Back in December, the editor of the Independent wrote a leader entitled Our view of MPs has been tested to breaking point.
In it, he said:
Over the past few parliaments, the reputation of our MPs has taken a battering. The sleazy 1990s were followed by the Iraq War, launched on shoddy intelligence, and against which a million of us marched, to no avail.
Then in quick succession came an expenses crisis which showed many politicians stealing from the public purse, and a financial crisis which wasn’t caused by the poor, but for which they picked up the bill.
And in all that time this newspaper has resisted the caricature of our political class as a bunch of grubby apparatchiks on the take. We believe very strongly in democracy, and reckon that for all its failings, Britain’s democracy is relatively free of corruption. We’ve also argued that though Westminster has its share of crooks, many if not most MPs are decent, industrious, public-spirited types who could get paid better elsewhere.
And so he went on.
This week's news was that the former Head of Civil Service who might arguably have an axe to grind but equally might just know more about MPs than the rest of us, said: Ministers don't get reality of life. He went on: few politicians have any idea what life is like for people living on benefits and criticised those who argued We send our children to private schools, we have private healthcare, we travel by car or chauffeur, we don't go on public transport.
He went on to suggest that ministers should have done jobs like the population they're serving.
Locally, activists who want to change the system argue that they will note vote as the whole system is rotten. Is it surprising when they feel their MPs are as far removed as this. Not that they have any idea what system they do want of course.
We continue to live in difficult and unpleasant times.
Thursday 12 March 2015
Wednesday 4 March 2015
The stars have it
Astrology is a 'diagnostic tool' that may help the National Health Service and people who say otherwise are 'racist' an MP has claimed. So says an article in my newspaper.
Astrology could be used to 'take huge pressure off doctors' and that one day it would have a role in healthcare.
[The MP] was critical of people 'such as Professor Brian Cox'.
The opposition is based on ... the SIP formula - superstition, ignorance and prejudice. They are deeply prejudiced, and racially prejudiced, which is troubling.
As usual, one is lost for words. I assume his definition of 'racist' is rather different from the rest of the world's.
And as for ignorance: I wonder how good he is at special relativity and understanding spacetime. I know who I would trust to know about the cosmos.
This is not, as one might expect, the outpourings of a UKIP MP but of a Tory one. We must study their manifesto closely.
Astrology could be used to 'take huge pressure off doctors' and that one day it would have a role in healthcare.
[The MP] was critical of people 'such as Professor Brian Cox'.
The opposition is based on ... the SIP formula - superstition, ignorance and prejudice. They are deeply prejudiced, and racially prejudiced, which is troubling.
As usual, one is lost for words. I assume his definition of 'racist' is rather different from the rest of the world's.
And as for ignorance: I wonder how good he is at special relativity and understanding spacetime. I know who I would trust to know about the cosmos.
This is not, as one might expect, the outpourings of a UKIP MP but of a Tory one. We must study their manifesto closely.
Sunday 1 March 2015
Language
Janet Street-Porter - not someone I usually quote - on the subject of politicians:
... The problem for all political leaders is that they may have policies, and they may have conviction, but none of that is getting through to disenchanted voters, a large percentage of whom haven't decided whether to bother voting, and if they do, who will get their support.
The tragedy of talented people on the left or right is that they are trapped in a system which has lost the support of a big proportion of the electorate. Politicians speak, and we don't understand what language they are using. It's not one in common usage. It's antediluvian, peppered with platitudes about 'hard-working people'.
She goes on:
If only we could remove modern politics' false demarcation lines. They seem redundant to most of the population who can't understand why essential stuff like the NHS and education, care of the elderly and transport aren't run through cross-party consensus aided by impartial advisers. Instead, convention dictates that each new government imposes a new strategy from the top, and huge sums of money are wasted implementing what I call macho dick-on-table strategy: change for change's sake.
We've already heard how Andrew Lansley's re-organisation of the NHS has been dubbed a 'disaster'. Ditto Michael Gove's rewriting of the school curriculum and examinations, now being toned down by his successor.
I seem to recall that we once had an independent civil service who ran things under the watchful eye of Ministers. Now we have Ministers thinking they are Chief Executives without any knowledge, or grounding in the relevant subjects - although most did go to school, some may have used public transport and some even the NHS - and interested in their own short-term career enhancements.
Oh yes, it was so good to hear that the Education Minister wrote to the school of the three girls who gone to join ISIS. Well done on another sterling letter (gets publicity; no cost; appears caring).
... The problem for all political leaders is that they may have policies, and they may have conviction, but none of that is getting through to disenchanted voters, a large percentage of whom haven't decided whether to bother voting, and if they do, who will get their support.
The tragedy of talented people on the left or right is that they are trapped in a system which has lost the support of a big proportion of the electorate. Politicians speak, and we don't understand what language they are using. It's not one in common usage. It's antediluvian, peppered with platitudes about 'hard-working people'.
She goes on:
If only we could remove modern politics' false demarcation lines. They seem redundant to most of the population who can't understand why essential stuff like the NHS and education, care of the elderly and transport aren't run through cross-party consensus aided by impartial advisers. Instead, convention dictates that each new government imposes a new strategy from the top, and huge sums of money are wasted implementing what I call macho dick-on-table strategy: change for change's sake.
We've already heard how Andrew Lansley's re-organisation of the NHS has been dubbed a 'disaster'. Ditto Michael Gove's rewriting of the school curriculum and examinations, now being toned down by his successor.
I seem to recall that we once had an independent civil service who ran things under the watchful eye of Ministers. Now we have Ministers thinking they are Chief Executives without any knowledge, or grounding in the relevant subjects - although most did go to school, some may have used public transport and some even the NHS - and interested in their own short-term career enhancements.
Oh yes, it was so good to hear that the Education Minister wrote to the school of the three girls who gone to join ISIS. Well done on another sterling letter (gets publicity; no cost; appears caring).
Dealing with terrorists
The unmasking of Jihadi John is much in the news. Here is some advice from someone who has experienced capture and the prospect of imminent and completely illogical execution.
Penelope Tremayne was captured in January 1986 and held for five weeks by Tamil 'freedom fighters', hourly expecting to be shot as a spy. She ends her book Nor Bars an Iron Cage with the following advice:
Never trust anyone who kills and imprisons people while saying he is winning their freedom.
Never believe that the man is a victim who takes his neighbour's house by force and says it is self-defence.
Never take a bully at his own valuation as a hero.'
She goes on:
Don't over-estimate the intelligence of your captors. Terrorism is a moron's occupation: if the killers and bombers had good minds they would be doing better things. Almost every major mistake I made came from supposing that my interrogators had put two and two together and made four. Over and over again it came out that they had not even tried to, let alone succeeded.
And it is fatally easy to suppose that they know much more than they do. They say so all the time, and you slip into accepting the idea. Because in physical terms they have complete power over you, you tend (or I tended) to exaggerate their importance. It is necessary to remember all the time that they are driven by one engine only: the desire to dominate.
Intelligent men may succumb to this as well as stupid ones, but they find more intelligent methods than terrorism. And some of these involve making use of terrorists, of their blind vanity and contempt for others.
I cannot generalize about the the minds of the puppeteers. But it is not they whom you and I are likely to come face to face with, it is only their manikins, who jerk and dangle at the strings' ends, and lob a bomb into a crowd of strangers in the belief that they are reshaping society.
Let us not help to build up their illusions about themselves. The greatest of these is that they are fighters in a noble cause, to whom anything is therefore allowed. They see bullying as heroism, and in their eyes it is not they who are terrorists but those who stand against them. They see the murders that they or their superiors commit as the fault of the government which refuses to give them their way; and if they do not torture their prisoners, that proves to them that they are kind and generous.
At all costs I want to say, never accept the hand of friendship from such people. Do not be deluded by any cant about compassion; it is nether godlike nor humanly right to go along with indiscriminate murder, and that is what you are doing if you make friends with hostage-takers.
Are you tempted to say: Yes, but this man who actually stands talking to me in my cell: he is a human being too, he has not shot me so far, and I don't know if he has shot anyone else. Have I not a duty of compassion towards him? And is there not a chance that he might change his approach to life if I let him see I understand that he too has a point of view? Believe me, he is very much likelier to shoot the next victim he gets in your stead, if you have encouraged him to think that his point of view has attracted your sympathy.
I wonder how she would feel today. The actions of people prepared to do the one thing one never expected of a human being - cold-bloodedly to sacrifice one's life for a cause - was surely a game-changer.
Penelope Tremayne was captured in January 1986 and held for five weeks by Tamil 'freedom fighters', hourly expecting to be shot as a spy. She ends her book Nor Bars an Iron Cage with the following advice:
Never trust anyone who kills and imprisons people while saying he is winning their freedom.
Never believe that the man is a victim who takes his neighbour's house by force and says it is self-defence.
Never take a bully at his own valuation as a hero.'
She goes on:
Don't over-estimate the intelligence of your captors. Terrorism is a moron's occupation: if the killers and bombers had good minds they would be doing better things. Almost every major mistake I made came from supposing that my interrogators had put two and two together and made four. Over and over again it came out that they had not even tried to, let alone succeeded.
And it is fatally easy to suppose that they know much more than they do. They say so all the time, and you slip into accepting the idea. Because in physical terms they have complete power over you, you tend (or I tended) to exaggerate their importance. It is necessary to remember all the time that they are driven by one engine only: the desire to dominate.
Intelligent men may succumb to this as well as stupid ones, but they find more intelligent methods than terrorism. And some of these involve making use of terrorists, of their blind vanity and contempt for others.
I cannot generalize about the the minds of the puppeteers. But it is not they whom you and I are likely to come face to face with, it is only their manikins, who jerk and dangle at the strings' ends, and lob a bomb into a crowd of strangers in the belief that they are reshaping society.
Let us not help to build up their illusions about themselves. The greatest of these is that they are fighters in a noble cause, to whom anything is therefore allowed. They see bullying as heroism, and in their eyes it is not they who are terrorists but those who stand against them. They see the murders that they or their superiors commit as the fault of the government which refuses to give them their way; and if they do not torture their prisoners, that proves to them that they are kind and generous.
At all costs I want to say, never accept the hand of friendship from such people. Do not be deluded by any cant about compassion; it is nether godlike nor humanly right to go along with indiscriminate murder, and that is what you are doing if you make friends with hostage-takers.
Are you tempted to say: Yes, but this man who actually stands talking to me in my cell: he is a human being too, he has not shot me so far, and I don't know if he has shot anyone else. Have I not a duty of compassion towards him? And is there not a chance that he might change his approach to life if I let him see I understand that he too has a point of view? Believe me, he is very much likelier to shoot the next victim he gets in your stead, if you have encouraged him to think that his point of view has attracted your sympathy.
I wonder how she would feel today. The actions of people prepared to do the one thing one never expected of a human being - cold-bloodedly to sacrifice one's life for a cause - was surely a game-changer.
Looking for someone to blame
A great posting on the BBC website. A photographer called Raphael Schutzer-Weissman posted this picture and caption:
I took this photo in response to the anti-immigrant rhetoric increasingly noticeable in the UK and Europe recently.
"At first it seemed to me that Romanians were the target, but the Charlie Hebdo atrocity took things to a new level.
It became a blame game. Blame the immigrants, blame the Muslims, blame the Jews, blame somebody, for something. To my mind inclusiveness and diversity are things to be celebrated, not demonised.
It became a blame game. Blame the immigrants, blame the Muslims, blame the Jews, blame somebody, for something. To my mind inclusiveness and diversity are things to be celebrated, not demonised.
Monday 23 February 2015
Saying it as one sees it
Despite my best endeavours, it is becoming almost impossible to make wry comments about the nastiness of the election campaign. The politicians are almost beyond parody, promising free daffodils to anyone who will vote for them; promises which will be conveniently lost when they see the reality of what they have inherited; the lack of money for daffodils - due of course to the incompetent daffodil growers; or being an aspiration without a specific time commitment which can then be kicked into the very long grass.
Labour announces an initiative one day. The Tories - and last week it was Grant Shapps - promptly said it was 'rubbish' and that Labour was doing no more than re-announcing something they had already 'announced'; and anyway they (the Tories) had already done it and more. So, yah boo! the playground bullies used to end.
Who to believe? Much better to read the Daily Mash and have done. There is more truth there than in anything supposedly grown up politicians are saying.
A circular came through the letterbox from Labour today. Labour's Tim Dwelly, who chairs Cornwall Council's Economy Committee, commented:
It is now clear that the Government simply doesn't trust Cornwall to spend its own money. I would describe the Government's approach to the EU programme as a total shambles. It is hard to believe they could be this incompetent - our MPs appear to be either devoid of any influence or completely silent.
Overstatement? Probably not since the arguments on who should take decisions on EU money have been going backward and forward for months. Hey ho for Localism.
He goes on: While £500m of funding for Cornwall is held back, Cameron and Clegg, though adults, could not sort out between them who was going to announce, or re-announce - crumbs from the Whitehall table to provide cycle paths in Redruth.
Having been involved in just such bickering about who should announce what in the past, it all sounds horribly familiar.
But hang on: cycle paths in Redruth? Are they going to make a step-change to the economic performance of Cornwall? Maybe I agree with Whitehall after all and Cameron and Clegg were simply arguing who should not announce the money.
Labour announces an initiative one day. The Tories - and last week it was Grant Shapps - promptly said it was 'rubbish' and that Labour was doing no more than re-announcing something they had already 'announced'; and anyway they (the Tories) had already done it and more. So, yah boo! the playground bullies used to end.
Who to believe? Much better to read the Daily Mash and have done. There is more truth there than in anything supposedly grown up politicians are saying.
A circular came through the letterbox from Labour today. Labour's Tim Dwelly, who chairs Cornwall Council's Economy Committee, commented:
It is now clear that the Government simply doesn't trust Cornwall to spend its own money. I would describe the Government's approach to the EU programme as a total shambles. It is hard to believe they could be this incompetent - our MPs appear to be either devoid of any influence or completely silent.
Overstatement? Probably not since the arguments on who should take decisions on EU money have been going backward and forward for months. Hey ho for Localism.
He goes on: While £500m of funding for Cornwall is held back, Cameron and Clegg, though adults, could not sort out between them who was going to announce, or re-announce - crumbs from the Whitehall table to provide cycle paths in Redruth.
Having been involved in just such bickering about who should announce what in the past, it all sounds horribly familiar.
But hang on: cycle paths in Redruth? Are they going to make a step-change to the economic performance of Cornwall? Maybe I agree with Whitehall after all and Cameron and Clegg were simply arguing who should not announce the money.
Monday 19 January 2015
A change of pace
We have been quite quiet for the last few months. This has not been because we have not been thinking: we have been far too much of that. It is because our lives have been changing.
The editorship of this blog is now moving on - it will increasingly be coming from my pen - and, as we face the most divisive and unpleasant election of recent years, it will no doubt become more political. One of the first new themes will be They Just Don't Get It as we all struggle to survive the onslaught of pre-election announcement after announcement, boiled down into ridiculous, unbelievable, and certainly undeliverable, promises and sound-bites.
But the essence will remain the same: the desire to point up muddled thinking, to understand the motivations, strategies and tactics of the players, and to poke fun at the illogicalities of modern life.
A key inspiration is provided by a a website entitled 'Now write about it'. This is designed to encourage literacy. I am just seeking to refine and capture ideas in diary form.
The editorship of this blog is now moving on - it will increasingly be coming from my pen - and, as we face the most divisive and unpleasant election of recent years, it will no doubt become more political. One of the first new themes will be They Just Don't Get It as we all struggle to survive the onslaught of pre-election announcement after announcement, boiled down into ridiculous, unbelievable, and certainly undeliverable, promises and sound-bites.
But the essence will remain the same: the desire to point up muddled thinking, to understand the motivations, strategies and tactics of the players, and to poke fun at the illogicalities of modern life.
A key inspiration is provided by a a website entitled 'Now write about it'. This is designed to encourage literacy. I am just seeking to refine and capture ideas in diary form.
Monday 12 January 2015
Depicting famous people
The events surrounding the shootings at Charlie Hebdo were horrific. It is incomprehensible to liberal Western traditions that the depiction of someone in a cartoon should lead to the killing of the cartoonist. There was enough furore after the 'Danish cartoon' a couple of years ago - which was re-printed in Charlie Hebdo - but nothing like this.
The sin, if sin it was, was to depict the prophet. 'Islamic tradition' - not Islamic law - forbids the portrayal of the prophet or any of his companions. This ban led to a flourishing of calligraphy and other recognisable features of the Islamic art.
Where would Christianity be without its depiction of its prophets? The Renaissance would simply never have happened and our great art galleries would be empty. You could get burned at the stake for suggesting the sun was at the centre of the solar system and the same would have probably awaited you had you produced a satirical cartoon of a religious figure. Thankfully printing was in its infancy and Private Eye and Charlie Hebdo did not exist.
By the time of the Enlightenment, things were rather more relaxed.
North Korea clearly feels as sensitive as the terrorists if the fuss about The Interview is anything to go by. Having initially reeled from the hacking, Sony strengthened their sinews and issued the film having had the best publicity it could have hoped for. Sony 1, North Korea 0.
The newspapers were clearly feeling emboldened for the following appeared on a BBC website today, a week after the Charlie Hebdo events:
The Big Kim?
A suggestion that North Korea is keen on opening a restaurant in Scotland gives sub-editors plenty of punning opportunities.
"Kim dine with me," says the Daily Star, playing on the name of the reclusive state's "tubby tyrant", Kim Jong-un, as it suggests that dog meat soup and pine-nut gruel would be on the menu. The paper explains that a Pyongyang-backed restaurant is already open in Amsterdam, channelling 30% of its profits back to the state, and that Kim has "warmed" to Scotland because of its independence campaign.
The Daily Mirror dresses up the "supreme leader" in a tartan hat and ginger wig, renaming him "Kim Jock-un". Its effort at a "McJong's" menu includes Kim sum, Pyong lamb and spotted dictator. It says the North Korean leader has "fallen in love with all things Scottish, particularly whisky".
"See you Kimmy," is the headline in the Sun, which also pictures Kim in a bonnet, declaring: "I'm the Supreme Eater." That paper's idea of North Korean fine dining includes barbecued mollusc and cold noodles, washed down with an aphrodisiac made from bear's bile.
This is indeed fighting talk. It is clear that the three papers are keen to be seen not being cowed.
A tourism leaflet for a park in Budapest shows how we can prick pomposity. No one is currently holding up Socialist Russia as a paragon of virtue or feels strongly enough to respond and the leaflet is therefore free to mock the statues with no risk of causing offence. Offence turns to farce. Refreshing and revolutionary stuff.
The sin, if sin it was, was to depict the prophet. 'Islamic tradition' - not Islamic law - forbids the portrayal of the prophet or any of his companions. This ban led to a flourishing of calligraphy and other recognisable features of the Islamic art.
Where would Christianity be without its depiction of its prophets? The Renaissance would simply never have happened and our great art galleries would be empty. You could get burned at the stake for suggesting the sun was at the centre of the solar system and the same would have probably awaited you had you produced a satirical cartoon of a religious figure. Thankfully printing was in its infancy and Private Eye and Charlie Hebdo did not exist.
By the time of the Enlightenment, things were rather more relaxed.
North Korea clearly feels as sensitive as the terrorists if the fuss about The Interview is anything to go by. Having initially reeled from the hacking, Sony strengthened their sinews and issued the film having had the best publicity it could have hoped for. Sony 1, North Korea 0.
The newspapers were clearly feeling emboldened for the following appeared on a BBC website today, a week after the Charlie Hebdo events:
The Big Kim?
A suggestion that North Korea is keen on opening a restaurant in Scotland gives sub-editors plenty of punning opportunities.
"Kim dine with me," says the Daily Star, playing on the name of the reclusive state's "tubby tyrant", Kim Jong-un, as it suggests that dog meat soup and pine-nut gruel would be on the menu. The paper explains that a Pyongyang-backed restaurant is already open in Amsterdam, channelling 30% of its profits back to the state, and that Kim has "warmed" to Scotland because of its independence campaign.
The Daily Mirror dresses up the "supreme leader" in a tartan hat and ginger wig, renaming him "Kim Jock-un". Its effort at a "McJong's" menu includes Kim sum, Pyong lamb and spotted dictator. It says the North Korean leader has "fallen in love with all things Scottish, particularly whisky".
"See you Kimmy," is the headline in the Sun, which also pictures Kim in a bonnet, declaring: "I'm the Supreme Eater." That paper's idea of North Korean fine dining includes barbecued mollusc and cold noodles, washed down with an aphrodisiac made from bear's bile.
This is indeed fighting talk. It is clear that the three papers are keen to be seen not being cowed.
A tourism leaflet for a park in Budapest shows how we can prick pomposity. No one is currently holding up Socialist Russia as a paragon of virtue or feels strongly enough to respond and the leaflet is therefore free to mock the statues with no risk of causing offence. Offence turns to farce. Refreshing and revolutionary stuff.
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