Cassilis

Labels: Media

Sometimes politicians land on a phrase that particularly resonates with the public mood and gives added impetus to that most dangerous of things in politics, 'momentum'. David Cameron's address to the CBI yesterday morning wasn't particularly remarkable but for the inclusion of what might be just such a 'killer phrase' - Labour supporters will contest it and they may have reasonable grounds for doing so but given the general air of disquiet around at the moment the prospect of an election poster like this will concentrate minds inside No.10....

Labels: Media

There’s a strong likelihood that this post will pander to the lame stereotype of the tight-fisted Scot but hey, I am what I am.

Should I feel guilty about the amount of free online content I consume each week / month? I don’t mean blogs of course since they don’t charge for the ‘privilege’ (although perhaps an interesting parlour game on what blogs we’d pay to read if we had to?) but newspapers, magazines and journals etc.

Sating an appetite for political news and comment in pre-internet times was an expensive job. Without any online access and with rather meagre means I was forced either to linger in the newsagents irritating staff and genuine customers by reading as much as I could of the New Statesman or the Economist or, when expulsion from WH Smith’s loomed large, actually buying the things. And such was my appetite that once I’d actually been forced down that ‘buy’ route subscription became the most economical way of doing it. So while my peers waited with bated breath for ‘Q’ or ‘NME’ to land on their doormats it was the prospect of Bagehot or Saki that sustained me each week.

Online access (first at work then at home) changed all this. As far as I know, other than the Scotsman (they’d have to pay me), none of the major UK broadsheets charge for basic access online and the most recent editions of the Economist, the New Statesman and the Spectator are almost entirely free each week. There’s often some sort of subscription option (print or online) that does confer some extra goodies such as archive access or the occasional subscriber-only article but for the main part most of the new content can be seen for free and often before print release.

I think the impulse to guilt is prompted by the fact that I’m obviously on some list of past subscribers - I regularly get post from Boris Johnson trying to solicit a weekly fee for the Spectator’s ‘Champagne for the Brain’ or from the Economist explaining that a subscription to them will leave me ‘better informed’ than my work colleagues (a curious marketing angle that). Needles to say all such pleas find their way to my recycling bin. I like to believe that the likes of the Spectator or the Economist would applaud my market-conscious approach of refusing to pay for that which I can get for nothing and the New Statesman would at least welcome my recycling efforts.

A couple of small flaws though. The excellent Prospect is still largely a subscription / purchase only publication so my spend isn’t entirely eradicated. And now that I can read the Daily Mail free online I’m actually forced to buy toilet paper. No system’s perfect.

Labels: Media

Wikipedia divides people. A few weeks back in the Times Oliver Kamm was bemoaning the 'pernicious influence in our intellectual life' while many came to Wiki's defence, not least Skipper - personally I love it and favour Skipper's outlook over Oliver's - a little caution (as with any source anyway) and it's an invaluable resource.

Labels: Media, Politics

With the exception of Mr E. none of my regular reads seem to have picked up on this story. I suspect there's more than a little cultural snobbery in that and while I certainly didn't envisage posting on Celebrity Big Brother myself, having just caught the start of the lunchtime ITN news which led on the story with a statement from Gordon Brown and the Indian Government, I think it merits some comment.

Labels: Media

In the latest edition of the Hoover Institution's quarterly 'Policy Review', Mary Eberstadt looks at the growing readiness of both the left & right to identify scapegoats in the wake of 9/11 and direct all their ire in that direction, more often than not to the detriment of a genuine understanding of the issues. As she points out:

Labels: Media, Politics, Religion

From the Cambridge Online Dictionary...

• Hypocrisy [U] - when someone pretends to believe something that they do not really believe or that is the opposite of what they do or say at another time

So, for the hypocrisy charges being levelled at Ruth Kelly across the media to have any substance we need to find evidence of her having condemned parents who send their children to a private school or evidence that she believes (or has claimed to believe) the state sector can satisfy all educational needs. In the deluge of comment since the story broke yesterday I've yet to come across evidence of either scenario so the hypocrisy charge is just plain nonsense.

The reason the charge still comes up differs depending on what part of the political spectrum it comes from. Some on the left have an ideological objection to anyone using their wealth to purchase an education which isn't available to everyone. This in itself is actually a hypocritical outlook, at least for anyone who's ever purchased a £3.00 coffee when a £1.50 cup was available - the issue shouldn't be economic choice but the quality and availability of state provision. Provided the public sector satisfies a minimum standard (which should nonetheless be very high) then the state has no more right to a view on where you send your children than where you buy your coffee. That so many in the Labour party subscribe to the politically adolescent nonsense that 'no one should be able to buy better education / healthcare' etc. says more about their lack of underlying faith in the state sector than it does about their principles.

When levelled from the right the charge is a little easier to explain but no more noble for that - it's simply political point-scoring. As I understand neither Ruth Kelly nor any modern Labour figure has ever advocated the abolition of private education or condemned parents who use their wealth to buy a better education for their children. What they have done is committed themselves to improving the state sector to such a degree that it matches any provision available in the private sector. The goal is obviously to make the need for private education redundant but even with New Labour's readiness to overstate their own success I don't think anyone has ever suggested they've achieved that yet. So, in the meantime, for a minister to use the private sector isn't in contradiction of their principles, simply a recognition that they've yet achieve all their goals. The fact that politically I and many others don't think it will ever be possible to get that sort of parity is a different argument.

If it came to light that having identified a deficiency in the education available to her child, Ruth Kelly decided not to act for fear of the consequences for her political career I would have thought far less of her than I do today. The worst she is guilty of, perhaps, is overstating the improvements Labour have made to special needs provision in the state sector. But then 'Minister exaggerates the success of their own policy' isn't as catchy a headline as one beginning 'Hypocritical minister...'

Labels: Media, Politics

Plenty of bloggers and MSM commentators have got here before me but if I'm going to post less often then I can't get too precious about topicality...

The execution of Saddam clearly wasn't the most important issue facing Prime Minister Nouri Maliki's government but it was by far the most high profile, internationally significant one. Whatever the debates over the legitimacy of the war the emergence of a mature, tolerant government in Baghdad would surely have been welcomed by all. So, the world was watching to see how the new Iraq contrasted with the old, how the fledgling western-style liberal democracy set its face against the barbarism and cruelty so beloved of its Baathist predecessors. Instead we get footage of a man being led to his death by a gang of hooded thugs in jeans and leather jackets, in what appears to be a derelict building with bare concrete walls and rusted iron railings, before being taunted and abused by his captors.

Even if we're to excuse / explain these events by acknowledging that Iraqi democracy is still in its infancy there's absolutely no excuse for the malnourished political response in the UK. Even those who support capital punishment (and I'm not one of them) should be appalled at the way this was handled - to my mind even the original officially-sanctioned footage was superfluous and totally unnecessary. I'll happily retract if I've simply missed the reaction (and perhaps the time of year has something to do with it) but where's the clear statement of condemnation from the PM or David Cameron? Even John Prescott's anger on yesterday's Today programme seemed directed at the emergence of mobile video footage rather than the administration of the act itself.

Labels: Media, Politics

Since there's so much visiting goes on over Christmas & New Year I found myself reading different newspapers from the one I buy as a matter of habit everyday (go on, guess?). This put me in mind of a question a fellow student asked our politics lecturer many years ago - she wanted to know which newspaper the lecturer would recommend to give a balanced and mature view on politics & current affairs?

Wisely he wouldn’t be publicly drawn on a favourite – instead he simply encouraged us to use the college library to flick through most of the broadsheets most days. He pointed out that all newspapers have an agenda so the only real way to get a balanced view was to read as many as possible - it seems to me that that’s something too many people forget at the moment. I couldn’t possibly defend some of the more lurid headlines and scaremongering you often find in the Daily Mail but it always puzzles how people quick to criticise the Mail appear blind to the agendas being pushed by their own newspaper of choice (usually the Guardian). Granted those agendas might be advanced with a little more tact and subtlety but they are agendas nonetheless.

I actually met the guy a few years later when he stood unsuccessfully as the Liberal Democrat candidate in a by-election. We returned to the conversation around newspapers and he said that while he stood by his advice in respect of leader columns (for obvious reasons), you could still make an objective judgement about which newspaper best understood the distinction between news and comment and kept the two very distinct. Surprisingly for a politics lecturer & LibDem party member he favoured the Telegraph for this reason.

Labels: Media, Politics

With the exception of Dizzy I don't think any other UK bloggers picked up on this? Joseph Rago writing in the Wall Street Journal on the world of blogs and their political influence. Generally speaking there's nothing bloggers like talking about so much as themselves (remember the reaction to Matthew Taylor!) so I'm surprised there's been so little reaction -perhaps it's the American focus.

It's a shame because, like Matthew Taylor's comments, Joseph's critique of blogging is actually quite perceptive and there are some home truths in there few of us could honestly contest. Talking about the relationship between the mainstream media (MSM) and bloggers he accuses us of:

"(riding) along with the MSM like remora fish on the bellies of sharks, picking at the scraps"

Aside from the few 'big' blogs with good Westminster contacts who occasionally break big stories, which of us could deny that's a reasonably accurate (if a little acerbic) characterisation of what we do? Rago does concede that we meet more success in "purveying opinion and comment" but the main focus for his criticism is the lack of quality:

"Most of them are pretty awful. Many, even some with large followings, are downright appalling. Every conceivable belief is on the scene, but the collective prose, by and large, is homogeneous: A tone of careless informality prevails; posts oscillate between the uselessly brief and the uselessly logorrheic; complexity and complication are eschewed; the humor is cringe-making, with irony present only in its conspicuous absence; arguments are solipsistic; writers traffic more in pronouncement than persuasion . . ."

Again there are exceptions and it's easy to dismiss Rago as a bitter, mainstream journo who doesn't like the competition but can anyone honestly say his description is completely off the mark? Conscious that I might be 'biting the hand that feeds' and insulting my few loyal readers I'm not going to cast aspersions on any other blogs - but I can legitimately criticise my own content and Rago's comments seem reasonably fair to me. I do strive for 'persuasion' over 'pronouncement' but I'm not sure I succeed very often. Very few blogs (if any) seem interested in a sustained and coherent policy discussion - and even if that interest is there it's often subordinate to the desire for readership and comments so the posting ends up more provocative or extreme. As Rago points out:

"We rarely encounter sustained or systematic blog thought - instead, panics and manias; endless rehearsings of arguments put forward elsewhere; and a tendency to substitute ideology for cognition. The participatory Internet, in combination with the hyperlink, which allows sites to interrelate, appears to encourage mobs and mob behavior"

Someone once encouraged me to close more posts with a question rather than an answer and in this case that's not too difficult - is Rago right and, if so, how do we change things? (or, do we need to change things?)

One final thought from me - I've been trying to convince a left-leaning friend to join me on this blog to bring a different flavour, add some balance etc. To date I've had no success. To my mind a lot of the failings that Rago points out would be addressed if there were fewer individual blogs and more group blogs - blogs that still have a prevailing mode of thought perhaps and an overall outlook but which occasionally surprise their readers and make them question where they stand. If I continue to have no success with my friend I may have to solicit some support from elsewhere...?

Labels: Media, Politics

I haven't posted on it (yet) but I've been appalled by the media's readiness to play fast & loose with the rules around contempt of court and their treatment of the suspects in the Ipswich murder case. Magnus Linklater has an excellent piece in today's times...

"Those of us brought up in fear and trembling of contempt laws remember the days when the simple statement "last night a man was detained" meant that the shutters came down on all reporting and not a word could be published until the trial began. A jury would file into court, its mind uncluttered by any recent reporting."

Quite...

Labels: Media

Last night's critique of militant atheism by Rod Liddle on C4 needs little adding to. Although it tended to repeat itself a little over the hour his basic case, that atheism has shifted from a from a straightforward denial of the existence of God to an aggressive and hostile belief system with all the hallmarks of religion, was well made. If you want one quote that makes his case, one of his contributors actually said, without the slightest sense of irony:

"I don't mind differing opinions as long as they are right"

Still, there are a few aspects to the debate that Liddle didn't deal with in any depth and I promised to share my thoughts on the issue so here goes. First a few words about my background so you can put my outlook in context. I was raised a Roman Catholic (a challenging enough experience on the West Coast of Scotland during the eighties) and attended an RC secondary school. Despite the fact that my wife had a similar upbringing we've both since lapsed and we didn't marry in the Church and our first child, born during the summer, wasn't baptised. When asked I tend to describe myself as an agnostic although if pressed I'll acknowledge that I don't hold any belief in a deity, life after death etc.As it's commonly understood atheism refers to a lack of belief in supernatural beings or an intelligent creator behind the universe and, taken literally like this, I'd describe myself as an atheist. I no longer believe in the idea of an all-powerful creator or the religious interpretation of the biblical stories - in this respect there's probably little to separate me from someone like Richard Dawkins.

Where I do part company however is in their readiness to extend and subtly change the meaning of the word atheism itself. No longer content to simply deny the existence of God (a reasonable enough position given the lack of evidence) there seems to be an eagerness to launch a full-on assault on the whole psychology of religious belief and the often (though not always) positive outcomes it produces. Dawkins latest book (which to be fair I haven't read) is called 'The God Delusion' and by all accounts seeks to dismantle the very idea of religious devotion and cast those of a religious bent as deluded and mistaken. Although I'm not religious myself I have enough experience of people who are to realise that this amounts to a fundamental misunderstanding about what religious devotion means. Trying to deny or invalidate the very idea of religious belief is like trying to deny the existence of love or jealousy. Under the microscope both emotions could easily be dismissed (in most cases) as completely irrational, nothing more than a series of psychological reactions to certain stimuli - but to do so is to fundamentally misunderstand their importance. It's not the objective truth of those emotions that matter but their subjective impact and the behaviour they elicit. What's more, however ephemeral the emotions themselves their outcomes are often all to real and to ignore such outcomes because they were prompted by something that in and of itself can't be proven is daft. In essence this is the utilitarian argument and Liddle only touched on this last night. Dawkins tried to dismiss it by drawing parallels with belief in 'fairies and goblins' - if individuals choose to believe because it comforts them then that's OK but it doesn't prove an objective truth about those beliefs. In one sense he's right but the attempt to draw a parallel between several thousand years worth or religious devotion, the art & literature or moral framework inspired by it and a belief in 'fairies and goblins' is a startlingly naive position and one that doesn't become a man of Dawkins intelligence.

There's a tendency to characterise people who act according to a deeply held religious conviction as somehow inherently more dangerous or unstable than those who act according to a particular secular doctrine. This is clearly nonsense since it assumes that secular motives are, by default, scientific in nature and free from any element of faith or belief when clearly this isn't the case. A belief in the equality of the sexes for example or the efficacy of free markets is no more scientifically verifiable than a belief in Jesus Christ.Liddle also tackled that stalwart of teenage debates over religion - the discussion around the number of lives lost in religious disputes contrasted with the number lost under secular or atheistic regimes. The stock defence of atheists - that brutality under an atheist regime is coincidental and not directly prompted by the belief system - was shown to be rather flimsy. One contributor even tried to write off Stalin's crimes to Confucianism and Liddle rightly countered that this was absurd - the point isn't that religion itself prompts violence but that it's part of the human character and it will find an oultet regardless and the evidence for this is everywhere.

Labels: Media, Religion

The luxury of posting less regularly is that I can give more thought to the topics I post on. A complete coincidence but I've been writing a few words on atheism and religious belief and realised while flicking through this week's TV guide that there's a programme on the subject on C4 tonight, presented by former Today editor Rod Liddle.

Labels: Media, Religion

Granted, this is hardly breaking news but it's too delightful a story for me to let pass without comment. I've previously shared the contempt I have for some (though not all) of the jobs advertised in the Guardian's Society section every Wednesday. I also highlighted an ASI report from a few years back that indicated the order of savings that could be made by culling some of the more questionable roles.

A number of papers and blogs have picked up on a story from the marketing / PR site Brand Republic on the likely impact of George Osbourne's latest proposal to move all job adverts for the public sector on to an official website. According to the story around 790m is spent by local and central government on jobs ads each year and estimates for the cost of running the website are in the 5m region. Although there's been some predictable glee elsewhere about how this would 'stick it to the Guardian' should the Tories win the next election (as if that outcome itself wouldn't achieve something similar) , the Guardian themselves have apparently pointed out that they account for no more than 4% of all public and private recruitment advertising in the UK so the likely effects on them are small.

Still, the remarkable thing about the story is the 790m figure itself. It's a shame that this sort of story tends to interest only the political nerds like me because if it got more prominence then perhaps Labour wouldn't find it quite so easy to cry 'cuts in services' every time a Conservative suggested spending less on the public sector than Labour. One can only hope that the result of the slow drip-feed of stories like this is the public realising how extraordinarily inefficient and wasteful local & central government can be and how it's perfectly possible to cut public sending while at the same time protecting and enhancing frontline services.

Labels: Media, Politics

An interesting take on the political reaction to the Farepak collapse by George Pitcher, former Industrial editor at the Observer, over on Theos. At the height of this story I was alarmed by the readiness of some MP's to attribute blame and characterise the unfortunate events as some sort of 'capitalism gone bad' story. As far as I can tell no one has been shown to have done anything illegal or unethical and George rightly takes some politicians to task for their implications to the contrary.

"MPs on the radio were saying that these savers were "decent, ordinary, hard-working people", the implication being that those who work for big retailers and banks are villainous, pampered layabouts. MPs chose to sneer at bankers. What are bankers supposed to do? Continue to back failing companies until the banks go bust too? If so, I suspect the same MPs would be on radio saying it was a disgrace that thousands of small HBOS shareholders and pensioners should be treated this way."

Labels: Media, Politics

I posted a few weeks back on the over the top reaction many right-wing bloggers have to Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee - judging by the number of comments (I know, 9, but that's high for little old me) it was by far the most provocative post I've ever made and proof that's there's nothing bloggers like talking about more than themselves.

This morning the BBC are reporting that Tory MP and policy adviser Greg Clark says the Conservatives should look to Ms Toynbee for her thoughts on dealing with poverty and on the Today programme Polly welcomed what she called a "really radical move".

Nothing as yet on the blogs as far as I can see but I suspect it's the calm before the storm....

Labels: Media, Politics

In an interview with the Sunday Times the Association of Chief Police Officers spokesman on Child Protection, Terry Grange, has suggested that men who have sex with children should not be classed as paedophiles if the victim is between 13 and 15 years old. The story has been picked up by the BBC and the children's charity Kidscape has said Mr Grange is "on very dicey ground". The BBC story is also suggesting that Mr Grange may have changed his views slightly since the original interview and there's the prospect of a ridiculous witch hunt (depending on the tabloids reaction tomorrow) with Mr Grange is being challenged to 'define' paedophilia and gives his opinion on every possible scenario involving sex with under-16's.

This is a real shame. As a policeman Mr Grange is there to uphold the law, not to make it. And he's probably in a better position than most to point out the difficulties him and his officers face when dealing with these issues every day. Kidscape are right that this is 'dicey ground' but that's not an excuse for not discussing it. The notion that a 17 year old should be labelled a paedophile for having consensual sex with his 15 year old girlfriend is not only absurd, it actually threatens to diminish the repulsion and condemnation that people would ordinarily feel on hearing the word paedophile. If a situation is allowed to develop where people begin to believe the term is applied to such a wide range of situations, not all of them deserving, then the only thing that really suffers is child safety. All Mr Grange is trying to do is point out how difficult it is to apply the law in such a black & white way when what you're dealing with is complex human interactions. For example it's possible that a relationship between a 17 year old and a 15 year old is in fact exploitative and paedophilic in nature whereas a relationship, say, between a 19 year old and a 14 year old could be completely consensual - what matters is the context. Mr Grange isn't suggesting for a minute that we should decriminalise sex with under-16's - that remains a crime under any circumstances and should do in any decent society. He's simply questioning the wisdom of pursuing a prosecution in every single case and, if successful, labelling the convicted man a paedophile.

Mr Grange is just trying to bring these subtleties into the public domain and should be thanked for doing so - not subjected to a grilling...

Labels: Media

My goodness, Polly Toynbee knows how to press our buttons eh?

Granted I'm not completely innocent myself having indulged in the occasional mild rant off the back of one of Polly's articles but generally speaking, unless I think my response would be of any interest to anyone else or moves the debate on a little, I tend not to post on it. No such restraint yesterday from Mr Eugenides & Devil's Kitchen (choice language in those links folks) in response to Polly's piece on the surveillance society. There's some reasoned and intelligent objection there but it's rather drowned out by a combination of deliberate misrepresentation (one of the charges levelled in her direction) and some rather unpleasant adolescent abuse. Quaemquam and Tim Worstall also joined the fray yesterday and FCP indulged in the usual semantic hair-splitting - and that's just the few I stumbled across without really looking.

Why the vitriol in response to yesterday's article? On most occasions (yesterday included) I disagree with Polly's articles but if the mark of a successful columnist is their ability to provoke debate and entertain then by any measure Polly's clearly doing rather well. And this really isn't about politics anyway - the same could be said about Melanie Phillips, Simon Heffer etc. Whatever anyone says, those of us who blog for the fun of it (which, let's face it, is a rather nerdy ego-driven thing to do) would kill for the opportunity of a regular outlet for our musings in a national newspaper and Polly, Melanie etc. have such an outlet because of their talent, not their politics. I seem to recall Polly and Jackie Ashley posted brief articles on bloggers etc. to CIF a few months back and were met with a tirade of abuse.

So, even speaking as someone who regularly disagrees with Polly let's keep some perspective here. If we have something valuable to add to the debates prompted by any of the established commentators then let's do so - if we have nothing but hissy fits and teenage abuse perhaps we should pause before we hit that 'new post' button.

Labels: Media, Politics

Thanks to the New Culture Forum for bringing this to my attention...

French high-school philosophy teacher Robert Redeker is now in hiding following the publication of an article he wrote on 19th of September criticising Mohammed, Islam and the Koran. From the extracts available on NCF the article (published in French right-wing newspaper Le Figaro) does seem a little provocative but as ever the really distressing thing is the vehemence of the reaction from some in the French Muslim communities - Mr Redeker has now had death threats and gone into hiding. The passage below is particularly prescient:

"As was the case with Communism, the West finds itself under ideological surveillance. Islam is presenting itself, in the image of now defunct Communism, as an alternative to the Western world. Just as Communism before it, Islam, to conquer minds, is playing on sensitive chords. It seeks legitimacy in a way that troubles the Western conscience: by being the voice of the planet's poor. Yesterday, the voice of the poor claimed to come from Moscow, today its coming from Mecca!"

You can lend your support to Mr Redeker by signing a petition here...

Labels: Media, Politics

Just read the excellent cover story in this month's Prospect magazine by Eric Kaufmann, 'Breeding for God'. His contention is that the historic balance in Europe between the growth of secularism and the higher fertility rate enjoyed by religious people is shifting, consequently, in Kaufmann's view, much of Europe will move towards an American model of a religious society with all the implications this has for European politics. My gut reaction to the notion that European politics may become as infused with religion as US politics is a hostile one. I'm sure that's exacerbated by the overtly Christian outlook of the current US administration but regardless of which party holds office, the influence of religious groups in American public life is frightening.

One of the ironies of watching the influence of religion on US politics from here in the UK is how the actual outcomes would appear to be at complete odds with the constitutional arrangements in place to 'manage' the interaction between church & state. In the US, where the two are legally separate, it's hard to envisage any politician achieving significant office without a very public claim to religiousity (usually Christian) - this applies to both Democrat & Republican politicians. Religion is far less pertinent to UK politicians despite an established Anglican church. Having said that (and I haven't researched this in detail so happy to stand corrected) I can't think of a British PM in recent times who didn't publicly, if reluctantly in some cases, acknowledge a Christian faith?

It would be an interesting test of one aspect of Kaufmann's theory to see how an openly agnostic or even atheistic party leader would fair in a UK general election. I suspect not too well which, to my mind anyway, would be a shame...

Also worth a read is Michael Lind's article "The World After Bush" - may post on this later..

Labels: Media, Politics