“Racist!” “One-eyed freak!” “Fascist!” Yes, I regret to inform you that I felt the need to write something about our good friend Nick. This has been prompted by his recent visit to my hometown of Cockermouth, Cumbria, which was hit by severe flooding at the end of November. My initial reaction on hearing about his visit was “get out of my town!” I have now, however, rethought my opinion on the politics of my fellow human-being Nick Griffin.

The first few words I used there are just some of the oh-so intellectual reactions frequently heard about Griffin. Another one is “he doesn’t represent Britain.” The sad fact is, though, that on a certain level he does. That’s why he won a seat in the European Parliament in last year’s elections (embarrassingly enough, it was in my region) along with a colleague, and it’s why there’s fear that he may win a seat in British Parliament in the constituency of Barking and Dagenham. But on another level, he represents Britain as much as people like Jade Goody do. I see a lot of similarities between these two sadly famous people. Both were/are decried as racist; both graduated with a third-rate degree (Griffin from here, Goody from the esteemed education establishment of Big Brother); and both of them- wait…what would happen if Nick Griffin was diagnosed with cancer? I suspect people would think it a good thing for him to die slowly and painfully, just as they would for any other peederfile, frawd or generic skumbagg. I believe that this great man of British fringe-politics occupies the same unfortunately large space in the general public’s mind as paedophiles do. A figure to be condemned, placed in the stocks, pelted it with left-over food, and to be the whipping boy of the frustrated members of an inherently unfulfilling society.

 He is a feature of the great British ‘celebrity culture.’ He is not a feature of British politics! He certainly wants to be, and- through the immense amount of attention he receives in the media, and through the passionate reactions his policies provoke in people- that is what he is beginning to be. It would be a great shame if he won the seat in Barking and Dagenham: I know I would be thoroughly unhappy to be represented by Nick Goody. And I’m sure that with his overwhelming parliamentary representation of 1 he would have us goose-stepping through the streets of London, preparing our sons to be soldiers, and on the Polish border by the following Monday (that is, those of us who are left after he eradicates every one who is not part of the indigenous British population of the last 10,000 years- so, a few oak trees, some red squirrels and a couple of Neanderthals like Russell Brand and Alistair Darling).

 So we have two choices:

 1)      Egg the bastard! String him up by his ankles and have Mexican immigrants use him as a piñata! Force-feed him curry! Break his toilet so that he has to get a Polish plumber to fix it or sit on a pile of his own fascist shit! Discuss the finer points of Arab culture RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIS EYE!

2)      Realise he’s just another person with controversial opinions. Recognise him as a non entity. Stop victimising him, giving him the attention he craves. And STOP writing blogs about him on student politics sites…

But on some things the public are certain. They want a government that will:

(a) let them kill burglars in their homes.
(b) bring back capital punishment.
(c) bring in euthanasia.

Unfortunately for the public, politicians are out of touch. Stuffy old Enlightenment views about the unconditional value of human life still hold sway in the corridors of power, holding back change on all three points. But for how long? With regard to euthanasia in particular, the momentum for change is growing. The public might actually gets its way.

For me, the question of whether assisted suicide should be legal is secondary to the question of whether it is moral. If we could work out the answer to the latter question, we’d be in a better position to answer the former. Here are three vague sorts of answer:

(1) Of course assisted suicide is wrong! The Abrahamic faiths have got something right: human lives have unconditional value. We should never encourage, condone, perpetrate or accelerate the termination of a human life.

(2) Of course assisted suicide is okay! Sometimes a person is better off dead. It’s in their interests to end their life. It’s immoral to deny them the opportunity to be at peace and at rest.

(3) Silly question. Human lives have no particular value at all. We are just overeducated animals who sometimes need to be put down and chucked in the incinerator.

I think (1) and (3) are tenable. Though (1) would be more comforting, either could be correct. But (2) is a kind of halfway house, a dubious compromise between (1) and (3). It imports a highly Christianized conception of the afterlife (a “better” place where we are “at rest” and “at peace”) but strips away the idea that human lives have unconditional value.

This surely won’t do. If you are prepared to abandon the teachings of the world’s religions, you need to be ready to abandon any illusions about death. Death is the total annihilation of everything you are, not a chance to be at rest or at peace. It is not “in your interests”: it is the excision of you and your interests from the world.

Yet I fear that something like (2) is fast becoming the consensus. Why carry on, when death is the better option? This seductive chimera threatens to end countless lives prematurely.

For the past two decades at least, several leading trade union workers have been assassinated, tortured, kidnapped or silenced in some way. Take for example the case of Isidro Segundo Gil, who was a worker at a bottling plant in Carepa and a member of the union exec. While he was at work on 12th May 1996, a group of paramilitary thugs entered the the plant and fired 10 shots, mortally wounding Gil. On the same day, another union leader was kidnapped and the union’s offices were burned down. The next day, the same group forced all the plant’s workers to resign from the union.

This is just one example. Over 500 Colombian union workers have been found to have been treated in this  inhumane way. As you would expect, lawsuits against the giant corporation prove futile. As a result of this shameful oppression of the unions, workers paid $380 a month were given paycuts to around $130.

This is a lot of detail, but I think it makes the point itself. Too often, corporations are able to use the developing world as some kind of seedy back-room warehouse where their treatment of workers borders on slave-driving. And we in the developped world don’t see the injustice. Coca-Cola’s financial(=political) weight in these countries means they can crush human rights movements before they get off the ground. Following this, advertising and an uninterested media means that we just don’t notice. Besides, how many of us would stop drinking coca-cola products, even if we were fully aware of their manufacturer’s unforgivable crimes?

There are a few campaigns fighting to spread the word and encourage a boycott of Coca-Cola products, lobby Coca-Cola fatcats and to show support for the workers in Colombia. Those of us fortunate enough to have the ability to speak out against murder ought to do the same, and give hope to the workers fighting for the rights which we take for granted.

On a wider point, this issue demonstrates how we have unwittingly sold our consciences to corporations like Coca-Cola Co.  Notice the “It’s not Christmas until the Coca-Cola advert comes on!” groups on Facebook. Notice how someone struggling for basic rights can’t sleep, in case a Coca-Cola henchman comes round. Notice that the cool, refreshing drink in your hand was funded by taking freedom from the hands of others. I don’t know what the cost of freedom is, but any idiot can see that it’s worth more than a can of coke.

The loud voices of disappointed progressives such as Dean have drowned out the fact that the healthcare bill has real and significant benefits. Even though neither the House nor the Senate bill would rein in insurance costs to the extent that progressives would like, the average family would still be considerably better off with reform legislation than without. Both bills would curb the insurance company practice of denying coverage for pre-existing conditions, a notorious practice which eight states have even used to deny coverage to victims of domestic violence. Both bills also include measures which would allow dependent children to remain on their parents’ policies until their 26th birthday (in the Senate bill) or their 27th (in the House bill); this would be a significant boon for young adults, a third of whom are estimated to be uninsured.

Nevertheless, it remains true that the bill does not go as far as it ought to. Many of the factors which have been causing healthcare costs to skyrocket are untouched by this legislation, such as the lack of competition between insurance companies, many of which have regional monopolies, and the fee-for-service model, which gives doctors an incentive to perform unnecessary procedures. Several praiseworthy measures were watered down or dropped due to the bargaining necessary to acquire 60 votes; see, for example, conservative Democrats’ rejection of the public option and Lieberman’s killing off of the “great compromise” of expanding Medicare to those aged between 55 and 64. Furthermore, the Congressional Budget Office also projects that, even with the bill, 24 million people will remain uninsured by 2019 - 24 million people too many.

Considering the difficulties of the process so far - the effort required to shepherd the legislation through byzantine congressional procedures, the intensity and hysteria of the right-wing opposition - there’s a high risk that, should the bill pass and the President sign it into law, exhausted lawmakers will act as if the matter of healthcare reform is over and done with. There is certainly much to be commended in the House and Senate bills and the final bill will still be the biggest expansion of the USA’s social safety net since 1965. However, given the shortcomings of the bill, its purpose should be to set in motion a legislative trajectory which will lead to additional expansion and improvement of the healthcare system, rather than to settle the matter once and for all.

Every year for the past 27 years GCSE results have gone up and a quarter of A level passes are now at grade A. One might think this was a chance to congratulate teenagers in their achievements but conversely the better the exam results the more they are ridiculed as meaningless. How can children win when they are constantly described as a nation of hoodies and morons and then, when they show their abilities it is used as further ammunition against them? Whether or not exams are getting easier is not the issue, if marking was properly differentiated by percentages then we could still pick out the best and brightest but more and more children are getting A’s so it becomes hard for universities and employers to separate the wheat from the chaff. It is not the fault of the children who can only take the exams they’re given but a fundamental fault in the education system that exams have ended up this way. We need to stop scorning the younger generation and try to fix the problems at hand.

Many of us on the left feel jaded by the broken promises of New Labour and betrayed by university fees, private finance initiatives in healthcare and the Iraq War. Yet we are not ready to put our faith in David Cameron who is most politely described as a political lightweight and who has just flip flopped on his pledges to create 5000 more prison places and reduce income tax. So where do we turn now? Nick Clegg is not the figure of ridicule that Menzies Campbell was but perhaps that’s because we know nothing about him. How many of us could even pick him out of a line up? The Lib Dems may be the only party that voted against the Iraq War, university fees and ID cards but is there any point in voting for a party that we don’t truly believe has a chance of winning? Do we stick to our principles and accept the likelihood that our defection from Labour will cause a Conservative victory or do we stay on board the sinking ship captained by Gordon Brown that seems to have veered wildly to the right in the last 10 years?

Mr McKinnon has become something of a cause celebre for the right of centre media, who believe that his proposed extradition is another example of the United Kingdom’s increasing subservience to the United States. The facts of the case contradict their assertions entirely. Gary McKinnon was initially charged in the United Kingdom for his offences, but for legal and constitutional reasons Mr McKinnon cannot be tried here. Understandably, considering there is no doubt Mr McKinnon is guilty of what has been termed “the biggest military hack in history”, the US administration asked for his extradition, which the UK government agreed with. The UK government did not “comply with a request” for fear of losing the friendship and support of the US; they wanted to have Mr McKinnon prosecuted in this country, but this was impossible.

Leaving these details aside, Mr McKinnon has been portrayed as a childlike individual whose exuberance and enthusiasm led him to attack US military computers to search for evidence of UFOs. Nonsense. Mr McKinnon was a senior system analyst and had made previous political statements on websites he was a member of; many of these websites were based entirely on hacking. To pretend that he did not target US servers on political and supposedly moral grounds is absurd. His actions put lives at risk, especially amongst the US Navy, whose location details he deleted. He did this two months after the September 11th attacks. He taunted the US security establishment with threats of further attacks until they “stopped bombing people”, stating that he would “continue to disrupt at the highest levels”.

His Aspergers Syndrome is a sensitive topic few have dared to touch. To suggest he should not be imprisoned due to a relatively mild mental illness is preposterous, and also ignores the fact that much of the prison population suffers from serious mental illnesses. It is doubtful that Mr McKinnon would be receiving the same level of support if he had not committed a “cyber crime”, which many seem to consider oddly harmless. Blaming this entire episode on his Aspergers is horribly misjudged considering the overtly political nature of the attacks. One can only imagine the apoplectic rage of the Daily Mail if an American had committed the same crime against the UK security forces, and his extradition was being challenged in contravention of justice. He might suffer, but he should. He committed a serious crime for which he should be punished, just as anyone else without a PR juggernaut behind them would.

The argument is simple enough. Some people with serious illnesses want to take their own lives, and they want their loved ones to be nearby when they do it. None of this harms anyone else, so why do we need a law against it? If one takes the view that the law should only prohibit what really needs to be prohibited, and otherwise should allow people as much freedom as possible, then it is hard to justify a law against assisted suicide.

I don’t have a problem with the argument. But it’s important to realize that, behind all this, there’s an issue that isn’t touched upon at all by the legal debate. Legal or not, is suicide ever the best option?

I am extremely uneasy with the attempts by those in favour of assisted suicide to recruit the terms “compassion” and “dignity” for their side. They risk implying that to carry on living with a debilitating condition somehow lacks dignity, or that killing someone can be more compassionate than caring for them.

Personally, I find those who carry on despite everything to be admirable, even heroic — not undignified. And I have infinite respect for those who dedicate their lives to care. If Dignitas were a hospice rather than a death clinic — if it cared rather than killed — it wouldn’t make any headlines, but it would provide a greater service to the desperate people who pass through its doors.

It turns out that some MPs have been claiming hefty expenses to which they are technically entitled under the current rules, even though they don’t really need the money. This must have come as a terrible shock to all those who thought MPs were selfless ascetics who spurn all remuneration and donate their salaries to orphanages.

A month later, the story is even bigger. The full details of every MP’s expenses are in the public domain, and I suspect that some people are enjoying the resultant holier-than-thou MP-flagellation orgy a bit too much. The weirdos of BBC Have Your Say are, predictably, foaming. My favourite comment (apart from the top recommended comment, suggesting we should dissolve parliament and put the Queen in charge), is one asking “how much necessary equipment could have been purchased for our troops fighting overseas” with these expenses. Perspective, anyone?

I hate to point this out, but in a capitalist society people often spend money on things they don’t really need. Few people are perfect in this regard. What seems to have provoked outrage in this case is that the expenditure of MPs on second homes falls under expenses — a word which most people associate with train tickets and sandwiches. In fact, MPs have always received enormous sums as “expenses”. It makes up for the disparity between the costs of being an MP (a job which necessarily involves living in two places, running election campaigns, travelling regularly and staffing an office) and the salary the job entails — £64,766.

There are two ways to prevent a similar “scandal” surfacing in future. One, which is almost certainly what will happen, is to make the rules far more restrictive and detailed. The other is to abolish “expenses” altogether, increase the basic MPs’ annual salary to something like £250,000, and let them spend it as they wish. Being an MP is, presumably, and particularly at times like this, an unpleasant, largely thankless job in which your integrity is continually questioned and your ambitions continually thwarted. I don’t know why they bother. Why not give them a salary that makes maxing out on expenses a less tempting option?

Surely the PM himself cannot be held responsible for his aide’s private emails, and his aide’s private emails should never have reached the public domain in the first place. The aide has resigned — line drawn, case closed.

In other news, it turns out that some MPs have been claiming hefty expenses to which they are technically entitled under the current rules, even though they don’t really need the money. This must have come as a terrible shock to all those who thought MPs were selfless ascetics who spurn all remuneration and donate their salaries to orphanages. Was this an outrageous sleaze scandal? Come on.

The outrageous scandal here is that it’s issues like these that swing elections. There are so many serious issues to think about, and Britain is more interested in the politics of the petty.