Pitchforks and flaming torches at dawn

The Telegraph has it that Gordon Brown could remain Prime Minister even if he loses the election.
http://bit.ly/acDfeh
Gus O'Donnell, the Cabinet Secretary, has it that its to prevent a run on the pound whilst coalitions and the hung parliament is dealt with.

But I reckon its bullshit, if Labour aren't the biggest party after the election and Brown is still somehow in power, then its going to be up to the people to hound him out of office by whatever means necessary. I suggest stocking up on pitchforks and flaming torches, there's gonna be a lynching come 7th May.
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Let the press be the press

There's this episode of The West Wing where the Bartlett administration realises its just been pussying around for the first eighteen months in office and whilst it has lots of great ideas, they usually just dip their toes in the water and don't follow through. To counter the malais, after some worthwhile plot points, they decide to be more audacious and "Let Bartlett be Bartlett".

I understand that the Press Complaints Commission is making inroads into ruling the blogosphere. Rod Liddel was being a little racist on the Spectator's blog and the Press Complaints Commission have censured him.

Wikipedia has it that in 2006 the PCC received a total of 3,325 complaints, yet in 2009 when they received more than 25,000 complaints about a single incident, it would not uphold the complaints.

Clearly after 385 years of free press in the UK, the entire existance of the PCC is superfluous, and just a passing fad from the 90s, like Britpop or baggy, so now is the time to get rid of the damned thing.

But how? Its funded by the newspapers themselves and receives nothing from the government except the threat that if the PCC didn't exist there would be a government controlled equivalent in place.

So its going to be a waiting game. As papers like The Times and The Independant slowly die off, the PCC's funding will decrease and they'll just wither.

Unless, of course, some other funding stream appears. Bloggers levy perhaps? ISP levy? Maybe just government handouts.
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The School and Allo Darlin - Bush Hall

I was possibly a bit negative in my earlier review of The Loves Rocknroll Circus, they are one of my most favourite bands in the world, ever since a solemn oath I made to one of their original members in '97.

I mentioned that they keep swallowing members of other bands, Pocketbooks and Arthur and Martha, but on the other hand they also spin out bands too, such as tonight's headline act The School.

Who do I like better The School or The Loves? Its hard to say. Five years ago it would be teh luvs, but now, I'm not so sure.

Tonight the venue is Indiepop Central tonight, if I were more reckless I'd do a London Indiepop Eyespy blogpost, to my right is Camila from the WeePop record label, over to my left is Iain HDIF, and away behind is the mighty Hibbett, I think I even saw the cute one from Little My. I wish I'd had a shower this morning.

The lights dim a little, a lone chap takes to the stage, with guitar strapped on he approaches a MacBook, clicks a few things and tentatively throws himself into his set. He is Pagan Wanderer Lu.

Its noisy clanking stuff, with squelches, squeak, beeps and grinds. Drums and backing vox too. This is a guy who sure knows how to use GarageBands.

Some mighty deep songs, in the context of the universe what about the Mona Lisa, and some mighty shallow stuff about going to PizzaExpress. Imagine MJ Hibbett crossed with Denim and you'd be in the right brane.

Some touching moments, the new sound his guitar makes when he plays it wearing a wedding ring and how one of his pieces of kit broke on the way to the show so he explains he's playing lessy gadgety and more guitary than usual. Is this what Robbie IoMoPS would be like, thrust on stage on his own?

Suddenly, tonight feels like a 1995 Flyer gig without Zee. The lighting is red, familiar bands are on stage, (Facebook) friends all around and I'm crouched in a corner, head down in a notebook/blackberry. Christ, what is wrong with me?

I think a made a poor call in the toilets, the urinal is wide enough for two and not quite three gents, I chose wrong.

Second up are local favourites Allo Darling. Earlier today my niece visited a petting zoo and met some ducklings and some baby chickens, quite rationally called chicklings. So, clearly a baby star is a starling, and what do you call a baby Dalek? Darlin'.

They've been on tour with The School and are clearly loving it. Elizabeth Darling starts the set solo, just her, her ukulele and a tiny tiney ukulele capo. But soon joined by the rest of the band.

No Stephen Hawking, no You Shook Me All Night Long, no Henry Rollins Don't Dance. These are all classic songs from their repertoire, how long has it been since I last saw them, how many albums away have I drifted past. There must be a rational reason why they're not in the set?

The new temporary bass player was on fire, strutting his stuff, and everything. The usual guy is off on paternity leave. When he comes back they're gonna have to have some kind of bass-off, there can be only one.

Monster Bobby comes on for their duet, its seems more polished than last time I saw them, almost growing on me, he's got a little of the Divine Comedy about his voice here, but there's doesn't seem to be much chemistry between Bobby and Elizabeth.

Headlining tonight are The School, its not quite the final night of their tour, but its a big one. There's eight of them in the band now, Liz teh singer reckons is the final line up, but I still miss Spud on glockenspiel, although Guido playing tonight is pretty good. They have two violinists which ought to give for a richer sound than usual. Occasionally when I've seen them live before, they've been a little flat compared to the what I'd spent the day listening to on my iPod, but tonight they've hit the mark.

There's happy banter on stage, and joshing between band members. I sink into a happy place, its all glittery, sparkly and sweet. Some would say sickly sweet, but you get used to that.

The mixing is good and with more people on stage for backing vocal duties they're getting closer to the motown girl-group sound that always been just there under the surface.

Aw man, I've been writing this for hours and hours now, from scratching away at my 'berry at the gig, to lying in bed tapping away, and then the next day, still picking my nose trying to spool out enough text to fit the photies round.

And well, I can't do it, sure if I'd bought the album I could be having more of a listen and give the textures and subject matter a more thorough going-over, but I'm skint, and I'm not going to be buying any music if there's gigs to go to instead. Its a bit of a trade off.

Ah well, the show was good, getting home was a pain though, the underground stopped before I'd got all the way, so I emerged into the middle of nowhere in Harlesden, so there was much trudging and trying to fine stops serviced by night buses. Thank god I didn't go to the Come Out 2Nite night, or it would be daylight when I got home.

LIPES - Game on!

I don't think there's anyone reading this who hasn't played London Indiepop Eyespy at least once in their life. The rules are here

I reckon this evening at The School and Allo Darlin gig at The Bush Hall. I scored 35 points, do I win?

I spotted these guys:-

• Emma from Pocketbooks
• Ian froom Pocketbooks
• Nat Davis
• Andy from Pocketbooks
• Alice Love
• String Bean Jen
• MJ Hibbett
• Monster Bobby
• Ian HDIF
• Nik from Moustache of Insanity
• Camilla from WeePop
• Simon Love
• El Presidente

Hmm, these people I spotted and then remembered that I neglected to put them on the scorecard:-

• Travis from Brontosaurus Chorus
• Laura Palmer from Little My
• Andrew the photographer

The Loves Rocknroll Circus - Jamm, Brixton

I stand in the centre of a dark room, months since was last in a position like this, a London indiepop show. The Loves to the right, Monster Bobby some way behind, Iain HDIF to my left and Mr Solo on stage. I am all alone in a room full of (facebook) friends, for I am shy and that's just fine.

Its The Loves's Rocknroll Circus thing, music and entertainment on stage.

I was watching the film Almost Famous yesterday for the first time, it didn't quite reinvigorate my belief in music, its been too long, but there was a little sparkle of was there then. Not 1979 in the film, but music scenes from the mid-90's until five months ago. The two hundred or so people in Jamm in Brixton don't quite work out the same as the stadiumfuls of people Stillwater played to. Besides, the fans in the film were half the age of the fans here tonight. The between band DJs put on Pulp's Babies, from sixteen years ago.

It was a bit of a rush job getting here, I debated whether to take public transport or drive for too long, and then spent too long driving here, so I missed the first few acts and I'm limited to one half pint of beer, when my shyness calls for gallons on booze to be overcome.

The first band I caught were King and The Olive Fields, I must have missed their better tracks cos it was a bit dreary for the last song or two, although for a few brief moments they sounded like the often rumoured Johnny Cash Joy Division covers band Johnny Division.

Next up was Mr Solo, former frontman of David Devant and His Spirit Wife. He has his finger on the pulse and his banter's good, but for all the theatrics I was rather disappointed that after all the faffing about setting up a projector, he only did one song.

On stage right now The Mai 68's are asking for help with the Guardian crossword between Dadaist songs. They're an art school ideal, even more so as a girl stood next to me at the front of the crowd is playing scrabble on her iPhone.

I preferred them when the vocals were lower down in the mix and you had to strain against the fuzz guitar to make out the lyrics. Sure there was a nice wigout at the end when the guitar let loose and noodled his ass off. But I've been following them for years since the Betsey Trotwood basement gig with Town Bike, when it was all smokey. Sure the glugging of pints of red wine is the same, and Indietracks 2008 was a high point, but the years of practising and playing have polished the grit from their set and I think its lost something for that.

To my right some blonde girl has the same camera as me and is videoing half the set, if she ever gets it on YouTube you can check out what I mean.

Imagine, if you will the song 'Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now' by The Smiths, now imagine someone tap-dancing to it. It was a wonderful thing to behold, until the CD cut out halfway through, the dancer soldiered on to the crowd trying to sing along half remembered lyrics, but it was a one-joke act. 'How Soon Is Now?' would have been wonderful.

BobUnderexposed and KittenPainting are not here, according to Songkick they've seen The Loves more often than anyone else, I've seen them lots of times too, but maybe I can catch up.

The Loves' line-up may have changed since last time I saw them, they've swallowed half of Pocketbooks and and half of Arthur and Martha too. Alice on keyboards is looking mighty fine this evening, apart from Simon Loves' bow-tie no one else has really made an effort.

They're still playing 'Little Girl Blues', it still sounds great, but it was part of their original John Peel set a long time ago. I always preferred 'She'll Break Your Heart', the original version too before they cranked up the drums in '07.

There have been a few healthy changes of sound over the years and their smokey blues track 'Can you feel my heart beat (Boom Boom)' is monster track, should be available for download from their MySpace soon, but they've only cranked it up to eight, there's still three steps to go.

Crikey, that girl is still playing Scrabble on her iPhone. Who goes to a gig and stands right at the front and then plays Scrabble? Really? I mean Scrabble Sunday at The Hangover Lounge is all right, but this is Loves gig. Admittedly people are leaving, the place isn't as crowded as it was when I first came in, which is a shame, but understandable, its a school night, work tomorrow and it was a free gig.

Well, no work for me, just stabbing away at flickr photies. Here's a slideshow of all the gig photies I've taken in London since 2007. Its thrilling stuff, not quite a snapshot of the indiepop scene, more of a running trawl.

Budget 2010 - Working Tax Credits

Not much for me to say about today's budget in Parliament, except the Times has an infograph saying the government are paying out £3.9billion and taking in £3.3billion. I'm not sure what the context is, but it looks like they're spending beyond their means.

Anyhoo I had a go at the BBC's budget calculator, and cos of my car, I'm about £10 better off but because of my Working Tax Credits I'm about £400 worse off. Not cos of the budget, mind, but cos I'm overclaiming this financial year. Now I'm on £54 a week, next financial year what I'll get is a lot lower, £14 a week. I'll have to tighten my belt a bit more.

There's something really wrong with Working Tax Credits. If you're on a low income you get paid money by the government, but you also pay income tax. At £10,200 annual gross earnings it reaches parity, you pay the same amount in Income Tax and National Insurance that your receive back in Working Tax Credits.

People who understand these things better than I will tell you that for low earners the marginal tax rate is near 100%. I'm not quite sure what that means, but I reckon if I get a wee pay rise for my £10,000 job, in return for working harder or more responsibility, the amount I take home barely increases. Working Tax Credits are a disincentive for promotion and hard work.

The personal tax allowance has frozen in this budget, so if I get an inflationary pay rise, that'll be taxed more.

Now the thing that's nagging in my head is that I used to feel guilty about claiming Working Tax Credits, they're a grubby con of a financial measure, so for months I didn't claim it at all. I'm not the only low earner not claiming.

Last year, 3rd November 2009, Hansard has Alistair Darling saying amongst some groups take-up is 81%. Wikipedia has info from 2004 that of the 7 million people entitled to Working Tax Credit, 2 million do not claim it.

So in terms of the net amount of tax/NI/working tax credits that the government gets, if you're earning that breakeven point of £10,200, the government gets nothing. But if 19% of people on £10,200 don't claim Working Tax Credits, then the government gets free money, and the people lose out.

In another world, if the government abolished Working Tax Credits and just raised the personal allowance to the break even point, there'd be no one losing out at that break even point. The government wouldn't be able skim off from people who didn't take up the Tax Credits.

And that's why they're there, to provide cracks for people to lose money down.

**UPDATE**

Time passes, I get home and feel less guilty about spending time drawing graphs. Here, I was playing with the BBC Budget Calculator, and thought you might like this if, like me, you earn less than £14,000 a year.


Gross Income % you keep
£4,000 167.75%
£6,000 144.65%
£8,000 119.21%
£9,000 109.30%
£9,500 105.13%
£10,000 101.37%
£10,250 99.64%
£11,000 95.45%
£12,000 89.48%
£13,000 84.90%
£14,000 82.74%