Fanatics (three different ones)

I have a horrible feeling that the party-fanatical elements of Lib and Lab think they really can form a Losers' Coalition which, because it is 'progressive' and therefore Good, has the moral legitimacy to run the country. This is very disconcerting.

I have in recent days been much disconcerted by fanatics. Fanatics are identifiable by their humourlessness, an intense stare and a conviction that not being 100% with them is being 100% against them. These are people for whom every conversation is a full-on, look-me-in-the-eyes discussion; at their homes you couldn’t just doss around watching telly, making idle chit-chat and cracking wise, you’d have to always be engaging. Fanatics wouldn’t be that bothered if you were killed, if you were also wrong. They end up fried and full of hate.

Alastair Campbell is a very frightening man; not because of his bullying nature or political intelligence, but because he isn’t fully human. Here (via Sean), is Adam Boulton finally losing patience with him. It does no good, of course.




And then there is Caroline Lucas MP. At this election Parliament lost its Respect MP but gained a Green one. It’s much the same thing. Lucas is particularly disconcerting because she is so obviously a Type: her vocal intonations, joyless haircut, even her feline eyes and cheekbones – you can tell everything about her straight away. This is rare and unsettling. Such people are usually the dictators of odd little radical committees that meet in art centre cafés or backrooms in libraries; they don’t normally win Parliamentary elections.





Finally, good old Dickie Dawkins, the man who equates every criticism of his own personal views with a direct attack on the entire history, method and project of science, believes that we should immediately have another election under a system of proportional representation. Well he just would, wouldn’t he?

State of play

So the Lib Dems are, irresponsibly and against the wishes of the voters, using Labour to try to squeeze whatever they can out of the Tories; and Labour, disgracefully and against the wishes of a great number of their members, are trying any avenue at all that might keep them in power. The so-called ‘progressives’ have thereby squandered in three days whatever goodwill had been created by Friday’s speeches.

Does anyone have an alternative analysis of this?

Hung up

John Gray, perhaps the most curate's egg pundit about, wrote a post-election article about 'bigoted' Tory MPs which strikes me as largely a load of old blather, like the worst bits of Straw Dogs.

But to the extent that it isn't blather, it does raise more awkward questions about our current electoral system versus proportional representation. First-past-the-post encourages broad church parties, where the fringes of the Labour left and Tory right are kept in check by the moderation that is perceived by the leadership to be needed to win elections. Under PR, there would be a much greater incentive for the partially-loony to abandon middle-ground politics and join or form wholly-loony spin-off parties. Those who call for PR generally assume that progressive, left-of-centre governments would dominate as a result. But might not the whole parliamentary centre of gravity shift rightwards? If we follow the percentages at this election, by some distance the biggest winners outside the big 3 would be UKIP, and the BNP gained twice as many votes as the Greens.

The theoretical arguments for PR are irresistible. The practical arguments against it are immovable. This is why liberals support it and conservatives oppose it; it's not just that each thinks their favoured system would deliver them power. In the long-term we'll probably end up with a greatly diluted version designed to deliver results as close as possible to those expected from FPTP, but with a few bones thrown in the direction of superficial 'fairness'.

Funky little shack

In old age Muggsy Spanier, thuggish legend of swing and widely known as ‘the cornet player’s cornet player’, renounced jazz and in one late interview claimed that there were only three truly great pieces of music in recorded history: Auf dem Flusse from Franz Schubert’s Winterreise song cycle; Frühlingstraum, also from Franz Schubert’s Winterreise song cycle; and Love Shack by The B-52s.

Spanier was far from the only aficionado to sing the praises of the Georgia band’s 1989 hit single. The consensus amongst scholars holds that the verse:

Sign says.. Woo!....Stay away fools,
'cause love rules at the Lo-o-ove Shack!
Well it's set way back in the middle of a field,
Just a funky old shack and I gotta get back.

is the greatest lyric in post-war English-language songwriting. Mad academics have long pored over B-52s songs for hidden meaning. Frank Key has argued convincingly that the line “I’ll give you fish!” from Give Me Back My Man is an obvious response to the demand of the sailor in Jacques Brel’s Amsterdam, when he cries “Hey! Bring me more fish!”

Other experts have claimed that ‘Love Shack’ itself is another reference to Brel, being a deliberate corruption of ‘L’oeuvre de Jacques’, though this is clearly pushing it.

Next week: 401 things you might not have known about Jive Talkin’ by the Bee Gees



Above: The road sign in Athens, Georgia, which is immortalised by the B-52s in 'Love Shack'