It was Mandelson what done it....

Despite all the Punch and Judy politics about bully boy Brown, it is pretty obvious that it was the Labour Party and specifically Peter Mandelson who leaked the story. He was not stabbing Brown in the back but acting under the instructions of the PM.

The reason the story was leaked was that focus groups were showing that people did not warm to Brown because they saw him as a speak your weight automaton. The back room boys put on their thinking caps and designed a strategy to make Brown look like a colourful, flamboyant character... or at least the nearest they could get to it.

First we had the unedifying spectacle of Brown talking about his despair on the death of his child, then we learned that he bullies Downing Street staff. Most recently we have had the transparently fake story about the Brown/Darling row. All three stories are calculated to make the Prime Minister look emotional.

But surely you say bullying staff is a bad story for Brown? Well, up to a point Lord Copper...

It would be possible to form a society to prevent ill treatment to rats in this country, if you wanted to do it. But it would not be possible to raise 5p in a save the Whitehall Mandarin collection. You would be lucky if you got your collecting tin back.

Brown is hardly likely to be seen in a bad light for bullying aparatchiks. Brown cossets and supports his Downing Street staff... now that sort of a headline really would get him in trouble.

Politics, like comedy, is all about timing and it is quite clear that Peter Mandelson decided to keep his powder dry until the start of this year.

His first stunt was the Geoff Hoon and Patricia Hewitt rebellion. This had two objects (1) to see if there were any potential rebels out there who might break cover so that they could be dealt with when the mock rebellion collapsed (2) to reveal that anyone planning a coup would get precious little support so they might as well abandon the project.

Expect more stunts, partly designed to move public opinion and partly to deny the Conservatives the oxygen of publicity, until the formal election campaign starts in April.

The irony is that this strategy is almost certainly misplaced. For a long time the mood in the country has been that it is time for a change. The Tories as the most credible agent of change (the only party who can defeat Labour and win the election) are heading towards a landslide victory. As they say, the election is Cameron's to lose.

Strangely, given enough rope to hang himself, Cameron does seem capable of doing just that: losing the election. Crackpot schemes like the Conservative proposal to give publicly employed workers the right to form self managing teams so that teachers could get together and sack the head if they didn't like him or her, unwound almost as soon as they were revealed.

Denied the spotlight, Cameron is also denied the ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. As the wicked witch of the west says when she is liquidated by Dorothy: what a world!

Emergency

For most of my adult life this country has been in one emergency or another. In the 20th century it was usually the IRA, though the Argentinians and animal activists were capable of raising the pulse from time to time. In the last decade it has been the so called war against terror and the all too real wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Of course, there have been brief moments of respite, like the collapse of the Berlin Wall when people talked about a peace dividend. But these did not last long.

After such a sustained period of emergencies is it not time to wonder if these conditions suit our politicians? As Shakespeare has the cynical ruler say in Henry IV part II, governments aim to "busy giddy minds with foreign quarrels".

When I walk out of my home I am immediately picked up by a cctv camera. There are many of them where I live.

This reminds me of George Orwell's version of Big Brother, not perhaps as terrifying as the prospect of being forced to watch the tv version of Big Brother, but almost as bad.

In Orwell's "1984", the three world powers are constantly at war with each other. These wars seem to have very little to do with the population's lives on a day to day basis. But they do permit extraordinary abuses of civil liberty. After all, surely it is worth sacrificing a few freedoms in the pursuit of a victory against an enemy as terrible as... Here you can fill in your own name: Argies, provos, Taliban, Sadaam, whatever.

If the process of government leads to a requirement to keep populations permanently cowed by the fear of a terrible enemy, then government is very dangerous. It's OK to tweak the tiger's tail when the tiger can't really do you much harm.

But these days it's quite possible to conceive of one of these so called enemies getting hold of truly devastating weapons. Once the scientific and technical genie is out of the bottle, you can't put it back. Nuclear weapons, for example, are within the technical grasp of quite small nations (like North Korea).

Constant warfare, or anti-terror campaigns, brings forward the day when a nuke, or some even more devastating weapon, will be used. It does not have to be this way. After the Second World War America committed huge resources to re-building Germany in the Marshall plan. A new Marshall plan in the middle east would probably make the world a lot safer than chasing Al-Qaeda, Al-Qaida or Al-Qa'ida in Afghanistan, and it would almost certainly cost a lot less.

Freestyle

Freestyle (director Kolton Lee & producer Lincia Daniel), a Microwave funded production (http://www.filmlondon.org.uk/content.asp?CategoryID=779) was made for the sort of budget Avotar probably spent on its end of production party. Most of the cast have never acted before and the best known name is Danny John-Jules, who played the cat in Red Dwarf.

Shot entirely on a Red video camera, it is about to open on general release, but only at five London cinemas. It appears to be caught in the current war between distributors and cinema operators. Distributors are allegedly seeking shorter runs for films (or an earlier date for DVD release) and most of the cinema chains are resisting this. The difference is fairly marginal (a couple of weeks?) but it's the sort of thing that gets people excited in the distribution world. Freestyle is going into the system as a short run production, which may have helped it get funding since those wanting the shorter terms may have given it a leg up.

A teen flick that is designed to appeal to mums and dads, Freestyle is that oddity a British basketball movie, probably a new genre. Made for £100k or less, Freestyle is uneven in both acting and lighting (was this video graded?). This is hardly surprising since many of the cast are first timers chosen for their basketball skills rather than their acting experience.The theme is that eternal verity: boy meets girl, trouble ensues but everything seems to end happily with a dramatic climax. Think Grange Hill rather than Romeo & Juliet.

That said, Freestyle is emotionally engaging and pushes all the buttons quite successfully.

It contains 30 musical tracks. To obtain so much on such a small budget is probably as close to genius as the British film industry gets right now.

Freestyle has three or four set pieces (a bit like music videos within the movie) made to an extremely high standard, evidently showing what the team could do if it had a sensible budget. Each such section would probably have cost £100k plus to make if it had been made as a stand alone video by someone specialising in such things.

http://www.freestylemovie.co.uk/

The Bitter Taste of Tea

Tom Heinemann's The Bitter Taste of Tea (http://www.flipthecoin.org/) is a truly remarkable film. In many ways it is similar to Black Gold (the coffee film by Nick and Marc Francis) but it is more watchable, despite the fact that Heinemann says he is a journalist not a film maker.

What makes it outstanding is the fact that Heinemann says it cost him £15k to make, including the post production, yet it has been shown by 15 tv channels. Now that is what I call budget film making.

It's central point is that the Fairtrade system does more or less nothing for the tea pickers. The only people who get anything out of it are the tea estate bosses who swindle the workers and the middle class Europeans who run the system. Very depressing but not really surprising.

Of course the film does look and sound a little old fashioned, even though much of it is shot hand held in what is the more or less obligatory documentary style. But it has clearly had a major impact and got the Fairtrade industry rattled. Even though it's quite likely nothing will change, it is a major achievement to confront such powerful commercial interests. To do it for £15k is quite extraordinary.