Porno Dickens

As part of my ongoing drive to be relevant, I have scheduled this post to coincide with Charles Dickens’s 200th birthday plus twelve days.

• Sexes by Boz
• The Prickwick Papers
• Oliver Tryst
• Knickerless Nickleby
• The Old Bicuriosity Shop
• Bare-naby Rudge
• DVDA Christmas Carol
• Martin Guzzledick
• Dombey on Son
• David Cockerfield
• Bleak Whores
• Hard-on Times
• Little Dildo
• A Tale of Two Titties
• Great Sexpectations
• Our Mutual Masturbation
• The Furry Fetish of Edwin Drood

Edit: I think it’s important to draw a distinction between the word ‘porn’, which is a noun, and ‘porno’, which is an adjective. The adverb is ‘pornily’.

N30 turnout: do the unions have the right?

So the Coalition wants public sector workers to work harder and pay more for a smaller pension.  So that’s fair enough.

This is supposedly to help resolve a financial mire engendered by the vagaries of an economic system they neither chose nor control.  So that’s fair enough.

Some magnificent strike action in defence of the beleaguered pensions is lined up for the 30th November (N30), with even Tories downing tools, so the government are rolling out all the old cant, including the bit about turnout.

NOT EVERYONE VOTED IN YOUR BALLOT, UNIONS, they froth, SO IT DOESN’T REALLY COUNT. YOU MUST ACCEPT OUR GREASED UP AUSTERITY PACKAGE INTO YOUR WARM, SOFT PENSION HOLE.

Distasteful? Certainly. Really if the Coalition want to be taken seriously they shouldn’t resort to such open innuendo.

The argument goes that in spite of overwhelming mandates for strike action, low turnout means that most of the membership in affected workplaces must not have voted for the strike. The usual counterargument is ‘Oh, so that means you weren’t elected to parliament then.’

Clearly the turnout argument is a nonsense, an effort to paint the unions as undemocratic. So since they’ve invited the comparison, let’s make it.

1. THE GOVERNMENT
Figures from the BBC.

Turnout at 2010 election
65.1%

Popular vote share
Tory: 36.1%
Labour: 29.0%
Liberal: 23.0%
Others: 11.9%
Coalition total: 59.1%

Popular support share as proportion of total electorate
Tory: 23.5%
Liberal: 15.0%
Coalition total as proportion of electorate: 38.5%

Popular support for Coalition’s economic management (ComRes November 2011)
28%

2. THE UNIONS
Figures from the Society of Radiographers, Times Higher Education (UCU) and union press releases (NUT and PCS).

Unison
Turnout: 29%
For strike: 78%
As proportion of electorate: 23%

EIS
Turnout: 54.2%
For strike: 82.2%
As proportion of electorate: 44.6%

Nipsa
Turnout: 43%
For strike: 67%
As proportion of electorate: 28.8%

AHDS
Turnout: 38%
For strike: 60%
As proportion of electorate: 23%

NAHT
Turnout: 75.8%
For strike: 53.6%
As proportion of electorate: 40.6%

Society of Radiographers
Turnout: 58.2%
For strike: 81.2%
As proportion of electorate: 47.3%

AEP
Turnout: unknown
For strike: 64%
As proportion of electorate: unknown

CSP
Turnout: 66%
For strike: 89.1%
As proportion of electorate: 58.8%

SCP
Turnout: 52%
For strike: 85%
As proportion of electorate: 44%

FDA
Turnout: 54%
For strike: 81%
As proportion of electorate: 44%

Prospect
Turnout: 52%
For strike: 75%
As proportion of electorate: 39%

TSSA
Turnout: unknown
For strike: 77%
As proportion of electorate: unknown

GMB
Turnout: 33%
For strike: 83.7%
As proportion of electorate: 27.6%

Ucatt
Turnout: 27%
For strike: 83%
As proportion of electorate: 22%

Unite
Turnout: 31%
For strike: 75%
As proportion of electorate: 23%

NASUWT
Turnout: 40%
For strike: 82%
As proportion of electorate: 33%

NAPO
Turnout: 45%
For strike: 83%
As proportion of electorate: 37%

POA
Turnout: 24%
For strike: 75%
As proportion of electorate: 18%

NUT (June 30 mandate)
Turnout: 40%
For strike: 92%
As proportion of electorate: 37%

PCS (June 30 mandate)
Turnout: 32.4%
For strike: 61.1%
As proportion of electorate: 19.8%

UCU (June 30 mandate)
Turnout: 36.3%
For strike: 65%
As proportion of electorate: 24%

Totals
Better turnout than 2010 General Election: 3/21
Better mandate for strike than combined popular vote for Coalition: 20/21
Better vote for strike as proportion of electorate than combined vote for Coalition as proportion of electorate: 7/21

Popular support for N30 strikes (ComRes November 2011)
61%

3. CONCLUSIONS

The majority of strike ballots show a lower turnout and lower overall support (as proportion of electorate) as compared to equivalent results in the 2010 General Election. However, every union but one* has a better mandate for strike action than the combined popular vote for the Coalition parties.  It shouldn’t be forgotten, of course, that the Coalition Government doesn’t even have a mandate, formed as it was from two minority parties, after the election took place.

Even with lower turnout and lower support as proportion of the electorate, the unions have operated within reasonable democratic practices. The argument as ever is that minority election turnouts still return MPs, so minority ballot turnouts still decide on action.

Clearly a system which requires an overall majority in any vote is unrealistic; it is a cornerstone of democracy that abstention does not equate to support for either side. Not voting for a strike does not equal voting against the strike; by that logic, 76.5% of people voted for David Cameron not to lead the country. So a clear victory for the Right there.

One of the key differences between a strike ballot and government elections as they currently stand is that in an election you can’t vote ‘no’ to all the candidates, but in a ballot for industrial action you can vote ‘no’ to action of any sort. If grassroots union militancy were genuinely as low as the government tries to depict it, then more people would have voted against the strikes.

Finally, if opposition to action by ‘overpaid’ and ‘unsackable’ public sector workers were as pervasive as the political and media establishments like to claim, why is support for the ‘greedy’ strikers not only a majority, but more than twice the support for Coalition economic policy?

This brand of obfuscation has at times seen trade unionists and socialists trampolining in impotent rage, as the bosses’ line is bought wholesale by the press and left largely unchallenged.  The harsh reality of the Coalition’s cuts and privatisation agenda has, of course, led to a growth in political consciousness in the working class.   As the writer and Welshwoman Rhian Jones put it to me: ‘See also: “If wealth is created overwhelmingly by the private sector, and the public sector merely consumes and sponges for its gold-plated pensions, then why is the government fussing over how much the strike will cost the economy?”‘  Why indeed?  Clearly the lies aren’t being bought any more.

So do the unions have the right?

Unquestionably, yes.

* NAHT, the headteachers’ union. Presumably out of an instinctual opposition to truancy.

‘Hypercapitalism’ is hyperdaft!

Today we’re going to discuss the word ‘hypercapitalism’ and why it’s wrong.

Hypercapitalism is a term used to define capitalism as it has developed today as different to earlier forms.

Why exactly this is varies from pseud to pseud, but simply, the argument is that because market forces have now penetrated every aspect of our life like an unusually thorough lover, all companies have merged into one and we have to pay for intangible things such as World of Warcraft and happiness.  So there are two key elements to the concept of hypercapitalism: one, that there is more capitalism than there used to be, and two, that it’s making us pay for things that aren’t real.

But is hypercapitalism different to capitalism?

‘Yes,’ say proponents.

‘Some companies now are bigger than they were and are in different countries all at once!  The advancement of their profit has become more important than other things!’  Frightening words like ‘corporatism’ and ‘fascism’ are bandied about, and people mutter about single world currencies, Lord Lloyd-Webber &c.  This bit of the argument, let’s be clear is a) not fundamentally different to older ‘capitalism’, and b) a big bag of balls.

However, take the advent of advertising as an industry!  Posses of coke-stoked tailored dicks purport to sell us sexy glamorous ‘lifestyles’ rather than lacklustre quotidian ‘products’.

Add to this the countless images, videos, sounds and texts available on the Internet.  They also cannot be physically owned; money changes hands in exchange for access alone.  Plus all this happens in ‘hyper’-text, and if that’s not hyper then who knows what is!

Clearly these are a different class of transaction to buying a yoghurt; money changes hands in exchange for the physical yoghurt, which you can then parade around town as the proud owner.  But this charge for an immaterial experience rather than a tangible product or service is not a new levy; selling lifestyles is no older than producing the church donation bowl; selling MMO accounts is no older than theatre ticketing.

It’s obvious that capitalism has advanced in its scope and complexity since the term was coined in the 19th Century, which was bare years ago.  Perhaps there is a case to be made for the concept of hypercapitalism, and perhaps there isn’t.  It’s borderline irrelevant intellectual quibbling either way, and that is not a game I want to play.

The issue is this: hypercapitalism is a silly word.  It has ‘hyper’ in it, which is a prefix that only medics and computerists seem to be able to get away with.  I said ‘hypercapitalism’ once and was immediately thrown out of the bedroom without even an opportunity to hoist my discarded trousers.  The word that had got me in there in the first place?  ’Charcoal.’

I think that’s a lesson for us all.

Who asked you?

My name is James Ivens, and I am an actor and writer, and now I also have a blog.

Is there no stopping me?