Ken vs. Boris: It's So On

not missing much :(

but yeah i mean it contains churchill's consituency so a vote for ken is kinda unlikely

Monday, April 28th, 2008
8:13 pm
mayoral election pop
As I've often written elsewhere, the privatisation of Radio 1 (which would these days take 1Xtra with it) is as potent a right-wing obsession as it is - it was in the Daily Mail practically every day in the mid-90s, and I doubt much has changed since - because it would effectively deny any national mass media exposure to (even today, as good as silencing for many people) the voices that the right want silenced (more generally, calls for the PBS/NPR-ization - spelling deliberate - of the BBC are as potent as they are on the right because they unite the two main types of right-winger: the traditionalists who don't believe there should be *any* populist broadcasting and the Murdochites who believe there should be as much as possible, just not supplied by the public sector).

And so it is with Wiley this week at number 4, played incessantly on 1Xtra for months, played with reasonable frequency on Radio 1 almost as long, given no exposure at all by the commercial stations available where I live (and everywhere else except a few major cities) which are firmly in the hands of GCap/Global, The Local Radio Company, and a few other groups which should be grist to Paul Kingsnorth's mill. Even if you don't like "Wearing My Rolex" as a song, even if you abhor (as I certainly do) the attitude and mindset behind it (while at the same time grimly understanding the circumstances that have brought it about), you have to concede that this is an incredibly apt song to have in the Top 5 in the week a deeply divided city goes to the polls, the rawest, most *inner London* sound to have got so high since So Solid. The boroughs that will vote for Boris are *living in fear* of this sound seeping through.

It is, of course, depressing that the song that represents Livingstone's London is so blatantly aggressive-acquisitive. That things have come to this! Yet even that is far preferable to the current Real Soul mania, as much the Cameronistas' preparing-for-government music as Britpop was for the Blairites (the US success of "Bleeding Love" in this context might be analoguous to that of "Wonderwall").

the rawest, most *inner London* sound to have got so high since So Solid.

guess he's not talking about fulham here.

The Fulham Broadway vs. North End Road throwdown is a pretty one-sided contest I have to say.

Victory for Ken, pyrrhic victory for Labour then.

Is FPS Carmody?

I live in a borough that I don't think will vote for BJ, and I have never heard or heard of this record. Carmody, here, might be overestimating the power of pop records to 'seep through'; perhaps I have done the same kind of overestimation in my time.

Wherever you are, Carmody, good day, and good luck.

i do think ken will win (it depends on the number of usual non-voters who decide to vote, i suspect), but he's so distant from the thrust of the labour project that it won't give them much of a bump for the general election.

Also if Labour lose London they might as well concede the General Election now.

In which event I might as well pack up and move to Canada.

Yes I know, MESSAGEBOARD SADDO THREATENS TO QUIT BRITAIN IF TORIES TRIUMPH isn't exactly Phil Collins but even so

Scotland's nearer

I was more thinking that you've just swung A1ex1s Petr1d1s in favour of Boris but still...

I think that any Livingstone victory would be somewhat separate from any question of broader Labour electoral fortunes - he is a 'special case'.

On the other hand, I think that a BJ victory would *not* be separate from broader Con electoral fortunes: it would be hailed as a harbinger, etc

This inconsistency sounds negative and depressing, but seems to me true.

This is Carmody also:

--

Thursday, March 20th, 2008
11:54 pm it was five years ago tonight

that I realised how much wrong I had done, how dangerous some of my actions and statements and opinions had been *without my even realising it*

it was five years ago tonight that I realised I could never like *pop*, in the broadest sense, ever again. for some time my pop fandom was permanently shaken, until I realised that there was a particular sound and style I could get behind and turn into *ideology* while despising the rest of pop ever more passionately

it was five years ago tonight that my life - and everyone's life, especially in Britain, even if they don't want to admit it - changed forever

fuck labour in the general election; i could care less at this point. there's actually a difference between the two in London.

It would, as you said earlier, change the narrative a bit, though. It wouldn't necessarily give Brown a boost, but it would definitely be a blow for Cameron.

Scotland is indeed nearer; speaking of which, excellent article by Ian Jack here.

Well, it's down to "nice bloke, makes yer laff" which is how Boz and Caz are operating right now.

it was five years ago tonight that my life - and everyone's life, especially in Britain, even if they don't want to admit it - changed forever

i think he's talking about that gareth gates 'spirit in the sky' cover.

Scotland is indeed nearer; speaking of which, excellent article by Ian Jack here.

Felt he missed out a lot though, like differences in education system and in attitudes to education (poor people are allowed to be educated in Scotland - even, whisper it, encouraged to be educated); attitudes to property ownership etc

Well there's at least one very major difference in the Scottish education system which doesn't seem to have been eradicated, sadly.

Very striking, Ian Jack's words on Scotland's bloody tradition of militarism making it defendable in a future world.

"Did you spill Scotland's pint?"

In any case it's when you get out into places like Bromley and Twickenham that you're in real Tory heartland, I wouldn't say it's even a 50:50 split

The Twickenham MP is Vince Cable! The Richmond Park MP is Susan Kramer (Lib Dem), and the Kingston MP is Ed Davey (Lib Dem). Richmond council is Lib Dem controlled, as is Kingston.

I am going to vote for Paddick.

Second pref?

Green.

*cue predictable gags about I didn't know Scritti Politti were running*

That's a good choice for Twickenham.

Hammersmith & Fulham, however, is untrue blue so I'll have to turn out. Despite his being Ken I'm voting for Ken with Paddick as second choice.

Yeah I acknowledged that Cable thing in the following post, Dr C.

Oh yes, sorry. But I just wanted to set the recd straight wrt this mythical Tory heartland of SW London!

One of the candidates turned up at our front door to get us to sign a form allowing him to run - he needed something like 30 signatures from each London Borough.

I have to combat Chingford I guess.

Can't persuade you to put Ken second for the sake of stopping boris?

xpost to dr C?

Feel sad for people who have to vote for Ploddick, I think he's the worst candidate for political office i've seen since Bobby Gillespie's dad

Ed - maybe.

Well, what will it take, Doc? A gold plectrum?

Much, much more than that...

Yeah, I know what you mean Tom, and my heart says Left List as second preference but my STOP BORIS ESPECIALLY IN PHIL N' KIRSTIE FRIENDLY FULHAM says Ploddick.

my "STOP BORIS etc." head that should be.

Everyone does realise that this election is london wide for mayor, it doesn't matter how each candidate does on a constituency basis it is the number of votes in total across london. So voting for Ploddick will not stop boris (by all means vote tactically for assembly members)

Equally there's surely no point in voting LibDem and making a tactical second-place vote for the Greens, when Siam Berry will almost certainly have been eliminated before Paddick?

Sian Berry, even.

2nd-choice votes for anyone outside the top two are simply disregarded (well, they'll be tallied and prove reassuring reading for people concerned that the lovely Sian came in 5th behind the BeeEnPee, cos she'd have been a comfortable 4th, perhaps better, with 2nd-choice votes).

Yes, but I can't bring myself to put an X next to either Ken or Boris's name.

Mike seems to have an aversion for typing the letters B, N and P ... and actually, I think I know how he feels.

Doc: ... no. I don't know what to say. You will, of course, do what you want to do.

pinefox, do you feel that any of the criticisms made of ken amount to anything? do you find his personal style appealing?

don't know why you guys are so afraid of a bank

I do find his personal style appealing. And I don't really care about criticisms of him, in the present context.

I remember taking a load of euros out of the BNP in the Quartier Latin last May, with dear old RJG of all people: slightly odd experience.

Used to be, if you saw B'n'P tags you were duty-bound to alter these to BANGLADESHI NATIONAL PARTY.

What is this "left list" thing? Is it Respect?

And various others