Make Love Not Cuts/The 2010 Histomat Awards

2010 Histomat International Heroes/Heroines of the Year: Students across Europe and internationally fighting fees and cuts and for free education. Their revolt this year is the lightning strike that signals the coming storm of working class struggle and rebellion in 2011. Well, let's hope so eh?

Runner up: The people and families who campaigned for justice for Bloody Sunday, and in particular revolutionary journalist Eamonn McCann - deserved winner of the Private Eye Paul Foot Special Lifetime Campaign award.

2009 Histomat International Idiot(s) of the Year: The Israeli state for bravely massacring innocent people on an aid flotilla back in May.

Runner up: All those Islamophobes and racists who protested at the 'Ground Zero Mosque' that wasn't.

2009 Histomat National Hero of the Year: Jody McIntyre, a headache for BBC and ITN news anchors as well as the Metropolitan Police and Con-Dem government.

Joint Runners up A) The voters of Barking and Dagenham for telling the Nazi BNP fuhrer Nick Griffin where to go in the 2010 elections
B) The English Football Association - for ensuring England was utterly humiliated in the World Cup and then were utterly humiliated all over again in the same year when, after abjectly prostrating themselves before the corrupt fucks who run FIFA still came bottom with 2 votes when they tried to win the bid for the 2018 World Cup. Keep up the good work guys!

2009 Histomat National Idiot of the Year: So many to choose from the Con-Dem government - very very tricky - while I was tempted to award this (yet again) to Phil Woolas, but there can really only be one winner of this - Nick Clegg. Well done Nick, you may have gone from 'hero' to 'zero' among the wider mass of the British electorate and be on course to destroy your own political party in the process in the space of six months but you've won a Histomat award!

Runner up: The Police - especially Met police commissioner Paul Stevenson. Despite their past track record of bloodshed while 'policing protests' ranging the anti-fascist and revolutionary socialist Blair Peach 31 years ago to Ian Tomlinson at the G20 protests, the police seemed to have learnt very little when faced with students protesting this year. Guys - when faced by 12 year old school students and disabled protesters wielding wheelchairs you shouldn't need to shit yourselves and start beating them up, and we shouldn't have to all praise your 'restraint' and 'professionalism' because you didn't resort to actually shooting those exercising their democratic rights but only left them needing brain surgery.

2009 Histomat Socialist Bloggers of the Year: This year has seen a proliferation of sorts in the number of blogs and internet sites documenting the history of far-left wing groups in the UK = for example see the list here, but I am aware that I have never given this prestigious award to a woman and so - even though she urged lefties to vote Lib Dem in the 2010 elections, took a crappy position on the SWP/Counterfire split and is already currently in slight danger of 'over-exposure' (she was on the BBC's Any Questions recently) - I have been increasingly impressed with the quality of Laurie Penny's work as the year progressed, which ranged from reports while 'embedded' within the UK student occupations to discussions of Mad Men, so she is a very deserved winner.

Runner up: This is Gramsci Country

2009 Histomat Most Incredible Quote of the Year:
'He has an incredible legacy: he improved the lives of millions of people here and around the world.'
Ed Miliband remembers Gordon Brown (well I guess someone has to...)

2009 Histomat Most Idiotesque Quote of the Year:
'You've Never Had It So Good' - rich Tory parasitical fuck Lord Young on the economic crisis. Young went on to describe the looming attack on 100,000 public sector jobs as a number so insignificant it falls 'within the margin of error'.

Runner up:
'A fascinating book...beautifully written, it is a rich and deeply moving history, which leaves the reader awed, humbled, yet uplifted...Figes visits their ordeals with enormous compassion, and he brings their history to life with his superb story-telling skills. I hope he writes for ever'
Historian Orlando Figes's 'skills' means he not only writes books - he also writes his own book reviews