New info in the sidebar

Courtesy of http://www.conservatives.com/ I now have a widget (to the right of this post) to show me what my current share of the national debt is, updated in real time. It's also your share of the national debt, of course. And everyone else's.

Gordon Brown is a complete idiot

I know this isn't an original sentiment. And I know it may seem like an obvious, if blunt thing to say. But I think on the evidence of recent days and weeks it is so self-evidently true that it needs to be said. I shall explain my reasoning.

First of all, Gordy has lost all sense of proportion. Whenever anything unfortunate happens and is heavily reported in the media, he has now decided that he must promise "change". This means that, in addition to everything else he has got on, he now has to find time to prevent a small child ever being abused by a parent and to prevent anyone ever raping a relative again. This is silly - of course they are hypothetically laudable ambitions, but they are also impossible, and he knows it.

Second of all, El Gordo and his puppet chancellor Alistair "Captain" Darling have decided to sell the whole country down the river because they're determined to be seen to be doing something about the inevitable recession (inevitable, of course, because of their terrible stewardship of the economy). In particular, they have decided to something immensely expensive (knock 2.5% off VAT) which will make no real difference. I know this, because I asked an expert: me. Me, I said, will you now go out and spend more money because Captain Darling has reduced VAT to 15%? No, I replied, it won't make a tiny bit of difference, especially since he has carefully made sure that the fun stuff, like whisky, won't be any cheaper. So why all the extra borrowing to finance it? And why punish those of us who are actually working by putting up National Insurance contributions?

Thirdly, Gorders has developed a messiah complex. Everything he does now is as a sort of superhero, come to save the world. And from what? Mostly things of his own making. His current behaviour is disastrous - both for the economy of this country in years to come and for any chance of sensible reactions to unfortunate, isolated incidents. He can't save Baby P, he won't save the economy and he should do the only sensible thing and leave well alone. As P.J. O'Rourke so incisively put it, "Giving money and power to the government is like giving whiskey and the car keys to teenage boys". Trouble is, Gordy B has already got through a bottle of Old Moorhen's Shredded Sporran and is currently attempting to drive the British economy backwards up a motorway in rush hour. 

Boris Godunov at ENO

It's been a while since I posted about something musical here, so here goes - a short review of ENO's new production of Musorgsky's Boris Godunov, which opened last night at the Coliseum.

The piece, for those who don't know it, is pretty dark, and ENO's production, directed by Tim Albery makes no attempt to lighten things. The dark, troubled times in which Russia finds itself are reflected in a mostly grey, heavily crosslit design; the parallel with the turmoil in Tsar-elect Boris' mind is made clear, as he struggles with his guilt at having murdered, years before, the young heir to the throne for which he has now been chosen. The excellent ENO chorus (plus extras) are both a crowd and an organic part of the design - a moving part of the grey, bleak backdrop to the story of a man failing to find any peace with himself.

The production ran for two and a quarter hours without a break, so the drama had to be convicing. Generally, it was - Albery's direction did a very good job of keeping the story flowing, despite the fact that really, not an awful lot happens. The production is also blessed with some excellent singing from, amongst others, two of this country's finest basses. Peter Rose as Boris sang beautifully, and acted with an intensity which I cannot remember seeing from him before. The moment, rather reminiscent of Macbeth, where he sees a vision of Dmitri, the boy he murdered, was fantastically powerful, and dramatically chilling. Brindley Sherratt, as the monk Pimen, produced the most gloriously rich, dark tone and carried off the portrayal of an aged monk with great dignity. Both were admirable for their clear diction too.

Of the rest of the cast, this cut version (more reminiscent of Musorgsky's first version than his final one) allows few other principals much time. Nevertheless, Robert Murray was excellent as the simpleton, Gregory Turay made a lovely sound as Grigory, and Anna Grevelius was an utterly convincing boy as Fyodor, Boris' son.

The ENO Orchestra under Edward Gardner's fine conducting were superb - and this is, finally, what made this evening more than just a very miserable, grim story where the title character dies at the end. The musical standards were very high, the production fitted the drama, and the overall effect was moving. Don't go and see it for laughs - I counted two. Go and see it for the drama, because it's very good.

Organised religion, or, a series of squabbles.

On this day when, in the UK, we remember the fallen in ways that are generally couched in our officially established religion, it was interesting to see what was happening in Jerusalem.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7718587.stm

Apparently, some Armenian Christians wouldn't let some Greek Christians do what they wanted, which seems to have been to put one of their number (presumably dead) in a box. This resulted in a very un-Christian fistfight (in fact, the Greek priest interviewed by the BBC pronounced 'feast' as 'fist' - as in "the Armenians have today their fist" - how right he was).

For someone who embraced Unitarianism (or Unitarian Universalism, as this particular flavour is often described) years ago, this is further vindication of my decision. The fact that two groups whose theology is virtually indistinguishable can come to blows over whose turn it is to have their celebration shows what I had already realised - dogmatic, organised religion is not about God, or about spirituality. It is about power, control and strength in numbers. And thus it leads to violence over things which really don't matter in human terms. See the crusades; see Al qaeda for examples of what I mean. These people don't (didn't) actually differ significantly from their supposed enemies. They just have different dogma. And to me, dogma is a poison - whether it is Muslim, Christian, Hindu, or anything else: if it tells you you are superior to other human beings just for saying you believe something that they don't, it is a poison.

I should make clear, I don't oppose religion in itself. I think spirituality is a good thing, when practised by an individual for their own fulfilment and enlightenment. But exclusive, combative, dogmatic religion is exactly the opposite of what humanity needs. Jesus' message of tolerance was spot on. Unfortunately, many of his followers seem to have missed the point.

Barack Obama and the promise too far?

I'm glad Barack Obama won the US presidential election. If he hadn't, it would have looked like a step backwards, and that would have been a bad thing in terms of global politics.

However, while I really hope that Obama can make America work, it is hard to see how he can make his promises work. It's a truism, but in opposition you can promise anything you like. Government tends to make things much more complicated.

Amongst the things Obama has promised is not to behave like Bush did on Kyoto, blocking it and refusing to sign up. But there is a good deal of misinformation on why Bush did what he did - he recognised that to implement Kyoto would cost an incredibly large amount of money and have a negligible impact on carbon emissions. It was just a very expensive gesture, and so Bush decided not to take part. This was seen as an abdication of his environmental responsibilities, but in many ways it was justified. Negotiating another treaty, presumably even more expensive, is probably politically necessary but will be risky in the longer term. And promising to create 5 million "green-collar" jobs is also a very costly commitment.

The biggest problem is what has been referred to by the BBC as Obama-nomics. That is to say, his attitude to economic policy, particularly in the current unstable climate. Not only is Obama intent on spending, sorry, investing lots of borrowed money to "stimulate" the economy, which is worrying given the already astronomical national debt he will inherit, but he has promised to protect American jobs and tell companies not to send jobs overseas. He also wants to renegotiate the North American Free Trade agreement. This is bad news - an American president who opposes free trade and proposes a protectionist trade policy is not what the rest of the world, especially the developing world needs.

I still hope that Obama will prove to be a success - America needs a successful president. And if that successful president is half-black, it will improve America's image. But I am worried by some aspects of his manifesto. I hope I'm wrong.