A Tribute To Alan Johnson

As Alan Johnson becomes an early Minister to leave Ed Miliband’s Shadow Cabinet, there is no shame for anyone in the Cabinet. This is quite rare when a high profile Minister resigns. However, Alan Johnson leaves with the Government and the public’s respect intact.

Alan Johnson, leaving with his reputation intact

He is a good politician, a good man and someone people can associate with. There is no sign of privilege in his background. He’s the sort of guy who is genuinely working to make life better for the rest of us.

Much has been made of the fact that he used to be a postman. However, not many have mentioned his orphaned status as a child, being raised by his elder sister in a council flat. Attending a comprehensive school, stacking shelves in Tesco. He worked his way up through a union, clearly not a career politician.

If the rumours about his wife’s affair with a bodyguard are true then he will clearly be devastated and have many problems in his private life. But his public life will not be called into question and potentially his position could be strengthed.

I therefore hope, and expect, to see Alan Johnson return to the Shadow Cabinet in the foreseeable future. But for now I wish him, and his successor the economic expert Ed Balls, all the best

Fighting For The EMA

Michael Gove and his fellow Tories are trying to get ride of the EMA across the UK. This will affect hundreds of educational faculties and thousands of students/pupils across the UK.

Michael Gove admitted live in the House of Commons today that he had only visited one faculty, and that was in his own constituency (Which, being a Tory is a wealthy one). For the Secretary of State for Education to have really no idea about education is a scary state of affairs.

Shadow Secretary of State for Education, Andy Burnham

Shadow Education Secretary Andy Burnham took on Gove in the Commons today and proved himself to be far more knowledgeable in the topic area.  Gove seemed to struggle to fight Burnham’s accusations and facts.

Labour’s EMA program has been vital across the UK for aiming to bridge the gap between the rich and the poor across all levels of education.

Gove also asked Burnham what the change was between 2009 and 2010 for underprivileged children going to Oxford or Cambridge. The figures read as such: a 4% decrease, which is none too surprising under a Tory government. If this was Gove’s best form of a defence, it was pretty dire.

Burnham also was able to quote Gove on comments he made in his newspaper column in the last couple of years. The quotes were entirely elitist as he attacked the idea of working class people going to university. Even Gove’s wife made comments in the paper, embarrassing her husband as she claimed that all working class mothers must have a cleaner. I personally don’t know anyone with a cleaner.

The Tories, as ever, decided that their only form of defence was to make random noises and shout. This would be funny if it wasn’t for the fact they’re meant to be running the country.

Andy Burnham continues to enhance his reputation. He’s a man who I’d have been happy with leading the Labour Party so it is excellent to see him performing well in a high position in the Cabinet and in the Chamber.

Removing EMA will cause at least 78,000 people this year to fall out of the higher education system, a huge loss. This will in return lead to more people turning to the benefit system and in turn will lead to more money being spent on benefits than the money saved by getting rid of EMA.

Secretary of State for Education, Michael Gove

The Tories of course made an election promise to keep EMA in place, so this would be ANOTHER election promise broken by the ConDem government. As Andy Burnham said: “This time it’s not the yellow Tories, but the real Tories who are breaking their promises.”

Lib Dem MP Simon Hughes then stood up to speak and stated that he would be happy to work with Andy Burnham as well as working inside the government with Michael Gove. The more support Burnham gains in this issue, the more likely that Britain’s young people will be able to continue to attend university without fear of further debt.

Gove began to improve later in the debate and showed some knowledge and debating skills, being able to talk about various issues of educational policy. However, he still used the famous cliché of talking about the deficit the government inherited from the previous government. It’s not that this is untrue, it’s simply the fact that every ConDem member feels the need to mention it whenever they’re backed into a corner by their own inability to defend policy.

I don’t claim that Michael Gove is a poor quality Minister, as it happens I don’t believe that he is. I simply wish to put across that on the particular issue of EMA Andy Burnham fought the better fight today.

Tribes: Tell Your Friends!

In an age where bands use the internet to provide themselves and put themselves all over the place Tribes have decided to be different. They want to revert to the old days of ‘tell your friends about this band’. Which is what, to some extent, I’m doing.

Tribes

Tribes are a new band who I don’t actually know much about. You can go here to listen to them: http://www.myspace.com/tribesband but there’s no information etc.

However, what I do know is that they’ve got a song called Nightdriving that is just brilliant, so do listen to it. This isn’t to take away from their other songs, I just don’t know them as well.

But yes, tell your friends!

Ed In The Game

The first few months of Ed Miliband’s reign as the leader of the Labour Party were pretty low key publicly. He was getting used to the job and presumably trying to work out party policy on certain matters.

More recently though, it appears to me that Ed’s been doing very well and is increasing his own popularity whilst keeping the Party on the right track. He’s made what I believe have been several important moves to win over support.

Ed's had a few things to smile about recently

Early on in his reign he decided to appoint Alan Johnson as Shadow Chancellor, a move unpopular with some. I had personally expected, as many did, that Ed Balls would be given this post. However, looking at it now I think Ed made the right choice. He needs to distance himself from the unpopularity of Gordon Brown. To put Balls in that job would seem too much of a Brownite move. Whether Johnson is right for the post or not remains to be seen but it was wise to make a move such as this, especially with Johnson having support David Miliband in the leadership campaign. This helped prove Ed would not put only his friends in positions of power but would act in the interest of the party.

Alan Johnson (Coincidentally showing the size of the Tory vote in Oldham)

Recently came the Oldham by-election. Labour won a thumping majority of 3,500 roughly which can be seen as a big victory for the party and a sign of support for Ed. This was his first real public challenge and it was a massive success.

Even more recently Ed was interview by Andrew Marr about the potential strikes on the day of the Royal Wedding. Personally, the wedding isn’t something I’m interested in but Ed definitely made the right move. He condemned talk of a strike action and said he would not support it. It would have been electoral suicide to do the opposite. ‘Red Ed Backs Unions Over Royals’ papers would rage, and that’s something to be avoided.

Overall, he’s done pretty well I’d say and long may that continue. Also I should explain that I call him Ed rather than Miliband for the obvious reason that his brother is also one of Britain’s best politicians, and will hopefully come back to the Cabinet in the future.

The World Is Yours

It’s a rare thing for me to be so addicted to a song that I play it repeatedly on the same day. Even rarer for me to listen to it back-to-back, pretty much unheard of. However, that’s been the case with Glasvegas’ new song ‘The World Is Yours’.

'The World Is Yours' artwork

This is the first taste of the band’s second album. I don’t mean to bang on too much about the band as there’s lots of other bands who I could be talking about. But the fact is that their new song is a bit special I reckon.

Clocking in at over five minutes long the track has some lovely changes of pace, building up into a cracking chorus. It’s essentially a love song, but a really well done one.

It’s a really exciting taste for their new album, the shockingly titled ‘EUPHORIC /// HEARTBREAK \\\’. I had previously wondered where they were gonna go with their sound.  Sticking to their first album sound would have been limiting but changing too much would have been risky. This change is just the right amount of change needed.

But luckily you don’t have to believe me, you can get on their website and download the thing for free. So go there now!

The Glasvegas Album That Never Was

Most people who know the Glasgow band Glasvegas know them as a band who generally put out dark, deep (Some have said depressing) slow rock music. This was not always the case though as anyone who saw them back before they got signed can testify.

The band a few years ago

This was a band who would roll out a bunch of fast, catchy songs in their songs and have ‘whoa oh’ or ‘oh oh oho’ moments in their songs regularly. Listening back to some of their old demo’s make me wonder how successful an album of such songs would have been. I’ve decided, for no real purpose, to create my alternative Glasvegas début album.

That’s not to say the album they actually put out wasn’t very good, it was. I’ve seen the band live seven times so there’s no doubting I’ve loved the music they’ve meant since changing their style. But it would be see to some them make some songs in the old style again.

Anyway, here is my alternative Glasvegas album (The album the band could potentially have made in about 2006):

1. I’m Gonna Get Stabbed
2. Geraldine
3. Whitey
4. Daddy’s Done
5. Colin The Copper
6. The Prettiest Thing On Saltcoats Beach
7. It’s My Own Cheating Heart That Makes Me Cry
8. Legs ‘N’ Show
9. Ina Lvs Rab
10.  Go Square Go!
11. Flowers And Football Tops

I realise about half of these songs actually turned up on the official album, but these versions differ hugely to the early versions. While ‘Stabbed’ shows up on the album with just James Allan singing slowly over piano, it was originally their fastest song and a popular singalong during shows.

The old Glasvegas logo

I’m actually liking the sound of this, I might just make myself this album. But to any Glasvegas fans, you should check out these songs. You might just like them better than the ones you’ve already heard.

Never Mind The Buzzcocks

Having watched the series finale of Never Mind The Buzzcocks tonight I came to a few conclusions.

1. It was an original idea to have the separate David O’Doherty bit. I quite liked it but it’ll only work once.

2. Phill Jupitus is still as funny as he ever was, the man’s one of the longest lasting greats in the mainstream circuit.

3. Noel Fielding was great this series, better than last series.

4. Jedward are insufferable (But then, you all knew that).

5. Jack Dee’s deadpan delivery still works perfectly.

6. The three best guest hosts were (In no particular order) Jack Dee, Terry Wogan and Frankie Boyle.

7. The show’s surviving without the brilliant Simon Amstell, although I still miss him from it.

8. I only made 7 conclusions.

Four Flowers

Four flowers on a sill,
In a room without pictures.
Nothing but a gesture,
Far from sincere.

Alone she lies in the ward,
Other patients with their loved ones.
She wonders why she stares at the flowers,
Wonders why she holds on to life.

The stones in the park hold only the future,
The words clearly engraved spell out only despair.
The fences are black and the sky’s not much better,
The tombstones are grey with Times New Roman letters.

But the flowers are blue,
Green, purple and orange.
A glint in her eye as she watches the colour,
The clock hands moves on as times passes by.

No one comes near her but still she’s not lonely,
Her family love her but they’re only flowers.
They’ll be here tomorrow with exuberant light,
And soon she’ll be restored to her natural self.

The rose in her cheeks has never yet dimmed,
The weight in her waist she finds time to bear.
The white in her hair shows only her love of life,
The flowers on the sill shows that she will always be loved.

10 Jokes In 12 Minutes

These are brand new jokes which I’m going to write right now. I’m putting them here so I don’t clutter up Facebook. Beginning at 23:32 (Because I love the symmetry). Here goes, (P.S. It might help to say some of them out loud) In the order I think them up:

1. You never see a sober fish, they’re all legless all the time.

2. Why are camp-fires so sexual? They’ve always got wood.

3. Someone should get that poor statue off of that island near New York. Having her out there on her own is a liberty.

4. A man walks into a b ar and dies. That’s what happens when you take ‘e’.

5. Jesus auditioned for the film Titanic. They turned him down as they thought his walking on water trick might spoil the story.

6. A man sells figures which he crafts into war scenes. He’s making a killing.

7. Two normal people and a moron went on a caravanning trip. The two normals both towed their caravan. The moron tried to frog his.

8. A Domino’s delivery man thought he had discovered a famous Roman Catholic Tuscan building, his spelling clearly wasn’t quite up to mark. He’d found the Leaning Tower Of Pizza.

9. Faced by a subject you don’t know whilst out at sea, that’s what you call out of your depth.

10. I ordered a blow up doll over the Internet and received a female Muslim extremist.

Completed at 23:44. 10 jokes in 12 minutes.

Bad Day To Be A Blue (Or An Accounting Student)

I’m not a blue, but I am an accounting student. So I know how it would have felt to be a Rangers or Chelsea fan today. Although, as it happens, in the Old Firm I didn’t care who won and I was delighted to see Chelsea fall at the climax.

However, alongside watching today’s football I had to endure the pain, the suffering, the inhumanity of accountancy studying. Something which I have been known to moan about at length. A thought so dark it strikes fear into the heart of the late Raoul Moat. Although this thought was followed by a stranger though:

It would have been darkly poetic if Raoul Moat had drowned, in a moat.

But, moving on swiftly. It’s tremendous to see Chelsea continue to falter, and even concede a goal from the powerhouse that is Emile Heskey. I still remember the joy his goal for Wigan against Chelsea brought me several years ago. Which, while sad, is a nice thought.

I still stand by my prediction in Scotland though that Rangers will win the league. I don’t mind who wins it, unless Hearts sneak up in Scottish history’s greatest ever shock.

I’m more interested in the First Division, where it’s just grim. Really grim. Not just for the Jags, the whole league is just rubbish this year. Even more than usual. All of which makes me a want a revolution in the league system. A proper one with big leagues, not the pathetic notion of 10 teams with play-offs or something ludicrous like that.

Ranting and accounting aside though, it’s been a good start to 2011 and a good end to 2010. So, onwards and upwards!