Election

So we're set to go to the polls on December 12th and it is imperative that we use this opportunity to bring a Labour government to the victory.

Boris Johnson is trying to say that this election is about everything other than his Brexit plan, but it's not working. He wanted to say it was an election about law and order, but his '20,000 more police officers on the beat' claims have been skewered by the clear reality that it was the Tory/Lib Dem coalition government who systematically reduced police numbers by 21,000. Even with these 20,000 promised, there will still be a shortage. And that's not counting natural wastage to, like retirements and resignations. Simply put, the Tories are trying and failing to put right the wrongs they have already made, and in a very half arsed fashion. This was beautifully brought into the harsh glare of the spotlight this morning by Susanna Reid's grilling of health secretary Matt Hancock on Good Morning Britain.

So today, Boris Johnson attended PMQ's and seemed to want to make his election all about the NHS instead. But there's another flaw here; his government have just been caught out engaging in secret, under-the-table trade talks with Trump that will carve up our NHS. Watching the shameless Johnson stand there and attempt to berate Jeremy Corbyn about the NHS, a Labour leader who was personally integral in getting a cystic fibrosis drug onto the NHS last week because a young boy crippled with the condition had written to him, after his pleas to the Tory government went unheard, was nothing short of disgraceful. My only worry of course is that people will be gullible enough to still vote Conservative. But I ask you, who is our NHS better served by? A leader who listens to those who use it and feel neglected and proactively does something positive to change that person's life, or a leader who wants to sell it off wholesale to private US pharma companies? Boris Johnson knows that a handcuffs deal with the US will actually raise the NHS drug budget, crippling the service into further debt that it will be inevitable to privatise the whole thing. He knows this, because that's exactly what he wants - and end to a free NHS as we know it.

I'll be saying this a lot between now and December. Make sure you have a vote, and use it wisely - vote Labour.

Across 110th Street (1972)

A mainstream Blaxploitation picture, Across 110th Street was reviled by critics at the time for its graphic violence and bleak, uncompromising stance. Viewed today, it's a minor masterpiece of '70s pulp cinema; not only satisfying the expectations of the crime genre, but providing salient, searing social commentary too.

It's perhaps easy to see why some contemporary critics baulked at Across 110th Street. Film is often viewed by some as a means of escapism, whereas Barry Shear's film is firmly rooted in the sobering, unflinching reality of the worst aspects of American society, principally the racial divide. Set in New York, the titular address serves as an intersection between Harlem and Central Park - a geographical and social division based on race and class. By 1972, that division was like an open wound. New York's economy was bust and Harlem suffered the worst of such an economic downturn. Middle class residents who could afford to relocate did so, leaving the neighbourhood empty and derelict. Some 24% of the population in Harlem lived on welfare, whilst an estimated 60% of its economy came from the illegal numbers racket of organised crime. Drugs, an escape from the harsh reality of life, were rife. Harlem was a place of little opportunity for its majority black population and, when racial tensions, ran deep this powder keg environment exploded. Riots hit the city in 1964 when an off-duty white police officer murdered a black teenager. Just three years later, in the stifling hot summer of 1967, the US endured major rioting from black communities understandably angry at police brutality and rising poverty and naturally, Harlem again exploded. A year later, in grief-stricken retaliation for the assassination of Martin Luther King, Harlem's business and storefronts were ablaze. It is this reality that Across 110th Street depicts, most memorably in its even handed portrayal of the moral grey areas its cast of characters occupy. 

This isn't your standard cops (good) and robbers (bad) tale, instead it is a character study that helps to reflect the corruption and problems endemic in society. Jim Harris (a sympathetic performance from Paul Benjamin), the murdering crook the police and mob are seeking, memorably and poignantly relates to his girlfriend how, as a black 40 something man with no formal education, a criminal record and a disability, he sees no option other than crime to survive. Compare this admission to the reveal that Anthony Quinn's thirty-three-year police veteran, Capt. Martelli, routinely takes bribes from Harlem's black godfather Doc Johnson (gravel-voiced Richard Ward) in order to supplement the meagre income the city pays him for his service. 

The central, uneasy alliance between the dinosaur Martelli and Yaphet Kotto's liberal, disciplined Lt. Pope is one that has often been compared to the relationship between Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger in In The Heat of the Night. Whilst the 1967 is arguably a much better film, I feel the dynamic here is more interesting. For a start it doesn't play on the fish out of water aspect that that film and its countless imitators in the genre depicted. Here, Pope and Martelli operate the same streets, but their viewpoints are wildly different. Pope is angered by Martelli's casual racism and brutal interrogation methods, arguing that such antics "went out with prohibition". It's a telling comment, as Martelli first trod the beat  when prohibition was a recent memory. Quinn's performance is imbued with the jaded, jaundiced eye of a man who has sifted through the sewers for thirty-odd years. He's seen many changes but to him it is, almost literally, the same shit but a different day. His 'crime' isn't necessarily taking bribes, it's the simple fact that in all his long service he's done nothing to improve the situation - a fact he's perhaps slowly coming to realise now at the age of fifty-five and with retirement banging on the door. When he angrily launches himself at Doc Johnson, the mobster accurately comments that he is a man longing to die; not simply because he can't bear the prospect of retirement but perhaps for some retribution for his role in propping up a corrupt, broken system. 

As Pope, Yaphet Kotto is the opposite of Martelli, a college educated police officer who abhors the older cop's fist-flying, but that doesn't mean that he is above using his own physical presence to intimidate suspects or indeed anyone who attempts to block his path. From Harlem himself, he represents upward mobility and a new breed of police officer for whom class and race may not necessarily be a hindrance to getting on, though both he and the film understand that equality is not around the corner. What's interesting is how he interacts with the black community, it's the epitome of that old phrase about black police officers; 'too black for the police, too blue for the brothers'. Nevertheless there's a quiet, devastating determination in Kotto's performance to simply do the right thing that means such concerns are merely minor irritants for him.

The only character who offers no sympathy or redeeming features is Anthony Franciosa's racist charmless mobster Nick D'Salvio, and even then his character is far more multi-faceted and interesting than many other films would depict. D'Salvio, we learn, married into the mob family, a situation which turned his fortunes from mob lackey to gangster number one. With such power comes great expectations and D'Salvio knows deep down that he cannot fulfill them. It is this ineptness and self doubt that leads him to perform in the most disgusting, violent manner, perhaps because he believes that is what is expected of him. It's a great stomach churning, repulsive performance of a little, repugnant man who thinks he is a big man with wit and charm, and it's understandable that audiences feel no empathy for his fate.

Speaking of fates, anyone who has purchased the MGM DVD release here in the UK who hasn't seen the film before will receive an immediate spoiler thanks to the rear of the DVD showing a still image from the final scene of the movie! 

Across 110th Street is a gritty, sweaty expose of '70s American society and a solid marriage between the mainstream and the Blaxploitation film movement. It boasts some strong performances, specifically from Quinn and Kotto whose chalk and cheese partnership has been replicated through the years ever since. You can even see traces of it in the BBC series Life on Mars. And it goes without saying of course that it has a superb soundtrack from Bobby Womack.

Wordless Wednesday: Face in the Crowd

Suspend Boris Johnson

Boris Johnson is a man who seems to think he can say what he bloody well likes. And, whilst what he likes to say is always inflammatory and offensive, he always gets away with it. 

Enough is enough. During a radio interview in which he was asked about the police budget, Johnson said "I think an awful lot of money and an awful lot of police time goes into these historic offences and all this malarkey. You know, £60m I saw was being spaffed up a wall on some investigation into historic child abuse and all this kind of thing"

This is the disgusting, inconsiderate mindset of the man. In one comment he dismisses the abuse of children as 'malarkey' and the finances used to gain the necessary justice they have long been denied as being 'spaffed up a wall'. To use a slang term for male ejaculation whilst discussing child sex abuse is particularly tactless, but I will say this; what a shame it is that Boris Johnson's father didn't 'spaff up a wall' the night he and his wife conceived this idiotic, cruel hearted bastard. 

In the wake of the Michael Jackson documentary Leaving Neverland and the recent convictions gained via Yewtree, Johnson's comments shows a man completely out of step with public opinion. The only people who this comment is designed to appeal to is those who live in fear of prosecution themselves. Given that Lord Steel of the Lib Dems this week admitted that Cyril Smith confessed to him as early as 1979, and chose to do nothing about it, whilst testimony has also been heard about Thatcher's PPS, the deceased Chester MP, Peter Morrison (a man whose penchant for under-age boys was, according to Edwina Currie's diaries, widely known) this is a clear sign that Boris Johnson wants to protect the paedophiles of Westminster.

Enough is enough. Please sign this petition that demands Johnson's suspension from the Conservative party. why it hasn't happened already is frankly beyond me.

RIP John Stalker

Sad to hear of the death of former Deputy Chief Constable of Greater Manchester John Stalker this week at the age of 79.

Stalker gave over 30 years of dedicated service to the police force and was one of the investigating officers on the Moors Murders. But perhaps most famously of all, he was brought in to investigate the RUC's shoot to kill policy in Northern Ireland in the early 1980s, where his integrity suffered at the hands of an RUC and Security Services smear campaign. The simple fact of the matter was that the truth he sought was not one the establishment wanted to be known. Over thirty years on and the families of the six unarmed men shot by the RUC still have no inquests or justice. 

Stalker's memoir remains compulsive reading and his inquiry into the RUC formed the basis of two dramatised films; Ken Loach's Hidden Agenda (which is the Stalker affair in all but name) and Yorkshire Television's Shoot to Kill which starred Jack Shepherd as Stalker. The author GF Newman also wrote his novel The Testing Ground which had direct parallels to the Shoot to Kill inquiry and was later loosely adapted by the BBC as the then near-futuristic Nineteen96 starring Keith Barron. David Peace was also inspired by Stalker when he came to write his Red Riding series of novels which were subsequently adapted by Channel 4 with Paddy Considine as a Stalker-like honest detective heading up an inquiry into a corrupt and failing hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper.

RIP

United Kingdom (1981)

United Kingdom - a deliciously ironic title if ever there  was one - was the last major work for television by the socialist playwright Jim Allen. Epic in scope, this is an expansive, two and a half hour tale influenced by the political events of the day and concerns a Labour run council in the North East of England's refusal to implement the harsh cuts of housing and social spending imposed upon them by Margaret Thatcher's newly elected Conservative government. Their unwillingness to comply leads to their barring from office and a commissioner from London is parachuted in under Home Office instruction to implement the policy. In retaliation, the Labour councillors become a council-in-exile, picketing the council offices, organising selective rent strikes on the derelict housing estate they reside at and hijacking the computer files relating to the commissioner's proposed budget. Determined not to lose face and reassert their authority, the Establishment subsequently employ the usual dirty tricks; surveillance and intimidation from Special Branch, arrests of councillors on the spurious charges of theft and incitement, smears in the media with the inevitable hoary old lie of Moscow funding the protest, and finally - when the residents of the estate barricade themselves in - the brutal deployment of the SPG. 

It should come as no surprise to you to learn that United Kingdom was broadcast only once and has never been made commercially available. It's only availability now lies in the form of occasional screenings among politically sympathetic groups or, as in the case of a couple of years ago, at Home in Manchester as part of a season celebrating the work of Allen as a son of the city. However, we should be grateful that United Kingdom was made at all. Delivering a talk to a workshop for Channel 4 about the possibilities of engaging working class audiences in the 1980s, Allen explained that the play was originally commissioned by Michael Grade at LWT (presumably for the 1980 series of plays that ultimately became a Dennis Potter series) to make the play in Manchester but, with just weeks to go before shooting commences, Grade cancelled the film. His reason was that it was too costly but, as Allen points out, £150,000 was already spent on the production and it is his belief that the powers-that-be in Manchester simply didn't want the film to be made there. Undeterred, Allen and his director Roland Joffé returned to the BBC where they had previously made The Spongers in 1977, and relocated the storyline to the North East. 

Deeply critical of not only the Tory government but also a Labour party leadership who refuse to come out and pledge support to the exiled council and housing residents in their hour of need (and, as one character points out, it was a Labour government who initially began to implement cuts in social spending and housing anyway), United Kingdom is an epic story about the class struggle which seems to replicate the events such as the Kirkby rent strike (and indeed, the events depicted firsthand in Nick Broomfield's Behind the Rent Strike documentary film - there's even a moment in the film - one of its most blistering and best presented - that depicts two police officers interrogating an eleven year old boy for the names of his friends who have shoplifted that seems to owe a lot to Broomfield's subsequent Juvenile Liaison documentary too), the blacklisting of politically active workers, and the Brixton riots (much commented on throughout the play, most specifically in one scene which sees an honest copper appeal to his Chief Constable, played by Colin Welland, to rethink his plans to roll out the SPG; "It's not a race riot" he says, to which Welland replies "Isn't it? These people aren't the same race as me") as well as prophosising what was to come in its depiction of the harsher measures of policing - often from outside constabularies such as the Met - against the working class and political action, such as the miners' strike. It's not always subtle - the scenes of our heroes drinking and enjoying old fashioned barroom sing-a-longs behind the barricades are interspersed with scenes of Welland and his Masonic authority figures enjoying a grand Elizabethan banquet complete with a costumed host choir serenading them - but its authenticity is key and it boasts some damn fine performances from the likes of the aforementioned Welland, Ricky Tomlinson, Val McLane (Jimmy Nail's sister) Bill Paterson, Peter Kerrigan, Peter Copley and Rosemary Martin. United Kingdom is a play that deserves to stand alongside the likes of Boys from the Blackstuff as a searing indictment on Thatcher's Britain - a position it rightfully earns from anyone fortunate enough to see it.

Resnick (1992-'93)

British TV has always been awash with TV detectives, but they fall into two distinctive categories; there's the made-for-TV cops, and then there's those adapted from pre-existing bestselling crime and thriller literature. In the '80s and '90s it's fair to say that the BBC dominated the former category with a gold run of populist fare that featured the likes of Shoestring, Bergerac, and Spender. Whilst adaptations were principally ITV's domain, the jewels in the crown consisting of  David Suchet's Poirot, Jeremy Brett's definitive Sherlock Holmes, Inspector Morse and A Touch of Frost. 

The BBC's only real popular foray into adaptation was Lovejoy, but that genial, comfortable Sunday night offering was so far removed from the grubby, cutthroat violent and X rated nature of Jonathan Gash's original novels, and the programme only adapted a couple of the books in the first series anyway, so that need not detain us further.

So at some point in the '90s the BBC woke up to the sobering fact that ITV had the monopoly and thus they attempted to produce adaptations of other popular literary detective series for themselves. Perhaps the most successful (in terms of long-running at least) of these was Dalziel and Pascoe, the chalk-and-cheese sleuthing duo created by Reginald Hill. That series got off to a very strong start thanks to fabulously droll adaptations from Alan Plater and Malcolm Bradbury no less, and ran for eleven years - though they abandoned the source material provided by Hill very early on, offering us the law of diminishing returns. 

But on a par with those early Dalziel and Pascoe adaptations is a mini-series from four years earlier - the BBC's attempts to bring John Harvey's sandwich eating, multiple cat owning and jazz loving Nottingham based cop DI Charlie Resnick to the screen. The channel made just two adaptations of the Resnick novels - Lonely Hearts and Rough Treatment - starring Tom Wilkinson and, having watched them for the first time just a couple of years ago, I've been scratching my head to think why they didn't go on to adapt every single one of them because, quite simply, this would have given ITV's Morse and Frost a good run for their money.

It helps of course that the author himself, John Harvey, adapted the novels for TV. But crucially the director of Lonely Hearts, Bruce MacDonald, understands the material beautifully and gives us something unique that still stands out as a distinctive piece of drama some twenty-four years later. Crucially MacDonald's style, combined with his knowledge and understanding of Harvey occasionally somewhat fragmentary writing style, works in close harmony to deliver an deeply atmospheric piece. Like the jazz beloved of our central character, Harvey's writing often strays from the narrative through line to provide quirky and unusual flourishes or glimpses of other themes. This is best exemplified in the way that we see the team at Nottingham CID (which includes a youngish David Neilsen before he headed to the cobbles of Coronation Street, looking rather different with short hair and a military moustache, and actor/writer William Ivory as a scene-stealing leery, neanderthal cop who despite his blunt methods gets the job done in a way we cannot help but admire) involve themselves in other secondary cases or how we catch references to their home lives. All of these instances help lend a sense of multi-dimensionality and authenticity to the proceedings.

That said, MacDonald's directorial style isn't going to be to everyone's tastes and it is not without its flaws. In creating such a distinctive atmosphere it often runs the risk of being a touch too oblique, with sections of footage done, POV style, from the perspective of our protagonists, often lingering on minor details and abstract items. And there are a lot of moments set at night were everything is just so damn dark - but that might actually be down to the quality of the off-air recording from 1992 (sadly these adaptations have never been officially released and only bootlegs are available) that I watched, I don't know.

The world of Resnick as created by John Harvey is both a well-written and addictive one, and I've enjoyed reading a few novels in recent years. Tom Wilkinson inhabits the character depicted upon the page rather well (though I perhaps expected and would have liked a more native Notts accent) and accurately captures that kind of melancholic detective who seems to have a black cloud perpetually hovering above his head and feels a little too much really well. It's a cliche now I guess, the over-empathetic policeman, but I don't imagine it was at the time. 

The second adaptation, Rough Treatment, arrived a year later in 1993. It was another classy production but, with a different director (Peter Smith) at the helm it felt a little lacking with little to lift the proceedings above watchable, despite Jim Carter and Tom Georgeson as a good pair of chalk and cheese crooks and Sheila Gish having fun as the bored and frustrated wife of a TV director. However, I don't believe for a minute that this slighter offering sealed the fate of any further adaptations - ultimately I can only presume the ascent Wilkinson's career enjoyed round about the mid '90s with The Full Monty ultimately taking him to Hollywood was the real reason Resnick was so short-lived.

DI Charlie Resnick has been on my mind this week because I'm reading another novel and am tempted to revisit these adaptations this evening. In looking over my review (which originally appeared on Letterboxd) I came across John Harvey's blog and saw that the great man himself actually referenced my review here - to have a celebrated author you personally respect single out your writing and describe it as 'really interesting' has made my day!

Tonight's Tele Tip: Law & Order (1978) BBC4, 10pm

Do yourself a favour tonight and tune into BBC4 at 10pm for one of the most groundbreaking and controversial TV dramas ever to appear on British television. Law & Order, written by G.F. Newman, produced by Tony Garnett and directed by Les Blair, makes The Sweeney look like Play Away.

Groundbreaking is a word that often gets bandied about when discussing film or TV, but when discussing the 1978 quartet of BBC films entitled Law & Order (not to be confused with the later US show, and its UK based ITV spin-off) there can be no question of using that word in a cliched or lazy way. 

Law & Order truly was groundbreaking; a radical, polemical and shockingly brutal, warts and all depiction of institutionalised corruption within every corner of the UK's law enforcement, judicial and penal system. It's broadcast in 1978 shocked and appalled thenation, causing an uproar which led to questions in the House, an unofficial but clearly obvious embargo on repeating or broadcasting the production in any shape or form for 31 years, and a suggestion that its writer G.F. Newman be charged for crimes against the state. But equally it created a much needed and radical reform of an institution riddled with malpractice and better safeguarding of those in society who come under police suspicion.

The story spans four films each told from the perspective of the police (Derek Martin as the bent DI Fred Pyle) the brief (Ken Campbell as Alex Gladwell) and the criminal, and ultimately, the prisoner (Peter Dean as Jack Lynn) It's a compelling all encompassing approach that hasn't dated; indeed the BBC cribbed it again for their 2013 dramatisation of The Great Train Robbery, splitting the film into two parts to show the villains and the police's viewpoint. 

The trio of writer G.F. Newman, director Les Blair and producer Tony Garnett successfully commented on what was wrong in this aspect society in a gloriously authentic, quasi-documentary style, casting actors who were both unknown or had relatively little experience. And it really works; I defy anyone not to be utterly transfixed by each film's careful pacing, tight naturalistic script and pared down realism. It's often bleak, cynical and despondent viewing, but there's more than a ring of truth to it that makes it vitally important. Even Michael Mann is a big fan and the rumour is he would routinely screen it in the Miami Vice studios in the 1980s as he tried to get his own remake off the ground, but to no avail.

Out On Blue Six: Smiley Culture

BBC4 launched their 1985 series of Top of the Pops repeats last night, which afforded me a real blast from the past in the shape of cheeky fast chat reggae artist Smiley Culture and his number 12 hit, Police Officer.

I had completely forgotten all about this song and Smiley himself, so it was quite the Proustian rush to see it on TV last night, taking me all the way back to my five year old self, who was - perhaps strangely - really rather keen on this track. I say perhaps strangely because, let's face it, a little white five year old boy wasn't really Smiley Culture's audience now was he? The song, allegedly based on a real-life incident for Smiley which saw him evade an arrest for cannabis possession when the arresting officer recognised him as the singer of Cockney Translation (his previous hit) and requested his autograph. It's a song whose subject matter was completely beyond my ken: the SUS laws which allowed police victimisation of the black community, and  cannabis (or 'ganga' and 'sinsemilla' as the song refers to the drug, terms that perhaps flew over the head of not only my infant self, but presumably the radio station bosses and DJ's who inadvertently pushed the song into the top 20) was definitely too mature a concept for a child to comprehend - I think I just liked the obvious humourous spirit of the song, how quickly Smiley spoke/sang and how he effortlessly dropped in and out of the Jamaican Patois and Estuary accents to play both himself and the song's titular police officer. I probably also liked the song because it gave me the opportunity on TOTP to see women dressed in police uniforms dancing around and looking like they were having fun as they played (or perhaps more correctly mimed) the song's brass section. I think there's something, perhaps unique to a child's enjoyment, in seeing grown ups and figures of authority behave in a way you might not expect to see them behave. 

Unfortunately fame was rather brief for Smiley Culture, real name David Emmanuel, and his story does not have a happy ending. Future releases never scaled the same heights of Police Officer and his last mainstream success was in the shape of fronting an advertising campaign for NatWest and a cameo in Julien Temple's Absolute Beginners, both in 1986. Away from the music scene, Emmanuel invested in diamond mining with concessions in several African countries, but he was arrested in July 2010 with conspiracy to supply cocaine and was set to appear for trial in March the following year. However, just one week before this court appearance, police raided Emmanuel's home and began conducting a search for class A drugs when 90 minutes into the search, Emmanuel stabbed himself in the heart. The Independent Police Complaints Commission and a subsequent inquest returned a verdict of suicide with no criminal culpability found against any of the officers conducting the search. Nevertheless a stink surrounding how Emmanuel met his death remains and, as a prominent case of potential police abuse, contributed to the riots that swept across the country in the summer of 2011.

End Transmission

Silent Sunday: Riot Shield

Silent Sunday: Poll Tax Kiss

Definition of Shameless Hypocrisy

With the tragedies of the Grenfell tower block, the MEN bombing and the London attack in recent weeks, the government have been repeatedly (and rightly) praising the work of the emergency services.

But yesterday, they voted to successfully defeat an opposition move to end the public sector pay freeze. Not only that, they cheered themselves for doing it.

If you really valued the people who put their lives on the line to save the lives of others then why can't you put your money where your mouth is and reward them properly?

Money can be found, to the tune of 1.5 billion, to prop up Theresa May's weak premiership with the DUP, but not for these ordinary heroes who are there whenever we need them, but whose response is increasingly hampered by austerity measures.

That is the shameless hypocrisy of this government.

Vote Labour to Help our Police Do Their Job

When PC Paul Taylor was captured on camera linking arms with young fans and dancing, it was the most heartwarming moment of last night's One Love Manchester. 

It reminded us that these officers protect us from harm and comfort us through the bad and the good. But they can only do that if they are given the budget to do so. There are calls today for Theresa May to resign because she has made our country vulnerable and because, when told she was putting our country in danger from terrorism by the police, she dismissed such concerns as 'scaremongering. Theresa May needs to learn that cuts have consequences, and she must pay the price for having blood on her hands. Three are plenty of petitions calling for her resignation, including this one which I ask you to sign. But there's one other thing you can do that will certainly take May from office - and that is to vote Labour on Thursday. Only Labour will keep our country safe and give the police the tools to do the job.

And while we are at it, let's give Ariana Grande the keys to Manchester for her achievement last night.

The Tories Can't Keep Us Safe From Terrorism: The Warning from Manchester Police to Theresa May

Damien O'Rielly, an award winning Community Police Support Officer, has appealed to Theresa May to reverse cuts to local policing that has left our streets vulnerable to attack, saying "there's no proactive policing" in Manchester, only "reactive"

We currently have soldiers on our streets because there simply aren't enough police officers available in the wake of the Manchester attack this week. Intelligence to the force has dried up as a result of cuts to local policing. This is the stark and painful truth of the Tory party's austerity measures. And yet, during her time as Home Secretary, Theresa May accused senior police chiefs of 'scaremongering' when they warned her that cuts would see a rise in crime and terrorism.

We need to send a clear message to Theresa May and the government that we will not stand by and let people die as a result of their foolish policies. Jeremy Corbyn has always pledged to reinstate an effective police budget and recruit more police officers to the force as well as end the trade links to Saudi and Qatar which ISIS benefit from and turn against us. Labour's fully costed Manifesto shows that an anti-austerity budget is possible. Things needn't be like this.

Please, spread the word. Vote Labour on June 8th for a safer UK.

Why I Only Partly Agree With The 'Our Way Of Life Must Continue' Sentiment

Since the horrific attack in Manchester we've heard a lot of sentiment along the lines of how 'our way of life must continue'

It's a sentiment I only partly agree with.

Our way of life - going to work, going shopping, going to live gigs, taking the kids to school, socialising with friends, going to the very city this attack took place - must continue. 

But I hope for one change to our way of life. Because I fervently hope that whatever government gets in next month will realise in the wake of this atrocity that they cannot keep cutting our police and armed forces to the bone, whilst still expecting them to protect us when the unthinkable happens.

Over 20,000 army personnel, along with 8,500 RAF and 5,500 Navy have been cut since 2010. 

We now have fewer police per head of population since 1974.

And don't even start me on the cuts to the NHS and the fact that already beleaguered hospitals have had to step up to the plate and work miracles this week.

And the government needs to realise that it must sever ties with Saudi Arabia and Qatar, which have proven to be significant funders of ISIS. The Conservative government still sell billions worth of arms to these countries. The Saudi war on Yemen is something we materially support and yet it is a gift to ISIS - it's like turkeys voting for Christmas.

This way of life must end now. It is the only way to protect our lives.

In the meantime, if you can afford to, please consider donating to this crowdfunder from the Manchester Evening News which aims to raise £2,000,000 to support the families of those killed and injured in Monday night's attack. Currently they're at £1,176,135.

Theme Time: Corinne Bailey Rae - Stans Lee's Lucky Man

Tonight saw the return to Sky One of Stan Lee's (yes, he of Marvel Comics fame) Lucky Man

This is the second series of the action crime drama starring James Nesbitt as Harry Clayton, a Detective Inspector in London's Murder Squad with a serious gambling addiction whose luck changes when a mysterious and beautiful stranger (Sienna Guillory) gives him an ancient bracelet that bestows upon him the gift of profound luck. The show is created by Neil Biswas, based on an original idea by Stan Lee, who once answered fans that his most wished for super power would be luck. 

I'd love to say I'm a big fan of the show, but the truth is for all its Stan Lee credentials, I find it a bit old fashioned and reminiscent of '90s Saturday action drama Bugs (which is perhaps unsurprising when you consider both programmes share a production company in Carnival Films) and I mostly amuse myself by calling it 'Jammy Bastard' rather than Lucky Man; adopting a Monkfish style trailer narration (from The Fast Show) that goes along the lines of "James Nesbitt is tough, uncompromising DI Jammy Bastard..."

But I do love the title theme tune, Lucky One, provided by the mellifluous vocals of Corinne Bailey Rae. Unfortunately, you can't really find a full length official cut of the theme, but this fan made one is the closest we have to it so far.

Antigang, aka The Sweeney Paris (2015)

2015 French cop thriller Antigang is known in the UK by the rather unwieldy title of The Sweeney Paris. This is because Antigang is a remake of Nick Love's 2012 film The Sweeney which was itself a remake of the classic 1970s TV series of the same name starring John Thaw and Dennis Waterman. 

So what we have here is a remake of a remake. 

However whilst Love's film was a predictable disappointment which was unable to step out of the shadows of the original series, director Benjamin Rocher's remake prospers and thrives simply because its Gallic setting means it is utterly removed from Thaw and Waterman's Regan and Carter, whose boots Love's stars Ray Winstone and Ben Drew failed to fill. Here Jean Reno and Alban Lenoir don't suffer the same association and come into their own as our buddy buddy cops - Serge Buren, a grizzled veteran who plays by his own rules, and Niels Cartier, an enthusiastic and faithful Duracell bunny of a cop who refuses to give up. 

Antigang improves on Love's The Sweeney on other levels too; though it's a pretty faithful remake of that film, the script (by François Loubeyre and Tristan Schulmann) improves the narrative by editing some subplots and red herrings. It also takes itself far less seriously in places, and manages to both bring supporting characters to the fore, whilst dropping other characters completely. Overall this makes for a tighter, sharper and more cohesive film experience, even if some of the 2012 original's spectacle is lost (such as the climactic car chase) possibly due to budgetary constraints. 

Another thing I liked about this was the fact that Reno's Buren was much more likeable than Winstone's Regan. Unlike Love's creation, Buren is acutely aware of the fact that he is growing older day by day. There's a vulnerability and a doubt regarding his methods here that was totally missing from Winstone's swaggering, bully-boy interpretation of Jack Regan. Also, the romance storyline doesn't feel as sickening as it did in Love's film, despite the age difference actually being greater here (Reno and his co-star Caterina Murino had an almost thirty year age difference, whereas Winstone and Hayley Atwell had 25 years between them) Maybe it's because Reno isn't so much of a fat bastard? Or perhaps it's just because it's done far more subtly. 

Don't get me wrong, Antigang isn't anything other than a very dumb and generic action orientated cop thriller, but therein lies its triumph - because, unlike Love's film, it doesn't have that same baggage from a television series that is considered something of a landmark here in the UK and, if they'd have just called it Antigang here too, it would have had even less of an identifiable link.

Mystery Road (2013)

"How do you sleep at night - locking up your own people all the time?"

Despite Australia enjoying a healthy film industry, there doesn't seem to be enough films made (or being successfully-distributed overseas at least) by or for the indigenous Australian people - a people who feel that their rights to citizenship, to be recognised in the population census and to be given the vote did not occur until 1967 and whose affairs, in several states, were until then handled under departments with remits for flora and fauna (and thus, it is argued, equating them to vegetables or plants of the land rather than people) - so it's encouraging to find a film like Mystery Road from indigenous filmmaker Ivan Sen that attempts to change that, and even more encouraging to hear that a sequel - Goldstone - was made this year. 

Set in outback Queensland with locations boasting such richly atmospheric names as the eponymous Mystery Road, Massacre Creek, Slaughter Hill and the Dusk Til Dawn Motel, this measured modern-day Western is actually little more than a shaggy dog story of a thriller centering around the violent death of a young indigenous girl and a mystery involving wild dogs roaming the dusty, barren landscape. Writer/director Sen's real interest lay in the evocative depiction of society through the springboard that is afforded by the central crime, and its a society that is as desiccated and in need of attention and repair as the rusted abandoned jalopies and the failing fences that line the scorched long stretches of roads.

Aaron Pedersen stars as detective Jay Swan, 'an Abbo copper' caught between two worlds and viewed with suspicion by everyone, from his colleagues on the force to his own, estranged family. With a seemingly unmoved police department, it falls to Swan to investigate the murder of a teenage aboriginal girl, discovered by the roadside, and his investigations led him close to home when he finds a link between the dead girl and his teenage daughter, Crystal. Delving further, this lone wolf soon uncovers a web of drug-dealing and exploitation that has ensnared almost everyone in the community, maybe even his colleagues such as Hugo Weaving's subtly menacing and enigmatic Johnno. Weaving is perhaps the film's biggest name, but the real star here is Pederson whose natural quiet charisma lights up the screen, making it almost impossible to take your eyes off him, his permanently knitted brow and thousand yard stare - and rightly so. I am so glad to see his character get his own series as he certainly has what it takes to carry it.

It's a beautifully shot film, imbued with the tropes of Westerns such as stetsons and Winchester rifles against such remarkable desert scenery, along with some impressive aerial photography that capture the isolation and barely civilised nature of the arid outback. The finale may explode into unexpected (and I suspect somewhat tongue-in-cheek) gunplay but its the long and winding paths it took to get to this denouement that count and are what you'll remember for long after.

The Man on the Eiffel Tower (1949)

If you live in the UK and possess a television you can't have failed to notice that rubbery featured funny man Rowan Atkinson is going to have a second crack at the whip of playing Georges Simonen's celebrated detective Jules Maigret this Christmas, as the trailers have been shown in between a succession of z-list celebrities chewing their way through camel's anus (I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out Of Here!) every night for the past fortnight. Unfortunately, Atkinson's previous stab was a very dull affair indeed so I can't seeing this Christmas present being a particularly treat, though I'm happy to be pleasantly surprised. Anyway, the constant plugging for it encouraged me to venture back in time to seek out other Maigret adaptations and this 1949 rarity has recently been screened on Talking Pictures TV.

The Man on the Eiffel Tower is an adaptation of Simenon's 5th Maigret novel which is largely known in the English language as either A Battle of Nerves or A Man's Head. The film is, barring a set-piece finale that the title alludes to, a fairly faithful account of the novel and the plot goes a little like this; the hapless, short sighted Joseph Heurtin (Burgess Meredith) stumbles one evening upon a vicious murder scene - the brutal stabbing of a wealthy American Mrs Henderson and her maid - and catches the murderer, Radek (Franchot Tone) in the act. Terrified and sworn to secrecy, Heurtin flees - but he leaves both his glasses and his bloody fingerprints and boot prints behind, making him prime suspect. Maigret (Charles Laughton) however, is not convinced. He believes that Heurtin has neither a motive for the killing nor the necessary callous nature. In his usual, inimitable way, Maigret engineers Heurtin's escape from custody - an unorthodox measure which he hopes will lead him to the real culprit. 

One of the film's star Franchot Tone and legendary US movie producer Irving Allen set up this Franco-American co-production and shot on location in post-war Paris (the film even credits the French capital as a star of the film in its own right, receiving billing after Laughton, Tone and Meredith) Allen was originally slated to direct, but behind the scenes ructions between him and Laughton regarding his competency to direct such a film meant that Burgess Meredith took on the directing duties. It is said that Meredith directed all the scenes that he did not have to act in, with Laughton actually directing those whilst, for the instances in which Laughton and Meredith have scenes together, Tone was elected to direct. With those facts in mind, the shoot was clearly a real co-operative affair, but its perhaps inevitable that such practices behind the scenes would effect the film overall and its fair to say it never really comes together and is pretty much of curio value only now. Laughton delivers an interesting performance of Maigret though whilst he certainly fits the physicality of Simonen's detective better than the pipe-cleaner frame of Atkinson,  he perhaps has a tendency to find the humour in the character a little too broadly to be an accurate portrayal. Tone and Meredith are equally enjoyable in their respective roles also.

For many years The Man on the Eiffel Tower was believed lost but it was eventually restored by the UCLA Film and Television Archive using two worn projection prints. The print remains poor however on account of the film being shot on Ansco Reversal film, an early single strip colour process that no longer exists, which means the colours are rather washed out, but it is the only print available to watch.

Tories Continue to Block Justice for Orgreave

Home Secretary Amber Rudd (yes, the one who said employers should supply the government with the full number and details of any immigrants in their employ - the racist cunt herself) has today announced that there was not 'sufficient evidence' to launch an inquiry or independent review into the Battle of Orgreave.

Read full details here

Words fail me.

Oh no, actually I do have some; fucking bastard Tory cover up! 

This was a brutal act of class warfare in which the police were effectively Thatcher's own private militia. They had been trained for months in advance of this incident and some of the same officers went on to become implicit in that other huge cover up; Hillsborough. The files themselves prove that Thatcher lied to the public when she claimed she had no intention of eradicating the coal industry in this country. How is that for sufficient evidence?

Continue the fight at the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign