Another week, another story of BBC dishonesty.
This time, it turns out they have (again) been deceiving viewers of phone-in shows.
So that’s what we pay the compulsory TV licence for, is it?
Daily the BBC continue to dig their own grave. No one else makes the case for the abolition of the licence fee in such a compelling manner.
Says the Daily Mail.
Apparently, she would wish instead to be known as something called a ‘princess consort’.
I sincerely hope she’s joking. And even if she’s not, I don’t really think there is much she can do about it. We are not that enthusiastic about morganatic marriages in this country, surely she should know that. When Charles becomes King, she should become Queen. That should be the end of that.
Perhaps she is worried about public opinion. However, I don’t think that is sufficient grounds for her to forsake her rightful title. In any case, the Telegraph reports that the public is slowly coming round to the idea of a ‘Queen Camilla’. But even if that were not so, that should not, on its own, bar her from taking what is legally hers.
Lord Black has been found guilty of three of the fraud charges levelled against him. While he was cleared of nine other charges, he was also found guilty of one charge of obstruction of justice.
No doubt many will rejoice. Especially journalists. Expect huge doses of Schadenfreude everywhere. I am keeping an eye out for Jeff Randall’s article on Black’s conviction. Going by his past writings on Lord Black, I expect him to be exceedingly vicious.
The two British girls arrested in Ghana on suspicion of drug smuggling insist that they were set up. Says one of them:
There were basically two boys over here who gave us two bags, and told us to bring it (that) it was an empty bag.
We never thought anything bad was inside … and they told us to go to the UK and drop it off to some boy … at the airport.
The two boys gave us bags in Ghana to bring to London, to give to the boy in London.
It was basically like a set up. They didn’t tell us nothing, we didn’t think nothing, cos basically we are innocent.
We don’t know nothing about this drugs and stuff, we don’t know nothing.
I am trying not to be cynical. Are they really that naive? I know that they are both only 16 years of age, but I find it surprising that these young girls could be duped so easily.
So it turns out that, contrary to the impression initially given by the BBC, the Queen did not actually storm out of a sitting with a photographer.
The BBC have apologised for altering the sequence of images in a way that gave the impression that the Queen had walked out of the sitting. The image of the Queen allegedly ’storming out’ was actually taken while she was in fact on her way to the sitting.
Makes me wonder what other tricks the BBC have been getting up to. This surely cannot be the first time they have done something like this. This has probably only come to our notice because the person involved was the Queen. Who knows how many lesser mortals have been subjected to ‘Michael Moore’ style editing by the BBC? And if they can do that to the Queen, how much more to people or groups of whom they (the BBC) do not approve? Rightwingers, anti-immigration campaigners, who knows?
A public service broadcaster behaving like a grubby tabloid. Shame on them.
Just wondering why Sky News spent the whole of yesterday, and part of this morning, giving free publicity to Alastair Campbell and his wretched diaries. They only just stopped short of exhorting us all to go out and buy it. Such publicity he could never have bought.
That notwithstanding, I shall not be buying. Nor do I care to read extracts from the book. I do not trust a single word written by that man. It baffles me that journalists are falling over themselves to promote this book. They, more than anyone, know the lengths to which Campbell went in his time to cover up the truth in so many ways. What makes them so sure about the veracity of this book’s contents?
I see the Telegraph has the best of both worlds. On the one hand, it publishes a scathing leader article on Campbell ‘prospering from defilement’, and on the other hand, it calmly publishes tidbits from the book.
I have been reading the report (pdf) of the Commission on Integration and Cohesion, which was published yesterday. Among other things, it considers the effect of immigration on integration and cohesion.
The report is rather good at laying out the perceptions of integration and cohesion from point of view of the different players in this issue; the settled indigene, the immigrant, the voluntary sector and the State. Considering the dramatis personae in this way led me to thinking about what constitutes a just society.
I took this train of thought because I began to wonder, reading through the report, whether it was at all possible to have a society which all the above players would agree to be ‘just’.
Of course, I know that unanimity is not really possible in these things. What I mean is, is there really, as far as immigration and cohesion are concerned, a framework of rules that can be described, objectively, as ‘just’, regardless of the ‘player’ involved. So can we have a society that is ‘just’ in the eyes of the immigrant, the indigenous Briton, and even the voluntary sector? I exclude the State from consideration in this question, simply on the basis that I assume it, for these purposes, to be ‘outside’ society, in such a way as not to be affected by whether or not the society is a just one.
This train of thought led me to Rawls’s door. John Rawls was a political philosopher who did much thinking on the idea of justice. In particular, he thought a lot about what principles of justice should obtain in a society. Rawls wrote that this could be considered under a setting he called ‘the original position’. Basically, the rules of justice were determined by parties behind a ’veil of ignorance’. Put very simply, the question Rawls postulated was this: ‘what sort of society would you regard as a just one, if you did not know what role you had, or what you would be, in that society?’
So for the purposes of this post, let us try this very simple thought experiment: let us imagine the following people sitting blindfold around a table: an Eastern European immigrant, an Englishwoman with roots in this country going back to the 12th century, a pensioner of limited means, a single parent, and a rich man.
None of these people know what their identities in the society would be, because they are behind the ‘veil of ignorance’. So, for example, someone at the table would have no idea whether he would be the immigrant, the rich man, the pensioner, or the single mother. The task then is this: considering that that they do not know which they would be, what laws would they then create to ensure a just society?
If, for example, someone at the table proposed a law whereby all immigrants were given free housing ahead of single parents and pensioners, and that this was to be paid for by very high taxes, it could backfire on him if he ended up being the rich man, the single parent, or the pensioner. He could only benefit from this law if he were the immigrant. However, the fact that he does not know which he would be in the new society, would force him to think carefully before he proposed such a law.
What the exercise seems to suggest is that there is a point in the middle where all the participants can agree; a consensus ad idem. It suggests that there must be a place where they would all agree that the rich man would not be taxed too much; that the pensioner, immigrant and single parent would be treated fairly according to some agreed criteria; and that whatever accommodation is made for them, it would not be such as to anger the Englishwoman whose family have given their all to this country, and who has never asked anything of the State, but the space to enjoy her country as she remembered it as a child.
So will the Commission’s report find that meeting place? I don’t know yet. I don’t even know that such a meeting place exists. I am still reading the report, and will let you know my views later.
Am I the only one who feels sorry for Paris Hilton? Not because she has been sent back to jail. If she has committed an imprisonable offence, that is where she should be, so I am fine with that. My sympathy arises rather from the way she has been torn to shreds by the public. Yes, I can understand the anger when people feel that the laws are being bent in favour of the rich and famous. What I cannot understand, though, is the delight, nay, ecstasy, of some people in another human being’s obvious distress.
I have been reading the story on newspaper websites and forums, and following the comments left by readers. Most of the comments I have read from those taking pleasure in watching Paris Hilton being dragged back to jail, are along the lines of ’serves her right, the spoilt girl, she deserves being taken down a peg or two.’ So, in most cases, it’s not really about justice being served. It seems more to be about darker, unpleasant human traits: smugness, self-righteousness, Schadenfreude, and much, much worse.
The Paris Hilton case has revealed (although it was always clear to anyone who looked) an unpleasant and nasty element of society. True, the girl did wrong, and she has been punished for it. But answer me one question: would anybody who has been jailed, and who has the means and opportunity to do so, not use any lawful means at their disposal to get out early? It is up to the authorities to accept or reject applications for early release, and any blame for the early release should be directed at the officials who let her out.
What I would advise Paris Hilton to do would be to serve out with dignity her remaining days in jail. She should make no further applications for early release. She should repay every last coin of her debt to society, and then re-emerge from prison when the debt has been repaid. Then she can walk out with her head held high, knowing that, to her screaming and hysterical detractors, she owes not one cent. Were Paris Hilton to be released from jail without serving her complete sentence, this deeply unpleasant part of society will forever feel that she owed them something, a part of her soul, perhaps. They would make her life hell. And for someone whose life is lived out in public, that would be hell indeed. That, in my opinion, would be a far worse prison than the one she currently occupies.
From the Daily Mail, we learn that the Department of Education has ‘called on teachers to create an atmosphere in which it is trendy to work hard and “boffins” are not bullied for being too brainy.’
Yes, teachers and all those in authority should ensure that bullying is stamped out in any place where they have a say, whether or not it is a ‘boffin’ being bullied, so that goes without saying.
I am more interested in this new assignment to teachers to ‘create an atmosphere in which it is trendy to work hard’. For starters, if any school can achieve this, it will be the first school ever on the face of the earth to do so. Schoolchildren have never, since the beginning of time, seen hard work as ‘trendy’, and they are not about to start now. In any case, I do not think they should be encouraged to do so. They are children, after all, and it is only to be expected that there are some things (school work, etc) that they will not embrace with the same enthusiasm as they do other things (playing, etc).
In addition, the notion that something must be made ‘trendy’ before we can encourage our children to do it, is something I find baffling. What about instilling in them the idea that hard work may not be fun, but in the end, it yields the fruits of success, a sense of achievement, and respect among peers? What about the idea that applying oneself to something, whatever the difficulties, frustrations, and challenges, might be something worth doing? What about the idea that sometimes we may not feel like doing something, but that self-discipline and dedication, irrespective of the views of others, are values to be exalted in every case? These are the lessons we should be teaching our children.
By trying to get teachers to pretend that hard work is ‘trendy’, the Department of Education is sending out a message that nothing is worth doing unless one can get superficial pleasure from it. They are preaching to children, telling them that they can attain things in life on their own terms. This is grossly irresponsible. Children do not rule the world, and sooner or later, they will learn that ‘trendiness’ does not make things happen. Far better to put trendiness in its real place, as a sometimes fun, often times diverting, ineffectual concept. In the real business of life, there is very little room for trendiness. There are many issues in this life in which the views of children are irrelevant. They need to be told that some things (eg hard work) are necessary, whether or not they are trendy. And they need to be told why.
Children should be encouraged to reach out for the tray of goodies that life can offer. However, with all this ‘trendiness’ talk, what the Department of Education is doing is kneeling at the feet of children and offering them the world on their (the children’s) own terms. Instead of encouraging them to aim high, and reach for a world outside their own, the Department is reshaping the valuable things in life so that they accord with the fleeting values of children. This I find surprising, and somewhat saddening.
Now here is a book I am going to get. The Daily Telegraph has published a compilation of annoying phrases, cliches etc in the English language. It is entitled She Literally Exploded: The Daily Telegraph Infuriating Phrasebook.
Curious to know whether any of the cliches, phrases etc that annoy me the most, have made it into the book. At the moment, the following set my teeth on edge: ‘close down the debate’, and ‘capture the public imagination’. I even hate that I have had to type them out here.
