Newsflash! Leveson supersedes postmen as attack dog's target of choice

If anyone thought that once the Leveson Report was published, the attack dogs of the right-wing press and their fellow travellers would stay their barking and slink back to their kennels, I hope they are thoroughly disabused by now.  Quite (relatively) senior people in the media such as Dan Hodges are bandying about Nazi/Nazi-related comparisons (at which point, according to Godwin’s Law, the argument is dead and the person who made the comparison is responsible).  Usually Hodges is an urbane commentator (despite his unwavering support for a retrograde electoral system and the principles behind Gulf War II) but, as a former aide to Tony Blair, his over-reaction to both Leveson and The Guardian’s support of the report is a very telling clue as to why Blair only had a go at the press on the day he resigned from politics (and didn’t have Hodges around whispering in his ear). 

Hodges' libel of the head of Ofcom is a case in point.  Calling Ed Richards “an excellent regulator of unimpeachable integrity”, in the next sentence he mentions that Richards was a former aide to Gordon Brown (incidentally the mortal enemy of Hodge’s ex-boss). Hodges goes on to rubbish Richards by association, concluding by implication that the latter is a less-than-excellent regulator of questionable integrity.  Well, might as well get it in before any implementation of Leveson, even if you can’t make up your mind.

Most opposition is frankly pathetic and based around the fact that no-one with any cojones gives up power without a struggle (and this is power without responsibility in the case of the press).  Bob Satchwell, chief of the Society of Editors, bleated on about how things were so much better and yet so much worse in America, conveniently eschewing the example of, say, Denmark.  Intimating that Britain might slide into tyranny at some unspecified future date is barmy.  He also said there was significant redress already in place – really? When an innocent man like Christopher Jeffries has his reputation comprehensively shredded, only compensation that would allow him to buy a Bahamian island and consequently live in the accustomed style might, just might, be enough.  Yet the press would never pay that out (indeed The Sun and The Mirror took umbrage when the attorney-general held them in contempt of court for possibly compromising the prospect of a trial, as they couldn’t conceive that they had done wrong) .  And maybe he doesn’t want to move away, but the whispers whenever he entered town would always be there.  The thing about redress is that it is a ‘cure’ (however dubious), but, as the saying goes, prevention is better than cure.  If the journalists weren't print bullies but conducted themselves with more responsibility, society as a whole would be better for it (semantically, it is comparable to Tsar Nicholas II and his wife's antipathy to 'responsible' government i.e. government responsible for its actions.  Godwin's Law says nothing about tsarist comparisons, so stick it, critics).  But to suggest that journalists should act with circumspection is to invite abuse and ridicule from slavering newshounds.

The way some are reporting it, Leveson had pulled on jackboots and was marching all over press freedom with glee, that the idea of press freedom was furthest from his mind in his deliberations, yet no-one is saying Denmark is under totalitarian rule with its press regulations. And (when not asked loaded questions), a hefty majority of the public back independent regulation of the press i.e. free from press and politicians.  To those who say Leveson is bonkers, I say you are bonkers.

Last orders for the newspapers?

Must be a slow news days when there is no scandal breaking at some institution or another.  I have a hunch that all the news organisations are clearing their desks ahead of the publication tomorrow of the Leveson report into press standards.  The top billing on BBC news was the introduction of a minimum pricing for alcohol units.  Many supermarkets, such as Morrison’s - whose spokesman came on to protest the change - are opposed because they use multi-buy deals and generally low alcohol prices as loss-leaders, luring shoppers in to spend on other items as well.  So when the Morrison’s spokesman, Guy Mason, protested that alcohol only constituted 10% of a weekly shop, he was being disingenuous.  His opposing debater Professor Sir Ian Gilmour, a liver specialist, took Mason to pieces on every single smokescreen the latter threw up to protect his corporate masters and the shareholders.  Overall, although broadly supportive before (not just because of anti-social behaviour but also the silent problem of drinking too much in the home) I was left convinced that minimum pricing must be introduced, as much from being affronted by Mason’s weasel words as Sir Ian’s arguments.

In some way, this did foreshadow the Leveson report, a copy of which will be in David Cameron’s possession today.  Many on the right are absolutely terrified of what could come out in Leveson’s findings, because they fear statutory regulation will level the uneven playing surface of print media as it stands.  They know they can’t win over Leveson so they are fighting in the court of public opinion, claiming a threat to freedom of speech.  Already one member of the gutter press has spewed out a standard spurious correlation, stating that anyone who supports a new law to regulate the press is the equal of Robert Mugabe and Bashar al-Assad.  Alec Salmond, Scotland’s First Minister, is also battling with pre-emptive strikes because Rupert Murdoch, pissed off with being abandoned by Cameron, is now supporting Scottish independence (and of the course the smaller and the weaker a country, the more he can boss its elite around).  The main thing is the dissembling and disingenuous nature of all those with a vested interest in the status quo, talking about press freedom when really they don’t want the tap of right-wing literature turned off or at least reduced to a moderate dribble.

The Telegraph and The Times may not fear being collared too often under any new rules but they are trembling that the shock troops of the ‘middle’ market and gutter press will be neutered (e.g. no more comparing people to Mugabe), that the steady drip-drip of small ‘c’ becoming big ‘C’ conservatism into the nation’s psyche will be ended and people just might make up their minds for themselves.  Because all those who blather on about ‘press freedom’ are the same ones with absolute contempt for the ordinary person who they believe to be so malleable.  Those who have power - or at least think that they have – will fight tooth and nail to preserve it and screw everyone else.  The inbuilt right-wing majority in the press is under threat and that’s why big-hitting ‘maverick’ politicians such as Michael Gove and Boris Johnson have entered the fray on the side of their journalist confreres.  Whatever comes of Leveson (and governments almost never implement all the recommendations of reports they commission), it is a delight to see right-wingers genuinely scared.

Textual analysis

Proof, if ever it was needed, that those in UKIP have dull intellects in inverse proportion to their flamboyant attire comes with their leader Nigel Farage borrowing the clothes of reasonability to avow recherché policies under the headline “‘UKIP are not closet racists – but we’ve had enough’.” Unless you were racist you would use the word ‘and’ not ‘but’ as the sentence in its current form implies a racist side will be unleashed. But is it all it seems?


It appears in quotation marks but nowhere in his article does Farage use the phrase. Has he used it in other discourse? The only reference I can find is to the heading for his Telegraph article. Is this the personal view of the sub-editor then? Indeed, to flip it around, could the sub-editor be seeking to undermine Farage? I guess we'll never know, but (see what I did there?) addled brains and UKIP – why does that sound so appropriate?

JR finally succumbs

Famous people have a habit of dying at the most inopportune times when you would like to remember them but are so busy in life, one cannot even scatter a few words to record in their memory, let alone read full obituaries.  I first heard of Larry Hagman’s death from cancer on Saturday but the strains and stresses of that day, combined with being away mostly on the other side of London yesterday meant that it is only today, when the occasion to comment seems stale, that I have a certain (if circumscribed) freedom to offer up a brief homily.

Of course, Hagman was famous for playing the charismatic villain JR Ewing in Dallas and that will surely be his epitaph (unlike Brad Pitt, who played Randy between 1987 and 1988).  He even had the grace to appear in the relaunched Dallas, whose producers now have a set-piece funeral episode (closed casket) with which to make hay.  This time, a death in Dallas will not be a dream.

The old Dallas caught me a little too young and so the new version had no emotional pull on me (not that with my current schedule I would find time to watch it).  But I did see the movie Failsafe from 1964 (remade as a TV movie in 2000).  Contemporaneous with Dr Strangelove, it was a more sober appraisal of nuclear annihilation, Hagman playing the Russian-speaking aide to Henry Fonda’s president, translating for between Fonda and the Soviet Union leader.  His honest-to-goodness name of Buck has an unfortunate comparison with Buck Turgidsson in Dr Strangelove.

Outside of acting, Hagman was a proponent of green technology and energy, in direct contrast to his oil baron alter ago, as I recall from an interview he did with the BBC a few years ago.  All in all, a genuinely good guy and it saddens me that he is now gone.

Who’s in the frock?

After the General Synod of the Church of England voted less than 24 hours ago against the introduction of women bishops, the media chatter is of crisis. Blah. This hasn’t been kicked the issue into the long grass for a decade. Justin Welby will work very hard to have a success within five years.


Though the bishops (80% of the dioceses) and clergy voted in favour of the change, the majority of the general laity were opposed. This can be seen as the revenge of the conservatives as last year, proposals for compromise on a way forward were torpedoed by the liberal wing, insisting on either female bishops or nothing. In a way, the liberals have got their wish.

I don’t have a problem with women in the higher echelons of the church. I am served by one as my parish priest, though as Rochester Diocese didn’t want to surrender the leasehold on the vicarage, they denied her the title of vicar, saddling her with the cumbersome ‘priest-in-charge’. The ‘teaching’ by St Paul instructs that women are not to have such guidance over men but then he also says that, unlike men, women should cover their heads when in church and that almost never happens these days, even in the most evangelical of places. It’s been a constant and fierce struggle for ‘emanicipation’, going back to admission of women into choirs (driven by necessity as a result of world war) and letting them read the Lessons. The ordination of women priests kicked off a kerfuffle, causing many Anglo-Catholics to depart to Rome (though vicars kept their wives).

Archbishop-designate Welby will probably bring back the opt-out for certain churches of having a female bishop over them to ensure the measure passes (Rowan Williams tried the same but indications are that Welby has more force of character). The liberals will have to be content with half a loaf, which is better than none at all.

Chopper

Yesterday morning (hey, I’ve been busy) I saw, for what I think is the first time, an Apache attack helicopter above the skies of Gillingham.  I thought, is this UK riots 2011 redux transferred to Medway?  Last time, the sum total of destruction was a few bins set on fire and the front window of a bank vandalised – what passes for a normal weekend in this part of the world.  Were the authorities now giving extra heft to their dealings with petty hoodlums?  It seems no action has happened, which is only disappointing if one lives in a fantasy world.

I’m used to Chinooks with their double rota action overflying my house at 2-3am, which is a real racket.  But Apaches are another order altogether.  The preserve of the army, rather than the airforce, they are the most potent helicopter in the Western arsenal.  Put it this way, I wouldn’t want to bump into one in a dark alleyway.

Topsy-turvy

When political parties attempt to rebrand they should avoid providing gifts for their opponents. A decade ago Theresa May said the Conservatives were viewed as “the nasty party” and cited this opinion as rationale for modernisation. Unfortunately, the soundbite stuck and now any Conservative policy that the Labour party doesn’t agree with is labelled as from the nasty party by left-wingers in press and politics alike. It wasn’t a traditional gaffe, in much the same way as Pope Benedict XVI, quoting from a Byzantine Emperor’s inflammatory opinion of Muslims to show the need for religious harmony, was slated as holding these same opinions when he said nothing of the sort. Yet it snowballed.


Now with Mitt Romney, reaffirming that his dismissal of 47% of Amercians really was what he believed (though he never denied it, admittedly, obfuscating “This is me, not the campaign” – but the campaign is about you!), telling a donor that Barack Obama won the election by giving parts of the population under stress (he would call them poor people) healthcare, free contraceptives and forgiveness of college loan interests. Romney is condemning these tactics when they are those of the moderate. Such things in Europe would go unremarked and maybe that’s the point.

Thankfully, there is some sanity in the Republican party and New Hampshire senator Kelly Ayotte, New Jersey governor Chris Christie and Idaho congressman Raul Labrador (what a name! Imagine if he became president – ‘British PM is poodle to Labrador’) have all castigated the remarks and the inherent divisiveness. Here is where the gaffe was committed. Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal (justifiably a rising star) said the Republicans had to stop being "the stupid party." This comment will be used ad infinitum and ad nauseam in ads by Democrats and by the commentariat in general. Everytime they disagree with Obama or the Democrats now, the response will be “Oh look, it’s the stupid party causing a stink.” Way to go Jindal. You will star more prominently in Democrat campaigns than Republican ones in the future. It will be your epitaph (at least the British Home Secretary has kitten heels to fall back on).  But you were speaking sense! It’s a cruel world.

With this mandate, am I the law?

In a way, I’m delighted that there was such a low turnout for the Police Commissioner elections. David Cameron, the Tories and Labour turncoats kyboshed the AV referendum with lies and personal attack so I’m pleased his cherished constitutional reform (aside from boundary changes) has humiliated him. Imagine if a quorum had been enforced! Another £100m down the drain to follow the same size of wastage on the West Coast Main Line fiasco.


Kent performed better than average with a 15.99% turnout, only eight elections out of the other 40 regions had a bigger percentage of people voting. When so few people cast their ballot, it allows the independents to sneak through, wheareas normally they’d struggle to keep their deposit. There is a contiguous strip of independents in charge running from Kent through the likes of Avon and Somerset to North Wales.

Bettws, a suburb of Newport had no-one arriving, but what about the election invigilators – don’t they vote. What about the hosts, the cricket club – they couldn’t be bothered either? Moreover, if the residents of one of Europe’s largest housing estates are irritated by the ‘officious nature’ of the police, isn’t this the perfect way to express yourself or even field a candidate that you feel represents you? No, that would be too much effort, wouldn’t it.

I am slightly pleased that Ann Barnes, my second choice candidate, won - that my single ballot was a small but maybe contributory factor (if she didn’t reach more than half of first preferences) in her election to the role of Police Commissioner. Well done Ann!  Now, let's see what you can do.

I am the law!

Today the vote for local police commissioners took place and I did my civic duty and tootled off down to the polling station to cast my vote.  Not that I was informed or had attended any of the hustings, though I had the opportunity.  I was participating in civil society and as it was my right to vote, I am determined to exercise that right.

I noticed that, though it was a central plank of Tory policy, ironically, it was an Alternative Vote system (albeit the most pared down one, limited to first and second choices).  Maybe it was a compromise with the Liberal Democrat Coalition partners, maybe it is a sign of the importance that the Conservatives attach to it.  Interestingly, there was no referendum to my knowledge on the implementation of police commissioners, unlike, say, the AV referendum.

Anyway, I voted for the Labour candidate as my first choice, much in the same way that Americans used to vote for a president and a Congress of differing political persuasions – as a balancer (rather than for obstruction).  This is one of the few elections where I might vote for the Tories given their reputation for law and order but I plumped for a second choice with an independent who was a woman.  I don’t see independent candidates as having the organisational wherewithal to resist central government diktats, but it is good to have women in top positions (the Labour candidate was also female).

Somehow it all feels slightly artificial with democracy imposed by a top-down approach and not having the same grassroots appeal as Americans voting for their sheriffs and district attorneys.  I won’t lose much sleep, whatever the result but the true judge of relevance will be the impact felt by the time of the next election.

It took the apocalypse for Americans to adopt the metric system

Though Dredd 3D (to quote The Big Bang Theory, to be in 3D “the studio must have confidence in it.”) came out a while ago, I was otherwise occupied but I made an effort here to catch it at Canterbury’s Gulbenkian Theatre, as I had an affinity with Judge Dredd and his appearances in 2000AD and the previous film was so lame and to satisfy the ego of Sylvester Stallone who was playing him, Dredd spent most of the time with his helmet off – something that never happened in the comic.


Here, the only time Dredd has his helmet off is the very opening few seconds as he suits up in a semi-darkened room. Karl Urban is not so bothered if people get to see the top of his head (though it does get a little confusing when he is battling some rogue Judges).

The venal, extravagant dystopia envisaged by 2000AD is very much realised, and you get a feeling for the immensity of Mega City One, housing 800 million people and stretching from Boston to Washington D.C. The sprawl is pockmarked by huge housing blocks, home to roughly 75,000 people and, of course, the fascist-looking monolithic Justice Headquarters – these people are just one step up from the criminals they apprehend.

There is plenty of humour that has survived from the comic, with one strung-out, homeless man holding a sign saying “I will debase myself for credits” – further, it is not long before he is unceremoniously crushed by a blast door. This film would play very well on a commercial channel punctuated by adverts because, like the comic (i.e. ‘tune in next week’), Dredd 3D has very contained segments of action. Also, unlike the Stallone flop, it doesn’t have some grand overarching concept but focuses on a standard story, again as in the comics. It’s not going to win any prizes but is aware of its limitations and so is a polished little gem. Interestingly, Dredd uses the metric system, talking in metres, not yards.

Essentially, apart from one exciting chase scene at the start, it is like a futuristic Die Hard, with Dredd and his psychic female rookie trapped in a vast housing complex under lockdown and taking out the numerous ‘perps’ searching for them. Not that these baddies are drones – one is later shown to have been a loving husband and father. The ultimate perp is a drug-dealing villainess called MaMa who has taken over the complex and using it as a fiefdom to market a powerful new narcotic.

The film ends as it did in the strip with a brief coda, it being just another day in the field. There are many excellent and cute aspects that I haven’t documented – I hope there are many more days in the field to come.

Four more years!

Now Florida has been sorted out (and awarded to Barack Obama at that), one can give a full assessment .  No scrub that – a half-arsed collection of thoughts, but hey, it’s my blog and there are no rules.

Despite Obama’s crushing electoral win, many Republicans are not taking it with good, if disappointed, grace, revealing themselves to be the nasty, bitter, small-minded individuals that they are.  The Democrats would have had a heavy weight on their hearts but resign themselves to the fact of the matter had Obama not gathered enough states with big populations together.   Hours after the result was called, right-wing pundits were babbling that the president has no second term mandate because of his narrow popular majority vote.  Sorry, I don’t believe it says in the constitution that the winning candidate has to triumph by more than ten percentage points to make their election valid.  What Obama has behind him is the trend of history, where the Dems have one the popular vote for the presidency every time, bar one, since 1992, a veritable hegemony comparable to the days of FDR and Truman, while if the Supreme Court hadn’t stopped the recount in Florida in 2000, President Al Gore would probably have been garnered the same in 2004.  Indeed, the Republicans didn’t raise this issue in 2000, when Gore won the popular vote.

But hypocrisy is the hallmark of the modern Republican Party.  They criticise Obama for not being bipartisan yet sit with their arms folded, making no attempt themselves.  Indeed, many Republicans in Congress were elected to make no compromise at all - if ‘politics is the art of compromise’, they are the kids who throw the paint on the floor, ruining things for everyone.  That Obama does not need to face an election again, he can play hard ball to expose the fanatics for what they are.  Or he can be emollient to try and peel off moderate House Republicans, though this proved in vain last time with 2010’s intake.  Congressional Republicans operate pettiness in inverse proportion to Mitt Romney’s gracious concession.

Norman Ornsteim summed it up perfectly – both sides have ‘coagulated’ into parliamentary parties but are still organised in a caucus rather than a parliamentary system.  Therefore, the checks and balances have seized up the machine (though small government partisans say, ludicrously, that was their aim).  It’s perfectly reasonable to actively oppose the other side if that side controls both executive and legislature and can be ejected from both at the same time every four or five years.  At the moment, it is a touch schizophrenic.

Even though the Senate remained in Democrat hands for at least another two years, Obama can feel confident in locking in the gains of the first term, such as financial reform, ending anti-gay restrictions in the army and, above all, keeping Obamacare (whose results will grow exponentially, as the main effects were scheduled to kick in from 2013).  He’ll let the tax cuts for the super-rich expire and achieve incremental domestic change, most likely hammering out a deal on immigration policy, while going big on getting a signature foreign policy legacy, probably on the Israel/Palestine issue, to justify that premature Nobel Peace Prize.  When you hear sorrowful Republicans lamenting that their country is becoming communist (first, no, it’s not and second, you don’t know what you’re talking about and probably never have been to a country that endured the yoke of communism with its ravages), this is the demagoguery-inflected ignorance with which Obama has to contend.

There are abundant ironies in the political system of the USA.  If either party was serious about ending the gridlock in Congress, they would need a super-majority in the Senate to end the concept of Super-majorities blocking filibusters, as the other side would say that their opponents are doing it to enhance respective political power.  Also, ironic is that the electoral college, allegedly designed to protect the influence of small, rural states from the big metropolitan dominated states, shafted the former and has done so two presidential elections in a row.  Karl Rove was completely outmanoeuvred by David Plouffe and David Axelrod.

The BBC’s coverage was sober and professional in contrast to its chaotic 2008 performance but the time whizzed by (partly due to myself doing other things, like loading up the dishwasher, filling the washing machine, setting both into action, having a shave, etc).  Amusingly, Niles Gardiner, a Romney aide, who in the aftermath of defeat became merely a ‘foreign policy expert’ (?!?) was asked to say one nice thing about Obama and you could see his brain struggling with such an outside-of-the-envelope concept for himself.  So far beyond the realms of his intellect, he failed and fell back into a default mode of attacking Obama (and praising George W Bush in the same breath – insane) – thank goodness he is nowhere near real power.  Simon Schama did put in an appearance but was only used as a warm-down act.

Law of the ex

Ahead of the visit of West Ham United to Newcastle United, the pundits invariably give an extra edge to the Hammers because Sam Allardyce seeks (further) revenge for being sacked (justifiably, because with the same squad and more forward-focused play, Kevin Keegan’s second stint as manager, achieved more clean sheets in fewer games than afforded Allardyce).  No-one seems aware that Alan Pardew himself might be extra keen to extract more pain from his former employers after he was unceremoniously evicted mid-season by West Ham’s then owners.

And he's off...

Moments after making my last post I decided to check the news on the offchance, even though the main news had finished just a little over ten minutes previously and George Entwistle has fallen on his sword.  Well, what about that?

Turf War

George Entwistle, BBC Director General, was given a real grilling this morning on the Today programme by John Humphrys, his nominal underling, over the disastrous fallout from Newsnight broadcasting the implication of a serious Tory involved in the child abuse scandal in north Wales.  The ferocity was rarely displayed towards even politicians, but Humphrys was full of incredulous rat-a-tat-tat.  Would this be because the editor of Today, Ceri Thomas, was passed over to become director-general, especially after Entwistle’s poor handling of the BBC’s coverage of the Diamond Jubilee (some would say that a weak grasp of priorities has continued into his director-generalship)?  Will Incurious George’s tenure be the shortest yet and will Thomas ‘step into the breach’ to save the BBC?  It seems more scripted than an edition of Have I Got News For You.

Yes he can. Yes, yes yes!

Congratulations on re-election President Obama.  Four more years!

It's the system, stupid

Well, the US presidential election is upon us and thus so is the late-night coverage.  The late, semi-great Gore Vidal is no longer with us to deliver the shambling, incoherent rant he did in 2008, capping it by denigrating David Dimbleby with a contemptuous “Who are you?”  The BBC electoral team was also taken apart by the Republican John Bolton for not knowing there stuff (though he used it to his advantage to say things they could not rebut).  Simon Schama will no doubt reprise his role as savant, Jester to Dimbleby’s Lear.  Yet I will still watch the BBC.  In newspaper terms for news coverage, they are like The Times, solid, conservative moderates.  ITV is like The Daily Express, Sky is like The Daily Telegraph and Channel 4 like The Guardian.  Except, importantly, the BBC is not The Times, a Rupert Murdoch organ.

It’s striking though that there are actually four more presidential candidates that no-one talks about – Gary Johnson (formerly a Republican) from the Libertarians, Jill Stein from the Greens, Virgil Goode from the Constitution Party and the flamboyantly named Rocky Anderson from the Justice Party.  And then again, it isn’t striking at all – none of these candidates are on the ballot in every single state (Oklahoma seems particularly resistant), none will win a state and so none will win the presidential election.  In The Simpsons’ Citizen Kang (Treehouse of Horror VII), after accidentally killing the captive Bill Clinton and Bob Dole by flushing them out into space, Homer Simpson crash-lands the UFO in Washington D.C. and unmasks the slobbering aliens Kang and Kodos who were impersonating the candidates.  But the extra-terrestrials are not fazed.  Kang boasts, “It doesn’t matter.  You have to vote for one of us.  It’s a two-party system!  Ha ha ha ha!”  Ross Perot is then pictured punching through his election hat.  The Americans become enslaved and Marge complains “Why are we building a death ray to attack a planet I’ve never even heard of” (an expert indictment of American foreign policy) to which Homer retorts, “Don’t blame me.  I voted for Kodos.”

Hopes to be skinned alive

The rabid right-wingers are relying on superstition rather than facts fearful that Mitt Romney might not be elected pres come Wednesday morning. The so-called Redskins Rule that the incumbent party always lose the presidential election if the Washington Redskins lose the game before the vote. Apparently, it has ‘predicted’ 17 out of 18 presidential elections. But its record is a bit scratchy of late. They lost in 2004 but the incumbent stayed in power, so if we take it from there, it’s only 50-50 (with 2008 going the ‘expected’ way). Hardly a compelling bellwether. Why don’t they dig up Paul the Octopus from his grave for good measure?


And then there is talk of a Romney surge, with the small print that this is in Pennsylvania, rather than the implied nationwide. The neo-cons and their allies hope that by saying it enough times it will materialise (like the constant references to Jimmy Carter). Barack Obama could lose Pennsylvania and still win if he takes Ohio and a few smaller swing states. I’m not saying Obama will win because voter turnout (and Republican curtailment of it as attempted in Ohio and latterly in Florida) could derail him, but I do find the desperation of those who decry the president amusing.

The Disney Empire Strikes (Back)

Apologies to Evan Davies for stealing his line, but it does sum up Disney’s victory over its main rival for kiddies’ affections in buying the Star Wars franchise.   George Lucas pockets a cool $4 billion but did he really need the money?  He wasn’t exactly living on the breadline the day before.  Many Star Wars fans are aghast.  My old English teacher (a long time ago in a place not so far away) was being discursive towards the class explaining his antipathy for bland, corporate Disney and how he found the Star Wars series to be purer unadulterated joy, untainted by some questionable Disney decisions – I wonder what he’s thinking now.

Lucas’ original vision encapsulated nine films and I was disappointed when he finished the third prequel Revenge of the Sith and said there would be no more movies.  I felt it unjustifiably skewed the narrative towards Annakin Skywalker – his rise, fall and redemption – lessening the impact of the Episodes IV to VI, with the struggle against the Galactic Empire and the interplay between Luke, Leia and Han (plus others).  Far from a panoply of characters, the epic was now concerned largely with one.  So, I am delighted that Disney will be bringing out Episodes VII to IX (beginning in 2015) to make the story more rounded.

I am less sure of further Star Wars films thereafter, in the manner of James Bond.  The Star Wars universe chronology certainly has plenty of plot lines, but it is mind-bogglingly complex and will marginalise the original films, so they no longer will be the centre-piece of a nine-episode narrative arc.  Like Lucas though, the executive producers will follow the money.