Free speech? You're avin a larf!

After the wave of outrage over Paris comes the outrage over the attack on ‘free speech’. So we now have a new wave of hypocrisy. Everyone is fulminating against an horrendous attack on free speech. Our masters are loudest whilst simultaneously proposing more draconian ‘snooping laws. They have been telling us for years that being rude, abusive, insulting or just plain nasty about other peoples’  colour, religion, sexual orientation or what-have-you is unacceptable – and passing ‘hate speech’ legislation to make sure we get the message. The response of the French Government has been to arrest an obscure comedian.

 

Now it’s quite OK. Or not.

 

When did ‘free speech’ ever happen? The truth is we haven’t got it and have never had it fully.

 

‘Free speech’ is what our masters allow us, and what they, not us, define as ‘free’.

 

Until the libertarian sixties changed almost everything, we had precious little.  

 

The Lord Chamberlain’s Office censored the theatre (although hardly anyone knew who the Lord Chancellor was). Publications were covered by a whole range of censorship legislation, including the Obscene Publications Act intended to protect us against anything that might tend ‘to corrupt and deprave’ (that is, anyone except the censors  who were immune to such).

 

Films were censored by the British Board of Film Control, whose ‘X’ certificate was eagerly sought by the film industry because it signified that it might be a bit more naughty than the average Ealing Comedy.

 

But it didn’t end with the BBFC. Local Authority Watch Committees could still ban films approved by the Board if they thought it might offend the sensibilities of the local residents.

 

The Chairman of the Southend Borough Council Watch Committee got an unsought headline in the Sunday Times over ‘Deep Throat', starring Marlon Brando, in which there was an allusion to oral sex. ‘We will not swallow oral sex in Southend’, he thundered, thus assuring his small footnote in a ‘Did I really say that?’ dictionary of quotations.

 

Now we have the non-Governmental extra-legal censors.

 

TV is at the forefront. Almost all of their output is repeats. They go back years to some of the most toe-curling programmes ever made. How do you fancy ‘On the Buses Christmas Special’? In July.

 

But you will never see the brilliant ‘Ain’t ‘alf ‘ot. Mum’. Why? Because we can’t possibly offend the sensibilities of the ‘gay’ community by re-running a series in which one of the leading characters is an outrageous and hilariously funny homo and the Sergeant Major’s favourite bellow is ‘You is a bunch of poofters; what is you?’

 

Or ‘Love thy neighbour’ although it was a parody of racial attitudes.

 

Bernard Manning would never have got a booking, and we would have been denied Jim Davison’s hilarious Jamaican, Chalky - (Traffic cop: ‘Chalky, you are driving drunk’. Chalky; ‘Tank God man; me tink me steering ad gaan!’).

 

Today’s ‘comics’ exist solely on foul language, which is perfectly acceptable to the TV . It is too dangerous to venture an actual ‘joke’.

 

And we must not forget our very own censor moderators. A short time ago I posted blog about the silly furore of Madonna appearing topless, and reproduced the picture that was published world-wide. The blog was taken down very quickly. I have a photograph of a young Debby Harry topless. Would that be taken down? After all, I downloaded it from the DT itself

 

But of course in the past the Government has been at the forefront, wearing its ‘ anti-racism’ cloak. It is now replaced with one against immigration and another on Muslim terrorism. You have to hand it to these guys. They can shed  their principles and their political clothing faster than a strip-tease artiste can shed her g-string.

 

It is they who have driven censorship of just about everything ever since the Blair/Brown reign of terror, all of which remain untouched by a supposedly libertarian Tory party.  In the last few years we have seen a sustained attack on free speech by politicians, the PC fraternity, and a whole range of  outfits like the BBC

 

You can be done under hate speech laws because the person at the receiving end says it is, not because any reasonable person (or jury) would share that view. How’s that for perversion of the rules of evidence?

 

And then there was the episode involving the egregious Alibhai-Brown, Guardianista and BBC  poster girl. She wrote a piece supporting the stoning of women. A small-time politician tweeted that maybe we should stone her instead. He was taken into custody.

 

An old age pensioner, on being told to remove the garden gnomes from hsi council house garden by some jobsworth, replied ‘ Can’t I even do my f*****g garden the way I want?’ and was promptly given an £80 ticket.

 

An effect of the censorship on porn (which today we would laugh at as being ridiculously ‘soft’ porn) was huge corruption in the Met. The Commissioner, Sir Robert Mark, said that a good police force was that employed  fewer crooks than it arrested. He demolished the ’dirty squad’, the 'Obscenity Unit', not being able to find a single honest cop within it.

 

But there is a line not to be crossed. ‘Freedom’ and ‘Licence’ are two quite different things. ‘Charlie’ was licence.

 

Of course there must be limits. The English law of defamation (one of the most draconian anywhere) defines it as ‘tending to bring a person into hatred ridicule or contempt’. Uniquely, the burden of proof is upon the defendant. And this protection is only available to the wealthy; it is ineligible for legal aid.

 

The Pope has just spoken out about the wickedness of abusing or vilificating a person because of religious belief. Freedom does not mean licence. What is acceptable should be governed by tolerance, good manners, and good taste. ‘ Charlie’ was totally reprehensible if for no other reason than that it was excruciatingly unfunny. It was deliberately, gratuitously and purposely offensive without any redeeming feature.

 

Of course, that in no way mitigates the appalling consequences. Repetition can only be  prevented through ruthless extermination of people who are of the ilk of those who committed this atrocity.

 

The big lesson to be learned is that when Governments try to regulate human behaviour, the results will always be disastrous and sometimes tragic.

 

 

 

 

America and the Paris march..........

 Yes, O or Kerry or Biden should have been there to hold hands with the fantastic 40 who did show up. But the US was a bit confused by it all. We are not quite sure what all the fuss is about. Besides, the short notice was not appreciated, especially now that it is American professional football playoff time. Most of us are glued to our telly and don't feel guilty at all over watching what has become our national sport.

 

Europe is currently engaged in a broad debate over immigration. To them, this means Muslim immigration. When we hear the term we think Mexican and Hispanic and ask 'so what's the big deal?'  Also, America is not a tribal society, but rather are the product of huge melting pots that result in, as Europe would have everyone believe, a largely cultureless and lo-bred society. European countries and the UK have the delightful baggage of ethnic, cultural and linguistic history to preserve and protect. Threats to this heritage are anathema to the integrity of their social structure.

 

Confusion is also precipitated over our having politicized the event in Paris. These days we seem to be politicizing just about everything. The political right pretends to be shocked by O's failure to properly address the Paris protocols. They think of O as more than half Muslim anyway and many are still convinced he is foreign born. It is difficult for ordinary Americans to understand why we should be called to rally to this particular event and not over other equally misogynistic acts of terror.

 

That the Charlie Hebdo slaughter has morphed into a debate on the status of French Jews adds another layer of complexity to the mix. Reading the European press over the past several months leads one to believe that anti-Semitism is very much on the rise again. We read of Jewish citizens forsaking their country for a better life elsewhere such as the UK, the USA or Israel. Given this context it is somewhat non sequitur for public rallies for Jewishness as evidenced by people carrying 'je suis juif' placards. Are we now to understand that anti-Semitism has seriously faded in France, or is the equation one of the French favoring Jews over Muslims?

 

Not coincidentally I am sure, are the rallies in Germany which condemn contemporary waves of immigration as both overly Islamic and insufficiently German. The rhetoric of German participants shown in the American media are uncomfortably reminiscent of attitudes prevailing in the Third Reich. They berate immigrants for not speaking German and not being in touch with the fatherland and its people and values.

 

It would  appear that Europe has just experienced a massive injection of anti-Muslim sentiments. The question Americans are asking is where will Europe go from here. Clearly, France and Germany have had enough and the UK is right behind them. Will this movement wane or will there be specific actions taken to curtail immigration into Europe from outside the EU. Or will the reaction to the Charlie Hebdo assault be another sizable brick added to an already overladen camel's back.

 

Those useless Russian sanctions.......

The problem with sanctions against Russia is that they will not work. They never do. They usually penalise the blameless and have little impact on the ruling classes.

 

I was a member of Lord Soames’ team that monitored the 1980 elections in  Rhodesia. Sanctions had been in force for 15 years. The effects had been largely beneficial. True the only Scotch to be had was ‘Hundred Pipers’ but the overall outcome had been to stimulate manufacturing industry in a country previously dependent on agriculture and mining. All paper was recycled. A new wine industry grew up, although the taste of the end-product was sufficient reason for capitulation.Any make of European car was available except British, which illustrates another possible outcome of sanctions. Other countries will take advantage to snatch business for themselves.

 

The Smith rule collapsed because John Vorster cut off its arms supply, believing that a settlement in Rhodesia would take the heat off South Africa. Vorster did not understand that in war you ‘fight forward’.

 

It is claimed that sanctions brought about the demise of apartheid. They did not. Apartheid ended because the country had become ungovernable. The sporting ban had an effect on morale where the national religion is rugby but there was little  sign of economic damage. And the US ‘disinvestment’ strategy whereby American companies had to get out of South Africa merely led to their disposal locally at fire-sale prices. One cheeky Cape Town restaurateur actually registered ‘McDonalds’ as his brand name!

 

The US constantly used sanctions against Hispanic regimes that it disapproved of, not necessarily because they were ‘undemocratic’ but because they were seen as ‘communist’-inclined. They simply made the US even more unpopular throughout the whole region.

 

Sanctions against Serbia in the ‘90s did not prevent the invasion of Bosnia. I saw some of the results of the subsequent policy of ethnic cleansing.

 

The Russian situation is unusual. Sanctions are used more frequently against small countries by big ones. The most notorious modern failure is the continuing sanctions by the US against Cuba, which are still in force despite the recent diplomatic rapprochement. They were useless in destabilising the regime, but they did give Castro a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to cast himself as the Hispanic hero facing down the big Yanqui bully. He was very successful in this role.

 

North Korea is the most loathsome regime of modern times against some pretty fierce competition. It has long been subject to Western sanctions that have had no discernible effect, not even in preventing the acquisition of nukes. China ensures that Kim Jong-un stays in place as a barrier against a West-leaning government on  its northern border.

 

Russia is in increasingly dire straits economically but it is abundantly plain that this is overwhelmingly due to the collapse of the oil price. Incredibly, its response has been to increase production even further to garner more dollars as the rouble heads south at breakneck speed.

 

Those who believe that sanctions are an alternative to armed conflict should reflect that when  Pericles imposed sanctions against a neighbour for abducting a number of women, it led to the Peloponnesian  War.

 

And that was in 432 BC.

 

 

2015: Old Haymaker's Almanac.

Once again it’s the time of year when the chattering classes give us the benefit of their predictions for the next twelve months. Most will be in the ‘to hell in a handcart’ variety so as not to encourage  an unacceptable outbreak of cheerfulness.

 

So what’s my best guess on how the new year will turn out?

 

First up, Russia.

 

Vlad the Invader will be advised to fasten his seatbelt; he’s in for a bumpy ride. He gives a whole new meaning to the old cliché ‘between a rock and a hard place’.

 

The rock is economic. The rouble is crashing. There is double digit inflation. People with money are getting out of the banks fast. Capital flight is huge (much of it to London, thanks Vlad).The banks are facing ‘the crunch’; already one has had to be bailed out. Bonds are looking at ‘junk’ status. Food prices are soaring partly because of the rouble’s troubles and partly because of Putin’s crackpot counter sanctions against EU food exports. Industry is winding down and car production has been all but scrubbed, making it difficult for the ordinary Russian to buy a new car.

 

Putin reckons the Russian people will tighten their belts until they cut themselves in half, as they did in 1940.

 

Dream on, Vlad. This is not 1940 and it’s not Stalingrad. It is not Communist; it is bourgeois. A huge number of Russians have got accustomed to Western living standards, cars, luxury goods, foreign travel. Do you really think that they will give that up just to massage your ego?

 

His major asset, oil, is now trading at less about half  Russia’s break-even price which means that repayment of short-term foreign debt is at risk and the budget has been decimated. If there is a default Russia could be back to 1998 with financial collapse and hyper-inflation.

 

The hard-place is the Ukraine.

 

If Putin doesn’t back off he is facing an economic crisis of humungous proportions. If he does his prestige will collapse along with his standing amongst the Russian people. That could be the             occasion for a putsch. If you are naïve enough to believe the polls, he has an 85% popular approval rating. But when life for ordinary Russians becomes exceptionally hard, as is possible during the ferocious Russian winter we can anticipate a rapid rise in discontent leading to street demos such as we have just seen in Moscow.

 

His main props, the oligarchs, must surely be getting uneasy. Some who were previously close to Putin have fallen out of favour and been either jailed or bankrupted.

 

His Stalinesque approach to political opposition is illustrated by the case of Alexei Navalny, Putin’s main political opponent. He has been given a suspended sentence (possibly much to Putin’s annoyance) for defrauding two firms. There appears to be a total lack of evidence, not that this is of particular importance in the Russian judicial system. One of the firms, a French cosmetics company, said that it was entirely unaware of any fraud. His brother got three and a half years; intimidation of the whole family is part of the game.         

 

Vladimir Yevtushenkov was once one of Russia’s richest men, one of the inner cabal. Then he was falsely accused of money-laundering. The case was dropped      ; even Putin acknowledged that there was no case to answer. That didn’t stop him from stripping Yevtushenkov of his huge interest in the Bashneft oil company which was promptly given to Rosneft which is headed by one of Putin’s cronies.

A

nd what of the oil price which is so critical to Russia’s economic welfare?

T

he last time a fall of this magnitude happened was between 1986 and 1999. It had dramatic  geopolitical fall-out. The Soviet Union collapsed. Iraq invaded Kuwait. Yasser Arafat, deprived of his Soviet ally and Arab money, agreed to recognise Israel.

 

Now there may be an element of history repeating itself. One of the factors in the rapprochement between the US and Cuba maybe due to Castro’s fear that he is about to lose his 100,000 bpd of subsidised oil from Venezuela, which itself is a basket-case. Algeria, Iran, and the Gulf States need high oil prices to grub-stake their own populations sothat they don’t get silly ideas about ‘democracy’. Egypt needs Arab oil money to prop it up during its present mess.

 

And on the brighter side, ISIS will lose a large chunk of its oil-smuggling money.

 

The ‘experts’, are predicting that Brent crude will fall to below $50 or rise to something like former prices. Don’t bet the farm on either.

 

An easier prediction is that we will continue to see the growth of far-right and far-left parties in Europe, especially where there is strong opposition to the euro -  which is most of them.

 

In France the National Front is gaining strength quickly. 2014 was its best year yet and Le Pen is front-runner for the 2017 Presidential elections. The Swedish Democrat party, which has been accused of neo-Nazism, holds the balance of power, and the far-right Jobbik party in Hungary is Hungary’s third-largest party, winning 20% of the vote at the last election. In Austria the far-right Freedom party had its best year in the EU elections since 1999. The Marxist Podemos movement in Spain is rapidly gaining strength against a background of 54% youth unemployment. Russia is backing nationalist parties in Europe including funding the NF in France; its own ideology is extreme nationalism.       

 

The prediction for the USA is rather mundane. Obama’s hand on the tiller, if it was ever there, will become ever more palsied. Meanwhile the American economy will continue to       surge despite the best efforts of Congress which has little interest outside Washington and the endless manoeuvring for power, influence and dollars.

 

The UK scenario will be much more interesting.

I

t is entering one of the most turbulent political situation since WW2. Forget the opinion polls.  The only one that counts takes place in May. On present showing I would put my money on a small but workable majority for the Tories, obliteration for the Lid-Dems, single-figure seats for UKIP, a loss of at least 40 seats by Labour, and a similar gain by SNP, although the Scottish bloodbath predicted by the Fat Boys of Peckham is hype, not serious politics.

 

The nightmare outcome will be SNP holding the balance of power and forming a coalition with Labour as the Government, notwithstanding its rejection by the English. Already the Scots have registered their arrogant demands such as the closure of Faslane and the removal of all nukes from Scottish soil – the defence and security policy for the whole of the United Kingdom being dictated by a gang of Scotch nats. And they have made it plain that if Cameron introduces a Bill to re-legalise fox hunting they will oppose it. That there is no fox hunting in Scotland gives a vivid insight into their mind-set.

 

If this comes to pass, listen out for the sound of breaking glass.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

Good news on oil - or is it?

Cheaper petrol –what’s not to like?

 

It will put more money in our pockets, reduce transport costs, make business and industry more competitive, and give the economy a further boost.

 

Brent crude is now down to around $60 a barrel with West Texas hovering at $53. Some pundits reckon on a fall to $40 before recovering to $80-ish next year.

 

The conspiracy theorists reckon this is a conspiracy between the US and Saudi Arabia to persuade Putin to drop his support for Assad.

 

Others say the Saudis are trying to undermine the American fracking industry, which has enabled the US to cut its imports by over 8 million barrels per day, equivalent to the entire output of Nigeria and Saudi combined. It will become a net exporter within the next four years and be independent of Gulf oil.

 

So the Saudi strategy just won’t work. Most of the shale output has been hedged for 2015, in addition to which  some producers can survive with prices as low as $50 per barrel and in some cases much lower. Costs will continue to fall as start-up costs are amortised.

 

It will weaken Putin’s grip as the energy-dependent economy of Russia begins to seize-up; prices are now well below production costs and it might be impossible to balance the budget or to fund his lavish rearmament programme. He may – just may – rethink his policy on the Ukraine (although it is just as likely that he will lash out in some way if he is cornered).

 

It will undermine Iran’s Middle East meddling.

 

It will encourage the current bull market in equities.

 

Only it’s not all good news

 

It’s not just oil. Other commodity prices are going south rapidly –iron ore, gold, copper, platinum, sugar, cotton, soybean and most others. This is not such good news.

 

It is a pretty good indication that the world economy is slowing down; the falls are in real money, not just relative to other price levels.. Demand has fallen for energy, minerals and food products as economies have contracted. GDP forecasts have been revised downwards in most countries, including  the big player, China. This is particularly bad news for China’s main commodity suppliers, such as Australia.

 

There are other reasons.

 

QE has pushed-up commodity prices. The Fed is on the brink of ending QE and tightening monetary policy. This signals an increase in the $ interest rate, in which world commodities are priced. High interest rates are an incentive to pump or drill now because it is not good practice to hold large inventories.

 

Rising interest rates encourage portfolios to shift into other asset classes. This is good news for people who depend on bank deposits for a slice of their income and who have been badly hit over the last few years. It is not so good for people with heavy mortgages.

 

And we must not overlook Britain’s own oil industry. Tax revenues will fall even further. As many as 15,000 jobs may be lost. Further investment in North Sea oil will dry up.

 

On the broader front, it may cause further instability in countries already beset with Islamist threats – Nigeria, Libya, Egypt, Algeria and the Sahel. Cash-strapped Oil Sheiks might no longer be able to buy-off the Islamists. In addition, Venezuela is imploding and Brazil, heavily dependent on energy exports, is groaning under a mountain of debt accumulated during the good times.

 

The oil producing countries are bleeding money. To break-even, Russia needs  $105 pb, Venezuela $161, Nigeria $126, and even Saudi requires $98.

 

All this may threaten already fragile world security, when even Saudi is under threat. Northern Nigeria is highly likely to become a Boko Haram stronghold, spreading terrorism further across West Arica. Saudi is betting that that this regional economic shock can be contained for another two years. It would be unwise to take the bet.

 

So the plunge in oil prices is more of a curate’s egg than a total blessing.

 

 

 

Simple torture...........

The ‘perfect storm’ over CIA torture is showing no signs of abating.

 

The NYT carries both comment and a raft of letters, a surprising number of them attempting to justify torture on the spurious grounds that ‘if it saves one American from being beheaded….’ Which it won’t.

 

One English correspondent who claims to have been ‘born in 1944 when V1 rockets were falling on London’ says that enemy prisoners were tortured by the British, as if being a small baby at the time adds credence to his view.

 

Well, I was brought up during WW2. I had some personal experience of POWs. Every day for about two years truck-loads of first Italian then German POWs were delivered to my village to build new housing estates as ‘homes fit for heros’. There were no guards. They fraternised openly with the locals. They made toys for us small boys. In the evening the trucks took them back to their camp.

 

In later life I met a fomer POW in Germany. He had been taken prisoner by the 8th Army in the Desert Campaign. He told me that the next three years were the happiest of his life. He had been sent to work on a farm in Essex, lived there, and was treated as one of the family.

 

A while back there was a TV documentary about a Yorkshire village at Christmas 1945. There was a strict ‘no fraternisation’ rule. The villagers ignored this and invited all the POWs to their Christmas dinners, albeit somewhat meagre because of food rationing.

 

In the past 70 years there has not been a single recorded complaint, claim or allegation of torture, although there were hundreds of thousands of Axis POWs in Britain.

 

British intelligence does not do torture. They get their information by more effective methods – guile, deceit and cunning.

 

Senior German officers were not imprisoned at all. They were lodged in comfortable houses where Intelligence was happy to listen to their bugged conversations. The prison camps were also bugged and a vast amount of intelligence was gained. POWs were quite happy to discuss their roles in the Holocaust with their fellow Germans, not appreciating that the intelligence service contained a substantial number of German-speaking Jewish refugees.

 

There is no justification for torture at any time under any circumstances.

 

For starters, it is illegal under both domestic and iternational law. No exceptions, no excuses.

 

For the ‘Land of the free home of the brave’ to condone torture diminishes it morally and brings it into hatred, ridicule and comtempt. The US loses its respectability and standing in the world, and makes its claims to be the defender of democracy seem absurd and hypocritical.

 

And if this is not good enough for the defenders of torture, here is another good reason not to be tempted to use it.

 

It doesn’t work.

 

The victim of torture will tell his tormenters whatever they wish to hear, regardlessof whether it is true or false, simply to get the pain to stop.

 

Even the head of the Spanish Inquisition recognised this when he said that some would say almost anything to get mercy and others would say nothing and die.

 

 

 

 

Alex 'Wee Eck' Salmond: the mummy returns!

‘It is never difficult to tell the difference between a Scotsman with grievance and a ray of sunshine!’

 

Not to put too fine a point on it, the English are pig-sick of the whining, whinging Caledonian oat-crunchers, with their never-ending catalogue of grievances, constantly complaining about how badly they are treated by the Sassenachs and at the same time stuffing their sporrans with English money.

 

The SNP has flatly refused to accept their hammering  in the nauseating referendum. Brussels-style, they want to keep having referenda until they get their demanded result.

 

Nor are we to have a welcome period of silence from Wee Eck. Stepping down from leadership of the SNP was not an act of contrition, far less an admission of defeat. It was tactical.

 

He is calculating with good reason that the SNP will end up with 52 seats, wipe out Labour and hold the balance of power in the next Parliament, doing dirty deals to help secure a Labour Government which has been soundly rejected by the English. His price will not be merely a vast extension of powers to the Scottish Assembly that has so far proved incapable of effectively exercising the ones it already has.

 

It will be Labour support for yet another Bill to authorise yet another referendum.

 

So we have the bizarre paradox of Dave needing a victory by Labour in Scotland, which may well be achieved via the obnoxious personality of the new SNP leader. His alternative strategy to defuse the Scottish question by creating an English-only polity  is addle-pated. It will not answer the West Lothian question because banning Scots MPs from voting on English issues would result in the Government having a majority on some issues and not others. His ideas would need a federal state and the destruction of the British constitution; that is just not going to happen.

 

And yet he goes on believing that defanging SNP in Parliament after they have decimated Scottish Labour will result in a permanent Tory majority in the Commons. He is delusional.

 

So here’s how Salmond can win referendum Mk 2. Open it to the whole of the UK. There is perfect justice and logic in allowing the nation at large to decide whether to be broken up for the simple reason that it affects this and all future generations of the entire British people. There will be a massive ‘yes’ vote from England, saving all that Barnett-formula money and leaving the Scots to wax fat on ‘their’ oil $50 a barrel.

 

Scots wha hae wi Alex fled!

The BBC and Brand: what's it all about?

What is it with the Beeb and Russell Brand?

 

Two interviews in fairly quick succession on the flagship current affairs programme, Newsnight. What had he to contribute? Reports suggest that both sessions could only be described as pathetic.

 

Then Question  Time, which the BBC had trailed as being Brand vs. Farage (the other panellists must have been well-pleased with that billing!)

 

Presumably, QT is aimed at a serious and intelligent audience. On neither count does Brand qualify. He has the political nous of a thick 12-year old.

 

Now we hear that he is producing a BBC documentary on drug-rehab (for which he may indeed be well-qualified).

 

And just who is this guy? There is a totally false rumour that he is a comedian. A long time ago I had the misfortune to watch him, but only for a few minutes before nausea took over. About as funny as herpes and worse than his contemporary, the wepellent Wossy.

 

And what are his qualifications for making informed and meaningful contributions to a debate on the state of the nation?

 

He has recently inflicted a book (by a vanity publisher?) upon the long-suffering literati that was rubbished by the critics as being silly beyond words. It seems that his knowledge of economics is slightly short of zero. His political stance is 1960’s agitprop. His beliefs can be summed up in six words – ‘bash the banks, screw the rich’. This is perhaps rather hypocritical coming from someone who is not exactly short of a few drinking-vouchers and who pays an enormous rent to a tax exile.

 

The received view is that he has a lot of political capital amongst the chattering classes in the Westminster village. However much he tries to portray himself a  radical hippie he is a thoroughly Establishment figure. He is against elites, but he is one of them. He claims to speak for ‘ordinary’ people, but, with his New Age nonsense, hairiness, and charity-shop dress style  his real constituency is students at the University of Stretchford, the Green blob, and dystopic liberals.

 

A period of silence would be welcome.

 

 

 

Merry Xmas from the Golden Cupids, Chiang Mai

‘Send Newsnight to the knackers yard’

This is the title of Stephen Glover’s splendid hatchet job in this months ‘Oldie’ magazine. It is a curtain-raiser for the storm currently engulfing the BBC over lefty-bias. ‘Hurricane’ more like. The Telegraph goes for the jugular. The Sun has ripped apart the Beeb’s finances, exposing amongst other bad practices, the use of licence payers’ money to fill the multi-million hole in the pension fund instead of increasing employees’ contributions. The Commentator baldly states that the BBC is beyond redemption and should be humanely put down.

 

Glover reminds us of the Lord McAlpine scandal when Newsnight wrongly outed him as a paedophile. A new editor was appointed, one Ian Katz. His previous was deputy editor of – guess what? – yes, The Guardian. He is in good company. The political editor Allegra Stratton and the investigations editor Nick Hopkins are of the same provenance.

 

The audience is going south at an alarming rate.

 

In 2001, it was over one million nightly. By last April it had fallen by nearly half. Paxo himself has described it as ‘made by thirteen-year olds’.

 

And why was the attention-seeking loony-lefty Russell Brand interviewed twice in fairly quick succession? Could it be that the editor thought that he represented the young metropolitan lefties who need to provide the future audience when he is in the forefront of the lunatic fringe?

Plebgate panto........

‘Never go to law’, was the advice of my old law tutor, ‘The winner is out-of-pocket and the loser is irretrievably ruined!’ And nowhere does this apply with greater force than to defamation actions. They are a licence to transfer large quantities of wonga to m’ learned friends.

 

Few will now remember the vastly entertaining case of Jani Allan, the Johannesburg Sunday Times journalist, who was alleged by Channel 4 to have had an affair with Eugene Terre’Blanche, leader of the extremist AWB party.

 

There was much titillating evidence about her having had a bit of extracurricular with him at the Voortrekker Monument (actually it was the Paardekraal Monument in Krugersdorp, far less fun than discussing Africa on the steps of the Afrikaner holy of holies with a ‘pig in a safari suit’ as the fragrant Ms Allan called him). There was detailed evidence about the holes in Terre’Blanche’s underpants which added to the gaiety of several nations.

 

With George Carmon on one side and Peter Carter-Ruck on the other this was going to be the clash of the titans and very, very expensive. Jani had made lots of money from her journalistic notoriety. She lost the case and all the money.

 

When Botham and Lamb left the cricket field to sue Iran Khan for libel they were bowled out for £500,000, and had to join the rubber-chicken circuit to pay the costs.

 

So whatever possessed Andrew Mitchell to go after The Sun for libel?

 

Up to that point he had effectively won the Battle of Plebgate. One copper had been jailed, four were sacked, and two resigned. There was common acceptance that he had been stitched-up by the Met.

 

Having been our best Minister for Foreign Embezzlement, he has now ruled himself out of any political resurrection.

 

The real winner was Political Correctness. The offending word was not ‘f*****g, but ‘pleb’. It is absolutely not done to use belittling language to sensitive souls like the Old Bill, even if true. Foul language? No worries, just like the case of the footballer who was done for calling another player ‘a f*****g black c**t’, not because of the foul language but because of ‘black’ – which happened to be the only true word in his rant.

 

But as is well-known, footballers are anti-racist Guardianistas who will stamp on any expression of racism unless made about a white player, as when they threatened to refuse to pay the fee of the entertainer at their annual bash for using the word ‘n**ger. The offender was Reginald D Hunter, the brilliant American who is very black.

 

Now we have the David Mellor panto. Well might the public say ‘who he?’  He was chiefly famous for toe-sucking but not much else besides.

 

Being somewhat tired and emotional he used a bit of colourful language to express his disapproval of his taxi driver’s performance. As we know the Black Cab fraternity are shrinking violets unaccustomed to even the occasional ‘oh bother’, never mind a bit of effing and blinding. The meeja, which also thoroughly disapproves of anything remotely resembling profanity, has been squeezing the last drop of juice out of this non-story for days.

 

As a bonus, Mellor was with his titled squeeze, Lady Chobham, so Grub Street could add ‘toff’ to ‘snob’!

 

As for Lady Thornbird and the white van man, she richly deserved her fate. For using the idiot’s current plaything, Twitter.