Today is the ITF’s global day of action in support of Mansour Osanloo, leader of the Tehran bus drivers’ union, who is currently being held in Evin Prison, because of his union related activities. Read the rest of this entry »
In which a young man setting out on a noble career finds that ultimately it’s easier to make living through a dishonest path than by staying true to his public. Any similarities between persons living or dead purely coincidental.
I’m really coming round to how good this new Tory viral ad format is. I mean, loads of stuff must have doubled under Labour that they could make videos about. Got me thinking…
Nice note from Asabailey, viral marketing gurus and new Tory ad agency. I like their stuff a lot (my favourite of late has to be their Cannes Web2.0 song - more than a bit NSFW btw). Anyway, they’re showing the first of their new series of Tory attack ads on YouTube:
In response to Lord Saatchi’s most recent calls for the Conservative party to stop its “nicely nicely approach to advertising and PR” and to get back to basics, Asabailey have created this online viral and TV campaign to create debate between consumers and the media in the Midlands and the North of England, all as an early general election looks ever more likely.
Using real Mobile Phone style footage, and images of “life under Labour” the campaign highlights the darker sides of life in modern New Labour Britain and places the blame firmly at the feet of the current Labour government.
Call me old fashioned, but I thought it could be construed a bit of a cheek to bang on about teenage thuggery if you used to be in your own young ruffians gang. Or maybe Dave, George and Boris are able to understand the problem much better than Labour, having been there, done it (over) and so on.
Anyways, I thought I’d share it with you. Oops, silly me, now where did I put the original file… Is it this one?
Prospective mayoral candidate Boris Johnson is no fan of health and safety regulations, apparently regularly declaring his hero to be Larry Vaughn, the fictional mayor in Jaws, who refused to close the beaches after expert testimony and evidence of the first shark attack, leading to another free lunch for the film’s eponymous anti-hero.
Apparently the odd gobbled bather here and there is a small price to pay for the business freedoms that come with under-regulation. The latest gaffe from London’s would be gaffer is taken from a speech he gave last year at Lloyds of London:
“The real hero of Jaws is the mayor. A gigantic fish is eating all your constituents and he decides to keep the beaches open. OK, in that instance he was actually wrong. But in principle, we need more politicians like the mayor - we are often the only obstacle against all the nonsense which is really a massive conspiracy against the taxpayer.”
Wonder how many more safety reps are going to be out canvassing for Ken now?
Our left blogohemisphere is gettingquiteexcited about Sen Barack Obama’s race for the Democratic presidential nomination over the pond. It’s like Howard Dean never screamed, hurrah!
And there’s quite a lot to get excited about - as this video shows (thanks, parburypolitica!): Top orator, Impeccable community politics CV, all career moves covered by good altruistic reasons. He’s a kind of fantasy football candidate, and if he loses will have a great potential career playing inspirational presidents in disaster movies.
Naysaying seems to be focused around good old fashioned racism (including his rather unfortunate middle name of Hussein), his lack of cash and national campaign team, and possibly more tellingly that he’s new kid on the block, without the Washington experience of Howard Dean, let alone Hillary Clinton.
Anyway, watching the vid confused me a little. He does a great spiel on breaking down false divisions between red & blue, though I wondered a bit who he was trying to reach out to. The hardcore religious right deal in moral absolutes, so might be pretty immune to the shades of grey involved in trade-off politics and coalition building. For every one he won over with talk of worshipping “an awesome god” in the blue states, he probably alienated them again straight away by acknowledging the mere existence of “gay friends” in the red states.
As a tack for uniting those on the near right, with self-hating liberal tendencies though, I think it might work very well!
Maybe he is actually Sacha Baron Cohen’s latest character - trying to sucker the two sides into something which will make them both look silly.
This post from Tom Watson scared me not inconsiderably! A creationist lobby group sending DVDs to MPs, purporting to offer evidence why creationism should make it into the GCSE biology syllabus. Made me wonder after reading Mr Tony’s recent New Scientist Interview:
NS: One subject that is of great concern to scientists is creationism. There has been a suggestion that creationism is being taught in some British schools. What are your views on this?
TB: This can be hugely exaggerated. I’ve visited one of the schools in question and as far as I’m aware they are teaching the curriculum in a normal way. If I notice creationism becoming the mainstream of the education system in this country then that’s the time to start worrying.
If they’ve got as far as the Palace of Westminster inboxes, does that mean that word from the top says it’s time for us good science-fearing folk to pack up and run for the hills?
I think the only rational response to this news is a knee-jerk cartoon:
And on the subject of webcameron… Have you seen their new web-widget, which is finally live? It’s neat-o in a not tremendously useful way to the user, though it probably does wonders for webdave’s googlejuice, having all those keyword terms linking in from around the web.
I thought I’d put it here, but mainly because I noticed a bit of a ’separated at birth’ moment. Remember Dave the Chameleon, and his attempts to pinch policies from all and sundry? Well, funny how you never see them on the same site at the same time and all that…
The occasional scrapbook of a UK labor-geek.
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All of this obviously being my own thoughts and nothing you can pin on my employers present or past, my union, my local party, my mates, or anyone else you might confuse me with - most of whom don't agree with me about very much anyway.
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