BEATS OF LOVE 

172. Toulouse by Latin Quarter

A WORLD where Trump apes Putin to play at ruler and Farage apes Trump to Americanize British politics can only happen when folk see the very poorest as a problem.  

A world where more and more folk are now seeing the super wealthy as a problem spells trouble. To prevent this new vision from taking hold, dressing deception as a functionary tool becomes key. McSweeney learned this from Mandelson as he infiltrated and sabotaged Corbyn's movement to destroy Corbynism. 

To listen to the broad church of Labour parliamentarians with their diametrically opposed views vilify while rightly tearing out the heart of Mandelson, in some bloodlust, you can not escape the fact that on some performative level, they're purging their own sorry souls. Theirs is also a politics of deception on a lesser scale which betrays victims by failing to arrive at a consensus on anything. 

It's why the architect of this latest labour car-crash McSweeney was nowhere to be seen. Falling into a booby trap of his own making, like Cummings. His head will roll at a nation's rising anger, but the same revolving door will introduce us to further deceit. The byproduct of the factional politics that characterize our two main parties. 

And for all that Americans thank God they're not in Putin's Russia and we thank God we're not in Trump's America despite having to endure a minor annoyance like an ascendant Farage.

BEATS OF LOVE 

171. Nuts in May VHS

MIKE LEIGH'S wonderfully improvised comedy shows when we're out in the open air, things can get absurd and Reformy.

Keith replete with dictatorial tendencies and his utterly infantile wife Candice Marie, although insular and odd, navigate the Dorset coastline as laid out in a strict itinerary. The camp-site proves harder to navigate, testing their endurance when, despite them pitching their tent first interloper Ray, with his annoying radio, invades their sense of idyll. In Reform party fashion, they move their tent. 

Utterly baffled that Ray has to endure something he dislikes getting a career as a PE teacher, Candice Marie sends her husband into a jealous rage. His real problems begin with working-class Brummies Finger and Honky. First, they want to shag despite being noisily pissed up, which angers Keith, who lies in a sexless state having just refused to kiss his wife's fluffy toy cat Prudence goodnight, then Finger wants to start a fire to make breakfast. Lighting open fires is against the rules. 

Rules dictate everything for Keith. Who in a state of gammon faced abandonment hurls in anger the would be firewood, a tree branch, in Finger's direction. The aftermath of which sees Keith and Candice Marie leaving the camp-site. Again, righteous anger without resolution is very Reform. 

Ironic then that Keith, in trying to impose the same conditions of his suburban life on his trip, blocked his rear-view mirror by overfilling his Morris Minor and attracted police attention. The police also discover his spare tyre was bald. Breaking the rules himself. Reflecting the hypocrisy of Reform, who much prefer the idea of imposing rules that don't apply to their voters. 

Doubly ironic is the fact that timeless characters like Keith and Candice Marie, no matter how unwittingly Reformy they behave, would never vote for such an unruly party. Finger and Honky probably would.