This Is The Youth Of Today

Banonkers

On the Today programme, Phil Woolas described right-wing opposition to Labour's oppressive immigration controls as "banonkers". It most certainly is both bananas and bonkers to want to impose even harsher controls on immigrants, but the portmanteau did make me smile.

This latest attack on Labour is ridiculous. The charge is that immigration policy was chosen to deliberately encourage an influx of immigration to manipulate Britain into a multicultural society.

An open-borders encourages nothing. People are free to choose whether they are coming or going. If an immigrant wants to come here then that's up to them, not the government. Perhaps a multicultural society is inevitable with an open-borders policy. But that is society finding its own form without government sticking its beak in. Indeed, it is the people who wish to restrict immigration who expect the government to deliberately manipulate society for their own ends.

Anyway, in tribute to this awesome new word to describe the nationalists, xenophobes, bigots and racists who want to persecute people for their own convenience, I've done a little mash-up. Enjoy!

Superb YouTube Documentary

Please take a look at this video about an unfinished branch of the London Underground's Northern Line. Yeah, the topic sounded boring to me too, but it is so well made it deserves your attention:



Forget kittens and illegally uploaded music videos, this is YouTube at its best.

The makers have created a documentary about a potentially boring subject into an engaging, entertaining and informative story. I don't agree with his opinions, but the presentation style and the execution is very impressive for an amateur production. Clearly they have spent a lot of time making this film, and I feel it deserves a greater exposure, so get tweeting, embedding and linking, dear reader.

I also think there is potential here to engage a wider audience for more nuanced political issues and campaigns. Proportional representation springs to mind. I could spend a couple of hours making a 2 minute video about STV, but I doubt it would get much attention. However, with more effort, a witty, engaging video could get tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of hits, potentially from an audience that hadn't even heard of electoral reform before.

Hmmmmm...