October 31, 2009
On Trick or Treating
OK quick extra blog. Trick of Treating – what is it?
Either:
1. A horrific American import which encourages children to threaten strangers in order to extort material goods
Or:
2. A wonderful institution which encourages social cohesion by breaking down barriers of anonymity between neighbours in our atomised neo-liberal society; after all, on what other night would parents allow their kids to knock on strangers’ doors and accept sweets from what could quite possibly be peadophile boogermen?
Discuss.
To the barricades
Blogging is light because I have a million and one things to do, and I am stressed. Maybe there will be a post tomorrow about how people might think about “democracy”, and just what that might be. Maybe, if I can finally sort-out exactly what the hell I think is wrong with Leo Strauss’ critique of historicism…
Today, however, I want to call you all to the barricades (of teh internets). Several months ago I asked readers to submit complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority regarding an advertising campaign by Maximuscle Protein. The ASA upheld the complaints made against Maximuscle, banned the company from repeating such an advertising campaign, and accordingly Maximuscle adverts are now far more toned-down (no pun intended). We’ll never know whether it was the campaign emanating from this blog that made the difference, but I like to believe it was.
In that spirit of optimism, I’m going to ask everyone to submit complaints about another advertising campaign, this time by Sketchers Shoes. The campaign claims that Sketcher’s “Shape-up” shoes can “Promote Weight Loss, Tone Muscle, Improve Posture”. Indeed, these incredible shoes are allegedly so good that they allow you to “get in shape without setting foot in a gym”.
Don’t believe me? Here’s a PDF with the advertising claims, and then attempts to vaguely justify them.
Now I’ll admit that it’s probably possible that these shoes do tone muscle, and maybe even to a noticeable and significant extent. But that they burn a significant number of calories to the point where they can generate weight-loss, and to such an extent that one can get in shape without “setting foot in a gym”, i.e. doing any actual physically demanding exercise? I find that very hard to believe.
Obviously, I’m no expert on physical exercise. But from my limited knowledge, weight-loss occurs from burning more calories than are consumed. I find it very unlikely that a pair of shoes can cause a person to burn sufficient calories that this translates into meaningful weight loss (meaningful being “getting in shape without stepping foot in a gym”).
Of course, I could be totally wrong. These shoes could be truly revolutionary. But if they are not, then this advert shouldn’t be allowed, insofar as it misleads consumers into thinking that Sketchers shoes can promote weight-loss on a level comparable to conventional regular physical exercise.
So I’m going to ask you to join me in complaining to the ASA (via this form) along the following lines: ask the ASA to find out whether Sketchers’ claims about weight-loss and calorie-burning can be backed up by actual scientific evidence, to the extent that wearing such shoes can genuinely replace conventional physical exercise; if Sketchers’ shoes can’t do that, ask the ASA to ban the advert on the grounds that it is unacceptably misleading.
You may be wondering why I care about this. Well, I don’t have anything against Sketchers specifically. And I don’t really care if silly people buy these shoes thinking believing they’ll get thin. What bothers me is the world of advertising and marketing more generally.
We live in an age of constant bullshit, where we are told and sold lies on a daily basis. Modern consumerism largely rests upon selling people rubbish that they don’t need, on the back of false and exaggerated claims which are designed to inculcate desires as much as to satisfy them.
I see two things as broadly resulting from this. One is the ever-growing predominance of quick-fix culture; don’t go to a gym and put in hours of hard, boring exercise, or deny yourself nice-tasting food so as to lose weight – just get a pair of shoes that burn that fat for you! (Except of course, they probably don’t). For a whole host of reasons, I really dislike quick-fix culture. The other resuly is a hollowing-out of language as the mundane and trivial is described in terms that should be reserved for the meaningful and important – resulting in the debasement of values as distinctions between quality and trash are eroded away. These phenomena go beyond marketing and advertising, of course – but they have a lot to do with the growth of aggressive consumerism and the extent to which politics and wider culture increasingly emulated marketting. People may say the Bill Hicks sketch is cliched, but I like it.
So for me, complaining about Sketchers to the ASA is my own, small, personal resistance to the tide of inane, debasing, bullshit which informs so much of what is wrong with modern culture and society. Feel free to add your own insignificant weight to mine.
October 28, 2009
And the knee jerks again
Following on from the rather ill-thought out Legg decision to make MPs pay back expenses that were within the rules when claimed (but not some of those who made, er, illegal claims), the latest stupidity is (apparently) to impose a blanket ban on MPs employing family members.
Why is this stupid? Well consider the following.
I used to work for John Pugh, MP for Southport. John has never disguised the fact that his wife, Annette, works part-time for him as a Parliamentary secretary. Nor that she took a (substantial) pay-cut in 2001 to work for John, and so takes home a salary well below what somebody of her skill, dedication and quality would normally command in London. John and Annette have come to this arrangement for numerous reasons, but one is an awareness that all must be above board, and there must be no question of John abusing his office to hand out freebies to his family.
And frankly, the people of Southport should be very grateful that they did come to this arrangement. It’s not just that Annette works incredibly hard, is incredibly able, and puts in ridiculous hours. It’s that she’s known John for decades, and so is uniquely placed to help organise the chaotic working week of a committed MP. Having been at John’s office for 7 months until last September, I can say that without a doubt it was Annette that kept John and myself on-track, and the office functioning as well as it did.
That will soon be over. Annette will no longer be able to work for John and the people of Southport. John will be forced to employ somebody who doesn’t know him, or how his office works. The new person will almost certainly have to be employed on a full-time basis. And they will command a much higher salary than Annette did. End result? John has to employ a worse secretary (at least in the short run; I trust John will find somebody who in the long-run will get up to scratch – but it will take time) for more money. Apparently, the taxpayer and the people of Southport are supposed to gain from this situation.*
Obviously I’m in favour of preventing nepotism and abuse a-la-Derek Conway. There is a problem with some MPs employing family members on grotesquely unjustified salaries. But the correct solution to this is to implement a measure that should have been undertaken years ago: making all MPs’ staff employees of Parliament and not the MP directly. That way salaries can be centrally set, with MPs having staff-number caps to ensure that they’re not deceitfully employing family dead-weight. (This would also help stop the shameful practice of using unpaid interns, incidentally).
Such a reform would ensure that the minority of those abusing the system are prevented from doing so, but that good, hard-working and dedicated staff can remain. This would benefit taxpayers and constituents.
Unfortunately such a sensible measure wouldn’t fulfil the reflexive bloodletting of MPs that the popular hysteria currently demands. So everyone loses, and the situation is worse than it needed to be.
Same shit, different day.
–
* I know the proposals will allegedly be phased-in over a 5 year period, but I think my point still stands.
October 27, 2009
Can’t cut…won’t cut?
Gordon Brown has u-turned on his decision to cut £20 million (already downgraded to £17.5m) from the Territorial Army budget. This follows pressure from David Cameron in last week’s question time, and a threatened revolt from Labour backbenchers including former Defence Minister John Reid.
We keep being told by the Tories that cuts must come as soon as possible, and by Labour that cuts will have to come, but not yet. (I tend to agree with the analysis laid out [over many posts] by Giles at FreeThinkingEconomist: that cuts will need to be made, but making them before Britain has moved into a period of growth (a-la-Tory rhetoric) will likely plunge us into deep recession. Until then, the credit markets can wait).
Yet when it comes to actually making these spending cuts, the will of the government evaporates as the other side makes political hay. But if we can’t cut the budget for civies playing soldiers at the weekend, then what on Earth can we cut? This surely has to be one of the easiest cuts to make in all public spending.
Perhaps I’m missing something. Perhaps the TA is essential to Britain’s functioning and wellbeing. Perhaps the sky will fall down if it doesn’t get £20 million a year.
But if this is the way government acts when it comes to making the public chop, perhaps the left’s (and Giles’) fears about a pre-mature-cuts-induced Torygeddon Econodisaster are unfounded.
Though it’s out of the frying pan, into the fire, right? Cuts will have to come one day: but if not the TA, then what?
La plus ça change
When debating politics, it often feels like arguments go round in circles. The same points seem to get made over and again by all sides. The specific issues at hand may change, but the underlying positions informing responses can seem not to.
And I’m not just talking about tiresome, stuck-record individuals. If we go back over 250 years – to the early-mid 18th Century, during the great debates about the emergence of commerce, the benefits (or vices) of luxury, and the great enquiries into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations – we find patterns of argument that should look astonishingly familiar to contemporary readers.
Take the following by Jean-Francois Melon, from his enormously influential A Political Essay Upon Commerce (which according to Istvan Hont, dominated the debate on the emergence of nascent capitalism for 15 years after it was published in 1734):
“The excessive Price paid for some trifling Provisions, which the Luxurious Man displayeth with Profusion, at an Entertainment, the Merit whereof, he would have to consist in the Expensiveness of it, is an Instance of the highest, and most ridiculous Kind of Luxury, and yet, why should this extravagant Expence be exclaimed against? The Money thus earned, would, if it lay in the Chest of the Luxurious Man, remain Dead to the Society. The Gardiner receiveth it, and hath deserved it, as a Recompence for his Labour, which is thereby excited again. His Children, almost naked, are thereby clothed; they eat Bread in Plenty, enjoy better Health, and labour with a cheerful Expectation. The same Money given to Beggars, would only serve to feed their Idleness and Debaucheries.”
The attitude expressed is not at all dissimilar to the modern defence (usually from the political right) that the rich can spend their money on whatever the hell they like, even if that consumption is stupid and superfluous. It’s their money, after all. Furthermore, the added justification which follows – that money spent leads to employment, production, growth and ultimately better living for those lower down the social order – is not a million miles away from the “trickle-down effect” argument beloved of neo-liberal politicians (and some economists) in the 1980s especially. The final remark – that there’s no point giving money to the poor, they must work for their subsistence – should hardly be unfamiliar to modern readers.
But Melon’s remarks are nothing compared to this tirade from everybody’s favourite civic republican multiple-child-abandoner, Jean-Jacques Rousseau:
“As soon as the use of gold was known to men, they all strove to pile up a great quantity of it. Naturally, success had to correspond to the various degrees of industriousness and avidity of the competitors – in other words, they had to be deeply unequal. This first inequality, combined with avarice and with the talents which had produced it, must have increased even more through its own strength; for one of the vices of existing societies is that the difficulty to acquire anything always increases according to needs, and that the surplus the wealthy have is itself what enables them to deprive the poor of the bare necessities. It is an axiom in business as well as in physics that one makes nothing with nothing. Money is the true seed of money, and the first crown is infinitely harder to earn than the second million. Besides, thefts are punished only when necessity makes them forgivable; they cost honour and life to the poor man, and bring glory and fortune to the wealthy man. A destitute man who takes a crown from a harsh man sated with gold in order to have bread is a thief led to the gallows, whereas honoured citizens peacefully quench their thirst with the blood of the craftsman and the farmer. And the monopolies of the trader and the embezzlements of the taxgatherer bear the names of useful talents and ensure those exercising them that they have the favour of the Prince and the esteem of the public. That is how the wealth of the whole nation makes the opulence of a few individuals at the expense of the public, and how the treasures of millionaires increase the destitution of the citizenry. For in that forced, monstrous inequality, it follows that the sensuousness of the wealthy devours in delights the substance of the people, and blows their way only a dry, stale, brown bread at the cost of sweat and servitude.”
- Luxury, Commerce and the Arts, 1754
Rousseau packs so much into this passage it’s hard to know where to start. But I spot:
- Complaints that money begets money, and inequality harms the already worst-off the most, which is very similar to a now standard “left wing” complaint against the lack of equality of opportunity in present-day British capitalist society;
- Multiple claims that it is the very wealth of the rich which makes the poor, poor. And not just because poverty is a relative concept – elsewhere in the essay Rousseau notes that “the words poor and rich are relative, there are poor people only because there are rich people, and in more than one sense” – but because the rich “deprive the poor of the bare necessities”. Again, this should not be a new or novel concept to the modern reader;
- Reflections upon the frequency with which (what we would call) “white collar crime” is severely punished, versus the leniency offered to that of the “blue collar” variety, something I’ve reflected upon before;
- Praise being heaped upon the professions of the well-off, whilst the important tasks undertaken by the poor are marginalised and under-valued despite their being essential. Members of the financial services industry calling themselves “the wealth creators” and justifying grotesque salaries and bonuses whilst nurses and bin-men go on unsung and largely unnoticed, anyone?
- That inequality is “monstrous”. Indeed it appears for Rousseau to be the inevitable and despicable outcome of free commerce and wealth-accumulation (which we would probably now call “capitalism”) and leads to the misery and suffering of the poor, who end up with only “stale, brown bread” as the rich devour with delight their substance. However, given what Rousseau says about inequality in On The Social Contract we can also extrapolate another thought (not expressed directly in this early essay, but definitely in the later 1763 work): that inequality is bad because it leads to mistrust, factionalism and the break-down of the civic community. In sum, if there is inequality everyone suffers, not just the poor. Wilkinson and Pickett use empirical data about health, happiness and life-expectancy in The Spirit Level to argue that inequality is bad for everyone in modern society. Rousseau favoured appeals to the political and civic nature of the good human life. Different arguments, to be sure. But inequality is derided in both for its unhealthy effects upon human beings.
The only apparent divergence between Rousseau’s polemic and standard modern “left wing” complaints against (what we now call) capitalism is his denigration of tax collectors. Most modern leftists see tax and its collection as a positive force. But then, we must recall that Rousseau almost certainly has mid-18th Century France in his sights here, where huge chunks of the nobility (and clergy) simply didn’t pay any tax due to their estate privileges. So Rousseau’s hostility on that front shouldn’t bother us too much or be at all surprising.
Personally, I find the above passages pretty striking. It looks as though – in some respects and broadly speaking – we’re having pretty similar fights, and making roughly the same points, as were being fought and made when nascent capitalism first garnered popular and intellectual attention in the early 18th Century.
Whether you find that simply interesting, or perhaps a little depressing, is an indication of your outlook on life and politics, I suppose.
October 26, 2009
Manual Spectator Headline Generator
After previously supporting the vacuous (and dangerous) nonesense that there is a link between the MMR vaccine and autism, and after recently deciding to join the ranks of the global warming deniers, The Spectator editor Fraser Nelson has decided to go for Aids denialism as well (and again).
Ben Goldacre at Bad Science and Sunder at Next Left have good analyses (with tonnes of links) covering the science and the politics. I have nothing new to add, as everything that needs to be said has been.
Instead, I thought we could anticipate – or perhaps even suggest – some headlines the home of Mad Mel might run in future. How about:
- “Is the Earth really spherical? It looks round to us. Legitimate questions need to be asked about the post-Colombus Consensus that one does not fall off the edge of the world if one keeps sailing west.”
- “Is the Sun really at the centre of the solar system? If you look at the sky, you can clearly see that the sun revolves around us. Is it acceptable to have a debate about whether Copernicus pulled off the longest-running con in world history?”
- “Evolution: Fraser Nelson asks: ‘Just because I write and act like a monkey, does that mean my ancestors were monkeys? It’s time to challenge the left-liberal-pharma-industrial-complex and ask if God had the answers all along.”
- “Dinosaurs: are we being tested by God?”
- “Gordon Brown: Born and raised in Scotland? Or born and trained in Afghanistan? It’s time to ask: is the PM really British, or part of a sinister foreign terrorist conspiracy?”
- “Revealed: NHS death panels execute “unproductive” elderly. Truth about 60 year mistake unveiled.”
- “Do bacteria really exist or are they really just a vicious plot manufactured by the soap industry in order to get a hold of ordinary honest hard working people’s (your!) well-earned money?!” (Thanks Mads)
The list will be updated as I think of new ones. If you have suggestions, put them in comments and the best ones I’ll add to the main post.
October 24, 2009
Causes and Effects
I’m substantially editing this post because I got some stuff wrong in the original version. I think my core contention stands, but I got there through faulty reasoning. The altered version is below. H/T to Grace and Peter for forcing me to get clear on this. Unfortunately, the original version containing logical fallacy has gone up at Liberal Conspiracy already.
Additions and alterations in bold.
–
I’ve already commented frequently about the fact of gender inequality in our society, but also of the fact most people just don’t see it.
But it’s always good to have up-to-date examples.
Take Amanda Platell, writing in the Daily Mail, for example:
“All the more so when Labour’s own experiment with female shortlists proved to be so disastrous.
Has Cameron learned nothing from the catastrophe that was Blair’s Babes – the female intake of the 1997 election?
Remember Ruth Kelly? Jacqui Smith? Caroline Flint? As with so many Labour ladies, they turned out to be stunningly incompetent or ill-suited for high office. It was a national embarrassment.”
As Sunder at Next Left points out (h/t owed for the above), neither Kelly, Smith nor Flint were actually selected via women-only shortlists. So Platell’s article commits a basic error of fact, if her argument is that all-women shortlists returned particular examples of bad MPs. on that front, although it is true that Jacqui Smith was selected from an All-Women Shortlist (AWS).
But the Daily Mail has never been particularly troubled by the petty business of accuracy in reporting, so nothing new there. And nothing new in the Mail’s raving misogyny, either. But it’s worth reflecting on the nature of that misogyny.
Platell’s reasoning (if it deserves the name) appears to be this: there were some bad women MPs who were selcted from AWSs, ergo all-women shortlists are a bad idea, because they will return bad MPs.
Imagine the logic, applied to men:
“All the more when the United Kingdom’s centuries-old practice of either only – or overwhelmingly (in recent years) - selecting men to be MPs has proved to be so disastrous”
“Has Cameron learned nothing from the catastrophe that was the last 400 years of Parliamentary supremacy?”
“Remember Anthony Eden? Neil Hamilton? David Amess? As with so many Tory gentlemen, they turned out to be stunningly incompetent or ill-suited for high office. It was a national embarrassment.”
The reasoning is patently preposterous. The idea that men are ill-suited to be MPs because there have been bad male MPs is laughable. It’s hard to believe anyone would even think about putting the above into print, or that it wouldn’t be laughed out of town if they did.
Yet this treatment is applied to women, in a national newspaper with a circulation of nearly 2 and a quarter million. Again, the Mail’s misogynistic editorial line is nothing new; that’s not primarily what I want to point towards. Instead, let’s reflect upon the fact that this sort of unashamed misogyny and idiocy passes with millions of people not batting an eyelid. That means that Platell’s absurd and sexist reasoning is, to a large extent, symptomatic of a society which is not only tolerant – but must in some ways, itself actualise – basic, unashamed misogyny of Platell’s sort. (Of course, the story rapidly gets more complicated: the Mail is not just an effect, but also in some measure a cause, of the entrenched sexism which makes Platell-style nonesense socially acceptable. More on that in a minute).
Originally, I wanted to argue the following: Platell’s claim that all women shortlists returned bad MPs is based on misogyny, because nobody would point to the fact that the present electoral system returns bad MPs as proof that the present electoral system is undesirable. I implied that these examples were ‘symmetric’, and therefore what had to be doing the work in explaining how Platell could get away with her comments about Smith et al vis-a-vis women’s shortlists was an underlying sexism which tolerated one set of judgements against women, which are not applied to men.
That line of reasoning, upon reflection, cannot be maintained as definitely correct. For consider: Platell could reply that all she aimed to show was that AWSs returned poorer candidates, because they widened the pool of selection to those who were under-qualified. She could cite as her evidence the presence and career of Jacqui Smith.
Now this is different from saying that because there are bad MPs elected on the present system without gender-specific shortlists (e.g. Alan Duncan, say), therefore the present system is undesirable. The important difference is that Platell could claim that 1) returning some bad MPs is an inescapable consequence of any selection/election procedure, but 2) that AWS are more likely to return bad MPs than a system without gender shortlists.
Now, we may think this is a very bad argument. Platell’s evidence would have to be numerous cases of bad MPs who happen to have been selected via AWSs, and she would have to show that overall, the proportion of bad MPs returned by AWS was higher than on the non-shortlisting system. I doubt she can do that, and certainly simply pointing to Jacqui Smith (and erroneously, Flint and Kelly) doesn’t achieve it. But that’s not to say it couldn’t be done (though defining “bad MP” is going to be messy).
However, it’s not a gendered distinction. The argument rests upon a claim about AWSs returning worse MPs than the non-AWSs system, and that can be gender-blind.
Now, I happen to think that in the original piece Platell wrote there were misogynistic undertones, and I also happen to think that the reason many people didn’t balk at Platell’s remarks but would balk at my XY-rendered version of it is because of deep-seated attitudes constitutive of gender inequality, rather than sophisticated technical arguments as outlined above. But I can’t prove that, and it stands that I was wrong to imply that Platell’s piece necessarily rests upon misogynistic attitudes (even if I suspect it did, given where it was published and remarks Platell uses like “so many Labour ladies” – regardless of whether these “Labour ladies” were selected by short list or not).
So what happens to my original over-all thesis, that there are examples in the media of the misogynistic treatment of women which illustrate a deep-seated cultural misogyny? Fortunately, it is not much affected, as thanks to Peter I can supply another example, here. The article by James Slack (which I’ve discussed before), is, as Peter says, probably as bad as Moir’s one about Stephen Gately. So my over-all thesis can continue unabated, thanks to Peter’s supplying an alternative case-study.
If our society wasn’t so tolerant of misogyny to begin with, articles like Platell’s/Slack’s wouldn’t be standard fare for the Mail. Indeed, we have a case in point. Last week the Mail’s long-running homophobia reached an apex with Jan Moir’s horrific article on the death of Stephen Gately. And Britain kicked back, hard. The Mail certainly went “too far”. But it wasn’t a simple case of there being a timeless, unmoving line which the Mail had crossed. Rather, society has changed to the point where huge numbers of people will no longer tolerate the Mail’s homophobic hate in such manifestly blatant and vicious forms: the line the Mail crossed has moved.
Of course, the Mail will still run lie-filled pieces of homophobia, claiming that (for example) gay adoption harms children (for which there is bascially zero evidence). But the point about the Jan Moir fall-out is that some things are now unacceptable before the court of public opinion, and full-throttle aggressive homophobia is now one of them. Social change on matters of ingrained prejudice is therefore possible. The Mail finds itself having to adjust to altered circumstances.
We’ve a long way to go, of course. But we mustn’t view the Mail as simply a determinant of social attitudes towards gender (and sexuality), through its influence on a predominantly right-wing middle-class readership. It may itself shape a lot of nasty views, but we should not be over-simplistic (and pessimistic) in our analysis: the Mail is in turn shaped by what our society will and will not tolerate. One day maybe our society will move to the point where blatantly misogynistic reasoning is as derided as unfounded smears on a gay man’s life and death. Accordingly, articles like Platell’s/Slack’s will generate as much outrage as Moir’s did should they even make it into print.
We’re a long way from that day, to be sure. And the battle must go on. But the fall-out from Moir is cause for hope: change is possible; the Mail must adapt as well as dictate.
October 23, 2009
Second Thoughts
The morning after the night before, and I’m starting to wonder if many people were too quick to be pleased about Griffin’s apparently poor performance on Question Time. Twitter threads were mostly ecstatic about what an idiot he made of himself. Personally, I was incredibly relieved that my predictions of how poor the Question Time format would be in attempts to expose Griffin proved unfounded. I went to bed convinced that the standard “no platform” claim that you can’t expose fascists by taking them on publicly was dead in the water.
Today, I’m not so sure.
To those of us already opposed to fascism – who already knew what Nick Griffin is and what he stands for – it was a great to see him exposed up for his far-right nuttery, and to see him dig what looked like ever deeper holes through his attempts to be reasonable and blame everything on conspiracy and mis-quotation.
But in politics, perspective is everything. It’s quite possible that we avowed and established BNP-opponents saw Griffin being exposed as a liar, a racist and a conspiracy loon – but that others saw something different.
For consider the email the BNP sent out after the programme, which contained (alleged) quotes such as:
“The man’s got guts!” “At last, someone saying exactly what we all feel”. “The hand-picked audience in the studiohated what Nick had to say, but we loved it”. “I’ve never seen such political bullying on TV in my life.” “When he pointed out how all the others are racist against the English, we were all cheering”.
OK, so that’s how BNP members are supposed to have responded. Entirely predictable, I’m sure you’ll agree. But can we be sure it was just BNP members who felt that way?
The BNP email – as well as claiming that Griffin was “bullied” – goes on to state:
“Most of all though, this wasn’t a proper Question Time at all. The usual format was done away with for the first time in 30 years as the BBC over-compensated for allowing us on by setting things up for a televised lynching.
There was nothing about current affairs at all; no postal strike, nothing about the announcement that Tony Blair is about to be appointed EU President, nothing about the continued slaughter of young British soldiers in Afghanistan, nothing about the latest stages of the banking crisis and the scandal of the Government propping up corrupt banks while imposing savage cuts on essential services. On all those subjects and many more, the BNP’s nationalist position offers a real alternative to the three old internationalist parties.”
And here’s the rub: they’re right. Griffin was bullied, it was a TV lynching, and that was in no way shape or form a typical episode of Question Time. (So perhaps my original reservations still stand; if the BNP ever get to do a “normal” question time, things could be very different). Last night it was most definitely “Get Griffin”.
Of course, I have no problem with programmes that attack Griffin and the BNP per se. I’m all for exposing what he and they are. But I do have worries about tactics and implications. For let’s suppose that it wasn’t just BNP members who felt that Griffin’s treatment was unfair. Let’s suppose many of the disaffected white working class of Lancashire, Yorkshire and Humber, the Midlands, London and everywhere else tuned in to watch this special event, not least due to the enormous pre-broadcast hype. Let’s suppose that many of these people don’t normally watch Question Time.
How many of these people saw – like us – a frothing, conspiracy-spouting, uncomfortable, evasive racist? How many saw a bloke who claims to be standing up for the white working class being hounded and jeered and persecuted by the snouts-in-the-trough piggies of Westminster?
There’s (less than conclusive, to say the least) evidence that some people certainly may have felt the latter. From the BBC’s Have Your Say section (h/t to Grace):
“This was not the normal agenda of QT, it was a personal lynching by the LW PC brigade aimed at Mr Griffin personally.”
“This wasn’t Question Time, this was ‘bash the BNP in an orchestrated ambush time’. A missed opportunity to discuss important matters and policy for the various parties.”
“Absolutely pointless, none of the issues affecting the British public were addressed.”
Sure, those comments could have been posted by BNP activists. But they could quite easily have come from ordinary, angry people who after years of reading hate-filled Daily Mail or Sun lies have made the logical leap to sympathising with the BNP.
Overall, I’m inclined to believe that Griffin’s bizarre conspiracy claims (I got to 8 separate citations of conspiracy in the first 20 minutes before getting bored of counting), the fact he refused to repudiate his holocaust denying past, and his unashamed affiliations with the KKK whilst sat next to the commendable Bonnie Greer will have weighed heavily against him. I don’t think most people are stupid, and hence I’m inclined to believe most people will have been less than impressed. But Griffin did well on the issue of Iraq vis-a-vis Labour, and on immigration all three of the main parties danced a very BNP tune.
My point? Just because Griffin came across like a cornered idiot to us doesn’t mean that everyone else watching necessarily came to the same conclusions. Again, chickens should not yet be counted.
October 22, 2009
Not the apocalypse, but…
My worst fears about Question Time were not realised. For the most part, Griffin was exposed by the panelists as a vile, lying, holocaust-denying racist and almost everytime he spoke he made himself look worse. Not least because he couldn’t sit still and made Gordon Brown’s smile look normal.
So the sky didn’t fall down, and QT was much better as a format for harming the BNP than I feared it would be. We should be happy about that. But let’s not count our chickens too soon in deciding how much tonight harmed the BNP cause.
During the question about immigration – and whether Labour’s policy on it has fuelled the BNP – it was striking that none of the panelists challenged the dominant right-wing narrative that immigration is out of control, and necessarily bad for Britain. Even Chris Huhne – of the Liberal Democrats! – pandered to the anti-immigration sentiment and tried to out-hardline Griffin.
This is instructive. On immigration, the BNP are mainstream and the other parties dance to their tune for fear of hemorrhaging votes. Make of that what you will.
That Griffin himself came across like a creep and an idiot is to be welcomed…but does it distract from what really matters?
Time will tell.
Seems Fitting
There’s a valley in Spain called Jarama
It’s a place that we all know so well
It was there that we fought against the fascists
We saw a peaceful valley turn to hell
From this valley they say we are going
But dont hasten to bid us adieu
Even though we lost the battle at Jarama
We’ll set this valley free before we’re through
We were men of Lincoln Battalion
We’re proud of the fight that we made
We know that you people love the valley
We’ll remember the Lincoln Brigade
From this valley they say we are going
But dont hasten to bid us adieu
Even though we lost the battle at Jarama
We’ll set this valley free before we’re through
You will never find peace with these fascists
You’ll never find friends such as we
So remember that valley of Jarama
And the people that’ll set that valley free
From this valley they say we are going
But dont hasten to bid us adieu
Even though we lost the battle at Jarma
We’ll set this valley free before we’re through
All this world is like this valley called Jarama
So green and so bright and so fair
No fascists can dwell in our valley
Nor breathe in our new freedom’s air
From this valley they say we are going
But dont hasten to bid us adieu
Even though we lost the battle at Jarama
We’ll set this valley free before we’re through
- Unknown, as performed by Woody Guthrie
