A sad couple of weeks have delayed this rambling. Stevie T was a friend of long standing (and sitting around in his cafe drinking tea and talking bollocks). Originally he was a stalwart of the Brighton sound system and Free Party network, one of the pioneers who were responsible for the alternative 'buzz' which made Brighton such an exciting place to live. In his time he fed legions of festival crew and revellers, providing excellent grub at very reasonable prices - Stevie Teas was a haven of good times and good music at festivals all over Europe for many years. He was a musician, a photographer, the restorer of a rediculous ex-army truck and a very good friend to many. The grumpy old git upped and died in Portugal. He will be missed by so many.

On the day of a general election which is, I predict, going to achieve exactly fuck-all in terms of addressing real issues and initiating badly needed change, the following is Deadbeat's prescription for parliamentary reform.
As far as the voting system itself is concerned, surely it is time we threw off the shackles of the parliamentary dictatorship and the snouts-in-the-trough thieving bastards to which which the first-past-the-post system condemns us. Deadbeat's desultory research has led him to think that Alternative Vote Plus would be the way to go - but I'm very happy to debate this issue.

This is not mere idle speculation - when Deadbeat's dictatorship is established, we will still need a legislature. As the supreme despot I'll be buggered if I'm going to do that much boring work. Deadbeat's parliament would have every constituency represented by two candidates - one man and one woman, working as a job share and jointly responsible for honesty and fair dealing. Self-preservation would mean that each half of the job-share would watch the other like a hawk, and squawk at the first sign of malfeasance. Immediately there would actually be a self-regulating system and proper representation of the sexes in the legislature. (For the first time ever, and that on its own would dramatically improve the whole thing.)

Deadbeat's education system might seem, at first glance, to be quite fluffy but it is based on some very hard-nosed thinking. We are no longer in a position where we can simply dig wealth out of the ground, and our manufacturing industry struggles to compete with emergent nations paying subsistence wages. We need to be cleverer than the rest of the world and that means treating our children as our most valuable asset, not as an unconscionable expense. So we are trying to turn out good, happy, well-balanced, highly educated and productive citizens, not process pupils (or'education seekers') for the minimum outlay. Make no mistake, Deadbeat education would be very costly for the state. Probably not as much as Trident, but still a lot. Unfortunately the future prosperity of the nation is nowhere near as attractive to the male ego as phenomenally expensive phallus-shaped bombs. When did an education procurement program ever make a top politician feel as though his dick had grown a couple of inches? (See how badly we need more women in government?)

Every child would be taught (or at least have the opportunity to learn) to: swim, ride a bike, drive a car, operate a computer, cook, garden, speak a foreign language, play a musical instrument, read, write and reckon. (Obviously the other life skills like - but not limited to - hygiene and contraception would be covered too. Oh, and sport). Options would include sewing/knitting, bike making, car maintenance, woodworking, hairdressing, plumbing, etc. You get the picture. Schools would routinely cultivate their own kitchen garden and the pupils would run the catering - feeding the school and offering cheap meals to pensioners/claimants. The teaching of all of the trades would include operating as a real business, offering its services to other pupils within the school marketplace and (where appropriate) the general public.

School should be a safe microcosm of society, within which pupils would be encouraged to determine their own interests and develop into happy adults by teacher-facilitated, pupil-led learning and experimentation within a benign regime. Blindingly obvious, really, and any number of much cleverer thinkers than Deadbeat (Illich, Steiner et al... ) have proposed various methods to achieve it - the only surprise is that it's still such a revolutionary approach.

So, dear Reader, Deadbeat exhorts you to go out and make yourself feel important by putting your completely irrelevant cross beside whichever name your in-depth socio-political analysis/party allegiance/economic self-interest/bigotted stupidity/sheer blind luck has decided upon. It won't make any difference - the government will still get in, the same corrupt Earth-destroying system will grind and totter on. Let's hope the whole rotten edifice crashes down soon. (In Deadbeat's opinion the handling of the credit crunch has made it all that bit more likely, see Deadbeat passim). Then, not a phoenix but a scorched and gasping starling might just limp out of the ashees and croak the start of Deadbeat's Reign. Not.

Happy meaningless voting to you all.

(The underlying grumpiness of this Dispatch from Deadbeat is a stylistic homage to Stevie T)

More soon....

Deadbeat