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It is nought but a small step, and a hesitant one at that, but at least some Conservatives are starting to make the right noises about the BBC:
The Tories have pledged to rule nothing in and nothing out when it comes to pondering how the BBC should be financed in the future.
Culture spokesman John Whittingdale told BBC News Online that it was difficult to justify the current arrangement of the licence fee which he said faced growing public opposition.
Th irony of this being reported on the BBC news website is not lost on me but neither is the inference that the ‘growing public opposition’ is merely a Tory allegation instead of an objective fact. But even if it was a mere ‘allegation’ I am mildly encouraged that some Conservatives are prepared to level it. If this isn’t an opening shot across the bows of the hitherto inviolable shibboleth status of the BBC, then it is pretty convincing impression of one.
The Tory spokesman’s comments leaves the door open to everything from part-privatisation, subscriptions to the BBC’s digital programmes and the direct grant method.
Not exactly the kind of radicalism I have in mind but then I am not a politician and not, therefore, worried about ‘frightening the horses’ in the way that all politicans (be they Conservative or otherwise) are.
Time will tell whether the Conservatives are serious about depriving the BBC of its tax-cushion or whether the Tories infuriating paternalism is leading them to look for a less visible way to maintain the distorting state-subsidy.
But I will refrain from damning in advance and settle for some measure of satisfaction that the BBC’s reservoir of goodwill is rapidly dwindling away even among the political classes and if it is dawning on the Conservatives that we do not need ‘public service broadcasting’ then perhaps they may also realise that we don’t need ‘Culture Spokesmen’ either.
Still, given the circumstances, that is a quibble that I will reserve for another day.
Some writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.
– Thomas Paine, Common Sense,1776
For a measure of the institutional senile dementia that grips the British state, you need look no further than here:
Government lawyers trying to keep the Norfolk farmer Tony Martin behind bars will tell a High Court judge tomorrow that burglars are members of the public who must be protected from violent householders.
The case could help hundreds of criminals bring claims for damages for injury suffered while committing offences.
In legal papers seen by The Independent, Home Office lawyers dispute Mr Martin’s contention that he poses no risk to the public because he only represents a threat to burglars and other criminals who trespass on his property.
They say: “The suggestion … that the Parole Board was not required to assess the risk posed by Mr Martin to future burglars or intruders (on the grounds that they do not form part of the public at large) is remarkable.”
“It cannot possibly be suggested that members of the public cease to be so whilst committing criminal offences, and whilst society naturally condemns, and punishes such persons judicially, it can not possibly condone their (unlawful) murder or injury.”
Whilst it should be clear from this that the lunatics have indeed taken over the asylum, the pathology at work here should be clear. Private property, far from being the bedrock upon which western liberal civilization is based, is instead seen as having no genuine value at all to those who see ‘The State’ as the axis around which all revolves and nothing whatsoever that is distinctly separate called ‘civil society’. Thus private property is seen as a distasteful aberration that does not really make any sense, at best ‘property which the state does not yet own’. Therefore to use force to defend that which has no real value is clearly unacceptable.
As the people who think that way have made sure they have a near monopoly on the means of violence and coercion, that does not bode well for… well, anyone who is not happy to just be an drone-like adjunct of the state.
Last Thursday’s local council elections in England seems to have provided some evidence that the Conservative Party may still be twitching and not yet dead. They managed to pick up a whopping 566 seats nationwide, thus far exceeding all expectations, including my own. The Tories now control more local authorities than both Labour and the Liberal Democrats combined. I am far from convinced that this performance will reflect at parliamentary level but it does mean, for the time being at least, that Iain Duncan Smith keeps his job as party leader.
Scotland, though. Scotland is a very different and far more melancholy story. Last Thursday also saw elections to the regional assemblies in both Scotland and Wales but it was Scotland that returned the most worrying results. Even prior to last Thursday, Scottish politics is lock-down between Labour and the Liberal Democrats, both left-of-centre parties. Their main opposition comes from the Scottish Nationalist Party which is also (surprise, surprise) a left-wing operation. There are also a handful of squeaky, apologetic Scottish Conservatives who, it would seem, spend most of the time trying to keep their heads below the parapet (though, to be fair to them, they are seriously up against it).
Now one would think that the Scots had more than enough socialists to go round and keep everybody happy but, no. The biggest winner from the Thursday’s regional assembly elections were the Scottish Socialist Party, a class-war marxist outfit, who jumped from having one seat in the assembly to nine seats and a 5% share of the vote.
Apparently a growing number of Scots are getting tired of the milquetoast, watered-down version of socialism they have been getting and yearn for the real thing:
The SSP stands for the socialist transformation of society. To replace capitalism with an economic system based on democratic ownership and control of the key sectors of the economy. A system based on social need and environmental protection rather than private profit and ecological destruction.
The SSP do not control Scotland. Far from it. But they are now an electoral force to be reckoned with in that country and it means that an already left-of-centre administration is going to have to tack much further to the left to appease them and prevent their support from snowballing.
The country that gave Adam Smith and Andrew Carnegie to the world, is fast succumbing to the Endarkenment.
It is often said that free speech does not extend to shouting “fire” in a crowded theatre. Likewise, actually incitement to violence within the context of civil society is not a matter of free speech at all, but is rather a matter pertaining to violence. In a genuinely free and reasonable society, a category in which I would not include Britain, to betray one’s ignorance by loudly declaring that “All Pakis and Niggers smell bad and should go back where they came from”, should be regarded as legitimate free speech (and of course the answer should be “What? You want me to go back to Croydon?”). Likewise any rather more aggressive replies questioning the racist’s intellect, honour and rationality should be likewise be regarded as legitimate free speech.
However to call for the murder of members of those ethnic groups is quite a different matter. And so when the likes of Al Muhajiroun, the much publicised Islamic organisation active in Britain, are found to be again and again to be encouraging the straightforward murder of civilians in various parts of the world, the point of tolerance should long have been passed. Omar Bakri Mohammed, the self-styled “emir” of Al Muhajiroun publically praised suicide bomber Asif Mohammed Hanif and would-be suicide bomber Omar Khan Sharif, both UK passport holders who were posing as ‘peace activists’:
These two brothers have drawn a divine road map, one which is drawn in blood. We pray to God to accept one brother as a martyr. I am very proud of the fact that the Muslims grow closer everyday, that the Muslim land is one land and there is no more nationalism or Arabism.”
As David Carr previously mentioned, that these lunatics came from Britain’s Muslim community is not an insignificant detail. That Al Muhajiroun is not setting bombs off here in London should not disguise the fact that just as the people in the USA who gave money to pro-IRA fund raisers in the United States were guilty of financing the murder of innocent civilians, Al Muhajiroun is responsible for the slaughter of civilians in Israel by giving aid and comfort to the people who are physically doing the murders.
Just as the Irish Republican terrorists who far from killing civilians as ‘collateral’ damage to an attack on a military target, actually targeted civilians for mass murder, the Islamic terrorists supported by Al Muhajiroun’s rhetoric, such as Hamas, Hezbollah and their ilk, actually target pizza parlours and nightclubs, rather than the Israeli army or state.
Of course, some will claim that as these acts happen outside Britain, there is no grounds for doing anything. What I wonder would they think of Al Muhajiroun’s British-born lawyer Anjem Choudary’s remarks quoted in today’s Daily Express (print edition) in which he encourages Muslims from overseas to come to Britain and attack targets here? Given that these ‘religious men’ have signally failed to criticise the intentional slaughter of civilians in Israel, I rather doubt any ‘martyrs’ heeding this call will be going after a well protected British military target… more likely we can expect a suicide bomb attack on Oxford Street when it is crowded with people shopping.
I would urge members of the Muslim community in Britain who regard these people as lunatics that do them a great disservice to move heaven and earth to disassociate themselves with these people. That the British government tolerates a group such as Al Muhajiroun in our midst is a measure of the decadence at the core of the state.
And that is no longer just my pejorative opinion. It is a view that is being enthusiastically endorsed by its proponents:
During the May Day protests, we are going to be in the City of London vacuuming up after capitalism.
We’ll be there with our vacuum cleaners and warning people to watch out for the dirty capitalism all around them.
With our cleaners, we never let dirty capitalism settle.
I hope they intend to clean up after themselves. Last year’s ‘May Day’ marches left central London looking like an industrial tip.
So a lot of work is about humour because that really works. If people see a group of us vacuuming or praying, I think it’s more likely to get them to question things.
You’re right, the humour does work. I am already doubled up with laughter.
All the messages that are put about by advertisers are basically saying that shopping is the new religion. We were just taking it that little bit further.
Shopping as a religion? Damn, that’s a good idea. Anyone else fancy the idea of forming a Church of Conspicuous Consumption?
We had quite an interesting reaction. A lot of the shoppers were quite startled. Some of them laughed. Others looked at us as if we were idiots.
Conspicuous consumers are generally a perceptive and sensible lot.
Eventually the security guards threw us out. We’re not aggressive and we know that what we do and film takes place on private property so if they ask us to leave, we do.
Yet more ‘crushing of dissent’! Oh the humanity!!
The group goes into a store, all wearing the same shirts. Then, in a line, each member pushes around empty shopping trolleys [carts in America] in a quiet meditation.
Just silently contemplating all those seductive bargains.
I’ve got no illusions that what we do is going to stop people shopping. But the person who sees us praying or vacuuming may go home and have a question in their mind about the society we’ve created.
I’ll wager that the question in their mind is, how did you manage to fall from the Stupid Tree and hit every branch on the way down?
Whenever I get despondent about the state of the world, up pop the Children of the Revolution to remind me just how debased, banal and self-parodying they have become.
A disturbing development in the Middle East. Well, two disturbing developments to be more precise.
First, another successful human missile attack in Israel, this time aimed at a beachfront cafe in Tel Aviv, has killed three people. Proof that no security system is foolproof and even though attempted mass murders are thwarted virtually every day, some still get through.
Secondly, Israeli police appear to have evidence that two men involved in the attack were both British citizens:
Israeli television has shown passports alleged to belong to the two men, which name them as Asif Muhammad Hanif and Omar Khan Sharif.
If it transpires that the claims are true then this is the first time, to my knowledge, that non-Palestinians Muslims have been engaged in attacks on Israel. It must raise the issue of the extent to which Islamic terror gangs have been successfully recruiting in this country and, perhaps, elsewhere in the West.
Of course, there is also the corollary that perhaps the reservoir of ‘willing recruits’ among the Palestinians is starting to dry up, forcing the terror-masters to look elsewhere for their walking payloads.
As is so often the case, it’s the little things one should watch out for. The nature and effect of seemingly insignificant or passing incidents can so often provide a more accurate insight into the political topography of any country than the sweeping op-eds of the mainstream press.
A good example is provided by Stephen Pollard who has just attended a Conference of Head Teachers in Brighton:
I have seen no more apposite comment on the state of the Conservative Party than this: one of the speakers this year was Damian Green, Shadow Education Secretary. Not only was he relegated to one of the break-out sessions; there were just 19 people present – out of some 300 – at his talk. Even at a meeting of public school heads, most of whom one might reasonably assume are Conservatives, almost no one gives a damn what he or his party thinks.
This is exactly the kind of nugget that speaks volumes about the reality of life on the nitty-gritty ground and yet is not controversial or glamourous enough to inspire editorial column inches. And, in response, I can only agree with Stephen. No-one giving a damn is quite the most damning indictment of the British Conservative Party. Contempt may be damaging but indifference is surely the killer.
Whilst the great and the good still ruminate about the future of the Conservatives in the broadsheet stratosphere, down on planet Earth they are in danger of dropping off the political radar screen.
A more tangible examination is 24 hours away. Tomorrow, May 1st, Britain goes to the voting booths in nationwide Local Council elections. Ostensibly, this is all about local issues such garbage collection, street lighting, libraries and the such. No ‘big policy’ stuff. Still no-one seriously believes that it is not, at least to some degree, a reflection of political support at the macro level as well.
The Labour Party is anxious to see if they benefit from ‘Baghdad bounce’ or ‘Baghdad backlash’ and, realistically, they will lose some seats but probably not enough to seriously dent them. Likewise, the Conservatives will pick up some seats but probably not the several hundred they need to fix the impression in their own minds, as well as everybody else’s, that they are a serious party of opposition.
In other words, business as usual. Except for angry, buzzing little fly-in-the-ointment; the British National Party. Although still a very marginal movement the fact remains that they have been doing alarmingly well in local and mayoral elections across the North of England and the Midlands, thus proving that their plain-talking, tub-thumping brand of whites-only socialism has a certain resonance in the working class heartlands where the ‘cafe latte elitism’ of New Labour is the source of growing irritation and disillusionment.
Tomorrow, the BNP will be fielding a record number of candidates; over 200. They are full of beans and righteous froth and earnestly believe that they are on the verge of some sort of breakthrough. I think that is probably and overstatement but I am disinclined to bet against them doing well.
Come the end of the week, it will still be ‘politics as usual’ but perhaps the wearyingly familiar mummery of the settled consensus will be underscored by the distracting backbeat of a whole host of panic pulses.
If New Labour and the forces of evil are trying to turn the British public into a bunch of politically correct pro-European Marxist-zombie numbskulls, then it appears to be on to a lost cause, according to a recent poll in The Telegraph:
Despite the British-American forces’ spectacular military successes, only 36 per cent of voters “approve of the Government’s record to date”, only 35 per cent believe that Labour can manage the economy better than the Tories, and only 34 per cent “think the Government has been, on balance, honest and trustworthy.”
In other words, whatever the current voting-intention figures, only about a third of voters appear at all impressed with the Government’s overall performance. If anything, people’s underlying attitudes towards the Government are even more hostile.”
What, no “Falklands factor”? Just as Tony Blair was intending to fast-track us all right into the centre of the new EU superstate, the British public don’t agree with him? Oh dear, what a shame…
Well, as The Telegraph points out:
Tony Blair and his colleagues have staked their reputation on their ability to “deliver” on the economy and the major public services.
And does the British public see any delivery? Well, apparently they think that unemployment has improved and boom-and-bust has ended… but on health only 24% can see positive signs of change, and on transport the figure is a pathetic 12%. And after another six months, then a year, then longer, go by and still everyone is looking through their front window at a non-existent postman… you do the predictions.
But what about those stealth taxes, haven’t we idiots been fobbed off with another round of extortion? Maybe not:
The so-called feel-good factor – the difference between the proportion of people who think their household’s financial situation will improve over the next 12 months and the proportion who think it will deteriorate – is also showing sharp falls.
[…] A 13-point fall in little more than four weeks is extremely unusual.
Something to do with the April tax hikes, maybe?
No wonder then that:
only 34 per cent “think the Government has been, on balance, honest and trustworthy”.
We see rising taxes and still-deteriorating public services everywhere. Despite Blair’s inevitable rise in personal popularity as a result of the war, which British people generally supported, (I wish U.S. troops had access to The Sun and The Telegraph instead of the ludcrous and nasty BBC), most Brits wish he could perform as well at home as he has on foreign policy.
So, all we need now is an anti-Europe, pro-capitalist, civil-liberties advocating, free-marketeering alternative political party to vote for, and whey-hey, off we go!
What, the Tories, you say? That bunch of Neanderthals in the corner fighting over an old dinosaur bone? Oh dear…
I am not quite old enough to have been a full-blooded Cold War Warrior but I can imagine what it must have been like poring over the speeches and statements that emanated from the Kremlin, searching out all those coded mendacities and gussied-up ideological postures.
The closest we come to that kind of excitement these days is by listening to someone like the Director General of the BBC, Greg Dyke:
BBC director general Greg Dyke has warned of the risks of crossing the line between patriotism and objective journalism.
Not remotely a risk for the BBC where there is not even a hint of either patriotism or objective journalism.
In a speech to a journalism conference in London, Mr Dyke denounced the “gung-ho patriotism” of one US network covering the Iraq war and said it should not be allowed to happen in the BBC.
Oh that vulgar word again! Such a rank obscenity for a member of the defeatist, vacuous, ethically crippled ruling elite.
“This is happening in the United States and if it continues will undermine the credibility of the US electronic news media.”
Credibility in whose eyes?
“And we must never allow political influences to colour our reporting or cloud our judgement.”
This, from the head of a broadcasting organisation whose chief recruitment ground is the jobs page of the Guardian.
“Commercial pressures may tempt others to follow the Fox News formula of gung-ho patriotism but for the BBC this would be a terrible mistake.”
For those of you unfamiliar with British public-sector-speak, allow me to interpret: “We must oppose a free market in information and ideas as this would severely threaten our role as paternalistic gatekeepers of public opinion”.
“If, over time, we lost the trust of our audiences, there is no point to the BBC.”
I think you ought to have a word with the crew of the Ark Royal, Mr.Dyke.
The BBC has yet to undergo ‘perestroika’.
In a dramatic development, under-fire British MP George Galloway has stunned an audience of journalists at a press conference by stripping off all of his clothes and posing for photographs whilst completely naked.
The controversial left-wing MP for Glasgow Kelvin had called the press conference in order to answer allegations that he accepted substantial payments from the former Iraqi regime. However, during a particularly heated round of questioning, Mr.Galloway suddenly stood up and began to undress himself. The attendant journalists watched in bemusement as Mr.Galloway eventually got down to his underpants which he whipped off with a flourish and draped over the ITN sound-recordist’s boom-mike.
It is the only way for me to fight back against this wicked right-wing American Zionist conspiracy to discredit me…
Said Mr.Galloway who was unrepentant about his unorthodox and shocking gesture:
Sorry? Of course I’m not sorry. It’s one of the most liberating things I have ever done. In fact, I’m already talking to the Guardian about a centrefold spread as part of a special colour-supplement next month.
Mr.Galloway’s gesture was warmly welcomed by a new left-wing organisation called the Campaign for Hindbrained Political Stunts (CHiPS) which is dedicated to pursuing a variety of ‘progressive’ causes with public displays of nudity. Denouncing all clothing as an oppressive construct of late-stage capitalism the group also intends to use bodily functions such as urination, defecation and induced vomiting as a means of protest. The group’s motto is: “Other people discuss, we just disgust”.
Want to know quite what I find so laughable about this story?
Gordon Brown has ordered another inquiry into the funding of the National Health Service, which is expected to lead to a further injection of billions of pounds next year.
In a move that could also pave the way for a further increase in national insurance payments before the next general election, the Chancellor has asked Derek Wanless, the former chief executive of NatWest, to study whether the NHS needs more money on top of the £40bn allocation over five years announced last year.
The answer lies in the way that Gordon Brown has ordered an ‘inquiry’ into NHS funding in order to provide a patina of scientific, objective justification for the tax increases that he has clearly already made up his mind on.
And would you like to hear something even funnier? Well, just wait until the ‘opposition’ (chortle, snigger) Conservatives launch a fierce attack on the government for not spending enough on the NHS. Won’t that be a scream?
Yes, yes I know, it’s not really funny and I shouldn’t laugh. But, honestly, I just don’t know what else to do.
There will be no ticker-tape parades for the returning heroes of Gulf War II and, given the current political and cultural climate, I suppose that is understandable. However, one would have thought that Mr.Blair might at least see the benefit of a suitably discreet pause before publicly shafting them:
Tony Blair is prepared to radically scale down the Royal Irish Regiment as part of his proposals to persuade the IRA to destroy all its weapons and halt all paramilitary operations, army and political sources claimed yesterday.
So it appears as if the Royal Irish Regiment, whose members fought with such gallantry and tenacity in the Battle for Basra as far back as…ooh, let’s see…a few days ago, are to be issued with a whole new set of marching orders. Thanks very much, chaps, now fuck off!
The irony can surely only be desribed as breath-taking. Whilst neither Saddam’s Ba’athist thugs nor his Republican Guards could put so much as a dent in them, their very existance as a fighting unit is about to be sacrificed by a government that will stop at nothing in a (vain) attempt to appease the brooding war-dogs of Sinn Fein/IRA.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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