Hm. Comb your hair, sit up straight, and don't scratch yourself.

Hi David

I knew I got that Sky Digital subscription for a reason.

Break a leg, darling.

Eamon

Crikey David,

I better rush out to get a Sky subscription! :-)

Keep the British end up!

ad.

I hope you'll report on it afterwards for all of us who can't get British TV.

Sky News is also on digital terrestrial, so you can get it (as well as a lot of other channels) for a one off cost of 80 pounds or so.

Michael Jennings, I live in France and there is no such thing as a one-off cost of 80 pounds for Sky. You need also to buy a satellite dish. Not cheap. You also need to have someone come and install it. You also need to get permission from the mairie to install a satellite dish. Then the French government knows you have a satellite dish. Or you can spend £800 getting a digibox and blah blah blah. That is why I asked for a kindly report.

Liberty: That wasn't a response to your comment: I think we posted at the same time. Sorry to hear you have to deal with the French bureacracy. It was just a general comment that you can get it in the UK for a one off cost of 80 pounds. I'm have it on now (although no David yet) and I'll briefly tell you what I think.

Well, David spent much of the time largely in agreement with a chap from the Guardian, which was an interesting novelty. Both of them thought that unions shouldn't have to have racists as members if they didn't want to. David argued that although he found racists particularly vile, the union should have the right to exclude any group of people it liked, whereas the Guardian chap seemed to be arguing that unions shouldn't have to accept racists because racists were particularly vile people (and he denied that communists were as bad). The Guardian chap was never asked whether unions should be able to exclude communists, Frenchmen, or Freemasons, though, which is a shame. Both he and David agreed that if the train driver really wanted to belong to a union, he could form his own.

Sadly, this was television, and soundbites are needed, so David got cut off mid-conversation a couple of times. Still, I think his point of view was clear enough. Sadly, he was described as being from the Libertarian Alliance, rather than being from Samizdata.net

Michael,

I don't know if it came across but I did differ from Kevin McGuire in that he insisted that the Union must expel racists and I said they could if they wished to.

Also he claimed that everyone has a right to join a Union whereas I insisted that no such right exists.

Michael Jennings - Thank you. Obviously, David's stance was the sound, reasoned, civilised one and differed by an ocean's width from the Guardian's.

I managed to tape the programme and I've just watched it. I thought you made an excellent contribution, David, and I hope the impression you seem to have given Mr Jennings - that you were closely allied with the repulsive chap from The Guardian on this issue - is not what the majority of other viewers latched on to. You looked a bit uncomfortable being made to sit between a member of the BNP and someone from The Guardian for 10 minutes!

(Oh, and I'm pleased that Littlejohn actually made an effort to involve you in the debate... it was quite refreshing after BBC Radio 3's "Night Waves" presenter effectively excluded Perry from their "Is Democracy Dead?" discussion a couple of weeks ago... I suppose it's more difficult for the presenter to ignore someone when viewers can see they're sat there.)

Sadly, he was described as being from the Libertarian Alliance, rather than being from Samizdata.net

Ditto, Michael.

What I didn't really get was a strong message that Kevin McGuire was saying that the union must expel racists. (It's possible that I missed something). He was clearly arguing that they should due to racists having a special vileness. I didn't get the impression he was arguing that there should be a law obliging them to expel racists - he did say at one point that if Mr Lee didn't like it he could form his own union. (Whether this was a throwaway argument or whether he meant it, I don't know. But he did say it). What he was saying was that unions should have the right to expel racists and that they should use it.

I have no real problem with this position as long as unions themselves remain voluntary organisations, their ability to choose who they accept or not is entirely up to them, and other people are free to start competing unions if they do not like them. The trouble is that I doubt Mr McGuire would agree with me on all this. Mr Littlejohn sort of pushed the conversation in this direction when he attacked Mr McGuire for seeing the need to have racists expelled but not Stalinists, but we didn't really properly get to the question of should a union also have the right to kick out Stalinists. McGuire rather pathetically argued that there was a need to kick out racists but not Stalinists, but that is not the same thing. I will defend the right of an organisation that believes this to exist, even if my strong preference is for organisations containing neither group.

David on the other hand was very clear about what he meant, which was good to see. I also second what Stephen said about Littlejohn doing a good job of making sure David got his say. For a few moments I thought we were going to see an argument between the other two with David occasionally being seen drinking a glass of water.