After the utter mindfuckery that was the worldwide news in 2011, you would be forgiven for hoping that absolutely nothing happens this year, that 2012 would be just a nice gentle, perhaps somewhat English affair. People not doing a lot, grumbling weakly about the smallest of inconveniences and then retiring to a nice cup of tea and perhaps an episode of Eastenders. Wouldn’t that be lovely? ‘No collapse of the Eurozone today please dear, the Omnibus edition is just starting and this brew is perfection.’

But then you think about what we know about this year, the one that yawns like a chasm of despair ahead of us. Continuing financial austerity and bleakness, an American election between the most disappointing superhero ever and an even more depressing Republican field. Another Royal celebration of some kind. Oh, and the sodding Olympics. Oh, and the Middle East continuing to go utterly haywire. *sigh*

All of this before we can even contemplate the inevitable sudden new arrivals on the news scene. 2011 was chock full of stuff that you wouldn’t have imagined at the start of the year, who’s to say we won’t have the same again this, all heaping on top of the events hangover we still have from last year.

For example, who would have thought that in these 20-um, whatever we call this decade, we in Britain would be again embroiled in race rows across politics, the press and football? If nothing else I thought we’d have moved on from those dark days of the Eighties. But no. Now we have the England football captain facing charges of racial abuse, one of English Football’s biggest clubs seemingly unable to face the consequences of racial abuse from one of its own players, sickening crowd abuse of black players on the terraces and over Twitter, and politicians being castigated for their wayward and racially questionable tweets. (Ok, we’ll let Ed Miliband off his spelling mistake on the grounds that it was bloody hilarious and clearly a typo.) Oh, and throw in the Daily Sodding Mail somehow being able to claim the moral high ground on racism on the grounds that they once had a legally dodgy front page about the Stephen Lawrence killers.

The Daily Mail. Bastions of racial harmony. I may have to go and lie down.

You know when people were talking about this time being like the 80’s, all cuts and strikes and bad haircuts, I didn’t think we as a country would go the whole hog and try and bring back the decade wholesale, racism and all. Next you’ll be telling me that Timmy Mallet is back and Wham have reunited. Actually, please don’t because if you told me either of these things I’d have to do a big cry. Again I give you an almighty *sigh*

And we’re only 9 days in. Maybe the Mayans were right after all.*

On the other hand, maybe history repeating itself isn’t such a bad thing, having just watched my favourite footballer of all time return to the team he loves and which loves him like no other, and seen him score the winning goal in a vital FA Cup game against our old hated enemies. Which is nice.

*They weren’t, just so you know

From a lot of quarters the reaction has been quite visceral, but it seems to me there is a danger here. By ignoring the complexity of the issues surrounding this, we are in danger of having them repeat on us. Last night I saw widespread condemnation from some quarters of Ken Livingstone and others who were arguing that the riots were a by-product of cuts, unemployment and disaffection amongst the youth of this country. ‘Nonsense,’ came the response, ‘this is criminality, pure and simple. Sickening and abhorrent criminal behaviour.’ But surely it can be, and is, both?

Why is it that those who seek to understand the root cause of the problem seem to be perennially seen as somehow condoning it? Is it not perfectly possible to think that these displays of thuggish behaviour and reckless hate are despicable and inexcusable, but at the same time seek to understand that there are reasons why these young kids are out there? The fact is that in parts of London unemployment is horrendously high. Cuts to the EMA have had an impact on retention in education. Local community groups have had huge funding cuts, and relations between young kids and the Police have long been brittle and weak. Does any of this excuse the rioting and looting? Of course not. But it provides us with a context that just maybe might allow us to move beyond last night.

But the situation is more complex than that.

If you look at this generation you see a whole age group who are battling against competing messages. One the one hand that they are not good enough, that they have no future. That there are no jobs. That we are saddling them with debt. That they will have to work longer than us. That we cannot pay for them. That they are workshy. That their exams are not as hard as the ones we took. Again and again, no future for you, we don’t believe you’re good enough and anyway, we mortgaged your future to pay for our present, sorry.

On the other hand, money is everything. Money is status, money means girls, guys, success. Look pretty, make money. Guns are cool, crime pays, think of yourself alone. All the media made for this generation seems to lack the social conscience you’d expect from youth culture, the righteous anger we got in our youth movements completely removed from a culture obsessed by glamour and celebrity. What does that do to the psyche of a whole generation? I think we say the answer to that last night, and it helps to explain why it spread so fast to other cities. These actions are an expression of a rage they lack the language to articulate. The only other way of looking at this is that this is a lost generation, gone, beyond redemption. This is not an excuse, nothing can excuse the inhumanity on display last night. But it is a reason.

But still, it is more complex than that.

The scores of disaffected youths out on the street are one part of this, and there is clearly an element of hardcore criminality on the street driving things on. The veneer of acceptability, the rule of law, these are gone now and the hardcore have come out, hell bent on destruction. But this won’t be everyone out on the street. Last night on the news for every looter I saw on shaky hand held footage, there were a dozen more doing nothing, loitering, experiencing the riot without really taking part.

And what of the huge swathes of kids who were not on the streets? Those kids and young people and adults and normal Londoners who looked on in horror and this morning formed impromptu clean-up groups over social networks? Last night we saw the worst of what I still think of as ‘My City’ even though I haven’t lived there in over a decade, but we also saw the best. People risked their lives to pull people out of burning buildings. People faced down rioters. The footage of the woman yelling at the kids to go home that spread like wildfire over Twitter last night proves as much to me as the footage of burning buildings. The groups set up on social networks to catch looters and report the, to clean up affected areas identify where trouble is moving speak more to me about social networking than any hyperbole in the press about the negative impact they have. There is a very real risk that we write this generation off based on the lawless actions of the few.

As I say, it is a massively complex situation, one that I cannot possibly hope to explain in one blog post. Please don’t think that I am trying to do so. But we should not allow those who want to force it into a simple box to do so, nor should we allow the issue to pass without a thorough examination of its root causes. By failing to learn the lessons we risk repeating them. In the meantime my thoughts go out to all my friends and family in London, Birmingham, Liverpool, Leeds and anywhere else affected. I just hope that tonight sees calm on the streets, wherever you are.

There is too much news these days, the relentless pace seeming to forever juggernaut along, new stories piling up on top of each other at such an alarming rate as to end up leaving you feeling battered. In the last few weeks we’ve seen all of the above vying for coverage alongside the Phone Hacking scandal, a Chinese rail disaster, the Eurozone crisis, and the lunatic right in America threatening to kickstart a new world recession just to try and win an election. And that’s before you remember that the Japanese nuclear disaster was only a few months ago. Death, celebrity, money, politics, power. It is too much. I can’t keep up any more.

What makes it worse is that there is so much news that we are left obsessing over what should get the coverage. First people were complaining that phone hacking was getting more coverage than the Eurozone crisis. The next minute both are forgotten, replaced by an argument as to which deaths should be covered, a much loved pop star or those dozens of innocents in Norway. I can understand the argument, this was a woman who had every opportunity for help in the world, but it isn’t that black and white, is it? Addiction is surely still worthy of pity, and the family and fans of Amy Winehouse have legitimate cause for grief and sorrow. It doesn’t detract from what happened in Norway, surely?

And anyway, surely if we’re talking a numbers game shouldn’t Africa be leading the news every night? And why isn’t it? Is it because famine is old news, those poor malnutritioned faces staring into the camera no longer enough to force a visceral reaction from the viewership? Not like the victims of a massacre. Africa is the one place where increased coverage would be a good thing. Increased coverage means increased donations, increased political pressure. Covering the familial grief of Amy Winehouse helps nobody, save for the circulation of the newspapers who hounded her so throughout her life. Coverage of events in Norway is important, but leads to a real risk of amplifying the message of this right wing idiot, and in any case, has been riddled with inaccuracy. All the while the world keeps turning, but it seems too heavily weighed down by events. Things are moving too fast.

Stop the news, I want to get off.

You see that sentence there? That’s why I will never be a journalist, you know, a proper paid one. But who would want to be a journalist really these days? Declining sales, declining newspaper revenues, increased competition from web outlets both professional and amateur. Massive increase in pressure over a sustained period to make sure you are out ahead. Corrupt practices all around, and public outrage at every turn. I used to think that journalism was my future, now it seems that it is nobody’s.

The strange thing is that this whole scandal about the news of the world has been massively driven by both the new media worlds of Twitter, where every twist and turn is examined and inspected and exposed in minutes, and the old media. The exposure of phone hacking at the News of the World was driven over a two year period by one newspaper, the Guardian, doggedly refusing to give up the story. It is a staggering achievement for them, and I imagine that when all the dust settles this investigation will become a beacon of investigative journalism for aspiring writers on the scale of Woodward and Bernstein before them. (Before you remark that Watergate unseated a sitting President, I wouldn’t be so quick to presume this scandal doesn’t still have that scope within it.)

As a dedicated news hound, I find myself utterly glued to the unfolding events. I’ve been following the phone hacking scandal for a long time, not generally out of some moral outrage (that came later) but out of a general curiosity at how the world of ‘proper’ journalism works, and out of an enjoyment at seeing the utterly rotten empire of the House of Murdoch in trouble. Then came this week’s revelations, and like most who have followed the story for a while, I found myself not even remotely surprised by the unfolding events. Disgusted, but not surprised.

Over the past few days it has also been fun to see how much harder those trying to set the agenda have found it to do so, thanks to the relentless interest of Twitter and other social media. Like probably everyone I rejoiced at the initial announcement of the closing of the News of the World. It smelt so much of victory! But then you start to think about it, and something doesn’t seem right. In the bad old days this bait and switch move by the Murdoch Overlords may have worked, the sacrifice of 300 or so staff at the paper might have worked, but by the time I had finished watching the report on the 6 o’ clock news yesterday, I had opened up Twitter and found reams of links and analysis by both journalists I follow and normal people, talking about the planned merger of the Sun and the NotW, and talking about the staff of a newspaper who suddenly found themselves out of a job, and what’s more, stuck in an office with their internet switched off, and Rebekah Brooks still free to carry on her duties. As always with twitter, this analysis was driven mostly alongside the heavy tract of exceptionally funny commentary.

Today I am continuing to follow avidly, on the radio, through the Guardian, through the BBC, through Twitter, through a hundred different outlets. One thing seems certain, this is not even close to being the end of this story, because we the people won’t let it be. We are not going to drop it, and as long as that is the case, neither will the press, or the government. I for one want to know who else has been hacking, speculation about other papers seems rife. This story will move beyond the Murdochs (hopefully not before it claims a few high profile scalps) and I’m sure it will have many more shocks.

We’re all news junkies now, and we’re starting to see how much of a good thing that can be.

Song 22. Thom Yorke – Harrowdown Hill

So we rumble on towards the end of the 30 day song challenge with all the enthusiasm of a wounded buffalo approaching a watering hole ring fenced by lions. Once again we find ourselves covering old ground, as I can’t really see the difference between today and ‘day 04 – a song that makes you sad.’ I half expect that tomorrow’s topic will be  ‘a song that makes you feel the kind of anguish that follows the pain of a particularly bad stubbed toe’. Or perhaps ‘a song that reminds you of being a kid when your parents would tell you off for being naughty and you knew deep down that you had been.’ Oh wait, there it is, ‘day 24 – a song that you want to play at your funeral.’ Silly me.

Thankfully sad songs are a plentiful bounty of misery, and I like to consider myself to be somewhat of a connoisseur of the form. The band that tends to soundtrack my trips into misery hasn’t really changed since they released OK Computer. I’d been a fan of Radiohead since I first heard Creep on a tape that came free with the NME, and I loved the first two Radiohead albums, but let’s face it, whilst still good albums filled with moments of abject misery, there’s nothing on those albums that compares to the sheer magisterial melancholy of OK Computer. Every album they have released since has been so laden with emotion that there really is no other choice for when you want to get a hardcore sad on. Now you might be thinking from that intro that I am going to choose a Radiohead song, but aha! That’s where you would be wrong. Well kind of.

Thom Yorke’s solo album, The Eraser, looks less like a solo album and more like a stripped down Radiohead album now that they have released The King Of Limbs, which shares the solo album’s stripped back aesthetic. The only problem is that it isn’t as good. The Eraser is the gift that keeps on giving, even though it is as sparse as the chances of the News of the World selling any copies this weekend. A series of blips and bleeps that hang together in a curiously engaging fashion, all draped over with Thom Yorke’s hangdog voice and brilliant wordplay, it is a perfect little album. It is also miserable enough to make you want to pull it around yourself like a blanket and have a good cry. As well as that, it has the following song about the death of Dr David Kelly, which manages to take a topic that inspired a thousand newspaper headlines and reduce it to a harrowing and sad tale of an actual human being, and the sense of futility and resignation that comes out of such an event.

Today, as we see what has happened with News of The World, it seems to echo even more. Using the righteous public outrage over phone hacking, News Corp has sacked hundreds of perfectly moral and decent journalists, while those directly responsible get away with it. They even managed to streamline one of their loss making enterprises and pass it off as a moral move, even though they actually announced the planned ‘restructuring’ of the NoTW a week ago. Once again the voice of the people is twisted and distorted to the will of those who seek to rule over them. If that’s not enough to make you want to listen to sad music then I don’t know what is.

We think the same things at the same time, we just can’t do anything about it. It was a slippery slippery slippery slope.

Seems to sum the day up somehow.

Paul Paul, wisest of men. Please tell me what’s going on in Libya as I’m out of touch with what’s going on in the world!

Obviously I didn’t really need to include that first part, but I thought you might like to know that there is at least one person out there who considers me to be wise. Don’t quite know how that happened.

Ok, basically Egypt regime toppled by peaceful protest, Tunisia the same, rest of Arab world thinks ‘I’ll have me some of that democracy stuff’ and protests start in Bahrain, Libya and Yemen, among others. Rather than saying ‘shit there’s a load of bloody protesters outside we had better quit’ these regimes figure they might as well use their considerable military might (which we gave them over many many decades) to kill the protesters instead.

In Libya protesters start getting called ‘opposition forces’ instead and fight back against extraordinary odds despite having no training or weaponry, manage to take about half of the country before old massed than a bag of smashed crabs gadaffi starts shooting anything that moves.

West goes tut tut to Bahrain and Yemen even though they are killing people at a horrifying rate but then decides this might be a good time to get rid of Gadaffi, and now, 8 years after Iraq invasion we are now bombing the shit out of Gadaffi’s army  and last night his house, and I am left absolutely bemused as to whether any of it is a good idea at all.

In other news, Japan seems to be going through three massive disasters, all at the same time, and Charlie Sheen has gone absolutely batshit insane, all of which means the news have turned into a kind of post apocalyptic screensaver where images of death, fire, nuclear meltdowns and tidal waves are broken only by occasional footage of a drug fueled crazy man talking about his tiger blood.

I think I may have ensured that my friend never returns. Seriously though, I really really want the news to stop being quite so terrifying at the moment.

On the eve of my celebrating a full third of a century of living on this lovely green planet of ours, something excellent has happened. I have finally found myself being able to stand up and say that I am just like one of my all time heroes, Mr Chuck D.

I know, I’m as surprised as you are. But consider these lyrics from one of my favourite Public Enemy songs, Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos.

“I got a letter from the government, the other day”

That’s me! I got a letter from the government the other day! Although, actually wait. Labour aren’t in power any more are they? Ok, so I got a letter from the opposition the other day. It actually came from the leader of the Labour Party, Ed Miliband. I guess now this is why he’s never on telly or anything, or trying to take down the Tories. He’s too busy  sending out letters to random constituents. Although come to think of it he might have someone else doing it. But still, so far, just like Chuck D. Well, ish.

“I opened and read it, it said they were suckers.”

Well at the very least it says that Ed Miliband is a sucker. Reading the letter it is immediately apparent that he’s writing to tell me that Harriet Harman is coming to York this week.  This is a bit like when you phone your mum and she tells you that she saw your old school friend that you always suspected that she had a crush on and he’s going to be coming to your town soon and oh you should go and see him because he’s doing ever so well. He’s an accountant don’t you know. And what do you mean he’s boring? Well maybe being boring is why he’s doing well, maybe he doesn’t waste all his time talking to people he’s never met on the Internet.

It appears I may have gone off topic. You wouldn’t catch Chuck D doing that. He leaves that to Flavor Flav and his gigantic clock. So where was I?

“They wanted me for their army or whatever”

Actually this is not turning out to be so good an analogy after all. It turns out they don’t want me to join the Army or ‘whatever.’ They, or at least Ed, want me to go to a Town Hall meeting to discuss the future of the Labour party.

“Picture me giving a damn / I said ‘never!’”

Actually I do give a damn, and I’d actually really like to go, being as obsessed as I am with Politics and seeing as I am thinking of shifting my allegiance to Labour. But unfortunately my girlfriend is working that night, and I don’t think it would be as much fun taking my three year old manic ball of crazy with me to a political meeting as it sounds.

Looking back on this, I think maybe I was a bit premature in declaring myself to be the same as Chuck D. I suspect that I never will be, what with him being the voice of a generation and one of the coolest men on the planet at any given time, a man cool enough to still look cool when stood next to Flavor Flav, and me being someone who is plainly not even very often the voice of myself in any coherent fashion, and every bit as cool as the growing bald patch at the back of my head would suggest. Oh well. I guess I will have to go into my second third of a century not being the saviour of black youth. Damn.

At least this gives me an excuse to post a video of one of my favourite cover versions of all time. And yes, in case you were wondering, this has all been a roundabout way of mentioning that it is indeed my birthday tomorrow. Please feel free to leave well wishes in the form of monies to the usual address.

The reason is quite simple. I have quite a simple view on this, which is that I fall squarely into the pro-choice camp. What that also means is that in the end I have no say in the matter. I am pro-choice, and I believe that this choice is one for the woman to make. End of story. A man can have his say, and I believe that where possible should be part of the discussion, but the final decision rests with the woman. But perhaps I should expand on that a bit, lest this become the shortest Cross Blog yet.

The first thing to say is that obviously my lack of religious faith does affect my judgement on this, because I do not believe that ‘life’ is some mystical miracle bestowed by God, and as such I have no moralistic argument against the act of abortion. At the end of the day during the period in which abortion is freely available I see the foetus as exactly that. There is potential there, but this is not a life yet, not a sentient being. In many ways this is an extension of the mother still, and as such the decision on how to proceed is down to the mother. This is my opinion. I am man enough to admit that this is a highly complex issue with no one right answer. And this is where I believe the argument becomes bogged down. Because amongst the Pro Life camp, the argument always seems to be that pro-choice means pro abortion. Which is quite frankly a ridiculous position to take.

Of course I am not pro abortion. I think that every single time an abortion happens it is a tragedy, and I do see it as a potential life ended. I don’t think you will find many people in the Pro Choice camp who think that abortion is an easy thing for a woman, or a family, to undertake. But what I do think is that it is a personal choice. If you are pro life and do not think that you should have an abortion under any circumstances then I am fully behind you making that choice for yourself. As someone expecting their second child I don’t think I could ever came to a decision to do it either. My problem comes when you try and force that decision onto someone else.

Pro choice, the clue is in the title. It means that everyone is free to make their own mind up, and in a free and secular society I have problem with anyone making the choice that works for them. I would hope that anyone who makes that decision would think through all the possibilities before they make that decision, but at the end of the day that is still their choice, and once they make that choice they should be free to follow through on that decision without fear of harassment or judgement.

Of course we on the decidedly more left wing pro-choice aisle have a tendency to demonise the often extremely religious Pro Life camp, and as with anything else there are of course a range of opinions on this issue that are quite moderate and understanding, but as is so often the case on the right they are drowned out by the craptastically insane fringe who think that they are messengers of a vengeful god sent to kill doctors, with no sense of irony at the prospect of being a pro-life person who kills people. The fact that doctors can find themselves having their lives taken away by people purporting to be defending the sanctity of life itself goes so far beyond irony as to be beyond sense.

If there’s one thing that’s left to be said on this issue, is that it is no laughing matter, unless you happen to be a lot smarter than me. So for my final word I will leave you with the thoughts of one of my heroes, who says it all so much better than me.

Now let’s all go over to Gray’s house and see what he thinks. If you want to get involved contact us in the usual places with some thoughts on what you want to see us mouth off about.

Well that went very nicely, thanks to everyone who left messages of niceness on here, on Twitter, on Facebook. It’s always lovely to be the recipient of happy thoughts and congratulations. It makes you wish you had something glorious to announce every day. Maybe I should just start making up accomplishments or grandiose announcements every day of the year. What shall we start with? Um, hired by Nasa? Going on the Jeremy Kyle show? Discovered a new species of Bee? The possibilities are quite literally endless. But thank you to everyone who left kind words, wherever they have done so.

Today has been mainly watching continuing coverage of Egypt, where for a while the most audacious man on the planet seemed to have decided to go on holiday for a bit, until all the trouble died down. Honestly, President Mubarak must have had testicles the size of rampaging elephants to have given the speech that he gave last night, where he basically rambled on about just how awesome he was, how the protests were not about him, and how he was going to stay in power until September. Then today, learning that protesters are off to his house in their tens of thousands, he up and buggers off to his house by the sea, presumably to sit on his piles of billions of pounds, leaving his henchman Vice President to tell everyone they had won and he was quitting.

The best thing is that the Egyptian people seem to have reacted with such magnificent humour, charm and spirit, even before the announcement that had jubilation on the streets. A quick perusal of some of the Twitter pages of people on the ground shows that crowds outside the palace, watching helicopters spirit the focus of their rage way do not start throwing rocks at the departing choppers, but instead start a chant of ‘He’s gone to get some groceries.’ Marvellous. As rumours that another speech was going to be made, some sage chap remarks that it will probably be something to the effect of ‘Get off my lawn.’

The last few weeks have utterly restored my faith in the power of people, en masse, to become something more than themselves, without resorting to religion or party politics or any of the petty shit that we all carry around with ourselves every single day, come together in their tens of thousands and stand up and say ‘enough is enough.’ The last few weeks have been astonishing, watching the way that people have looked after each other, the impromptu field hospitals springing up, the neighbourhood patrols filling the vacuum left by the police without resorting to violence. The spirit and humanity of the Egyptian people has truly shamed those western talking heads who talked about instability and Muslim fear.

As I got home today to see the news of crowds on the streets filled with so much buoyant joy, I have to admit I shed a tear for them all. Here’s hoping that it doesn’t all fall apart at the last. Now comes the difficult task of building a nation anew.

By the way, the picture is Rosie watching the scenes of celebration, drawn more by the mass of movement on screen than by the meaning or significance they reveal. Who knows what all this will lead to, but if it turns out to be a huge turning point for the world (which it easily could be) I like the idea that she can have proof that she was there, even if she wont remember it.

I hate priorities. Stupid, no fun priorities, with their sensible button down collars and penchant for the music of Celine Dion and getting your tax returns done on time. Priorities, with their disapproving glares and that little voice they provoke in your head that say ‘Can you really afford that?’ Just a hint, if you ever have to ask yourself that then the answer is always going to be no, and you need to put down whatever pretty thing you have in your hand that doesn’t match your ‘priorities.’ This year we have one priority, and that’s for me to pass my driving test and for us to buy a car. Because of this ‘priority’ yesterday we had to take the decision to turn down a free holiday, because despite the price tag we couldn’t afford it. Stupid priorities. So rather than spending the Easter break in the south of France, relaxing in beautiful scenery, presumably whilst coiffing a glass of local wine and wearing a straw hat and possibly even escaping any mention of the royal bloody wedding I will be here, saving for a car. Stupid priorities.

That’s not to say I don’t want a car, of course. I am really looking forward to finally being free of the tyranny of First Buses, and free of the shackles of being so bound to York when it comes to choosing leisure activities, and most of all I really am looking forward to having complete autonomous control of the car stereo. Ellen may protest at this past part, of course, but if she objects too much I will have the car retrofitted with an ejector seat in the event she ever tries to convince me to drive while listening to the musical oeuvre of Morrissey. So I am really looking forward to owning a car. What I am not looking forward to is the theory test I am sitting on Saturday, or the lessons to get ready for the main test, or indeed the test itself. I am not looking forward to having to choose a car despite being as good at car knowledge as the Top Gear presenters are at not being racist about Mexicans. Lastly, I am not looking forward to not being able to afford going on holiday in order to be able to go through all of this.

As I say, stupid bloody priorities.

I don’t know about you but over the last week I have been utterly transfixed by events in Egypt, and it is sad to see that what have been so far completely peaceful protests have somewhat descended today into something a bit darker. I think this is somewhat inevitable as the protests go longer and longer and the disparate groups of opposition start to remember their differences, and the supporters of the ruling President start to make their voices heard. I really hope they can keep things together long enough to find a solution that works for everyone, and we have a new democracy sooner rather than later.

What absolutely disgusts me, however, have been the voices of some in the western world who seem to think that the Egyptian people maybe shouldn’t get the democracy they want, because it wouldn’t quite match up with our own interests. The most prominent of these has been Tony Blair, everyone’s favourite mass murdering ex Prime Minister. He has come out in favour of the President because he has been instrumental in the Israel peace process. You know, that one that’s been doing so well. He also warns that any democracy in Egypt could lead to the ‘Muslim Brotherhood’ coming to power.

Tony Fucking Blair. He uses the spread of democracy as the retrospective basis for invading two countries, but then comes down on the side of a repressive dictator when it does not suit the needs of the west. Here’s the thing. If you support democracy, you have to do it irrespective of who might win. That is, after all the whole point of the idea. Maybe the Egyptian people will choose a hard-line Islamist group for their government (although all information coming out of Egypt itself shows this not to be particularly true) but hey, that’s their decision to make, not ours. If you want to spread democracy you aren’t going to always like the results, but them’s the cards you are dealt and you go back to the table and play anyway. Of course everyone would prefer for a moderate, even liberal government, but we don’t get to tell these people how to act any more. They have had quite enough of that over the last thirty years, under a dictator that has only been tolerated as long as he has because he was willing to bend over backwards to do what we in the west wanted.

If we really want the Middle East to cease to be the area of conflict that it currently is, we need to encourage the people of the Middle East to feel as though they are a part of their own real society and democracy, with all the attendant benefits that brings. That’s how you change things, and it’s no good if we start to complain about what people will start to say if they get their own voice.

The attitude of Blair and the rest of the ‘pragmatists’ is that they have is condescension towards a people who they don’t seem to think deserve to have the vote, as though we are somehow better than they are. It’s this kind of rank hypocrisy that the people of Egypt are out protesting, and we should stand firm with them, no matter whether we agree with where they see their state going. Again, its all about priorities. We might not like what it costs, but we have keep in mind where we’re heading in the end.