Mooney, the Mail, and Me

February 6, 2012 by 1 Comment

Scott Hill

Image © Byzantine K

As hard as it may be to envisage, it is possible that some of you may have missed my appearance on BBC Radio Four’s Broadcasting House programme over the weekend. Thanks to the wonders of BBC iPlayer you can catch up here[1]. Typically, I forgot half of what I wanted to say and failed, in the small time allotted to the very broad topic of the Daily Mail’s impact on society, to produce a wholly satisfactory, coherent argument. Nevertheless, it was an interesting debate, but one I feel needs fleshing out further. But first, let us look at what was revealed during the 8 minute ding-dong.

My sparring partner throughout the debate was the Mail’s very own Bel Mooney. Immediately, Bel was forced to concede that she regularly receives criticism for daring to write for the infamous paper. She even acknowledged that the Mail “gets things wrong and often prints things I don’t agree with”. However, she failed to maintain sanity. She went on to describe the Mail as a “paper of absolute genius” and, when I dared to raise an example of the paper’s contradictory views on feminism, she declared: “Can we be more serious than that?” Coming from a Daily Mail defender, surely that must be the irony of all ironies.

Aside from the point I raised with regards to the double standard over feminism[2], I also managed to fit in a quote from a BNP activist (“The rhetoric of the Express and the Mail could come from one of our own newsletters[3]”), stated that my parents merely buy the Mail for its supposedly superior crossword, challenged the paper’s definition of what it means to be British (something that went ignored by both host and opponent) and asserted that Mr Dacre’s new corrections box on page two is simply not enough to convince me that the paper’s standards will significantly rise.

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The UK Government should thank the European Court of Human Rights

January 31, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Frederick Cowell

Image © ex_libris_gul

Following the European Court of Human Rights’ (ECHR) ruling about Abu Qatada’s extradition the anti-Human Rights Act (HRA) brigade have been out in force. In his recent speech about the ECHR David Cameron claimed that the ECHR was in danger of undermining public support for civil liberties. This claim was accurate in large part because the same right wing newspapers that support him have been busy whipping themselves up into a self-righteous rage about the EHRA.

The UK government has received good results from the ECHR recently (not that you would know it) as they ruled that the system of whole life tariffs was not a form of torture. Forty six prisoners in the UK are currently serving whole life sentences and following an application from Jeremy Bamber, Peter Moore and Douglas Vinter (who are between them guilty of murdering nearly a dozen murders) the ECHR ruled that it was not “inhuman and degrading” for them to die in jail. The ECHR also approved the UK’s policy of deportation with assurances (assuming reliable guarantees against torture are given) in spite of the policy being strongly criticised by Amnesty International.  Needless to say these cases are nowhere to be found in the anti-HRA pieces from Michael Burleigh in the Daily Mail, Philip Johnston in the Daily Telegraph and Douglas Murray in the Daily Express. Instead the ECHR is presented as a judicial factory producing ‘outrages’ to be inflicted on the UK, even though the government wins the vast majority of applications to the court. Additionally these critics do not mention that Abu Qatada has not been convicted, let alone faced a criminal trial, in the UK. Whilst he is definitely unpleasant and has been involved with terrorist organisations, the fact that neither the Crown Prosecution Service nor the Director of Public Prosecution has been able to bring him to trial over a ten year period, despite numerous changes in the law, is illustrative of how the problem is much wider than ‘activist judges’ at the ECHR.

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Marx out of 10 for Page 3’s apologists?

January 31, 2012 by 2 Comments

Sam Fowles

Image © OBJECT

The Page 3 debate shows how the left, as well as the right, must stop clinging to old ideologies and address the problems of today.

“It was a breath of fresh air”, writes Ellie Mae O’Haggen in the New Statesman, “to see four articulate women at the Leveson inquiry spelling out the sexism most feminists knew was there all along… without being ridiculed or interrupted.” How short the sudden silence.

Oddly, it was from writers on the left that one heard the loudest rebuttal of the submission from Object and “Turn Your Back on Page 3”.  Roy Greenslade was quick to question the veracity of their evidence in the Evening Standard, while Brendan O’Neill launched a telling broadside against the “bevy of feminists” and their “shrill chorus” on this website.

This issue presents a problem for many on the left. For once we’re facing a major societal issue that wasn’t caused by faceless bankers or privileged Tories. The 99% are just as culpable. We have, by the implicit consent of the consumer, created the gutter press. Tabloids print what sells and we’re all buying.

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The political discourse of America in recent history has been driven by a narrative – a durable myth

January 30, 2012 by 2 Comments

 John Shammas

Image © Michael Noirot

Reagan’s voice commanded a receptive audience during a period of economic stagnation with his talk of values, responsibilities and duty prevailing over a worn and laboured liberal rhetoric which lost itself in almost-exclusively discussing rights and entitlement schemes. Even today, Reagan’s critics fall so easily into playing the role of an apologist for the out-of-touch, tax-and-spend stereotype – a stereotype of which the conservative media sell to their demographic at a rate similar to that with which Apple shift iPhones. Meanwhile, the key contemporary GOP field today – the Bachmans, the Palins and the Gingrichs of this world do not have to function as stand-alone politicians: instead their key occupation is to merely serve as apparatus to the echo-chamber of the Reagan myth.

Reaganism constitutes a politics of post-modern structuralism which has such obvious and explicit endurance today. It is driven by a mythology that highlights the fact that the key battleground issues of the 1960’s have never been fully resolved. The disputes, shifts and changes of the era cannot be solely defined and dictated by political or partisan preference. Crucially, the durability of the Reagan myth feasts of the evanescence of a counterculture informed by individual choices, moral standing and personal identity which has dissipated into consumerism, materialism and ideological separation.

And the emphasis here must ultimately arrive at that last point: ideological separation. So often, in his election campaign in 2008 and even in last week’s State of the Union address, Obama idealistically speaks of bi-partisanship, cooperation and ideological synthesis. However, he has been wholesomely defeated in his campaign. The essential legacy that Reaganism has engrained upon our politics is displayed in how viscerally and unapologetically we define ourselves in ideological terms. Partisanship is not an issue. Partisanship is the issue.  Read more of this post

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A Marxist defence of Page 3 girls

January 25, 2012 by 9 Comments

Brendan O’Neill

Image © Kip Voytek

Proving that the Leveson Inquiry has become a magnet for every campaigner who wants to tame or censor the tabloids, yesterday’s line-up before his lordship included a bevy of feminists angrily railing against Page 3 in The Sun.

For some women’s rights activists, Page 3, with its scantily clad ladies making philosophical comments in speech bubbles, represents everything that is wrong with tabloid culture.

It is sexist and offensive, they say, and it contributes to a climate in which women are looked upon as fleshy objects to be ogled by goggle-eyed blokes. It must be banned, they demand.

Harriet Harman has joined this shrill chorus calling either for the outright banning of Page 3 or for The Sun at least to be put on the top shelf in newsagents, next to porno mags. And yet in her next breath, Harman has the gall to declare: “I am going to be a champion of press freedom.”

That she cannot see any contradiction between campaigning to crush Page 3 and claiming to be a defender of freedom of speech not only highlights the severe irony deficit in New Labour – it also says a lot about the weird politics of the anti-Page 3 lobby.

The fact is that shutting down Page 3 would be an assault on press freedom. If you are committed to true freedom of the press, to the age-old idea that newspapers should be free to publish what they believe to be true or interesting or fun, you can’t then add the caveat “Oh, except for Page 3 in The Sun – that page has got to go.” Read more of this post

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Racist but not entirely wrong

January 11, 2012 by 1 Comment

Frederick Cowell

Image © Alkan de Beaumont Chaglar

The first reaction to Diane Abbott’s twitterati missive should be, as several commentators have already and wisely said; why are we getting so angry? The desire for mass outrage as the only appropriate response to every supposed outrage committed by a public figure is positively North Korean; whereas they prostrate themselves with grief, we are expected to coalesce our anger. Abbott’s statement was profoundly stupid but has also been taken profoundly out of context and the reason to keep talking about it is that the shadow of race over politics is lengthening. The London riots were racialised pre-emptively by the political classes, a phenomenon exacerbated by the crass remarks of David Starkey projecting a distinctly racial dimension onto the riots.

The tweet should be split in three to achieve an adequate response. Firstly ‘white people love.’ This is foolish and what Abbott should apologise for. The idea that pigmentation can involuntarily form political identity is as dangerous as it is disgusting. The crude picaninny plantation working blacks, loyal Indian servants, and placidly ferocious oriental warriors: all racist caricatures are based on politically collectivising individuals on the basis of immutable characteristics. All of her anti- Racism activism should have taught her this and for the sake of those she has fought for, and not the imaginary ruffled feathers of the unnamed offended, she should apologise. Read more of this post

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Using Twitter makes you cleverer

December 10, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Heron Smith

Facts and figures speak volumes. They prove and they disprove. They are both the weight behind an argument and the wedge between substance and conjecture. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a fact or figure is worth ten thousand, for whilst a picture can be disingenuous and lifted from context, a fact cannot. Or can it?

As a journalist and writer, I’m someone who relies upon a broad spectrum of supporting evidence to illustrate a point, and in order to persuade my readers that the argument I present is worthy of their time. Eyewitness accounts and testimonies- whilst subjective and unreliable- are emotive at their base. Facts and figures, on the other hand, are typically interpreted as neutral. Indeed, there exists a popular perception that statistical correlation is conclusive, and that such supporting evidence is, by nature, a trump card of sorts when balanced against opposing views. However, this is not always the case. Read more of this post

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Why the left shouldn’t defend Cuba

November 23, 2011 by 4 Comments

 Peter Bolton

Heroes of the Left? Image © a-birdie

Since the 1959 communist revolution in Cuba, several left-wing commentators have spoken favorably about the Castro regime. In the world of entertainment, for instance, Oliver Stone, Sean Penn and Michael Moore have all made gestures of praise toward the island’s political leadership. Moore’s 2007 film Sicko showered praise onto the Cuban healthcare system while both Penn and Stone have commended the Castro regime and visited the island to meet with Communist Party officials, in Stone’s case to research for a documentary film.

Details of Cuba’s authoritarianism have come back into the public consciousness recently following news reports about the decision by Raul Castro to liberalize the island’s property laws. The move might be taken by some to be evidence of the regime’s reform-minded tendencies but though the policy changes are to be welcomed, reading the details about the plight of the Cuban people shows how misguided it is to defend Cuba as a bastion and exemplar of left-wing ideas.

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Not easy, but right?

September 24, 2011 by Leave a Comment

(c) Alex Folkes/Fishnik Photography

Tom McGuire

‘Not easy, but right.’ These were the buzzwords in Nick Clegg’s keynote speech to end the Liberal Democrat Conference in Birmingham on Wednesday afternoon. They underline the determined mood that has gripped his party of late, as they visibly gain confidence with time and experience in office.

There is no hint of an apology for what has happened but there was a stark admission that ‘no matter how hard you work on the details of a policy, it’s no good if the perception is wrong.’ This does not work well for a party previously accused of being unfit for government and not ready for power, it all makes Clegg seem hugely naïve. Read more of this post

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A cruel, cynical stunt in the name of ratings and grim entertainment

September 20, 2011 by Leave a Comment

(c) Beacon Radio

Georgia Lewis

It is timely that I have been reading a book about the history of Bedlam, London’s notorious mental institution. It was here that in the dark days of patient care for the mentally ill, Bedlam was a particularly ghoulish tourist attraction. People would pay to stare at the inmates, to mock, to marvel, to laugh and point. It was horrific and cruel.

But have we moved on from those days? If the last episode of The X Factor is anything to go by, probably not. People do still mock the vulnerable, the afflicted, the different, the unfortunate and the deformed. Indeed, we have so many more forums to do this now with Twitter, Facebook, blogs, readers’ comments on newspaper websites and so on.  Read more of this post

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