Eastleigh Waldo Moment

The by-election at Eastleigh is today. Formerly a safe Liberal Democrat seat but since the disgraceful Chris Huhne resigned all bets are off. Ok, well, some bookies have got the Libdems keeping the seat but unbelievably, some have got UKIP to win the seat. This is quite exciting stuff. Typically, you can have individual candidates stand as a protest against the incumbent or due to the antics of the MP who has resigned and win. Martin Bell, Caroline Lucas and George Galloway have proved that. And UKIP used to be basically one issue and one person (Nigel Farage). But now UKIP have actually managed to crib together some sort of organised manifesto and are actively challenging Eastleigh.

For the record I abhor UKIP. I disagree with all of their policies, and I cannot stand Nigel Farage, their erstwhile leader. However, I am also sick of the main three parties treating the voters as a tappable resource, as idiots who will vote for the big parties no matter what. The main parties take us for granted and in the case of the Coalition, do not carry out our wishes. At a general election, a party publishes a detailed manifesto about what they will do and they get voted in if people like that manifesto as there is the reasonable presumption that they will either achieve what they say will do, do something like it due to some necessary politicking, or will at least try. The current Coalition threw both manifestos out of the window when it formed and trotted out a few wishlists and mashed them together.

I want disruption. I want the Westminster elites to be shocked. I want the normal rules to not apply. I want UKIP to win at Eastleigh today. I do not want the populace to be taken for granted. I want to have a person say they will do something, and then they do it. I do not want craven career politicians suppurating their oozy politics of self-interest to rule us. I want honest people.  I want the main parties to take note of what we want, not do what they think we want according to lazy anecdotes and asinine and disconnected focus groups.  

I want a Waldo moment. The episode of Black Mirror this week (which I have written about here) could not have been timed better. There was some terribly lazy stereotyping in the episode but that can be easily overlooked as the genius was how it connected into how dissociated normal politicians are with normal people and the fact that if you have something new, then people will be attracted to it. It is fresh compared to the current offering, even though it is still stale by comparison. Waldo slinging dirt just like the politicians (case in point – Lord Rennard’s 2009 indiscretions coming to light just before a crucial by-election) but in a way that people can associate with is popular.

Bring it on, Waldo 

Black Mirror Review

I had high expectations watching Black Mirror (C4) last night. The previous programmes (mini-series? Micro-series? Vignettes?) were all excellent, original and very thought provoking. The theme of near future technology is highly believable and plays an essential part of the programmes but never becoming the focus is eminently laudable. Too many programmes have shiny toys that they over explain and wave in front of the viewer’s faces whereas in Black Mirror they are background enablers of the plot and don’t impinge upon the emotional urgency of the story. I was not disappointed – it was very good and one of Charlie Brooker’s better stories.

The story itself was excellent if a little over-wrought (a modern day Monkey’s Paw) and it is easy to see that if technology was the enabler, then the story would still work if it used bygone or parallel ‘magic’ like the summoning of golems or the friendly undead. The very real loss felt by someone who has had someone close to them pass away was dealt with very well. Having lost someone close to me recently I really could empathise with the main character’s plight. It also raised the spectre (sorry) of what happens to your online life which is increasingly encroaching upon the real. What will become of your facebook page, twitter account, or (gasp!) blog? Will they be eventually purged and deleted or live on by themselves forever as ghostly reminders of the dead? Unless passwords are shared by the person before they die then that might well be their fate.

Maybe this blog will be preserved and pored over by historians seeking to enlighten themselves trying to understand our primitive lives. Hehe. Yeah, right. Yo Future Historians? Things are just XOPOWO, you feel me?