Ignoring Hannan’s spurious motivation for the time being, what is he hoping for from this emulation of the “spontaneous” (Hannan’s generous description – The Smirking Chimp has an article revealing exactly how grass roots the US Tea Party movement is) American protest? I can show you…

Nice.

What else to expect:

The scale of the movement is sure to be wildly overblown by conservative commentators. In fact, you will probably find the 2 million protesters figure getting chucked around by Hannan and his ilk.

If I do have to see any news coverage, I can only pray for such puntastic pieces as this work of genius… (also a brilliant dissection of the overall ridiculousness of the movement)

Rather more worryingly, if Hannan is successful at harnessing such unfocused hate here in the UK, we might see the Conservative party ensnared by the far right with a certain Eurosceptic MEP at its shiny head… What are you gonna do, Dave?

I’ll end this post by quoting one of Hannan’s supporters:

Oh, I almost forgot what I was going to write. I do not have an excuse for not attending the tea party,just an honest reason, namely the public transport system would never get me their in time, and would bankrupt an old state pensioner. But I do wish you well, and if there is anyway of helping, leaflets etc, I would be only too pleased to help.

With passion like that, I can’t see this thing failing…

Other blogs talking about this topic:

Liberal Conspiracy – Right wingers launch “British Tea Party”

Your Freedom of Ours – There is a certain lack of understanding

The Conservative Blog – Britain needs its own tea party movement

Ragbag – A British Palin

Independent Minds – Of Mad Hatters

We Are Respectable Negroes – It would be funny if they weren’t so serious…

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This may have resulted in anybody already subscribing to this blog being lost. If this has happened, I’m genuinely sorry. I hope you subscribe again and forgive me.

Cheers.

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I was pleased with Gordon Brown’s speech this morning as I thought it succinctly summed up some pretty damning fuck ups of the Opposition. My personal favourite has to be the claim earlier this week that a whopping 54% of girls in the most deprived areas of Britain get pregnant before they turned 18. Crikey. Britain, much like the big, flappy vaginas of those young ladies, must truly be broken.

Hm…not quite. As you might have guessed by that preposterously large figure, the actual stat turned out to be a significantly less frightening 5.4%. Oh, and this has dropped by 6% from 1998…

To be fair, everybody makes mistakes and, while I find the scale of this error particularly funny, on its own, the 900% misrepresentation doesn’t necessarily undermine their message or their competence. What really does make me distrust Cameron and friends, however, is that they’re repeatedly struggling to find evidence to back up their “broken Britain” theory. They clearly adopted this “strategy” because it’s an approach they believe (probably rightly) would resonate with floating voters and are now trying to grab headlines to justify their point.

This annoys me because it’s a waste of time. The energy the Tories could be investing in studying data and picking out the areas that clearly need work is instead being spent on a marketing strategy.

Similarly, refusing to take part in important talks about social care for flimsy reasons and stirring up hyperbole of “death taxes” reeks of shallow politics of the Sarah Palin variety.

It’s still relatively early days, so David Cameron could surprise with a clear, sensible and valid vision of the future that is based on more than just ‘what feels right’ and ‘common sense’. Personally, I don’t think he will. If he continues to carry on as they have been, playing the safe ‘fear and morals card’ with the support of the British media and national ignorance, the Tories are expected to scrape a narrow victory. I think Britain’s moved further from the right than most conservative commentators would like to admit, meaning David Cameron risks alienating a significant chunk of voters by exposing his true-blue 80s Tory values.

What does this mean to the voter? This is going to be another election in which at least one of the major parties stands to gain if attention is drawn away from policy and principles. This is going to turn many voters off and encourage some to vote based on single issues or personal prejudice.

What does this mean to the country? We could all wake up the morning after voting day to see David Cameron smiling smugly outside the door to number 10. Then what? Corking the fannies of teenage girls, cutting taxes for the wealthy, avoiding the advice of experts (in terms of the economy and care for the elderly), allowing the murder of foxes and paying people to get married?

Here’s a slogan:

Change: it doesn’t have to be anything you’ll care much about either way.

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I, for one, am extremely excited about the iPad. I want one. But I warn you, I have something of a mutant power when it comes to early adoption: I have a superhuman ability to always make the wrong decision*. Nevertheless, as cool as the iPad may appear to me and as flawed as it may actually be, I think Apple has missed a huge opportunity to stake a claim on a genuine revolution.

The image above represents the five channels of digital communication all brands should be adopting for their web strategy in 2010 (you can add social and widgetised channels as well). Notice the big iPad-like object second to the right? My big hope for Jobs’ announcement was not just a new piece of hardware, but a complete rethinking of how the internet is designed and digested.

To get an impression of what I was thinking, watch this video of the Mag+ concept.

Vaguely similar in concept to what the NY Times showed off during the presentation? Maybe. And, yes, there have been rumblings from the big A about distributing magazines via the iPad. However, this approach assumes (wrongly and perhaps, in the case of newspapers, wishfully) that the only problem facing traditional media in the internet age is a question of viewing format. This ignores the matter of the real-time web, rich media and interactive content – i.e. everything you already get from a website.

What the web does lack (and this is something that’s been bugging me for some time) is the dull appearance and lack of creativity in layout and form – this is what makes reading magazines so special. I also believe that the ability to go nuts with the design of your site (beyond changing the header) is something that many bloggers will love.

Imagine, every blog post you write looking completely unique, arranged in an ever-expanding “blogzine”. Look around you and pick up the most recent copy of your favourite magazine. Flick through to the first double page spread that ensnares your attention and think “I can do that!”. Because, given the right tools, I’m sure you can.

This goes beyond homebrew magazines and news sites – fashion, tech, travel… these are just three industries in which brands would thrive on a lavish, brochure-like website layout – as easily navigated as a magazine (easier even – I see great potential for revisiting website navigation, in particular redesigning the ol’ sitemap and injecting greater user value into the term). Arguably, there is also a huge benefit for advertising as creative directors are given a broader scope beyond pop-ups and banners (if you don’t see why this is such a good thing, remember: goodbye advertising revenue, hello subscription-based internet). All in all, a good thing.

This could all still happen. For the moment though, all we have are more apps. I could’ve sworn a year or so ago the web was awash with excitement about the future of browser-based applications. Sure, in reality there’s room for both but I hope the app craze isn’t going to replace the evolution of the internets. Instead of waxing lyrical about “revolutionary” products and “magical” devices, Apple could’ve done something truly inspiring.

P.S. The little device second in on the left (sitting between the ‘keypad’ mobile and ‘touch’ smartphone) is a dedicated augmented reality device I christened ShopMate(TM). More on that another time…

*For example: Twitter annoyed me but I jumped on Pownce and Plurk (what? you might reasonably be asking); I bought a netbook at the point when they were all utterly useless; and I rejected the iPhone to buy a G1 – and don’t even get me started on the fucking G1.

Originally posted on Crunkfish

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I, for one, am extremely excited about the iPad. I want one. But I warn you, I have something of a mutant power when it comes to early adoption: I have a superhuman ability to always make the wrong decision*. Nevertheless, as cool as the iPad may appear to me and as flawed as it may actually be, I think Apple has missed a huge opportunity to stake a claim on a genuine revolution.

The image above represents the five channels of digital communication all brands should be adopting for their web strategy in 2010 (you can add social and widgetised channels as well). Notice the big iPad-like object second to the right? My big hope for Jobs’ announcement was not just a new piece of hardware, but a complete rethinking of how the internet is designed and digested.

To get an impression of what I was thinking, watch this video of the Mag+ concept.

Vaguely similar in concept to what the NY Times showed off during the presentation? Maybe. And, yes, there have been rumblings from the big A about distributing magazines via the iPad. However, this approach assumes (wrongly and perhaps, in the case of newspapers, wishfully) that the only problem facing traditional media in the internet age is a question of viewing format. This ignores the matter of the real-time web, rich media and interactive content – i.e. everything you already get from a website.

What the web does lack (and this is something that’s been bugging me for some time) is the dull appearance and lack of creativity in layout and form – this is what makes reading magazines so special. I also believe that the ability to go nuts with the design of your site (beyond changing the header) is something that many bloggers will love.

Imagine, every blog post you write looking completely unique, arranged in an ever-expanding “blogzine”. Look around you and pick up the most recent copy of your favourite magazine. Flick through to the first double page spread that ensnares your attention and think “I can do that!”. Because, given the right tools, I’m sure you can.

This goes beyond homebrew magazines and news sites – fashion, tech, travel… these are just three industries in which brands would thrive on a lavish, brochure-like website layout – as easily navigated as a magazine (easier even – I see great potential for revisiting website navigation, in particular redesigning the ol’ sitemap and injecting greater user value into the term). Arguably, there is also a huge benefit for advertising as creative directors are given a broader scope beyond pop-ups and banners (if you don’t see why this is such a good thing, remember: goodbye advertising revenue, hello subscription-based internet). All in all, a good thing.

This could all still happen. For the moment though, all we have are more apps. I could’ve sworn a year or so ago the web was awash with excitement about the future of browser-based applications. Sure, in reality there’s room for both but I hope the app craze isn’t going to replace the evolution of the internets. Instead of waxing lyrical about “revolutionary” products and “magical” devices, Apple could’ve done something truly inspiring.

P.S. The little device second in on the left (sitting between the ‘keypad’ mobile and ‘touch’ smartphone) is a dedicated augmented reality device I christened ShopMate(TM). More on that another time…

*For example: Twitter annoyed me but I jumped on Pownce and Plurk (what? you might reasonably be asking); I bought a netbook at the point when they were all utterly useless; and I rejected the iPhone to buy a G1 – and don’t even get me started on the fucking G1.

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