Election Cartoons

Here are a few of the images I've doctored since the ConDem Nation started. Enjoy!

Letter To Nick Clegg

The following is a letter that I wrote on the 12th May 2010 and sent to Nick Clegg c/o Lib Dem Party HQ:

12 May 2010
Nick Clegg
Deputy Prime Minister
4 Cowley Street
London
SW1P 3NB

Dear Mr Clegg,
I awoke today to find myself living in a nation where political beliefs have become a bargaining tool. They can be twisted, manipulated and forgotten entirely to suit those who seek power, as you yourself have proved over the last few days.

My political nature is progressive. My classical views range from ‘merely liberal’ (a phrase you ought to get used to under the whip of David Cameron) to socialist, to down right communist when the mood takes me. What's more, I vote in a constituency more blue than a blue veined, blue spotted very blue thing with added blue bits on it. In this constituency, the main rivals to the Conservatives, are your own party (or the party you now share ownership of with Mr Cameron - or has he given you to Sam Cam as a gift?) and so I voted for you. You may now consider this vote rescinded. You didn't win there anyway.

I will never be a Tory. As long as blood pumps through my body, for as long as the sun reaches the horizon each night and appears again the next day, I will not be BLUE! And yet, I find that my support of you, the praise I heaped on you after those debates, has, in admittedly small way, led to a Conservative majority with a progressive party as its pawn. How do you think that makes me feel?

Ok, so you got some concessions. A vote on the future manner of voting is something that I'm in favour of, and I welcome it. And stopping some of the Conservatives' more ridiculous cuts in public spending is welcomed too, but you could have stopped the whole lot as part of a majority opposition! But you are too much a coward for this You may argue that a stable government is good for the economy, but with George Osbourne as chancellor!? My only hope is that Vince Cable will show more backbone than you.

You settled for this just so that you could sit next to David Cameron, nod and smile like his pet, as he reintroduces fox hunting? Or when he proposes a new arsenal of weapons? Or the dropping of the human rights act? Or when he wants to leave the European Union? Will you clap and cheer for him on these fundamental issues, issues in the past so vitally important to you (apparently) and your party, though he need not even look in your direction?

Still, I must congratulate you on becoming Deputy Prime Minister. You are now allied to party favoured by, among others, Rupert Murdoch, Lord Ashcroft, Robert Mugabe, The Latvian Nazi Party, Polish Homophobes and Arnold Schwarzenegger. If you are happy cuddling up to such bedfellows, and as long as you get that nice seat next to Dave in the middle of the house, you should be very happy.

However, as you have begun this new administration on a sour note, I feel it only right that I should end this letter on one. I now have no protest vote in my constituency. Even if your referendum works out. For I will never vote Liberal again. Your shabby little grab for a morsel of power, betraying your ethics and the ideals of those who have followed you, have forever soured me against you and your yellow bird. Never has a political party had more apt a colour of identity.

Just remember though; Governing parties only lose popularity, and you are now allied with your closest rivals in many marginal constituencies. Their voters have long memories of glory days and they will mobilise more than we socialists and liberals will to get rid of you. When they heal, they will drop their crutch and your alliance will seem as though a bad dream to them, as you crawl, head down, in smaller numbers still back to your seats in opposition. I only hope that they are on the same side of the house too.

Yours, in pity, regret and disgust,
John R. Ashton M.A. (signed).

Poem

White water strolls by my window
Looking up at me with steady fascination
The trapped man in his clouds
Growing green with nature
As the world brings another person's day

Falling words lie stricken
As the white water whistles
A tuneless tune with no beat
That gulls and cars hover over in the wind
Below a coiled snake who turns

Transparency is dirtied and opaque
As the temperature drops
With the walking white water
Carrying its detritus on its shoulders
bulging with its efforts before the rain

No umbrellas float down river
But wheels trample and trumpet
On the other side of the world
Beyond the lazy white water
Cascading horizontally towards its peace

Full of oil but low on fuel
Hearing taps and jazz go out
Ongoing inevitability and structure
Makes me wish I could walk out
And stroll with the white water for a while

Snow poem

Drifting

Cascading almost in stop frame animation
The sherbet sheets softly fluff the world away
Under a clean canvas that drifts down
A thousand feathers pass my window in a minute
Drowning the warmth from the open pane
Tickling my nose in the delicate breeze
Barely lifeless as the flakes descend
Sending me into silly smiles I forgot I had
Thoughts of plastic sheets on abandoned golf courses
We pretend to be a bob sleigh team
Or all the snowmen born of my hand
Shrinking back with spring thaws
The day I walked on Dutch canals beneath the windmills
All those gloved hands and rosy cheeks
That stung in whispered winds or splashed water
Each brilliant moment defined by the falling snow
That gathers at the base of everything
And reaches up with comforting coldness
Hushing troubles with its beauty and all those memories

Anti-RATM article - A response.

This article is in response to one written by Ms Ellen for the Guardian on the 20th December, 2009. The original can be found here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/dec/20/joe-mcelderry-rage-against-machine

Well, well, well. Alas, it seems that a Guardian journalist has missed the point entirely, just as they so often miss the spellchecker button before printing an article. And yet this time, to add insult to infamy, this piece sounds more like the Daily Mail. So obsessed about money and values. Tut, tut, and indeed, tut.

So Simon Cowell is going to get richer is he? Well, who'd have thunk it, eh? Ms Ellen seems so concerned with such a fact, and yet she has not studied the form, nor the functionality of this campaign for longer than it took her to submit such an article that is more riddled with holes than a colander on a firing range. One weeps for British journalism, one really does.

Is money all that Ms Ellen believes in? Can she not see a deeper point to this? A philosophy even? I have been an active member of the '#ratm4xmas' campaign and I, like many others, knew about RATM's connections with Sony BMG a long time ago. And SyCo (such an appropriate name) is part of the parent company too. Cowell will profit. Shocking.

This has been about music, and a rebellion against the sounds that infiltrate our shell-likes, not just at Christmas, but all year round. We of the imaginatively titled 'alternative' community, and those who do not like the sort of soulless muzak that Cowell generates have stood up and said 'F*ck you, I won't do what you tell me' (though I managed to censor there - and it did hurt to do so). We want to hear passion and bile, talent and guile, all mixed in with the songs that we choose to listen to because it makes us think, rather than turning our brains off. That is why we have taken this stand.

Christmas No1 or not, this campaign has been a resounding success. A community of like minds drawn together, two charities (Shelter & YouthMusic) benefiting and the possibility of a free gig in the new year from RATM. And a message sent to Cowell, or rather, his ego. He may have his money and his fame, but if we can keep but one prize from him, we shall. Even if it is so small as it will not bother him, he will acknowledge us.

It has also shown the power that people have in the new age. Only because of the revolution in downloading music and social networking has this revolution been possible. Before such times, we'd have had no voice. If only we'd have had such advances in years gone by, we might not have had to suffer through Millennium Prayer!

Also, Ms Ellen, to label the Xfactor a working class pursuit, is repugnant and you should be ashamed. We have the largest middle class of our history today, and it is their taste for the bland, and their philosophy of destruction that has helped build the Xfactor into what it is, and it is this that is destroying British music. The Beatles, the Stones, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, The Police, The Pistols, The Clash, Madness... These bands would be confined to pubs and tiny stages in today's market, as electronics and session musicians hide in the shadows as a tone deaf pretty face receives all the plaudits in stadiums. But they would not be international stadiums. We would be insular and strange. Today we do not encourage talented, thought provoking musicians. Instead we appreciate them and then give our money to machines. Because of the Cowell/Waterman/Fuller brand of boredom, we have lost our edge, and those of us who do listen to music with passion, are isolated, and under represented.

So another British 'journalist' misses the point entirely, attempts in vain to sound irreverent, witty, clued-in and intelligent. This is why many bloggers should be locked in their bedrooms and have their broadband connection cut. I fear Ms Ellen is a bandwagon jumper looking for a little support or a shock. She seeks not to educate, but to aggravate. I could not even bring to read the rest of her 'article' for the first piece lacked any understanding and/or class.

Comment is indeed free, dear Guardian, with your double edged blade, but it is also costly and publishing such drivel, even online, cracks your armour more than that which shields those music lovers whom Ms Ellen has chosen to attack. Still, let her rage away in the silence of the web, for the streets will be alive to sounds of Rage Against The Machine this Christmas.

Another Rage Against The Machine Article - Only Better!

Isn't it funny how everyone seems to think this is about money or bitterness? Is this the nation we have become? One where we are all so quick to find fault, when the true message is missed? or are we all just trying to be clever?

As the deadline date of the 20th of December draws ever closer, Rage Against the Machine supporters and Xfactor supporters are locked in a titanic tussle of frenzied downloading. But even with all of the interest that this has stirred up in Britain's boring music charts, journalists seem to be missing the point.

Every hour, someone prints a 'well Cowell is part of Sony BMG so he'll get richer anyway' story, or one detailing how cruel we are being to Generic Singer V5.0 (or whatever his name is) because winning the Xfactor apparently makes having the Christmas No.1 his birthright. Well, I guess that's shown where my sympathies lie, but allow me to elaborate.

First of all, this is not a protest about money, but about music. So Simon will get richer. Like that wasn't going to happen. What people should look into is that because of this fight, not only will the Cowell's charity get a mountain of cash, but Rage Against the Machine's new affiliates, Shelter and YouthMusic will get a share of it all too. The last time I checked, Shelter were on course for around £50,000 which wouldn't have happened without this bizarre battle, and Tom Morello, the group's guitarist, says that YouthMusic will get the money that this would have brought him. So the real winners in this are the charities.

Secondly, Generic Singer V5.0 will be No.1 after xmas probably, so he'll get a moment to shine. Is Xfactor so grounded in religion that he has to be comparable to Christ? So that we may worship him on the 25th just as we may worship the son of God (who's name may be changed to 'Simon' should the correct papers go through)?

The point of all of this, is that a great many of us are sick of the Cowell machine, and we want to rage against it (my colours show again). The man who claims to have saved British music has probably, as Sting so expertly put it, held it back by ten years. It has become a conveyor belt of Mr and Little Miss Perfects trying to compete (almost always in vain) with edgier, more diverse and talented American acts. Thanks for that, Si.

But Rage are talented. Vastly so. The band fused protest music with punk, rap, metal and funk so wonderfully throughout the 1990s, and news of their reformation was met with devil horns of glee by many of us in the 'alternative' community. They stand for good music, and good socialism, a prospect which I dare say terrifies Cowell, but it's not about the politics either.

This is about people. Passionate people saying 'Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me' to an industry which has become stale, transparent and bland. This is about people standing up and showing that they want to hear something real, something true. This is about believing in the efforts of a band who managed to get four 'fucks' into a breakfast broadcast on BBC 5Live. When the BBC asked them to 'do a radio edit', did the most memorable words of this famous song not pop into their heads for just a minute?

Not since Rotten, Matlock and co tore into Bill Grundy in 1977 has their been such anarchy in the UK, and I for one think it's brilliant. It shows that we can still get passionate about the music we are exposed to, and that we are not all subject to the will of the prepubescent teenage girls and housewives who will buy Generic Singer V5.0's record (sorry, I actually haven't bothered to learn his name - he won't be around in a month anyway).

And even if Rage don't get to be Xmas No.1, the passion that this campaign has stirred up has seen charities benefit, kids experience real music invading the mainstream and Cowell getting a little grumpier. Surely that's worth a 29p download? It's great to know that in 2009, we can still Rage Against the Machine. And that's the point of it all.