Category Archives: Politics

Branding Jo Swinson’s Liberal Democrats

Brexit, Politics, society, , , ,

By all rights, I should love the LibDems. They want to stop Brexit, and they want to legalise weed, two things I would like to do, too. I really should support them, but I don’t. I can’t. Not this time. 

Do you want to know why we are having a General Election right now, and not that mythical second referendum on our membership in the EU? Jo Swinson’s Liberal Democrats refused to join a government of national unity because of their twisted dislike of Jeremy Corbyn. 

All a government of national unity had to do was sort out a referendum. Their agreement on the terms of a caretaker administration, would have included a ‘no new legislation’ clause. In other words, all they would have done is maintain the status quo until the referendum and then the subsequent general election. And then maybe, Brexit would have finally been sorted, one way or another. Instead, we get a general election around Xmas. Ho ho ho.

Swinson’s attacks on Corbyn have left me cold. Don’t get me wrong, I am not a huge Corbyn fan, but I do respect him. He is one of the most consistent politicians I’ve ever come across, with policies that would be popular with people, if they got to hear about them. But instead, the negative campaign run against Mr. C consists of personal attacks and twisted facts. But Jeremy Corbyn doesn’t trade in personal attacks, so it’s all very one sided and unfair.

I have nothing against personal attacks, if they are warranted. For example, Boris the bully from the Bullingdon Club, has earned the personal attacks aimed at him. I really want to know how many kids he thinks he has. No one can ever really know for sure. He’s a racist, and a liar. Those are undisputed facts, unless you drink the Kool-Aid served up by the Tories. Then you dismiss the overwhelming evidence of Boris Johnson’s utter lack of character, and you press on. 

Jo Swinson would say she attacks BoJo and Corby equally, but it is a false equivalence and you can’t lump them both together. If anything, I bet Swinson’s voting record is more closely aligned with Johnson’s than Corbyn’s.

If you Google Jo Swinson, the first suggested search term is ‘voting record’. It’s not pretty reading. Austerity, the bedroom tax, and university fees, to name just a few of her greatest hits. She was part of the Tory-led coalition, which is the root cause of many problems we have in our society today. Go Jo!

I didn’t live in the UK in the 1980’s, but I know plenty of people who did. They are not fans of Maggie T, not by a long shot. I can’t imagine Ms. Swinson’s campaign for a statue in Thatcher’s honour is a vote winner either

Whooopsie!

Ms. Swinson says that she wants to stop Brexit and I believe that is true. She also wants to increase the LibDems seat count, which is also true. The problem is where these two goals collide, like in Canterbury and High Peak, where the local candidates stood aside, to allow another remain supporting party a free run at the seat. Jo Swinson”s Liberal Democrat’s won’t allow that, and have imposed new, outside candidates to take their places on the ballot. It seems that the need for seats outweighs the need to stop Brexit, as that is their primary priority. It is extremely disappointing. 

One might say that because I am a north London media, liberal elite, that I would automatically support Labour. There is a kernel of truth to that. I don’t like to brag about my liberal elite status, but sometimes, when I go to McDonalds, I supersize my meal…AND I upgrade to a shake. But only sometimes, I’m not rich, like that uppity Jacob Rees-Mogg. I heard when he goes to McDonalds, he supersizes, he upgrades to the shake and he gets a McFlurry too. Not one of those little bitty mini ones either, but full sized. Shhhhhh, don’t tell nanny!

The reason I mention my media background is because I am coming to the point of this piece. “Jo Swinson’s Liberal Democrats” is terrible branding. I feel like some PR agency pulled a fast one by appealing to her vanity and turning her into the literal face and name of the party.

Have you see the bus? Jo Swinson’s Liberal Democrats’ Bus. Have a gander:

Branding gone wrong

I can just imagine the creative agency’s pitch meeting. Have you ever seen the Monorail episode of The Simpsons? 

“Jo, you have tested through the roof with our focus groups. People love you! So we want you to be the face of the campaign. Every leaflet will have a small headshot of you on the front, and a larger photo of you on the back! 

And have you seen the bus? A close up of you, full bus height! Gorgeous! And, are you ready for this, you will love this! We are going to rebrand the whole party as “Jo Swinson’s Liberal Democrats!”

A breathless, jubilant Jo Swinson’s shouts, yes, yes, yes! Where do I sign?

I can actually envision this being very close to the truth.

And when I first heard about this new branding, this was my immediate thought, now expressed in graphic form:

Seriously?

It sounds like a band name or an improv group struggling to break through at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. It makes the party sound like her personal possession and plaything. And that shit is plastered all over her campaign bus! It’s a branding faux pas on an epic scale. It’s the ‘New Coke’ of political reinvention. 

I’m lucky, my local MP is as anti-Brexit as they come. My MP voted against triggering Article 50, and yes, my MP is a Labour MP with a sizeable majority. But I still checked a tactical voting website to see what they recommended. And you know what, they recommended I vote Labour for the best chance of stopping Brexit. I was going to do it anyway, but it’s nice to know it’s tactical too. 

If I lived somewhere else, where voting tactically for a LibDem candidate made sense, of course I would do it. They’re not a bad bunch of people, even if their election branding is bad this go-round, and they have a history of propping up Tory governments. What matters most in this election, is stopping Brexit. Sky News have nailed the branding, they are rightly calling it the “Brexit Election”.

All of our votes count, but they really, really count this time. Your vote matters, do your homework, work out which party in your constituency is best placed to win and stop Brexit. Then hold your nose if you need to, but vote for the party helps Britain remain in the EU. Your county’s future depends on all us, including and especially, you.

The northlondonhippy is an anonymous author, cannabis evangelist and recreational drug user, who has been writing about drugs and drug use for over 15 years.  In real life, the hippy is a senior multimedia journalist with over 30 years experience of working in news.

The hippy’s book, ‘Personal Use’ details the hippy’s first 35 years of recreational drug taking, while calling for urgent drug law reform. It’s a cracking read, you will laugh, you will cry and you can bet your ass that you will wish you were a hippy too!

“Personal Use” is available as a digital download on all platforms, including Amazon’s Kindle, Apple’s iBooks and Barnes & Noble’s Nook. The paperback is available from all online retailers and book shops everywhere. 

You can also find the northlondonhippy on Twitter: @nthlondonhippy but only if you look really hard.

A Question of Character

Politics, society, ,

Do you know how many children our Prime Minister has? Does anyone?

Even Wikipedia is not sure, just take a look. It says he either has 5 or 6 kids. That’s extremely vague and it is somewhat disconcerting to me, that no one knows the answer.

Even Wikipedia doesn’t know for sure

Why hasn’t anyone in the media asked Boris Johnson about this? It seems fairly basic to me. If you can’t trust a man to tell you how many children he’s fathered, how can you trust him with anything else? If you misrepresent this, what else are you not telling the truth about?

I appreciate it is a complex question, and the answer is probably not as straight forward as you might think. And I would suggest, that there is more than one right answer to this question, depending upon how the question is framed.

If a journalist asked Boris outright, how many children he has, I expect he would reluctantly provide an answer. This answer would become the number of children Boris acknowledges and it would solve Wikipedia’s conundrum for them. We would have an answer we could attribute to the Prime Minister, and that would end the debate. Except it wouldn’t.

It wouldn’t end the debate because there will be another answer, to a slightly different question, and that number would be higher than the first. The problem with this number, is it will only be known to Boris and his attorneys, as it is the number of children Boris supports financially. Those pesky court-ordered paternity tests are an annoyance, but reaching a settlement with a non-disclosure clause probably makes it all alright. So this number is out there, but it will remain a mystery. 

The third number, which is the actual number of children sired by Boris, is unknowable. The only being in the universe to have this answer, if he or she existed, would be an omnipotent god. Even Boris wouldn’t be sure. There will be terminated pregnancies, there will be paternity denials, and there could even be some children born, that have no idea he is their daddy.

Put it this way, if you are aged somewhere between zygote and around 40 years old, and you have floppy blond hair, an innate ability to say random things in Latin, and your momma never told you who your daddy is… Odds are your daddy is Boris Johnson.

Boris is a born liar. Boris lies so much during the day, that sometimes when he gets home at night, he is just too darned tired to lie to his girlfriend. He lies about everything. He was sacked from the Times for lying. He even lied to the father of a sick baby girl, about the press not covering his hospital visit, while the cameras were in the room and filming! Boris even lied to the Queen. He just can’t help it. Boris lies, the way the rest of us breathe, naturally, and without much thought. Lying is his gut instinct, go to strategy, to get himself out of everything. And he doesn’t seem to mind when he gets caught. 

Why is the media so complicit in all of this? How can a politician be given a pass on issues of trust? If you can’t trust a man to tell you how many children he has, how can you trust him on literally anything else?

Character matters. Honesty matters. And it starts with a really simple question: Mr. Johnson, how many children do you have?

The northlondonhippy is an anonymous author, cannabis evangelist and recreational drug user, who has been writing about drugs and drug use for over 15 years.  In real life, the hippy is a senior multimedia journalist with over 30 years experience of working in news.

The hippy’s book, ‘Personal Use’ details the hippy’s first 35 years of recreational drug taking, while calling for urgent drug law reform. It’s a cracking read, you will laugh, you will cry and you can bet your ass that you will wish you were a hippy too!

“Personal Use” is available as a digital download on all platforms, including Amazon’s Kindle, Apple’s iBooks and Barnes & Noble’s Nook. The paperback is available from all online retailers and book shops everywhere. 

You can also find the northlondonhippy on Twitter: @nthlondonhippy

A busy hippy

Brexit, cannabis, Climate Change, Climate Crisis, decriminalisation, drug use, High Hopes, Politics, society, , , , , , , , , , ,
Not an actual photo of me

You might have noticed in the last few weeks, I’ve been more productive than usual.

I’ve been a busy hippy. 

I’ve had some free time, so I decided to solve some big issues.

Dangerous Tea

For instance, I highlighted the truth about cannabis. Don’t blame weed, it is tea drinking that is the real cause of everything bad.

ClimateGear(TM)

Want to survive the Climate Apocalypse? I figured out how it can be done. First, you need to be super rich.

Brexit lives at the bottom of this very deep hole

I had a free hour, so I solved Brexit. It’s not pretty, but it gets the job done. You can thank me later.

Giant steps are what you take

I shared my memories of the first moon landing. I was 6 and a half when it happened, but I still came up with a few obscure details.

The UK is a dry country

I wrote to Grandma Hippy about living in a dry country. She is imaginary, and she lives in Colorado. She digs edibles. I do too.

Dump Trump, because Trump is a dump

I received my first 12 hour Twitter ban. I tried to fight the power, but the power of stupid prevailed.

Fire!

And, my fellow earthlings, I tried to convince everyone that we are all Citizens of Everywhere. It’s our only hope.

There’s not a lot to be optimistic about these days, but we can all distract ourselves from the mess we’re in. My distraction, ironically, is hope. Don’t lose hope, we can all help make things a little less miserable. This is my attempt to do just that.

My first Twitter Ban

Politics, society, , , ,
This is the worst man in the world

I received my first Twitter ban today. I can still read tweets, but I can’t like them and I am not allowed to tweet for 12 hours. So don’t blame me if you don’t know what I had for lunch today.

It was a Chicken Caesar Salad. Now you know. 

All I did was call Donald Trump a cunt. Even though I stand by my comment, which will be reproduced below, Twitter forced me to delete it. My knuckles feel well and truly rapped. 

Bad hippy! Naughty hippy! You called the worst human being in the world, a bad, naughty word. 

I’m not exaggerating, I really believe Trump is the worst person on the planet. Imagine having all that power, all that influence, a platform and pulpit do actual good, to, bring good into the world. And instead, you tweet this kind of bullshit:

This is not presidential.

The President or the United States is celebrating the burglary of a political opponent’s home. This is the state of America in 2019. It’s beyond satire, it is beyond a joke. Every tweet from this human cesspool sets a new low. He is a bottomless pit of toxicity and poison. He pollutes everything with his infantile rage tweets, a dozen times a day. Do they ever ban him? Do they, fuck! If anyone deserved to be stuck in Twitter’s penalty box, it’s Dumb Donny.

Elijah Cummings is a proper America hero. He has more decency in his little finger than the entire Trump dynasty, even if you went back 10 generations to the Drumfs. Don’t believe me? Wikipedia awaits.

For a serial liar, with more bankruptcies than successes in business, who has 5 kids from 3 wives, who grabs pussies and cheats at everything, who has besmirched and demeaned the the office of President more than Richard Nixon, to attack a man like Cummings, well it got my dander up.

I can’t imagine being gleeful over the the misfortune of another human being, even someone as vile as Trump. I will be gleeful when he is imprisoned, because he deserves it and it won’t be a misfortune. It will be justice. An orange jumpsuit for an orange moron.  

Recently, I have been allowing myself the occasional reply to Trump’s tweets. Not because I think ol’ mushroom dick would see them, but for me. I have been expressing myself, via a pressure valve, namely a tweet. Thousands of people reply to his tweets and I can understand why. We all feel so small and helpless in the face of pure evil, we need to respond or it would eat us up inside. I like my insides uneaten, thank you very much.

Wanna see my tweet? The one that got me in trouble. The one I had to delete. Of course you do! Here it is:

Sometimes, decency requires indecent language

I didn’t say anything that was factually inaccurate. I didn’t say anything, I would not say to him in person, if given the chance. I used a naughty word. Ok, technically the naughtiest word, but no other word would do. No other word has that power, not to shock, but to convey rage. It’s the rage-iest. It was the right word, at the right time, for the right purpose. 

I’m not sure what the threshold is for a Twitter ban. How many cry baby Trump supporting snowflakes had to report my tweet before I was banned? I don’t know, but it can’t be many, as I was banned within a couple of minutes of sending it.

This is what Twitter said about my tweet: “Your account has been locked for violating Twitter’s rules. Specifically for: Violating our rules against hateful conduct. You may not promote violence against, threaten or harass other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability or serious disease.”

I was framed and plead not guilty!

In what way did my tweet violate any of that? I did not promote violence, threaten or harass in any way. I did insult, but is being insulting against Twitter’s policy? Seems like it is. Unless, being a cunt is considered a disease or disability, I didn’t break their rules.

Clearly some Trump supporting infant didn’t like my naughty words, or they couldn’t cope with the truth, so they reported my tweet to Twitter. It’s not fair. Life is not fair. Whatever. I would do it again. I probably will do it again.

My ban finishes at 3am this morning. I am trying to stay awake till then, just so I can post a link to this piece on Twitter. Instead of one tweet, I’ve written 800 words. Thanks for the inspiration, dumbass. If you didn’t report my tweet, I wouldn’t have been motivated to write this today. 

Oh and one last thing: #impeachtrump 

The northlondonhippy is an anonymous author, online cannabis activist and recreational drug user, who has been writing about drugs and drug use for over 15 years.  In real life, the hippy is a senior multimedia journalist with over 30 years experience of working in news.

The hippy’s book, ‘Personal Use’ details the hippy’s first 35 years of recreational drug taking, while calling for urgent drug law reform. It’s a cracking read, you will laugh, you will cry and you can bet your ass that you will wish you were a hippy too!

“Personal Use” is available as a digital download on all platforms, including Amazon’s Kindle, Apple’s iBooks and Barnes & Noble’s Nook. The paperback is available from all online retailers and book shops everywhere. 

You can also find the northlondonhippy on Twitter: @nthlondonhippy unless he gets banned again

Surviving the Climate Apocalypse

Climate Crisis, Politics, society, ,

By Doug – the northlondonhippy

CimateGear(TM) Ad Campaign

Great news everybody! The rich are going to survive and thrive during the coming Climate Apocalypse! Yay!

It’s the only explanation I can come up with regarding the institutional inaction and outright denial from much of the ruling class. They think they can use their considerable resources to adapt to the inhospitable hell-scape that is currently in our future. It makes sense, if you think you can survive our increasingly warmer planet, you will do nothing to slow that warming down. Throw another scoop of coal on the fire! Let it burn!

At least three prominent billionaires are publicly working on private space programmes, ostensibly to commercialise outer space. But if you take the vehicular element out of the equation, you know, the rockets, the rest of what they are researching is about surviving in a hostile environment. If you can sustain a community on Mars, you can sustain a community of the surface of our planet, once it is rendered uninhabitable. How could this not factor into their plans?

There is nothing to stop people from building the equivalent of a lunar base, here on Earth. For starters, it would be easier, as you wouldn’t need to transport your materials into space. No need to reach escape velocity to break the gravitational grasp of planet Earth, just truck, ship or fly what you need, to whatever safe site you choose.

Stephen Hawking said we would increase our chances of the continuation of the human race, if we become a multi-planet society. That may still be their goal, but these billionaire can’t count on this, so they must be preparing a way to survive the coming Climate Apocalypse on Earth. If you had billions in the bank, wouldn’t you?

Imagine an underground facility, meant to sustain life for 1,000 years. It would be powered by renewables, have access to a deep water spring, have food production facilities, waste recycling and disposal facilities, air filtration and advanced environmental controls, and it would all be self contained and self sustaining. Think of a cross between a nuclear bunker and a hippy commune. It’s not that far off from what they are hoping to build on Mars one day, only they will be building them here, while the rest of us disappear in the coming Great Die-Off. 

I am very pessimistic about the future of the planet. We are doing nothing, while the climate is out of control. Right now, as I write this, there are wild fires in the Arctic Circle. That’s insane. Just last week, record temperatures were broken all over Europe. Out of the 10 hottest years on record, 9 of them happened in the last 17 years. The last 5 years, are currently the top 5 hottest years on record. Betcha 2019 tops them all. This is beyond a worrying trend. This is climate change. This is a climate crisis. This is a climate emergency.

Source:  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumental_temperature_record

The mainstream media is catching up with this reality. CNN now uses the words, “climate crisis” and “climate emergency” regularly on-air.  The BBC had a story on their website last week, headlined “Climate change: 12 years to save the planet? Make that 18 months”. Shit is finally getting real. But shit, it is all too late.

We can’t mitigate the climate changes enough to save us all. Most of us are going to die. Hey ho.

We will try to adapt, and some will succeed. It’s already started, Sony is crowdfunding high tech personal, wearable air conditioners. I’d buy one right now.

I NEED one of these!

And that’s why today. I am launching. ClimateGearTM. 

Look good, feel cool, whatever the climate!

ClimateGearTM aims to create a line of luxury environmental suits to cope with our increasingly hotter, polluted environment. Based on the same designs and technology that sustained men on the moon, 50 years ago, our suits are perfect for the coming climate apocalypse.

Will they be affordable? Of course! For less than the price of a luxury car, you can cheat death while the poor boil in their own skins. And they will come in many colours, to suit all tastes and styles.

Whether you want to nip up to the shops to pick up sunscreen, or to visit the graves of your dead ancestors, ClimateGearTM Environmental Suits will keep you cool and alive in any hostile environment, including the one we are creating here on Earth. Climate change may be the end of our society, but it doesn’t have to be the end of you and your family!

If the super rich can survive all this, it’s time for me to get super rich. These suits are a billion dollar idea. So how many ClimateGearTM suits can I put you down for? I’m taking deposits right now, for delivery mid-2020, while supplies last. 

The northlondonhippy is an anonymous author, online cannabis activist and recreational drug user, who has been writing about drugs and drug use for over 15 years.  In real life, the hippy is a senior multimedia journalist with over 30 years experience of working in news.

The hippy’s book, ‘Personal Use’ details the hippy’s first 35 years of recreational drug taking, while calling for urgent drug law reform. It’s a cracking read, you will laugh, you will cry and you can bet your ass that you will wish you were a hippy too!

“Personal Use” is available as a digital download on all platforms, including Amazon’s Kindle, Apple’s iBooks and Barnes & Noble’s Nook. The paperback is available from all online retailers and book shops everywhere. 

You can also find the northlondonhippy on Twitter: @nthlondonhippy

Citizen of Everywhere

"Personal Use", High Hopes, Politics, society, , ,
Shit’s on fire

A couple of weeks ago, I marked an interesting milestone in my life. I celebrated my 50/50 day. 

I can already hear you asking, what is a 50/50 day? Please allow me to explain, as it is a concept of my own creation. 

If you’ve read my book, “Personal Use” (getting the shameless plug in early), you will know that I wasn’t always a north London-based hippy, but I began my life on the east coast of the United States of America. I moved to London in the early 90s, when I was my late 20s. I’m mid-50s now.

My 50/50 day is a way I’ve determined to mark my dual nationality, as it is the day where I have lived exactly half of my life in each country. So the first 50% of my life was spent in the states, the 2nd half of my life has been spent in the United Kingdom. 

As I know my birthday and the date I moved to the UK, it was fairly straightforward to work out the exact date of my 50/50 day. I simply used an online date calculator that easily counts the number of days between dates. It worked out that I have lived over 10,000 days in each country. Wow.

Ain’t math amazing? And clearly I have too much free time.

But what does it actually mean, to mark one’s 50/50 day? All immigrants must pass this milestone, if they live long enough, so what’s the big deal?

For me, it is a way of honouring my dual heritage and reflecting thoughtfully about it. Don’t tell me I don’t know how to have a good time.

My paternal grandparents were Scottish and they moved to America and that’s where my father was born. My mother’s parents started their lives in Italy, and also moved to America before my mother was born. Both of my parents were first generation American-born, I was second. And then I moved back to Europe. It’s the circle of life, but with jet travel.

So I am half British and all European by birth, but my first nationality is legally American. I hold two nationalities now, as I am now also British, but what does it all mean? Other than a date I can point to as a midpoint in my geographic life, I guess it doesn’t mean that much. I just thought it was a cool thing to work out. 

I always like to say, I am an earthling first. It’s what we all are, we are all earthlings. We scurry around on the surface of the Earth, which makes us all earthlings. It’s the one thing we all have in common. It comes before your race, your nationality, and your gender. You are an earthling, most of all. 

“Hey, do you live on earth? Me too! That’s a huge thing to have in common. Let’s be best friends!”

We are the sentient, indigenous inhabitants of this planet named after dirt. Envy us, as we may be the smartest things that exist in the universe. Or pity us, as we may be the smartest things that exist in the universe. We may be as good as it gets.

Some say claiming you are a citizen of the world is controversial. Wasn’t it Terrible Theresa May who said it makes you a “citizen of nowhere”? It was.

What Terrible Terri doesn’t understand, and will never understand is that we are all citizens of the world. We are all really Citizens of Everywhere. We all flit about on the surface of this planet and while we may remain behind artificially delineated borders, we all share common hopes and common dreams. There is more that unites us, than divides us, as they say, but we forget this simple basic truth, so easily. 

Countries and borders are made up creations. We decided all this nonsense, to keep us apart, when the reality is that we are all Citizens of Everywhere. Who is to say where on the surface of the planet, we are allowed to exist? What if I want to stand over there for a while?

We all need to think in these terms, if we want to have any hope of the continuation of the human race. We desperately need to be Citizens of Everywhere. 

That may sound hyperbolic, but it is not. We are rendering the planet uninhabitable and we may reach a point, in the not too distant future, where human life will not be sustainable on Earth any more. 

I’m not going to lay out the case for climate change here. I accept it is happening and I believe the official estimates of the rate of change are extremely conservative. It’s much worse than the mainstream media wants to admit. It’s a climate crisis and no warning is dire enough. Though to be fair, I am seeing this view slowly creeping into the mainstream, it’s just not creeping in fast enough. Listen out for the words ‘climate crisis’, they are being used more frequently by the media. 

Sometimes, I hang out on a subreddit called r/collapse. It is not happy reading, but everyone deserves the truth. You can check it out RIGHT HERE. 

The pessimist in me believes it is already too late, that the damage has been done and there is nothing we can do to reverse our inevitable extinction. But the optimist in me still tries to find some hope. It’s not easy, in the face of the overwhelming evidence, but I try, anyway. 

Here’s a clip from a fictional TV show, called The Newsroom, from 2014. At the time of broadcast, it was considered over the top, now it is seen as visionary. Please take 5 minutes to watch.

https://youtu.be/XM0uZ9mfOUI

Our denial over the impeding climate crisis is a bit like our denial of other existential threats in our lives. The easiest example of this, is our denial over death. 

What do I mean?

I mean, we all know we are going to die. There is no cheating death, at least not yet. It is the only certainty. We can all expect to shuffle off our mortal coils, eventually. We don’t know when, we don’t know how, but we know one day, we will be gone. And somehow we put all of that out of minds and mostly live our lives with carefree abandon, day after day. 

It’s the same with climate change. We put it out of our minds, we accept the gradual and dramatic changes, and we normalise them, quickly. It’s part of our in-built coping mechanism, it’s not a bug, it’s a feature. It’s how we get through every day. But our lack of attention to this detail, you know, that the entire planet is dying, only confirms our fate.

Ut oh.

I’ve been working as a journalist for 30 years, and I’ve been making the same joke in newsrooms for about as long. The joke is that I always hoped I would live long enough to be able to cover the end of the world. Funny, huh?

Now that I am confronted with the actual possibility (certainty?), I don’t seem to be laughing quite as much. 

I don’t think the world is going to suddenly end, that’s not what I mean. The planet will still be here, but it will rapidly become inhospitable to almost all life. There may be some bacteria, or perhaps some of the extremophiles will survive, but you can say goodbye to all the plants and animals.

We’re animals, in case you need reminding, so that means bye-bye us. 

Gosh, this started out being about me marking my dual nationality, and our global commonality, and somehow it lead me to the climate crisis.

Everything leads back to the climate crisis. It is the existential threat to all of our lives. And it might already be too late. 

In that context, my 50/50 day, is pretty insignificant, but I marked it anyway. We all need distractions, even if it is a distraction from the end of the world.

Have a nice day!

PS – If you found any of this upsetting, you are not alone. Check out r/collapsesupport for help with coping. You are NOT alone. Whether we like it or not, we are all in this together. 

The northlondonhippy is an anonymous author, online cannabis activist and recreational drug user, who has been writing about drugs and drug use for over 15 years.  In real life, the hippy is a senior multimedia journalist with over 30 years experience of working in the industry. 

The hippy’s book, ‘Personal Use’ details the hippy’s first 35 years of recreational drug taking, while calling for urgent drug law reform. It’s a cracking read, you will laugh, you will cry and you can bet your ass that you will wish you were a hippy too!

“Personal Use” is available as a digital download on all platforms, including Amazon’s Kindle, Apple’s iBooks and Barnes & Noble’s Nook. The paperback is available from all online retailers and book shops everywhere. 

You can also find the northlondonhippy on Twitter: @nthlondonhippy

There is only one way out a of hole

Brexit, Politics, society, ,
The actual Brexit hole

If you fall down into a deep hole, there really is only one way out. Up.

Brexit is a bottomless pit of abject stupidity and depressing despair, but we have to assume at some point, we will slam into the very rock bottom. When we do, what will happen? 

The only way out is up. 

I wanted to get this prediction written down, on the extreme outside chance I am right. If I am, and that’s a big eff-ing if, then I will be seen as a genius of prognostication and you might even want to invite me to your next dinner party. But before I accept, do you have a special smoking area, for, you know, cool smoking? 😉

Here’s how I see things playing out over the next couple of months. I won’t put in any firm timings, beyond the one obvious one… As the law stands, right now, as I bash my keyboard and spew out my scenario, Britain will leave the EU, without a deal, on the 31st of October. Halloween. 

Boo!

Did I scare you? You should be scared, because if we crash out on All Hallows’ Eve, it will not be a pretty picture. But I’m not here to debate or outline the calamity that would be a no-deal Brexit. I’m here to explain that unless something miraculous happens, this is the most likely outcome. 

But don’t worry, I am also going to outline what that miraculous salvation could be. It might be our only hope. You can thank me later.

Again, as I write this, the Tory leadership contest is still ongoing, with both candidates trying to outdo each other in just how quickly and efficiently they can drive the UK over a cliff edge into a no-deal, must-have, do-or-die, bang -on-time, Brexit. 

We live in Crazy Town, population, all of us. Please send help.

Unless a different miracle happens, we are headed for a government lead by Bumbling Boris Johnson. Or should it be Bungling Boris Johnson? How about bumbling on the first reference, bungling on the second? (Note to self, adopt this as hippy house-style from now on). 

So Bumbling Boris will almost certainly be our next PM. All Boris has to do to facilitate a no-deal Brexit, is nothing. If he does absolutely nothing, the clock runs out and we leave the European Union, as the current law states at the end of October. We know, from his disastrous spell as Mayor of London, that Bungling Boris is extremely lazy. Doing sweet FA is his specialty. Remember his limp, late response to the riots in 2011? He can handle doing nothing. I bet he is doing nothing right now, this very second. And for this, his advisors are grateful. 

But, but, but you say, parliament will bring down the government, if no-deal appears to be the likely outcome. I wouldn’t argue with this, I think that a no-confidence vote is very possible in this scenario. Likely even. And it may very well succeed. But that won’t solve our problems.

A no confidence vote will not solve our problems, because it leaves Bumbling, Bungling Boris, as caretaker Prime Minister. A dissolved parliament can’t force him to request an extension to Article 50, any more than a sitting parliament could. All he has to do is sit on his hands and run out the clock. But that’s not checkmate, not yet. 

While an election would strengthen any request for an extension, it would still require a formal request to be made, by the PM, Boris. The EU would not unilaterally grant one, even for an election, without that formal request. If Befuddled Boris doesn’t write to Brussels, an election at this point won’t help. Please see the previous paragraph about Boris sitting on his hands. 

Following a successful no-confidence vote, and before an election is called, opposition parties have a fortnight to form a new government with the Queen’s blessing. This is our only small glimmer of hope.

If the other parties could form some sort of government of national unity, they could do two very useful things. 

The first is to revoke Article 50. 

Sure, the government of national unity could request another extension, but at this point, I fear the EU would politely decline. Could you blame them? After watching this slow-moving car crash for over 3 years, it would make sense for the European Union to effectively tell us to shit or get off the pot. 

That would make for a very stark, binary choice, leave without a deal and suffer all that comes with it, or revoke Article 50, sparing the country enormous pain, while alienating a large portion of the general public. 

Decisions, decisions.

You might have noticed, I glossed over the whole government of national unity thing. At its heart, would have to be the Labour Party. Yes, the same Labour Party that currently doesn’t have a decisive remain policy. Let’s be honest, their stance on Brexit lacks any real clarity. They have tried to make it be all things, to all people and that strategy has failed. 

Labour would be the largest party in this mythical coalition, but the other parties that would help form it, are are all firmly on the remain side, For this to work, for Jeremy Corbyn to be Prime Minister, Labour would have to also come out hard for remain. They would not have a choice. The alternative is that cliff edge, that they claim to want to avoid. This will be their chance to avoid it, once and for all.

A government of national unity, as the name suggests, puts country ahead of party, something our current parliament, and especially the Conservative Party seems to be unable to do. If this all plays out, as I am suggesting, the least worst outcome would be the revocation of Article 50.

And I have crunched the numbers, based on the current composition of parliament. Mathematics follow:

Current State of the Parliamentary Parties
Source: https://www.parliament.uk/mps-lords-and-offices/mps/current-state-of-the-parties/

The Tories are a minority government, with 312 seats. The DUP prop them up with their 10 seats, as part of the confidence and supply agreement hammered out after our last election in 2017. 

There are 650 seats in parliament, The speaker, plus the 3 deputy speakers, don’t vote. Sinn Fein don’t take their 7 seats, and there is currently one vacancy, so a full house right now is 638. Half of that is 319, a majority of 1 seat is 320. The Tories and the DUP combined, have 322. That’s the current magic number the Tories and the DUP can muster to vote, on a good day.

Labour currently have 247 seats. The next largest party is the SNP with 35 seats, followed by the Lib Dems with 12, Change UK with 5, Plaid Cymru with 4, and the Green Party with 1. Total here is 303, so we are still shy 17 more MP’s to join the fun and games.

There are 15 independent MPs, for the sake of simplicity, I am going to divide that number in half and round it up to 8. It could be less, it could be more, so I think 8 is a reasonable compromise figure. That brings our historic government of national unity up to 311 seats. We are still 12 shy of the magic number, 323, to have more more votes than the Tory/DUP combo. 

Tories. We need Tories, less than a dozen of them. Maybe 10, maybe 12, without certainty, I will stick to 9. Based on rumour and voting records, I am banking on there being at least 9 principled Conservative MPs willing to join a government of national unity. 

If current media reports are correct, there are around 30 current Conservative MPs that are willing to bring a no-deal focussed government down, we should be OK on this score.

The Brecon and Radnorshire by-election is expected on the 1st of August. I’m not going to attempt to predict the outcome, especially since the pro- remain parties are cooperating. But this one seat, will probably be filled before my scenario will play out. So yes, my calculations are slightly fuzzy. Also, I am not a parliamentary scholar, I’m just some random British journalist and career stoner with too much time on my hands right now.

I am not saying any of this will be easy, or straightforward, but what I am saying is that it is possible. More than possible, but likely. And more than just likely, as I truly believe at this point, it is our one and only hope. 

The second useful thing my imaginary government of national unity will do, will be to call another no confidence vote, to bring themselves down. Having done the only thing required of them, by cancelling Brexit and getting all of us out of this very deep hole, it would no longer need to exist and an election could be safely called. 

Some MPs would be rewarded, and some would be punished in the next general election, but all of those who supported the government of national unity, will be looked upon by history most kindly, even if some people today, end up hating them. 

I have no doubt that our next parliament, and our next government, will be unlike anything we’ve seen in living memory. The Brexit Party will get seats, neither the Tories nor Labour will have a majority, and the Lib Dems may become players again. Maybe the Greens will finally get more MPs. Anything is possible. And we could end up with another coalition government that lacks a big majority and its chief feature would be its inherent instability. 

Whatever happens next, Brexit still needs to be dealt with, somehow. There is only one deal on offer, the same one that parliament has repeatedly rejected, the same one that the EU says will not be renegotiated under any circumstances. That deal is dead. And no deal would be a disaster. Our only hope is a government of national unity.

Or the apocalypse, but I am not convinced even the end of the world could end the endless stupidity that is Brexit. 

We can’t lose hope. There’s only one way out of a hole. It’s up. And up is the positive direction. So let’s put the up in uplifting. We need a government of nationality unity that will exist for one purpose, to revoke Article 50. So let’s just do that.  

The northlondonhippy is an anonymous author, online cannabis activist and recreational drug user, who has been writing about drugs and drug use for over 15 years.  In real life, the hippy is a senior multimedia journalist with over 30 years experience of working in the industry. 

The hippy’s book, ‘Personal Use’ details the hippy’s first 35 years of recreational drug taking, while calling for urgent drug law reform. It’s a cracking read, you will laugh, you will cry and you can bet your ass that you will wish you were a hippy too!

“Personal Use” is available as a digital download on all platforms, including Amazon’s Kindle, Apple’s iBooks and Barnes & Noble’s Nook. The paperback is available from all online retailers and book shops everywhere. 

You can also find the northlondonhippy on Twitter: @nthlondonhippy –  follow him and receive a free gift*)

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