live album) is as good as, if not better than, the music written and recorded by John Lennon over the same period.

Cock it.

Breaking news from BBC News Online:

LATEST: TV presenter Kate Thornton gives birth to baby boy.

Stressed, busy and self-important, I haven’t much to say for myself at the moment.

I’m delighted Manchester United won the title - they are worthy champions and though I have seen only the sort of highlights offered by MotD2 this season, they have appeared to be the most complete team I’ve seen in England since Liverpool’s record-breaking and championship-winning side of 1978-9.  They have been superb going forward but also fantastic at the back, a skill all too often overlooked these days.

It was also magnificently apt that Ryan Giggs should lift the trophy, score the goal that settled the title and equal Bobby Charlton’s club appearance record.  Gary Speed might have played more games, Alan Shearer might have scored more goals, but it’s unquestionable that Giggs has been the most influential player in the history of the Premiership (and we all know English football only began in August 1992).

Even the most unlikely records fall eventually, but it’s hard to imagine any other player will win 10 league titles in his career, never mind 10 titles with one club.  In a sport where even the most insignficant event is hyped to the skies, Ryan Giggs is a genuine legend.

The one thing the Liverpool team of 1978-9 didn’t do was win the European Cup - despite being European champions for the past two seasons, they were knocked out in the very first round of the competition, by the reigning English champions and eventual cup winners Nottingham Forest in the only all-English tie in the competition prior to it being opened up to losers, also-rans and teams finishing in mid-table.  While some will disagree, I for one hope that United’s imminent trip to Moscow results in a better outcome.

The Minister’s Wife and I have just finished watching the DVD box set of Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip.  It more than withstands a second viewing.  I remain awestruck that NBC wouldn’t give it a second series.  It was too often self-referential and smug - but it was also written, acted and directed with uniform excellence.

I know some feel that the series was let down by the perceived lack of quality of the sketches on the show-within-the-show but, on a second viewing, the sketches echo what I have seen of Saturday Night Live - 40% are lost in cultural translation (Nancy Grace may be a worthy comedic target but she’s unknown in the UK), 40% are imbued with appallingly puerile, frat house humour and 20% are very good and very funny.  On those rare occasions that it has been shown in the UK, SNL has been served up in an edited version, exclusively presenting the 20% of sketches worth repeating.  More than once I’ve sat through SNL live and barely smiled, let alone laughed.

That issue aside, it was a great show and I’m depressed to have reached the end of its particular line.

Aaron Sorkin might help his cause if he didn’t insist on trying to prove twice in every line of dialogue that he’s the cleverest boy in the class but he’s undeniably an excellent storyteller.  As a damning indictment of standards in television, it’s hard to believe a series this good can be canned after just a few months when Big Brother is still going strong after almost a decade and Simon Cowell is worth a gazilion pounds.

I’m also staggeringly depressed having reached the conclusion that - short of a catastrophic unforeseen event - Posh Boy Dave is entirely likely to win the next election.  This increasingly limp and inept Labour administration is out of steam, out of ideas and out of touch.  While, to paraphrase Polly Toynbee, many people held their noses and voted again for Labour in 2005, the party will - entirely rightly - not be given any further benefit of the doubt.  Governments are rarely popular in mid-term but true decomposition seems to have set in - this is no blip.

Though Brown is making an even bigger hash of things than anyone thought possible (and I will hold my hands up and admit to an error on this point: I concede that he is woefully underperforming even my lowest expectations), it’s impossible to forgive self-created dramas such as the risibly self-defeating fights he is picking on matters such as cannabis and indefinite detention.  If the country really wanted Paul Dacre as its leader The Daily Mail would sell five times the number of copies it actually does.

While Gordon Brown increasingly resembles 1995 vintage John Major, helplessly swept along by events and “in office but not in power”, my biggest opprobrium remains reserved for Tony Blair.  1997 will go down as the biggest missed opportunity in post-war British political history and one of the opportunities he most spectacularly blew was the overhaul of the national electoral system.

Despite having conceded the principle of proportionality for elections to the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly, Stormont, the Mayoralty of London and the Greater London Authority, Blair was apparently so arrogant as to believe that his party would never and could never get itself again into the same sort of national mess it created for itself in the early 1980s.

Despite last month’s electoral humiliations, one statistic holds true: even at his most popular and with his opponent at his weakest point, PBD only got 44% of the national vote.  That Bloody Woman never got more than 43% of the vote at a General Election.

If the Westminster chamber was elected proportionally, it would be almost impossible for the Tories to sustain a majority of seats without forging a coalition that - short of a massive upswing in the BNP’s electoral fortunes - could only moderate their socially divisive extremism.  There remains in the UK electorate a natural majority in favour of at least a form of “social democracy”.

If Blair had thought to look beyond the end of his nose, he could have pushed to wipe out the Tories as an electoral force at the time that party was tearing itself apart and making itself absolutely unelectable with leaders such as Iain Duncan-Smith and Michael Howard.

Instead, Tony Blair was a selfish, self-serving coward with all the foresight of a slug.  I only hope he gets what is coming to him in his attempt to become the first President of the European Union.

I love Popdose: I’m adding it to Sites We Like.  (Though I still intend to blow it out of the water in a friendly kind of way.)

Popdose’s own Dw. Dunphy - crazy name, crazy guy - proclaims the end of the world as we know it.  And, as previously discussed, I feel fine…

[B]efore the end of the year, a major player in the music industry will announce that it’ll no longer sign bands to make albums. It’ll institute ten-song deals [as opposed to] three albums, the product to be delivered over a two-year period [instead of] a contract tying up five to ten years. Each of the ten songs are to be considered singles, radio-ready, with at least a 65 percent probability of hit status, otherwise the band in question is liable to be dropped for fulfillment issues. If the losses are great, breach-of-contract litigation is not out of the question.

Sound ridiculous? Or does it sound like the obvious conclusion for an industry that continues to lose money and customer patronage, seeking to cut away anything that doesn’t promote profit — album tracks that may appeal to a creative sense but can’t be capitalized upon, extra production costs inherent in those tracks, and design, packaging, and promotion of a product the public only wants 10 percent of. Witness the next music-industry model circa 2010: the business model of 1961. A label executive now sees his competition focused solely on bankrolling hits, not album sides or expensive packaging, and has to mull over whether it’s better business-wise to chop his staff in half or chop his label’s output in half, retaining the profitable side for himself. Of course the second option is better. He follows suit, and the business model we know today ceases to exist.

Now, you as a music fan and album purchaser hear this news and are appalled — what about the creative angle, the cohesive whole, and the notion that an artist has the broadest canvas with which to work, expand, and grow? Well, what about it… To say the public in general will miss the album is to ignore the obvious — not only won’t they miss it, they haven’t missed it for five-plus years and counting…

The album will never totally die out, of course. Indie labels will still champion it, and the major labels, once they’ve amassed 10 or 15 hits from an act, will release greatest-hits packages just as labels in the ’50s and ’60s did. With the popularity of “various artists” collections like the Now That’s What I Call Music series, it’s not unlikely that Universal or Columbia would institute their own series of such collections — think of a “Columbia All-Stars” compilation or an “Interscope Bangin’ Hits” in this notion. Again, not a new idea, as Atlantic and Motown thrived on such concepts for a long time before the paradigm shift, before the Beatles.

Yes, even though other artists dabbled with the inclusive collection format, it was the Beatles who really solidified the album as the dominant medium, and it could be argued that by crippling our current system we’re stifling future bands with such import and creative impulse. The iTunes business model has already done that, but bands with such ambitions will still find a way, even if it means bankrolling their DIY inclinations themselves. They’ll never be as big as the Beatles, though, and there will never be an album as huge as Michael Jackson’s Thriller again. Selective purchasing, just like selective breeding and genetics, will see to that.

There is a bright side, though — many of today’s top artists don’t deserve to make full albums. They and their phalanx of producers, writers, and “people” truly only have two or three good tunes in them. Woe to the uninformed who buy one of their albums and find 80 percent of it to be crap. The singles are essentially the best jokes in a movie trailer that serve to sell the movie, but after you’ve plunked down your $12 you realize they’re the only jokes in the movie. It’s apparent that in the future record labels will only pay for those good jokes in the first place, forcing artists to deliver them and contractually binding them to the promise. Good news for pop music aficionados indeed.

I’m certain the death of the major-label album will happen before year’s end; it’ll be huge news and will irrevocably change mainstream music creation forever, just as the iPod has changed the buying and listening habits of consumers. Form follows function. I sympathize with fans of the good old album because I’m one myself, but c’mon — we knew it was coming. We just needed to admit it, that’s all.

I blame myself.  I don’t live in London and I don’t have a vote in the London Mayoral election but still, I blame myself.

I was complacent and lazy.

I felt it inconceivable that any semi-liberal, semi-cosmopolitan, semi-literate, semi-educated, semi-sane, semi-self-respecting electorate could possibly vote into the office of the third largest directly-elected role in Europe a man who regularly utters racist, homophobic, idiotic and offensive remarks; a liar; and an unabashed adulterer.

I was wrong.

I did, half-jokingly, suggest to someone a few weeks ago that Cunt Boris’s election might not be as bad as it first seemed because the unadulterated, half-arsed wankfest he’ll make of the job - Top Tory Toff In Power In Action - over the course of the next two years will do more harm to Posh Boy Dave’s electoral prospects than anything Gordon Brown can manage.

I was joking: it will be every bit as bad as it first seems.

Reap.

Reap.

Reap.

You’re gonna reap just what you sow.