Wrong! How everything and nothing has changed since the 1979 election

I was clearing out some old papers yesterday. I am the worlds worst horder, and I found a box of very old lyrics from the earliest days of the band, back in very early 1979. Back then, like today,  there was politlcal chaos, the country seemed as if it was literally falling apart. I was a sixteen year old at Orange Hill School and I'd just formed the False Dots with Pete Conway. We were obsessed with Punk and bands like Crass, anarchists who believed that the whole system was rotten. They were a brilliant live band, one of the best I've seen and many of their political messages resonated with me (many still do "Fight war not wars" being the best example). When we started the band, we wrote "The False Dots manifeso" which was directly influenced by Crass.  The songs we wrote were like very bad Crass songs. I think our hearts were in the right place, but our musical abilities were very limited and in truth trying to sound like Crass was very much a dead end for us. By the end of 1979, our tastes and talents had moved on. We binned all of the overtly political songs and started again.

I was a sixteen year old at Orange Hill School when the band started. My knowledge of the world, politics and life was shaped by punk rock attitudes, Rock Against Racism and The Anti Nazi League. Incidents like when we reacted badly to Eric Claptons racist comments, that launched Rock Against Racism shaped our mindset. Clapton had been known as "God" by Hippies in the 1960s, but to quote Monty Python, he wasn't the messiah, he was a very naughty boy. We decided that we'd never want to be like him (I still don't). The Callaghan government of the day was useless, we had the winter of discontent. Thatcher seemed like a malignant demon, set to rip apart society and put us paupers in our place. She talked of smashing union power. To us, Unions represented the people. Do you really want to smash your own people? was the obvious question for me. She talked of privatisation. That was taking things owned by the people and giving it to profiteers which just seemed plain wrong headed and still does. Her manifesto said "We need more compulsory attendance centres for hooligans at junior and senior levels. In certain detention centres we will experiment with a tougher regime as a short, sharp shock for young criminals.". As Punks, this seemed aimed at us. The term hooligan was one that had all manner of connotations at the time. We took it to mean people that Thatcher didn't like the look of.

Having written the False Dots manifesto, we wrote a song that encapsulated it. The song was simply called "Wrong". It was one of the songs we abandoned at the end of the year. It has sat in a box ever since. Unused and unloved. Until yesterday. I read it, with the benefit of fourty five years distance. I was transported back to 1979 and the death of the Callaghan government and the rise of Thatcherism. And reading it, I had to ask myself  "Who was wrong"? In many ways, 2024 mirrors, but reverses the scene in 1979. An encumbant government that has all but collapsed and run out of energy, up against an alternative that offers little hope for young people. The big difference between Starmer and Thatcher is that Thatcher was shouting from the rafters what she wanted to do. Starmer has nothing to say at all. Does he plan a Thatcher style dismantling of the Tory legacy of the last fourteen years? To be honest, the more I look at it, the less legacy there is to dismantle. We just need things to start working properly. Maybe what we need is an unabitious, competent manager? Maybe a Thatcher style bonfire of the last 20 years will finish us off. 

One big difference between now and then is the access to information. There was no internet and only three TV channels. People got news from the papers. You read the papers that reflected your views. In my house, my Tory Dad read The Daily Express and my Socialist Mum read The Guardian. I read both. I was always struck by how two different, supposed honest papers could present news about things in such different ways. In truth, I preferred the populist, less wordy approach of the Daily Express, with it's comic strips such as James Bond and Jeff Hawke and snappy football coverage. I tended to agree more with the Guardian, but being dyslexic, found the wordy style a bit offputting. I perservered and still get both. One day, I sat down with Pete Conway to write new songs. We started comparing stories in the Express and The Guardian and noticed the difference. The Express was demonising 'lefty unions'. The Guardian was sympathetic to downtrodden workers. But it was clear that neither side was telling the whole story. We speculated as to what the ordinary man could possibly make of it all. The first verse of Wrong summed up our view of this truth deficit.

Do you consider yourself a thinking person

Or an object for others to manipulate

Nobody's immortal

No one is unreplacable

Consider yourself in the middle of the sea

You can scream all you like

But no one cares

Bear in mind, Pete and I were sixteen. The song is about the attitude of authority and power to ordinary people. They hide the truth from us, spin stories and tug on our heart strings. The Tories rely on our personal greediness to win votes, Labour rely on exploiting our good nature, Reform scare us with tales of the tiny percentage of immigrants who are not nice, The Lib Dems leap into lakes full of shit to catch our attention. But no one is saying "As a nation, we are fucked unless we spend a lot more money on health, social care, roads, railways, education and the environment. All of this lying has lead us to a situation where we rely on other countries for electricity and food. There has been more debate about whether women can have penis's in this campaign than how we can ensure the elderly members of society are safe and secure. Who decided that we'd ignore the fundamental problems facing the UK?  In 1979, we had really limited channels of information. Now we are deluged. In some ways, we get less now, because it is so much easier to live in an echo chamber. 

It is imperative that we all vote. I will be crossing my fingers and hoping for the best. I may sound very despondent about the choice. The truth is that I do have hope, but I am prepared for it to be shattered. Whatever comes next must be better than the last few years, mustn't it?

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We don't ask for any cash from anyone to support my work writing this blog. It would however be appreciated if you gave my band a bit of love. You can follow us on Spotify by clicking here. 

The False Dots are playing at 5pm at Fortune Green Park in West Hampstead this Saturday for the 50th Annual Jestefest. 

If you need a pick me up, come down for a party!

A weekend of amazing music, food and fun - The East Barnet Festival 2024

 What were you doing last weekend? I can tell you what I was doing (when I wasn't watching England). I was at the East Barnet Festival. If you've never heard of it, it's the biggest community festival in the London Borough of Barnet. For the last few years, I've been involved with the festival and helped get the line up together, with Al Pascal of Al Pascal music school and local musician Dave Towler. We spent six months listening to submissions and trying to sort out three days of interesting and different music. I think we did a pretty good job. There were some amazing performances. My picks of the day were The Alan Warner Band, Brook Law, Subverse and Visions of Order. Alan is the band leader of 60's icons The Foundations, this is his other band, where he plays the covers he loves. Brook Law is a truly awesome female singer. If there is any justice in the world, she will become a massive star. Maddie from Subverse is a brilliant vocalist, The show was opened by Visions of Order who did an great selection of their self penned ballads. 

It was not just the bands. On Sunday there was an amazing classic car show, if you are a petrol head and you like nice motors. There was an amazing selection of cars, as you can see from the picture and a huge amount of interest in them. Cars have become a bit of a dirty word in political circles, every single change that has been made in the transport policy in the last 20 years, has been designed to get these sort of motors off the road.  I happen to think many classic cars are things of great beauty and long may we have such car shows!

There was also a funfair. I am sorry to say that I am past the stage in my life where I enjoy such rides, but for families having a fun fair in the park is a wonderful thing and many parents were throughly enjoying the day. 

There were also some amazing food stands. I very much enjoyed the Pastel De Nata (my fave pudding) from the Portuguese stall. I also had a Moroccan beef wrap from the Moroccan stall. The owner was a lovely bloke. He'd watched the False Dots play and gave me a free wrap as he enjoyed us so much!

I've been reluctant to put us on the bill since I got involved with the festival. I didn't get involved to promote my own music, but several people suggested it was time The False Dots made an appearance. We've been rather active recently and when we played at the Bull Arts Centre in April, many people said we should do it, so they could bring the whole family to see us for free. So at 5pm, we found ourselves onstage. The area is huge, there were probably 2,000 people watching us. It was glorious weather and everyone was in a wonderful mood. I have never really thought the False Dots were an open air band. I'd seen us as 10pm in a small, smoky club sort of band. Since Tom Hammond joined the band on Trumpet, we've really widened and broadened our sound and within the first couple of minutes of us playing, I realised that we've changed and we are very festival friendly band these days. People got up and started bopping and it seemed everyone was videoing us. Here is one of the highlights of the show, our last single, We all Love a Party!

It seemed that the whole of East Barnet loved a party. When we came off, dozens of people came up to say how much they enjoyed the set. We are playing againg this coming Saturday at the 50th Annual Jesterfest Festival in Fortune Green, West Hampstead at 5pm. It is completely free. Rather annoyingly, it clashes with England, but given that the first half of every England game has been dire so far, why not come along and then adjourn to the pub for the good bit. 

Like many local businesses, my business (Mill Hill Music Complex) sponsors the festival. It costs £55,000 to stage such an event, and a huge amount of planning. This year, due to the escalating costs of insurance, there is a small funding gap. If you came along and you enjoyed it, please help plug this. Even a £3 donation makes a difference. When the False Dots learned of the shortfall, we waived our agreed appearance fee (we are professional musicians and this is how we pay the bills). The bigger picture is that we need festivals and we need to do our bit. All I got was a couple of cans of Fosters and a lovely Moroccan Beef Wrap, but I had a glorious day and you'd pay £100 to see such great music at some festivals, so I don't feel too bad. 

A lot of people put a lot of time into making East Barnet Festival happen. These amazing volunteers don't get paid. If you enjoyed the Festival and want to see it happen next year, please help out

The Barnet Eye Election 2024 general election commentary - final edition

Oh how the world had changed. I thought I'd take a little journey back to the final commentary blog I wrote in 2019, before the last General Election. It is fascinating (to me at least)

This whole election has been the most demoralising and disheartening of modern times. In the early Autumn, I had hopes that the fact that the opposition parties and even sane Tories were working together to prevent a hard #Brexit might mean that the national interest might take precedence over tribalism. I had hoped that this experience, demonstrating that working together might deliver results that could not be achieved by digging a hole and standing in it shouting at the world couldn't. I was right, but sadly not in the way I hoped for, or even expected. The party that learned the lesson was the Brexit Party. Sadly it seems that what they wanted to achieve was peerages and plum jobs for themselves, standing down against the Tories. Although this may only account for 3-4% of the vote in some seats, that could be decisive. This should have caused a period of reflection within the other parties. Being fair to the Lib Dems, Greens and Plaid Cymru, they did. Deals were done to stand aside in seats where one of the parties had a realistic chance. Sadly, the Labour party has decided it wants nothing to do with sensible deals and pacts. Their logic is that the Lib Dems got into bed with the Tories in 2010, so they will have nothing to do with them. Ever. Furthermore, they have decided that every single policy of the Tories between 2010-2015 is entirely the fault of Lib Dem Leader Jo Swinson. This message has been tweeted and facebook'd relentlessly. What has always disgusted me about this strategy is that it is totally dishonest. Swinson was a junior member of a junior coalition partner. All parties operate whip systems and if you look at all of the things that many Labour MP's voted for under Blair, there are far worse. Labour took us into an illegal war. Whilst many solely blame Blair, he was chosen by the party and his policies embraced by the Labour NEC. A majority of Labour MP's would have him back tomorrow if it was a choice between him and Jeremy Corbyn. They tried to deselect Corbyn twice. Labour gave us the Iraq war. Labour raised tuition fees. Labour brought privatisation to the health service with PPI. I could go on, but is it really helpful? We are now living in 2019 and we have a massive crisis facing us.

And what happened? Boris won a Landslide and the rest is history. But the world has spun on it's head since then. I see no Labour attacks on Ed Davey in the vitriolic manner of those at Jo Swinson. Jeremy Corbyn is no longer a member of the Labour Party and is standing as an Independent. We've seen what Brexit really means and we are picking up the tab for it. I thought Labour would be out of office for a generation. What Johnson, Truss and Sunak have done to the Tories beggars belief. I can't say I am at all pleased because they have shafted us all in the process. 

The catastrophe is not on any one of them. It is on the whole of Conservative Party. I do not wish for their complete annihilation as that would open the door for Reform, who are Tories on steroids. I do hope that they get genuinely clobbered and are out for at least two terms, to allow sensible people to repopulate the party. It seems an age ago that Cameron was raging against global warming, hugging hoodies and passing legislation for equal marriage. Every iteration of Tory leadership since has drifted further right and this is where it has got them. I especially hope that the Lib Dems clobber them in "Blue Wall" seats. The Tories compeletely tucked up the Lib Dems in coalition, so for me it would pleasing to see the Lib Dems exact revenge at the ballot box. In truth, all of the coalitions best and most progressive policies were courtesy of the Lib Dems. The party made some huge mistakes, but the nine years that followed the coalition have shown us what the Lib Dems prevented. At least when the Tories were free to bugger the economy up, some degree of sanity in public finances had been restored.

Much as I'd love to see Lib Dems win in Barnet, they won't. I am an advocate of tactical voting and the one thing I will say is that wherever you are, vote for whoever will keep the Conservatives out (unless you live in Clacton, where even I would vote Tory to keep Farage out). 

In the London Borough of Barnet that means voting for David Pinto-Duschinsky in Hendon ward, Sarah Sackman in Finchley and Dan Tomlinson in Chipping Barnet. They are the Labour candidates. 

I will say a few words about each.

David Pinto-Duschinsky is a decent man. I know him as he's been around in Barnet Politics for a good few years. He had a terrible time at the hustings in 2019, trying to defend a Labour party under Jeremy Corbyn in an area where a substancial segment of the population hated Corbyn for his views on Israel. David was always calm and dignified in the face of some very harsh abuse. The fact he stuck around says a lot for him. 

Sarah Sackman, I've known since the Save Friern Barnet Library campaign. She is far and away the most capable and competent politician we've seen in the Borough since Thatcher (who I didn't like but you cannot argue with her impact). I suspect that Sarah will one day be a minister. She is everything you'd want an MP to be and if she wins, I will be absolutely delighted. 

I don't really know Dan Tomlinson, but I do know Theresa Villiers and her career is long past it's sell by date. Lets be charitable and say that she deserves to enjoy her retirement. I am sure that Dan Tomlinson will bring new energy to the job and at least try and represent everybody in the constituency properly. I don't think he'll have to work terribly hard to do a better job than his predecessor, should he win.

And remember that nothing is guaranteed in politics. In 2010, when the Tories came in, Labour thought Hendon was a shoe in. Andrew Dismore lost by 103 votes. Don't make the same mistake again.

My prediction is as follows

Hendon - Labour by 5,000 votes

Finchley - Labour by 3,000 votes

Chipping Barnet by 2,500 votes. 

But HEY HO, what do I know, I'll just be glad when it's all over.

Environment Monday - Rishi Sunak is so scared of Reform that he won't even boast about his green successes

Saturday was an absolutely monumental day in the industrial history of the UK. In any other circumstances, the Prime Minister would be shouting about it from the rooftops, but our Prime Minister is so scared of the Reform vote and 'appearing Woke' that there are only a few mentions of this from rail enthusiasts. What am I talking about? This...

28th June 2024 and the final coal train to Ratcliffe PS(last coal train in the UK)headed by 66781(now named Ratcliffe Power Station)pulls out of Toton Yard and heads for its destination in the background @GBRailfreight @railcamlive @FreightmasterUK @Freightonrail @Clinnick1 @RAIL pic.twitter.com/He0OSs8kH3

— Darren Wetherall (@MrDeltic15) June 29, 2024

That's right. The last ever coal train has run in the UK. When Ratcliffe Power Station burns it all, the power station will shut and that will be the end of coal fired power generation in the UK. This has been a long standing policy of the UK governments, both Tory and Labour and Sunak has achieved it just before the election. If it was the Greens that Sunak felt were the threat, this would be front page news, but as he's more scared of Reform, it's been buried.

I've seen all manner of rather daft comments saying we should have maintained coal fired power stations for days when the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing. The thing is that coal fired electricity is not an on demand source. You have to keep the furnaces hot at all times. For sporadic demand, gas stations are far more sensible. They can be sparked up at a second's notice. You can check where our energy is coming from in realtime today by clicking here www.energydashboard.co.uk/live

What does concern me is that nearly a quarter of our energy is imported. It doesn't say how it's generated or how green it is. If any of this is coal driven, I personally would prefer it to be UK coal from UK mines. I do not believe the UK should be dependent on imported energy, which we clearly are. If all of this was from green sources on long term contracts, I would be less bothered, but as the purple export line is fairly solid, I suspect that it is either nuclear, gas or coal. We need an energy plan that ensures we generate this in the UK and that we generate it sustainably. That is the secret to not having massive energy bills.

It is clear to me that Rishi Sunak is scared to death of his own shadow. Since 2010, the Tories have actually had a few sensible ideas and good initiatives, but they seem to have rowed back from all of them. When the last fourteen years are picked over, things such as this and the equal marriage act of 2014 will be looked back on as successful implementations of sensible policy. It will also be noted that Rishi Sunak made a name for himself peddling furiously right, only for the right to turn around and eat him. I do wonder whether if Reform win, whether the train in the tweet at the top may not actually turn out to be the last coal train in the UK.