Ginger Wildheart tweeted my latest MLiH article.

I love it when someone gets Endless Nameless. Nice one @KitGonzo http://t.co/az2GZ57uHk

— Ginger Wildheart (@GingerWildheart) May 19, 2015

Excuse me while I go faint...

6 Days to go... some thoughts on last nights QT 'debate'

I've been a member of the Labour party since 2010. I'm actively campaigning for my outstanding local candidates in Milton Keynes - Andrew Pakes for MK South and Emily Darlington for MK North. I say that upfront, because (unlike certain members of the QT audience last night) I want my background and motivations to be clear.

All that said, what I'm about to put forward is a fact based argument, not a partisan one.

Because there was a hugely significant moment in the Ed Milliband section of the debate last night, were he was asked the 'gotcha' question that Labour have been dogged by for the last five years. He gave a factually correct reply, and was booed by the audience for it. I feel the need to talk about this because I suspect there are voters out there who broadly support Labour's current message on the economy, and/or dislike the notion of additional welfare cuts without any additional taxation for top end earners, but fundamentally feel that Labour cannot be trusted on the economy, because of what happened under the last Labour administration. And I think that in at least some cases, that distrust stems from a misunderstanding of what happened in 2008, what Labour did before and afterwards, and the Tory policies throughout the period. The Tories and Lib Dems have been happy to perpetuate this misconception because it serves their political agenda, but it is at its heart intellectually dishonest, IMO.

So here's what happened: About 7 minutes into his section (around the 37:50 mark on iPlayer) he was asked the following "...really simple question: Do you accept that when Labour was last in power, it overspent?"

His answer: "No I don't, and I know you may not agree with that..."

The audience response was actually worse than booing. People laughed.

The notion that the current state of the UK economy is a result of Labour's overspending in government (exacerbated by yellow and blue politicians repeating the phrase 'Labour's mess' like a mantra for the last five years, and that stupid note) has become accepted wisdom to such a degree that to disagree with it elicits not just anger but contempt, disbelief. Laughter.

And yet Ed was factually correct. Labour didn't overspend in government.

Here are the facts.

In 2008 there was a global financial banking crisis. Every economy in the developed world was hit by it to a greater or lesser degree. The size of the impact had direct correlation with how much your economy depended upon the financial sector for tax receipts. In the UK and US, that was a lot, so the impact was huge. Canada, with a more balanced economy (that is, one where the financial sector was only part of the tax base, not a huge proportion of it) not so bad (though still no fun at all).

Now, you could argue that Labour allowed too much deregulation of the banks to happen, which is what ultimately led to the crisis. Ed Milliband would agree with you on that. He would say, 'we got it wrong on deregulation' - in fact he has, many times. There is an uncomfortable fact that accompanies that, though - the Tories said repeatedly prior to 2008 that deregulation hadn't gone far enough. So were Labour wrong? Yes. Were the Tories even wronger? Oh, my yes. That really matters when you're comparing the two parties for economic competence, IMO.

(This pattern continues throughout the crisis, actually. The Tories opposed the bailout for Northern Rock, for example. Good luck finding an economist now that thinks that would have been a good move.)

But here's the kicker. The Tory/Lib Dem argument is this - 'yeah, but Labour had spent too much before the crisis, so when it hit we were too over-exposed'. There are two massive problems with this argument. The first is that nobody  actually predicted the crisis, so complaining they were spending too much in the face of a disaster nobody could have or did predict is... Well, it's like saying to somebody after their house burns down due to a freak electrical short 'You really shoulda had enough cash saved up to build a new house'. I mean, okay, but nobody actually lives their life like that, so...

The second, biggest problem with this whole 'overspending' argument is that up until the crash the Tories were pledging to keep to Labour's spending plans.

This is hugely important. This matters. Because it gives the lie to every Tory attack you've ever heard about 'Labour overspending' over the last 6 or 7 years. Because if Labour were spending too much prior to the crash, how come the Tories were pledged to keep spending that much, prior to the crash? 

It was never 'Labour's mess'. The crash would have happened whoever was in charge, because the consensus politics at the time was that deregulation was good. And right up to the crash, the Tories were so in favor of Labour's spending that they pledged to maintain it - so the debt would have been the same, too. 

These are the facts, and if you're worried about voting for Labour because of their perceived 'economic incompetence', please just look at the above facts, and please reconsider.

Because there is a major difference between the two parties on the economy - Labour admit where they went wrong, while the Tories are trying to convince us all that austerity is still the right move - even after 5 years of an almost flat-lining economy, and a decline in living standards for all but the spectacularly wealthy. If re-elected, the Tories may balance the books - by eviscerating funding for our most vulnerable (though their anti-growth austerity measures will likely keep wages depressed and the economy stagnant, as it has for the last five years - so, you know, probably not). Labour will balance the books over a longer period, and in a fairer way, by asking those at the top, who have profited even in the midst of the worst crisis we've seen in more than a generation, to contribute more, and by growing the economy.

Labour won't raise your taxes, unless you are a millionaire (and if you are, bluntly, you can afford it).  The Tories, on the other hand, will cut your working tax credit, child benefit, DLA, housing benefit. They will hurt the working poor and middle class, and they will not ask their wealthy doners to pay one penny more in tax.

You may have other reasons not to vote Labour, and I can respect that. But if doubts about economic competence are what are holding you back, please, please reconsider. Labour are not a danger to the economy. The Tories are.

KP
30/04/15

PS - I am currently ostriching on the whole Scotland Thing, because my ignorance of Scottish politics is almost total, but I will say this: If, come Friday 8th May, Labour and the SNP between them hold enough seats to pass a vote of no confidence, given the overlap between their manifestos in any number of areas, I would be amazed if the SNP would force a second election by voting 'no confidence' on a minority Labour administration. And if a political novice like me can figure that out, so can Ed Milliband. He's saying 'no deal with the SNP' because he knows he won't need one, IMO. Which is not to say I wouldn't rather Labour held onto seats in Scotland, because right now I want Labour to be the biggest party when the dust settles, and losing seats north of the border is counterproductive to that cause. But I know some English Labour voters are getting a little freaked about recent pledges, and the above is addressed to them, primarily. Ed doesn't need a deal with the SNP to keep the Tories out, and given that, saying he won't make one is absolutely the right call, IMO, because it neutralizes the shameful, baseless Tory attack that a vote for Ed is a vote for the end of the union and all that bollocks.

EDIT - PPS - And of course after I write all that, I discover an article from late last year in which no less a figure than Mervyn King, former Bank of England governor makes my point for me, in a far more eloquent way.

Philip Sandifer: Writer: Guided by the Beauty of Their Weapons: An Analysis...

Best single blog I've yet read on the Hugo mess this year. Highly recommended.



Philip Sandifer: Writer: Guided by the Beauty of Their Weapons: An Analysis...: Although this post is not specifically funded by my Patreon backers , this site and my work in general would not be possible without their s...

King For A Year: On Writing, reviewed by Kit Power

My guest blog on the King For A Year site has gone live. Really proud to have been invited to participate.



King For A Year: On Writing, reviewed by Kit Power: Here's the thing: I have a blogging gig over at the frankly rather wonderful Gingernuts of Horror website. A big part of how I landed ...

THROWBACK THURSDAY: The Wildhearts, Cardiacs, Deckard - London Astoria - 8th December 2004

I wrote this review for a now long-defunct music and movie review site. This was the only gig that I got into for free as press, and the only VIP pass I've ever had. I got there early and interviewed Deckard backstage (tragically that interview appears to have been lost to the digital ether) and then went to the show. 

Out of respect to my 25 year old self, I present this review un-edited or polished. Consider it a postcard from the past.

Enjoy.

This is a story of irritations and setbacks, and a tale of triumph over adversity. In the teeth of some moderately serious idiocy, we, the gig going public, were treated to a fantastic display of vibrant British rock by some of its finest proponents.

The idiocy begins with the gig taking place on a Wednesday - Wednesday night at The Astoria, for heavens sake? - and is compounded by the fact that, for reasons best known to the venue controllers, the band start times are moved forwards at the last minute. Which means that, with doors opening at 7, DECKARD take the stage a mere 20 minutes later, with the predictable result that less than half the audience has even turned up yet. It’d be a shabby way to treat any support band, but when you’re dealing with musicians with the ability, stage presence, talent and professionalism of Deckard, it borders on the criminal.

They take it totally in their stride, naturally, because they ARE bloody professionals, and they let rip with opener ‘Conversation’ as though they were playing a sold out home gig in a stadium. Which, frankly, with song writing this good, they should be. Conversation is a superb tale of the heart pounding moment of first contact with someone you’re attracted to, and it’s delivered with serious gusto. Lead singer Chris Gordon has a superb range, and hits the highs with real confidence and power. It’s a treat, and when they segue straight into the punky, angry ‘She’s In Pain’ (lead track from the second Baby Chaos Album ‘Love Your Self-Abuse’), it’s a really thrilling moment. The song is dispatched with real energy, and when it closes, the audience responds warmly and vocally.

‘What Reason’ follows, a gentler, more reflective song, that nonetheless builds really impressively (with a midsection that has faint echoes of Queens ‘Under Pressure’). The band’s impressive dynamic range, on both this and the next track ‘When Picking Fights’ is somehow even more exciting in the live arena, and some of these chorus rushes really leave you feeling transported. Again, the vocal delivery is passionate, and everyone looks really into it - Grant McFarland (guitars) nods and sways, and Bobby Dunn (bass) looks like he’s fighting off some particularly aggressive swarms of insects with only limited success. Their tightness as a unit is also undeniable, and they manage to make it look, if not totally effortless, then certainly a total blast.

Midway, through ‘To Your Soul’ (a standout track from the excellent ‘Dreams of Dynamite and Divinity’ album) it strikes me that Chris reminds me of Thom York without all that obnoxious pretension, and as the song builds again to the falsetto chorus conclusion and then pounds on into the mid section, you find yourself pondering just how much longer a band this gifted and strong can possibly remain largely unnoticed. As if to underline the point, they launch into ‘Sperm’, a gloriously angsty pop-punk blast of total genius that just leaves me breathless. I find myself worrying that someone might do themselves an injury with the passion they bring to playing this. Two things really impress: one is that they can play a song they first wrote 10 years ago with such obvious joy, and secondly, just how little the song has aged. New Found Glory would sell their souls to be able to write something with this much heart, guts, and menace, and they still wouldn’t be able to make it sound this good. A 3 minute masterpiece. This performance also provides the missing link between the two incarnations, and by the time set closer ‘We’re Aching’ has blown us away, there is no Baby Chaos, and Deckard. There is only Deckard, a fantastic, livewire, superbly passionate and dangerously skilful band. It is utterly unthinkable that they will remain in relative obscurity for much longer - my firm advice is to get on board now. You will not regret it.

15 out of 10

After a short break, the Astoria crowd is visited by CARDIACS, and things get mighty strange. In fact, they get f**king mental. Cardiacs have managed to provide a unique challenge for this reviewer: These guys are so very far off the map, I suspect them of inhabiting a parallel universe, where the rules of music as we understand them have been distorted almost beyond recognition. Consequently, I have almost no frame of reference for what they do, making it kind of hard to describe.

In appearance, they look weirdly formal - they all wear suits and ties, and have burgundy sashes over their shoulders. They are all shaven headed except for one guitarist, who has a mop of dark hair that might charitably be referred to as unkempt, and who resembles Tim Burton. Which seems appropriate, because the music starts to resemble the soundtrack to a movie of his that was wisely abandoned before filming commenced. It’s - here’s that word again - MENTAL.. For instance, they do a song that seems to change key every 4 bars or so, cycling through at least 4 keys. Every single time, without fail, that the listener manages to tune in on either a riff, or a rhythm, they change it. Every single time. This has to be deliberate, and what it means it that you spend the entire gig feeling like you’re having the rug pulled out from under you. Also, the sheer number of different musical styles that any one song bounces through makes listening an oddly exhausting experience, because your attention is constantly being assaulted by some new, jarring change. The vocalist (and I assume lyricist) has a stylistic approach that put me in mind of what might happen if Suggs from Madness was force-fed PCP for several months while locked in a pitch black room. Whereas most of the rest of the musical world might view Frank Zappa as a unique visionary, these guys seem to have taken his existence as a personal challenge to be even weirder and less accessible. And boy, do they go at it with gusto!

I should mention at this point that they are breathtakingly tight together - the songs are constantly changing,, stopping, violently shifting tempos and styles, some times apparently at random (the second song in the set is constantly either slowing down or speeding up throughout, creating a feeling I can only describe as aural sea sickness), but of course it never is random, and pulling off music this complex is only possible with serious skill and cohesion. Cardiacs have both in spades, and they really seemed to buzz off watching the consternation and confusion amongst the Wildhearts’ fans (Ginger, who loves them, must have been pissing himself backstage). This confusion is only compounded by the fact that there is a sizable Cardiac contingent in the crowd, who follow every mind-melting twist and jaw-dropping flurry with a downright eerie level of attention. None of the confusion is abated by the one monologue from the singer (which followed the only song of the set that one might loosely term ‘normal’ and which featured a guitar solo section that gave me goosebumps). Instead of a moment of clarity, we are told solemnly about bones, and how his bones kept him awake last night by talking to him. Then into more musical insanity.

To say reaction was mixed is an understatement - Bill Hicks once spoke of people ‘looking like a dog being shown a card trick’ which probably describes me for most of the show, and I wasn’t alone - and I wouldn’t like to predict how the rest of the tour is going to go. But I have to admit to being utterly transfixed for the whole show, and came away impressed enough to buy a CD, if utterly baffled. I give them between 3 and 9 out of 10, depending on your own capacity for bare assed lunacy, but they score several thousand out of ten for originality.

Ginger in a recent interview referred to THE WILDHEARTS as the cockroaches of rock (“they just can’t kill us.”), and this whole tour seems to be made up of survivors. Deckard first toured with The Wildhearts 10 years ago as Baby Chaos, and Cardiacs have been going since 1989, all three bands having been through a great deal in those years, and if that fact that none have experienced the massive commercial success they clearly deserve could cause one to question the existence of natural justice, the fact that they are all still able to turn up and kick ass on a Wednesday night in London is surely testament to a certain amount of grit and never-say-die attitude. Which is handy, because, as ever with The Wildhearts, nothing seems capable of going 100% smoothly.

Things start off well enough, as the band attack ‘Loveshit’ with gusto, and the Astoria predictably erupts. Ginger is simply one of the best song writers in the business, with his uniquely dark-but-humorous lyrical approach and amazing ability to marry riff and melody, and as the set rolls on, you realise just how many fantastic songs these guys have produced over the years (second track ‘Red Light/Green Light’ providing a superb example). And they play with such spirit! The energy on the stage really seems to match the heat and insanity of the pit, and it’s a pleasure to see a band so tuned into their audience. Newer song ‘Top Of The World’ bounces along well with the older material, killing off any suggestions that The Wildhearts have become their own tribute band, and Vanilla Radio then completes the burial, to an enthusiastic crowd response. It sadly also marks the first appearance of a guitar tech on stage, a sight with becomes more common as the gig rolls on, to Ginger’s obvious frustration.

After a frankly sublime, ‘Nina Nitro’, Ginger talks to the crowd for the first time tonight. Explaining that time is tight and that the band is just going to keep playing without encores ‘until they pull the plug halfway through a song or something’ (!) he goes on to announce that the set-list for tonight was picked by fans voting for what they wanted to hear through the website (‘So if you don’t like it, blame yourselves!’). This produces a large cheer, which builds to a roar as the intro to ‘Sick of Drugs’ rings out, and we’re off again. ‘I Wanna Go Where The People Go’ and the epic ‘Schitzophonic’ kick off magnificently, building to ’Everlone’, which even in a night of uniform brilliance managed to excel. Unfortunately, after enduring some ‘friendly fire’ in the form of half full beer cans flung at the stage that proves too annoying to endure in silence, when the song ends we are treated to a withering tirade from Ginger of the subject of wasting beer (‘Have you not seen how much they charge for it, fer f**ks sake?!? Well, next time, don’t bloody turn up - you’ll not be missed!’). On paper, it looks a little petulant, but Ginger, is, well ,Ginger, and instead of boos his remarks draw warm laughter and a roar of approval. Having gotten that off his chest, we’re treated to a real blast from the past in the form of ‘Weekend’. How this song can possibly sound as fresh as it does is simply beyond me, but the crowd laps it up, and even being laughed at by Ginger for sounding like a Bon Jovi audience doesn’t stop us singing along full throated. Glorious.

Following ‘So into You‘, we‘re admonished to go and buy Deckard’s album from the merchandising stand (in a moment of rare understatement Ginger refers to it as ‘F**king brilliant‘), and we’re also asked how we liked Cardiacs, which produces the funniest moment of the night, as various crowd members cheer, boo, and yell ‘They were MENTAL!!!’. The Theme tune from Cheers provokes further gratuitous audience participation.

After the song, a minor disaster strikes: both guitars need attention, but, as Ginger ruefully explains ‘the label is so tight we’ve only got one guitar tech!’. Given Ginger’s reputation for volatility, it’s a nervous moment, but he clearly decided to settle for an impassioned rant of the subject of professionalism and ‘rock on a budget’. It’s a further tribute to his charisma and the goodwill of the crowd that this came off like a stand-up routine rather than a petulant whinge, and we sympathetically filled the temporary gap with a rousing rendition of ‘Don’t Worry ‘Bout Me’. The band gradually joined in as instruments were returned to them, and what could have become an ugly scene instead became a magic live experience.

Suitably cheered, they close the set out with a flurry of newer material, before closing with an insanely brilliant, majestic rendition of ‘Caprice’. Then with little fanfare, the band leaves the stage, the lights come up, AC/DC pour out of the PA Speakers, and the inevitable boos of disappointment roll out from the crowd before we all shuffle out to queue for several hours for our coats. But no-one is grumpy, and the buzz in the queue is massive. Everyone is chatting about the gig, sharing favourite moments, trying to commit it all to memory. For The Wildhearts, it was just another typically averagely brilliant performance - just another Saturday night. Except, of course, they pulled it off on a Wednesday. This short tour boasts an outstanding bill, and a real showcase of awesome, outstanding British talent. I implore you to get your asses out there and see these shows. You owe it to yourselves.

Wildhearts - 11 out of 10. Overall gig score: 30/10.

Magic.

Splatterpunk 6 - Rating: * * * * * (Reviewed by Nathan Robinson) - Snakebite Horror Reviews

Really kind review of Splatterpunk #9 - featuring my short story 'Wide Load' - last few issues still available! :)



Splatterpunk 6 - Rating: * * * * * (Reviewed by Nathan Robinson) - Snakebite Horror Reviews

MY LIFE IN HORROR - SHOW YOURSELF, DESTROY OUR FEARS,RELEASE YOUR MASK - Ginger Nuts of Horror

The latest My Life In Horror - really, really proud of this one. Enjoy.



MY LIFE IN HORROR - SHOW YOURSELF, DESTROY OUR FEARS,RELEASE YOUR MASK - Ginger Nuts of Horror