Not Descended from Fearful Men

A friend of mine sent me a link last week to an old interview of the finest cricket commentator, John Arlott, in conversation with the erudite former England captain, Mike Brearley.
Just before I indulged in some cricket nostalgia, I finally got round to viewing the Youtube hit of the racist outburst of foul and bitter woman on a South London tram. Her rambling diatribe culminated in the very essence of ignorance and racial intolerance, “You’re not British: you’re black.”

I am not sure there could be a greater contrast on the spectrum of human intelligence and understanding than between that harridan and the gentle rythmic prose of John Arlott.
He was an old-fashioned liberal with a generally conservative outlook but also with progressive views on the need for social progress in Britain on class and colour. His unyielding stand against the hateful values of apartheid, tied to the principles of cricket and fair play, during the D’Oliveira affair pricked the conscience of the nation. Britain had to decide in its post colonial era whether it was acceptable to judge people by the colour of their skin and being mainly a people of discerning outlook, we chose to reject discrimination.
Of course, prejudice will never be eradicated but John Arlott was a voice of rare eloquence and persuasiveness at a pivotal moment in our history.

Simple and Plain

Home Secretary, Theresa May, wrote in the Mail on Sunday about the “lessons I have learned” about the August riots. She needn’t have bothered.
La May was, I guess, obliged to attend the LSE/Guardian conference ‘Reading the Riots’ last week which demonstrated plenty of evidence of police harassment and deep poverty of opportunity which is fuelling inner city anger. Once unleashed it allowed mass looting and civil disorder to take place.
However, what we discern from Ms May’s sour article is, she only saw looting. She closed her mind entirely to the notion there could have been any provocation which lead to all this theft, burglary and arson, “they were thieving pure and simple.”
Her response to serial discrimination by police stop and search policy described by one interviewee as “causing us hell” was to say coldly, “good.” These glib words are aimed to encourage the police and the panic-stricken commuters of the home counties she is on their side. But a good Home Sec should not take such pleasure in being so divisive. It is facile to just condemn the criminality: she should have the political guts to admit the police can do wrong and their methods do need modifying from time to time. We already know they search proportionately ten times more black youths than white.
Willie Whitelaw listened to Lord Scarman when he reported on Brixton 1981 and exerted his authority on the police to reform their practices. So did Jack Straw with MacPherson. Theresa May’s trite response demonstrates an unwillingness to learn about the daily urban experience of the young and a reticence to consider them of equal human value to others.
Her example of the good things in society such as the “Royal Wedding” showed a certain remoteness. The idea the deprived in the inner cities should look to the aristocracy to gain a sense of national identity and purpose is beyond absurd..




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Up With This We Shall Not Put

Mayor of London Boris Johnson is considerably more adept at getting under Cameron's skin than anyone else including the leader of the Opposistion.
The clear intention of his serial undermining of the PM is establishing himself in the party's mind as Cameron's natural successor. It's working.
He wasted no time this week putting into eloquent terms the visceral hatred of the right wing backbenchers over the rushed plans to fix the Eurozone ("we are in risk of saving of saving the cancer not the patient.")
However, Boris's fundamental point in opposing this closer fiscal union of the 17 was right:: it is just not democracy, dear boy.
The Euro was a political experiment which glossed over significant economic flaws. It rumbled along pretty well while economies showed sustained growth but has now began to unravel as tough times have persisted
It is not pride which is forcing Merkel and Sarkozy into this ill-starred amalgamation of sovereign states: they don't know what else to do. It seems amazing to me that France, a fiercely independent and defiant nation are going to allow their mighty Republic to be subsumed into a super Euro nation.
Maybe they won't, Sarkozy faces an election next year and any candidate settng himself against the plan would have a favourite's chance. Similarly, Angela faces electoral defeat in a few months.
So amusing as it is to see the PM treated like an ineffectual fag by 'school bully' Johnson, it is a petty domestic drama in a Europe close to political meltdown.

J'accuse!

To the Leveson Inquiry and on the stand the much maligned Alistair Campbell.

He offered some poignant examples of the Machiavellian arts of the press while he was Tony Blair’s press secretary which subsequently shed more light on Campbell’s ‘war strategy’ for New Labour. It reminded me of the film 'The Untouchables' when grisled vice cop Sean Connery explains the facts of life to principled flatfoot Kevin Costner. “He pulls a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue!”

Campbell, appeared as the Professor of Spin. No-one has seen the media quite the way Campbell has. Except spin is not the original sin here. It is a ploy for turning a story on its head or getting a narrow aspect to be the common focus but its creation was to counteract the deceit, invention and intellectual corruption of the tabloid press.

Naturally he had a vast amount of strong examples. The best, on the theme of invented quotes, was a Mail on Sunday piece on the recent appael court verdict of the Amanda Knox trial in Italy. Clearly the hacks had been told to prepare for either eventuality but had miraculously inserted reaction quotes. This much suspected practise was exposed when the wrong version went on-line by mistake.

The implications for these editors obsessing about subjects could have more disturbing consequences. The teenage like gasping about MMR and its non-existent link to autism was fuelled by the Mail and the Express and led to a huge drop in vaccinations. Not just idiotic but “dangerous to public health,” he said. Blair’s refusal to engage with the media about his son Leo’s jabs led to headlines implying it was proof there was something suspect about MMR. Tabloid hysteria can often trump scientific fact as we have seen for many years with drug policy in UK.

Campbell’s submission was a more like a treatise setting out eloquently the history and process of the descent of the newspaper industry into the "culture of negativity". It hinted at times at a diagnosis of the flawed psychology of the tabloid editor.

But ultimately it was a depressing and disturbing picture of the evolution of the press desks of Murdoch Dacre and Desmond into news machines seeking to forge the nation’s consciousness into one based on fear, xenophobia, jealousy and contempt.

How Very Dare You

I still don't like Hugh Grant much as an actor but he continues to play a blinder in the hacking inquiry.
His insinuation of hacking by Mail on Sunday (and in time other papers) was inevitable. I expected their response to be somthing like, "Associated Newspapers deplore any suggestion of hacking of public figures by individual members of the organisation. The circumstances of the case raised by Mr Hugh Grant will be fully investigated. We continue to co-operate fully with the Leveson Inquiry."
But no. That's it would have said if the company lawyer wrote it. But I get the impression it was pennd by someone senior in the editorial department when they gave Grant both barrells accusing him of "mendacious smears driven by his hatred of the media."
Grant has been shown to be pretty formidable at putting his case and has done so in good-humoured yet robust way. None of his assertions have yet to be disproved and it is extremely hard to see why a reasoned individual with a firm grasp of the facts and the processes would suddenly and maliciously invent pure lies before a legal inquiry. The MoS also "utterly refutes .... they got any story as a result of phone hacking."
Permit me to reserve judgement on that one - like Leveson will.

Something for Nothing

There was something just not quite right about the suspension of the Head of UKBA, Brodie Clark for relaxing border controls. Why would a career Civil Servant defy all his instincts of caution and take unilateral unauthorised action.

The whispering Govt source, usually a SpAd from the HO, told the Telegraph that is exactly what happened. "They broke Ministerial instructions. They had specific Ministerial instrucions not to do what they did."

Now the whistleblowers have emerged to tell various papers the changes were sanctioned by at least Damian Green, the imigration Minister. Green asked for a range of options to be presented to him in July to cope with the huge queues at the borders following stringent cuts in staffing and budgets. The idea that Departmental spending can be slashed without any impact on service standards may have finally reached its nemesis.

Theresa May (for it is she) will be making a statement to the House today and will no doubt bat off these accusations. Unless there is proof of Ministerial authorisation, they will be able to hold their officials up as their human shields.

Yer man, Brodie Clark, is likely to have access to the specific communications which would show where culpabilty lies. But as he is sipping coffee in his conservatory so he cannot show it. In any case there is often a code in these situations where senior officials fall on their swords silently for a quick settlement and a future quango post.

Unless some document with Ministerial paw prints emerges before Ms May's appearance before the HAC on Tuesday the HO Ministers will be home free.

At least this incident may serve to remind them that the claptrap paraded to the media of huge savings from bureaucracy without any effect on services has its limits in reality.

Meddling Kids

The measures, announced last week, to remove discrimination against Catholic marriage in the Royal family were a welcome correction to a peculiar anachronism of the British Constitution.

But a few days on we discover the almost unheard of Queen's, and by extension, Prince's Consent to legislation. Any Bill which may have some impact of Charles's £18m income from his vast Duchy estates have to be agreed to by him first.

The Guardian discovered Ministers had on 17 occassions since 2005 written to Clarence House and begged him to to oblige them his approval. It would seem this 'power' was granted to Edward III's son in the 14th Century and was not rescinded even by Cromwell.

There can hardly a more outrageous example of the right of privilege over the democratic will of the people. But it depends rather on what Charles's reaction has been. Either he always let the Bills through unquestioningly and slightly annoyed at the fuss. Or he took the opportunity to express his misgivings, concerns or outright opposition to various measures on planning or employment law.

The Royals and No 10 are saying nowt and looking at such questions with disdain (How dare they be so impertinent?).

A quick denial of any interference would have killed the story but silence breeds suspicion that he acted in character and stuck his nose where he had no right to do. There were over a dozen Ministers from Labour who wrote out to Charles. At least one of them must have enough Republican spirit left to drop Charlie in it.