Leaders Leaders Leaders Debate Debate Debate*

You're probably all familiar with the six demands made by the 19th Century parliamentary reform movement known as the Chartists. Four of them have more or less come to pass:

• Paid MPs
• Equal sized constituencies
• Abolition of the property qualification for becoming an MP
• Secret ballots

A fifth (universal male suffrage) has even been been surpassed, thanks to the direct action taken by the Suffragettes a century ago.

The final Chartist demand was for annual parliamentary elections. Be careful what you wish for...

Yes. It's election time again! As usual, the national discussion is starting with the big debate about which leaders should be allowed to take part in the big debates. 

Like the Xmas jumper (see Finnginn passim) the debates have an illusion of tradition but, in fact, they only started in 2010: when the incumbent Gordon Brown and challenger David Cameron spent the whole evening saying how much they agreed with Nick Clegg. 

In 2015, the Labour and Conservative leaders were in the same building but didn't debate each other, they each separately faced a grilling from the audience and Jeremy Paxman. The most memorable thing that happened was Ed Miliband managed to trip over stepping off the weird Q-shaped stage.

In 2017, the incumbent Conservative Prime Minister, Theresa May - who had been watching her poll ratings tumble each time she appeared on TV - bottled it completely and sent Andrea Leadsom in her place. This was the year when there were 9 party representatives on the stage. So each only got about 45 seconds of airtime that was mostly spent being interrupted by Nigel Farage.

So, tonight, as is traditional (but actually for the first ever time) the leaders of the two main parties in the United Kingdom will present their policies and their rebuttals of their opponents' policies to the nation. 

The reason that Chartists wanted annual elections was so that if politicians failed to deliver on their promises, the people could quickly replace them. 

If you are depressed about the state of politics today, and feeling low about the struggles ahead, have a listen to the Chartists' Anthem (as rendered here by Chumbawamba) and remember how far we have come:

*For an explanation of why linguists think the title of today's post (Leaders leaders leaders debate debate debate) works as a theoretically parsable sentence in English, see my blog post from five years ago: Ask Finnginn II: The Recursion Excursion. 

The Coming Week in Politics

It was a cheap and obvious political gambit for the opposition parties to deny the Conservatives their desired three day recess for conference.

Naturally, the conference will go ahead anyway. I wonder what have they tabled for discussion in their absence? Here's what the Leader of the House (the oft-recumbent Jacob Rees-Mogg) has put forward: 

• Monday: Northern Ireland Executive Formation
• Wednesday: Domestic Abuse Bill
• Thursday: Women's Mental Health

I've been following the progress of the Domestic Abuse Bill in particular (one of the organisations I write for in my day job runs refuges for people who have experienced domestic abuse). An early iteration of this Bill failed for political reasons when Theresa May called an election in 2017.

A second reading of the Bill has been scheduled by the Leader of the House for Wednesday 2nd October. And a good thing, too. But I want to question the motives of this .

Seems likely that, with many Conservative MPs away at their conference, the Executive don’t want MPs taking advantage of the government’s lack of a majority to take control of parliamentary proceedings. By scheduling debates on Domestic Abuse and women’s mental health while they are away schmoozing with their corporate paymasters, the Conservative government are betting that the opposition parties won’t change the agenda back to Brexit for fear of looking like they lack compassion for these issues. 

Clever politics perhaps. But also revealing about where their neoliberal priorities lie.

Imagine a House of Commons where these subjects are given the prominence they deserve by people who care about the issues. That's the Commons we could have if the people choosing to attend conference (rather than debate the topics that they themselves have tabled for their absence) were removed.

Elections are coming. Question the motives and priorities of your representatives.

Nine New Brexit Metaphors

One small pleasure to come out of watching all the recent UK political conversations has been the proliferation of Brexit metaphors. You're probably familiar with the Red, White and Blue Brexit, the Hotel California Brexit and the Titanic Brexit. Keen observers can probably add the Blue Fluffy Monster Brexit and the Peppermint Tea Brexit.

As a gift to hardworking pundits as Brexit looks set to extend beyond the promised 29th March deadline, here's a few more to bear in mind...

Cathedral City Brexit

A Brexit aimed at pleasing the residents of parochial cities such as Norwich, York and Salisbury, this Brexit has the whiff of costly imported cheddar.

School Disco Brexit

A Brexit where all the Leavers are dancing away provocatively, whilst all the Remainers are sulking by the wall and wishing they were popular enough to join in.

Corned Beef Hash Brexit

I've been accidentally stockpiling corned beef for years before the threat of no deal Brexit made stockpiling fashionable. 

For reasons beyond my understanding, my wife doesn't like me to eat meals comprised chiefly of fatty processed meat. So, naturally, when she took Finn Jr down to visit the in-laws recently, I retrieved from the back of the cupboard the can of corned beef that was least past its sell-by-date to make a delicious corned beef hash. I even, as comedy tradition demands, managed to cut my hand opening the can. 

When I sat down to eat the meal of canned meat fried in butter with potato and onion, disaster struck! No HP sauce! 

The Corned Beef Hash Brexit is a Brexit defined by illicit enjoyment of a forbidden meal ruined by the fact that its ideal accompaniment is manufactured in the EU.

Drill and Fill Brexit

A Brexit that you keep putting off because you are convinced that you have advanced periodontitis, but it turns out you have just been over-indulging from the office biscuit tin and need a filling. 

George Orwell Brexit

"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever."

Mad Cow Disease Brexit

[Insert Theresa May (DEFRA more politically correct?) joke here]

Black Spot Brexit

A Brexit handed to you by a blind pirate that makes you want to throttle yourself.

Full English Brexit

Bacon, mushrooms, fried egg, sausage, black pudding, toast, beans, Scottish independence, Welsh indifference and a hard customs border in the Irish Sea.

Full Irish Brexit

The same as above but with additional white pudding and a soft border between the Republic and the North.

Meanwhile...

The striking kids have got it right. Our actions are changing the habitability of the only planet we can live on. Perhaps we should be focusing on that?

Venturing into the Shed

It started, as so many things do, with the purchase of what I hope one day to be a flourishing Sorbus Aucuparia. Currently, it is just an 8 foot twig in a pot. As soon as the ground has thawed sufficiently for me to dig a hole, I plan to plant the tree in a space I have been saving in the corner of my traditional mixed hedgerow. I am going to need a spade and some compost. Unfortunately... that means venturing into the shed.

The shed was erected by the previous occupants of our house about a week before they decided to sell it to us. Quite why they decided to erect a shed on a property they intended to sell is a mystery. But our house came with an uninsulated, but relatively spacious, brand new shed.

Lots of famous writers have worked in sheds. Roald Dahl, Dylan Thomas, Virginia Woolf and Philip Pullman spring immediately to mind, and I'll bet that you have your own favourites. I could imagine myself writing in my shed: blanket over the knees in winter, door open in the summer, staring out the window to see songbirds peck the berries of a flourishing Sorbus Aucuparia in the autumn - you get the picture.

The first hindrance was the lawn mower. I knew, I suppose, on some level, that lawns need mowing and that mowers need to be stored somewhere, and the shed is the logical place for the mower to be stored etc. But I can't imagine Virginia Woolf staring at a greasy lawn mower when she was bashing out To The Lighthouse on her portable Underwood (although perhaps that was her inspiration for Kew Gardens!).

Then came the barbecue. It was one of those kettle barbecues on a tripod of wheels that never feels well-balanced. I assembled it on the morning of Finn Jr's 1st birthday party, cooked on it in the afternoon of Finn Jr's 1st birthday party, and then put it and the accompanying bags of charcoal in the shed - where it has sat ever since, except when I have to move it so I can get the lawn mower out.

This winter, the lawn mower and the barbecue have been joined by two broken sofas, a bicycle, two bags of peat-free compost, various digging implements and all the recycling from when we missed a collection over Christmas.   

Today, I thought I would make a start on sorting it all out. Not least so that I could get to the spade and compost and plant my Sorbus Aucuparia. Have you ever tried to saw a broken sofa in half with a handsaw so that you can get it in the back of a Fiesta? I bet Dylan Thomas never had to do this. Do not go gently into that full shed!

The large twig to the right of the shed is my new Sorbus Aucuparia.