My hope is that Labour lose a shit load of members over the next few months, enough to make them ask why they’ve been deserted. They get told,

‘It’s because you abandoned the workers you numpties!’

Labour then start listening to the people who are being hardest hit by the Tories, start listening to the trade unions and start listening to folk like Richard Murphy before coming back in a year or so with policies for fair taxation, public services kept public, economic growth and a welfare state that actually supports, rather than demonises, those who need it.

Then their support builds, people rejoin, activists become active again and Labour win the next election by just enough seats to form a majority, preferably in a house without a single Lib Dem MP and plenty of Greens and independents.

That’s what I think I’d like to happen.

It serves no practical purpose whatsoever beyond satisfying our conditioned belief that creased clothes don’t look as good as ironed ones.

Ban this filth! Embrace the crease!

The hot chick pic’s obligatory,
On every site that sells I.T.
Coz they think, not unreasonably,
That a hot chick pic is the only chick that the bloke in to I.T. is ever gonna see.

It really shouldn’t be that way,
Coz geeks and nerds, straight, bi or gay,
Have the skills for good foreplay,
Listening to what you say,
And the stamina to stay down there for days.

So grab a geek coz we know what we’re doing,
Nab a nerd coz we know how things run,
Grab a geek, we’ll make you shudder, whimper, moan and wail,
And coz we get turned on by a job well done,
We’re guaranteed to make you cum.

We know the right buttons to press,
And how to use a joystick best,
The sockets that we should caress,
The plugins that are a success,
When the laptop’s off and we are both undressed.

We know that we’ll never be cool,
But we’ve a plethora of tools,
We’ve bits and bites and hard drives too,
We’ve routines that will make you drool,
Learned in extra classes at geek school.

Grab a geek, we pay attention to detail,
Nab a nerd, for some interface fun,
Grab a geek, we’ll make you shudder, whimper, moan and wail,
And coz we get turned on by a job well done,
We’re guaranteed to make you…

Grab a geek when you want some hard coding,
Nab a nerd for some defragging fun,
Grab a geek, we’ll make you shudder, whimper, moan and wail, without fail,
And coz we get turned on by a job well done,
We’re guaranteed to make you cum.

We’re going to Brighton, we’re going to put the World to rights,
We’re going to Brighton, to show that we are up for the fight,
Because we are right and the Government’s shite.

When we’ve left Brighton, we’ll show the World what we can do,
When we’ve left Brighton, we hope that you will join the fight too,
Coz what we say is true, the Government’s poo.

Brendan won’t like it at all, Brendan’s balls are too small.

We’re going to London, to have a word Cameron,
We’re going to London, to let him know we’re not going to run,
We’re spoiling his fun, his Government’s done.

We’re going to tell him, that his cuts can go to hell,
We’re going to tell him, the public sector ain’t his to sell,
We’ll tell him aswell that his Government smells,

Brendan won’t impressed, his balls are distressed.

We’ll go to Clapham, to celebrate our victory,
We’ll go to Clapham, to drink and watch a massive telly,
So we can see Cameron on his knees.

Brendan’s just gonna’ watch, his balls have dropped off.

I considered writing about the Royal Wedding. That would have ended up too sweary.

I even briefly flirted with the idea of writing about AV but felt myself falling asleep before I’d even constructed the first sentence.

So, I’m going to write about sexuality and cheese. Specifically my own sexuality, for that is the only sexuality about which I feel qualified to comment with any authority, and goats cheese.

My secondary school education took place during the early to mid eighties. It wasn’t a bad school. In fact it was rather a good school. A grammar school no less. This was the result of a brief academic aptitude which was soon to be recognised for the trivial flirtation it was. Anyway, the academic standing of the school is largely irrelevant. Of much greater relevance is that it was a boys school. All boys. No girls. Just boys.

During my teenage years I found myself being a little more attracted to my schoolmates than any of my schoolmates seemed to be to each other. I found myself thinking thoughts about them I was fairly sure they didn’t think about each other. In a couple of cases I even found myself feeling what was pretty much exactly what I had been led to believe a crush felt like. It didn’t occur to me that this meant I was probably gay. Being gay was something that gay people did. I didn’t think I was a gay person so didn’t think I was gay.

I had at this point never eaten goats cheese.

Towards the end of my schooldays I spent some interesting weekends with a couple of mates. We did stuff. It was stuff I’d wanted to do for quite some time and it was fun. Yet still I didn’t realise that doing gay stuff with mates and enjoying it probably meant I was gay. The world wasn’t shaped in a way that made being gay an option. Everything was aimed at heterosexuality and there was nothing to indicate that being gay was anything that applied to folk outside Frankie Goes to Hollywood videos.

Time moved on and I found myself finishing school and briefly popping by college, still closeted to myself and the world and still not having eaten goats cheese.

Adulthood brought with it guitars. At some point during my teens (November 14th 1986) I became the proud owner of an electric guitar. I got relatively good at doing relatively impressive stuff relatively quickly. By which I mean I could whack up the distortion and play a minor pentatonic with enough dexterity to fool the casual observer in to thinking I was much better than I actually was. I’m led to believe I am not the first person to have exploited this ploy. Unfortunately I still didn’t realise I was gay so I really didn’t exploit it the way that one’s meant to exploit it. I ended up in a few very straight rock bands. We played pubs. They got laid. I didn’t.

Actually, that’s not strictly speaking true. I did get a girlfriend. It didn’t last. She really wasn’t my type.

I carried on getting thoroughly smitten with my straight mates, living a life of trying to hide my feelings and ultimately being proper lonely. There were dalliances though and, eventually, the penny dropped. I was well in to my early twenties before I came clean with myself, a few months later before I came out to a few mates. Nothing much changed. I went through a phase of telling pretty much everybody that I was gay but never actually doing anything about it. I hung around with straight mates and didn’t really consider trying to find any gay ones. Still, it was good to be out and to be myself.

I’d still not eaten goats cheese.

My twenties moved on, I moved to London, my twenties disappeared behind me. I went to see England vs West Indies at The Oval with some friends.

England lost. It rained. For the first time in my life I ate goats cheese.

I now know gay people but still mostly socialise with straight folk. This isn’t a conscious choice, it’s just that most of the folk I meet doing the things I like to do tend to be straight. Most folk are straight. I suppose there’s a law of averages thing going on.

So, is there any point to any of this ramble? It’s certainly not the ramble I intended to ramble when I started rambling. I doubt very much that it’s the ramble you thought you were going to be reading when you started reading it. Sorry about that.

I suppose there is a point: I wish I had come out earlier. I wish I had had the role models, the education and the support to know and accept who I am when I was young enough to have made the most of it. I tell you now, there would have been a hell of a lot more goats cheese in my life.

Actually, not only is there a point but there’s also a lesson.

Pop your oven on at Gas Mark 6.

Take a big mushroom, pop some goats cheese, fresh basil, black pepper and a little garlic on it. Wrap it in bacon. Grate a little mature cheddar on top and sprinkle a sprinkling of cayenne pepper over it.

Whack it in the oven for twenty minutes.

Take it out, eat it and wonder why a chap who can do such things with a mushroom is still single.

I can still do impressive things with a minor pentatonic too.

Reggae’s too black for me, and so is R&B
But ska’s alright by me,
Confused I am, that’s why I’m BNP,
No foreign cookery will fill this Brit belly,
Though I love curries me,
Confused am I, that’s why I’m BNP
Think I’ll have myself another onion bhaji.

My baseball cap’s Nike, just in from New Dheli,
Supporting British industry,
Confuses me, that’s why I’m BNP
Our local brewery closed in the mid-nineties,
But I drink Stella me,
From overseas, that’s why I’m BNP
Think I’ll have myself another foreign lager.

They’re not confused and they’ll never be,
Just want to move the whole country,
Back to 1953,
Coz’ they’re all Enid Blyton fans in the BNP

My mate’s in the EDL and they’re confused as well,
Piss on churches and can’t spell,
Their heroes names, yeah that’s the EDL,
From Stoke and to Dudley they seig heil but aren’t Nazis,
That’s what they said as they punched me,
They’re too fighty, that’s why I’m BNP
Though I’m a bit scared of the bouncers round Nick Griffin

They’re not confused and they’ll never be,
Just want to send the whole country,
Back to 30s Germany,
‘Coz they’re all fans of Cabaret in the BNP.

I love my St George’s Cross ,
From Palestine, St George was boss
Never stood on English soil,
It’s just as well, we’d all hate him ‘n all
Bloody foreigners with their foreign religions.

They’re not confused but they soon would be,
If we told them Pagans were here before Christianity,
But I’d rather hug a tree,
Than spend another minute listening to the BNP

Another productive bit was the election of officers but I’ll leave the detail of that until there’s an official Camden United statement.

The most interesting bits for me were the discussions around support for Labour. Some said that we should welcome Labour councillors into the campaign; others said that Labour councillors voted for the cuts and the Labour party is officially pro-cuts so we can’t work with them. I expressed the latter view in the meeting but have to accept that it’s an ideological stance and I think we have to be more pragmatic.

As a civil servant and PCS member I have taken industrial against, and been a member of a union which has taken legal action against, a Labour government. As a leftie I have been dismayed by Ed Miliband’s lack of opposition to the Deficit Deifiers (have I just coined a phrase?) and, as a trade unionist, absolutely disgusted by Labour’s inability to muster enough support for John McDonnell’s ‘Lawful Industrial action (Minor Errors)’ Private Members’ Bill. I have no love for Labour.

Having said that, Labour councillors aren’t the same as Labour MPs. Councillors are closer to their communities and more likely to see, and feel, the effects of legislation and budgets which they impose. I feel that Camden’s Labour council should have voted to reject the budget on Monday. I feel that all Labour councils should have done the same. Maybe it wouldn’t have helped the spending in those councils in the short term but it could have emboldened the anti-cuts movement and would certainly have given those councils a credibility which, for many, they have now lost. Regardless of that, I do think that we have to work with labour councillors if they want to work with us. Many more Camden voters weren’t at Monday’s protest than were, many of who know and voted for their Labour council, many of who still feel Labour are the best hope. If we distance the anti-cuts campaign from Labour councillors we are distancing ourselves from a lot of potential support in the much bigger battle ahead.

Which brings me to March 26th.

The TUC have actually done pretty bloody well. Like most folk I know I was appalled last year when the TUC response to the coalition’s cuts was to announce that they were organising a protest for March this year. Now we’re getting closer to it I don’t think it’s been such a bad move. I doubt very much that the TUC anticipated the scenes at council meetings, the student protests, UK Uncut etc. popping up to fill the gap that an active TUC should have filled but, whether by luck or design, March 26th promises to be huge and a fitting end to the first chapter of the fight.

I don’t think anybody’s naive enough to think that the march will end in Hyde Park. For most it will, for many it won’t. I also don’t think anybody’s naive enough to think that there will be a single crowd of people marching from Victoria Embankment to Hyde park without anybody else trying to occupy and agitate elsewhere. The TUC have organised a march by the book but such is the scale of the day, and such is the anger, that I would be very, very surprised if other actions didn’t happen on the day.

I hope the TUC march will be everything it’s intended to be: peaceful, organised and massive. It needs to be safe and it needs to be big. We need trade unionists, community groups, families and all who are affected by the Coalition’s agenda to be there. There will inevitably be people who want to go off and smash stuff and I absolutely don’t condone that. I think it’s counter productive and plays in to the hands of the right wing media.

I do however have a feeling that a lot of peaceful people will have travelled a long way to be part of something important and won’t want to go home once the last speaker’s finished. It doesn’t take many people to fill a square. In the inspirational words of John McDonnell:

Bring your sleeping bag

Well, I found them inspirational but I’m probably just easily impressed.

The Camden United Against Cuts website is here: http://camdenunited.org.uk

The TUC’s March For The Alternative Site is here: http://marchforthealternative.org.uk/

‘But’, shout you, ‘We’ve got a Facebook page!’

Great. No, really, great. However your Facebook page is but a start.

So here, for the technologically challenged, is a very, very basic guide to the very, very basics of online campaigning from a middle-age-nudging leftie. If you’re a non-mature student you might as well look away now. You probably covered this stuff during your first day at primary school.

Tools

There are guides which go in to some depth about different online tools which are kicking about, most of which are very useful. We haven’t got all night though, we’ve got meetings to get to, Governments to topple and real ale to drink so these are the basics:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Website
• Emails

Facebook

You’re either on Facebook or you’re not. If you’re on it you know why it’s such a great campaigning tool. If you’re not on Facebook you should probably leave the online campaigning to somebody who is. It really is a great online campaigning tool.

Get a page set up for your campaign, make sure you’ve got contact details there, links to your website/blog & Twitter etc.

Twitter

You’re either on Twitter or you’re not. If you’re on it you know why it’s such a great campaigning tool. If you’re not on Twitter you should probably leave the online campaigning to somebody who is. It really is a great online campaigning tool.

Get an account set up for your campaign and make sure you’ve got a link to your blog/website in the profile.

Website

You really do need a website. It’s the easiest way to keep all the information about your campaign in one place, along with links to related campaigns, events etc. Probably the easiest way to set one up is to use WordPress or Blogger. I use WordPress and recommend it but both are pretty straightforward and both are free.

Email

Get yourselves an email address, get a bunch of email addresses from people who are mad enough to give them to you interested in your campaign and email the people on the email list. Wait until you’ve got something worth emailing though. And don’t sell the email addresses to anybody, not even if they promise you sex and pizza.

No. Don’t. Though I confess it would be tempting.

That’s the Stuff, This is the Advice

1. Update things regularly but don’t overdo it.
2. Don’t flood Twitter with re-tweets. Use it to let followers know about updates on your website and re-tweet things that are relevant but ten successive tweets in a couple of minutes are likely to lose you more followers than you gain.
3. Get a logo if you can. ‘Branding’ might be the talk of capitalist pig dogs but it is useful. Use a Twitter hashtag too but, if you’re involved in a demo, us whichever hashtag is most popular else you’re likely to be missed.
4. Start a petition, get it online. Paper petitions are fine on the high street but hard to pop in an email.
5. Only set up one Facebook event per real life event. One event with 500 people looks better than two with 250 each. This means asking people involved to share the campaign’s Facebook event rather than creating their own.
6. Get reports out there after meetings and events. Let people know how they went. Use photos if you have any, no matter how unphotogenic your campaign is.

There. Those are the most basic things I think you need & need to know for online campaigning.

To the pub! Mine’s a Bishop’s Finger.

It’s got to be quite ghastly waking up one day,
To find the Daily Mail has had its wicked way,
And you’ve come to the attention of the lovely Mr Quentin Letts.

Civil Servant Tweeting that she likes a drink,
Occasionally has hangovers, and sometimes thinks,
The Civil Service isn’t fairly represented in the press.

And then along he comes,
To prove she’s right with that last one,

Stop hounding our Baskerville,
Your making all of us feel quite ill,
There’s more dignity in her little finger,
than you could comprehend.

Leave our Baskers alone,
She don’t need journos outside her home,
If you’ve got nothing better to write about,
Please step away from the pen.

You know we’re not in Purdah don’t you, Quentin, mate?
Political opinion’s allowed these days,
We’re allowed to think our lords and masters really haven’t got a clue.

You think the Public Sector’s fair game for the Mail to bash,
And thoughts of Civil Servants bring you out in a rash,
But you know us wretched Civil Servants really are just people too.

But finally you’ll get your way,
When the Condems flush us down the drain,

Stop hounding our Baskerville,
Stop your smearing in the Daily Mail,
Trying to make a scandal,
Even though there is nothing to hide.

Leave our Baskers alone,
Even though being whinged at in the Daily Moan,
Won’t bring her down ‘coz decent people
See it as a badge of pride.

And I know that this will come as quite a shock,
But we’re all behind Baskers because Baskers rocks.

Stop hounding our Baskerville,
Your making all of us feel quite ill,
There’s more dignity in her little finger,
than you could comprehend.

Leave our Baskers alone,
She don’t need journos outside her home,
If you’ve got nothing better to write about,
Please step away from the pen.

Digression’s a pain too.

Anyway, there I was, sitting having a strum, trying unsuccessfully to wax lyrical about the privatisation of public services, as one does, when my brain (dammit) flung this thought at me:

Maybe privatisation isn’t actually such a bad thing.

I was, as you can imagine, aghast. So aghast that I would have given it a good smiting if it weren’t for three things:

1. It would have hurt,
2. I thought it might have a point,
3. I’m not a smitey sort of person.

It is the second of these that I think needs further consideration.

We know that most privatisations of public services don’t work very well. PFIs have lumbered the NHS with 25 year contracts costing billions more than would have been spent had the services been properly publicly funded in the first place. The contracts are often awarded to companies with dubiously close connections to the people awarding them. The bottom-line motivation leads to corners being cut and services provided only as far as they will benefit the shareholder. In many cases the profits in question vanish off-shore, thus reducing the amount of tax payable in Britain.

But what if that weren’t the case? What if services were tendered openly and fairly, to companies based in the UK, who could prove that they neither avoided or evaded taxation, who didn’t ask to be bailed out when the profits fell, and who had to meet genuine service targets, comparable to those of their public sector equivalents, before a penny was paid to them?

I know this would never happen but, if it did, would I be wrong to oppose it?