Do you feel it?
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Friday, September 04, 2015
The only solution to war is more war.
There's been a lot of this about the last couple of days, but the Guardian really ought to know better:
Except we've really gone too far now for this to be even approaching a viable solution. Establish a no-fly zone and you undoubtedly help protect civilians, but you also give a massive advantage to the rebels, including Islamic State. It's difficult to imagine how things could get any worse, but the bloodletting likely to follow the total collapse of the Syrian government and immediate battle for the spoils between the rebel groups will be immense. Safe zones again sound like a great idea, but who on the ground is going to guard them? The Kurds, the very people the Turks have launched 100x more air strikes on than IS? Other rebel groups other than IS?
Nor has there been any past argument for intervention that would have helped matters. Unless it had evolved Libya-style into regime change, the mooted response to Assad using chemical weapons in Ghouta was to chuck a few more Hellfire and cruise missiles into the mix and hope that made clear just how serious we were about him killing people with explosives and bullets rather than more exotic weapons.
The only realistic option at this point is to push for a ceasefire between the rebel groups (excluding IS) and the government, with the promise being that once the fight has been taken to IS, Assad will depart and a settlement will be reached from there. Even this would require a massive turnaround in current attitudes, such has been the amount of blood spilt and the belief on all sides that total victory can still be achieved. This I'm afraid is the fault of all involved. There are no clean hands. And taking in an extra 4,000 refugees remains a completely pitiful gesture, considering the role we've played in Syria reaching this beyond grim juncture.
To begin restoring that hope will inevitably mean international intervention of some kind. The establishment of credible safe havens and the implementation of a no-fly zone must be on the table for serious consideration.
Except we've really gone too far now for this to be even approaching a viable solution. Establish a no-fly zone and you undoubtedly help protect civilians, but you also give a massive advantage to the rebels, including Islamic State. It's difficult to imagine how things could get any worse, but the bloodletting likely to follow the total collapse of the Syrian government and immediate battle for the spoils between the rebel groups will be immense. Safe zones again sound like a great idea, but who on the ground is going to guard them? The Kurds, the very people the Turks have launched 100x more air strikes on than IS? Other rebel groups other than IS?
Nor has there been any past argument for intervention that would have helped matters. Unless it had evolved Libya-style into regime change, the mooted response to Assad using chemical weapons in Ghouta was to chuck a few more Hellfire and cruise missiles into the mix and hope that made clear just how serious we were about him killing people with explosives and bullets rather than more exotic weapons.
The only realistic option at this point is to push for a ceasefire between the rebel groups (excluding IS) and the government, with the promise being that once the fight has been taken to IS, Assad will depart and a settlement will be reached from there. Even this would require a massive turnaround in current attitudes, such has been the amount of blood spilt and the belief on all sides that total victory can still be achieved. This I'm afraid is the fault of all involved. There are no clean hands. And taking in an extra 4,000 refugees remains a completely pitiful gesture, considering the role we've played in Syria reaching this beyond grim juncture.
Labels: asylum seekers, Calais, David Cameron, EU, European Union, foreign policy, Germany, immigration, immigration policy, politics, Syria
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Thursday, September 03, 2015
As a dog returns to its vomit.
The reappointment of Rebekah Brooks as chief executive of News UK is first and foremost an act of the utmost hubris on the part of Rupert Murdoch. Only he could possibly think someone so indelibly tainted by the phone hacking scandal, regardless of her acquittal at the Old Bailey, could possibly make for a suitable leader of the company in part created in an attempt to move on from all that unpleasantness. It is at the same time however a move he could have only made due to events going in his favour. Were we now being led by prime minister Miliband, it's difficult to believe he would have felt able to do so. That the Sun campaigned slightly less hysterically than the rest of the right-wing media for a Conservative victory will have been noted by Downing Street, although not to the point where Cameron or anyone else could so much as think of saying anything remotely critical about Brooks' second coming.
Of far more significance is what it tells us about Murdoch's previously decent relationship with his journalists themselves. At the height of the scandal Murdoch made public his first priority was "this one". That Brooks had worked hand in glove with hacker-in-chief Coulson, and her response until almost the bitter end was it was all a load of nonsense overblown by the BBC and Guardian was of not the slightest concern. Brooks' response to the first reports of Gordon Taylor's settlement with the News of the World was to attack the Guardian, rather than quickly realise this was a problem that wasn't going to go away. She continued the cover-up, a decision that has cost Murdoch in excess of £300m, and almost certainly the ultimate goal of taking full control of Sky, with the incalculable amounts that would have brought it, not to forget the accompanying all but complete stranglehold over the British media. Brooks herself got in the region of £16m in settlement, only to walk back into the job once a suitable period of time had passed.
How very different to the hacks and sources grassed up to the police by News Corp's Management Standards Committee, in an attempt by the company to further distract attention away from the bosses. This week saw Graham Dudman, previously managing editor of the Sun decide to leave the paper rather than return after his own acquittal on charges of conspiring to cause misconduct in public office. Dudman was the paper's spokesman throughout Brooks' reign at the Sun, as Becca herself had already made clear how hopeless she was under any sort of scrutiny, letting slip to parliament's media committee that the paper had "paid police officers in the past", the exact same thing some of her charges were subsequently tried on. However much Dudman and picture editor John Edwards are receiving in pay-offs, it's doubtful to amount to even a smidgen of the lucre handed over to Rupert's surrogate daughter. How the other hacks that have returned to the Sun feel about Brooks lording it over them once again, especially when their initial reaction to the closure of the News of the World was one of suspicion it was an attempt to save both Brooks and Murdoch junior, something rather proved by subsequent events, is anyone's guess.
Nor does it apparently matter to Murdoch that Brooks can hardly play the part he supposedly wants his UK papers to continue to. No one in politics is going to want to be seen anywhere near her, nor will many in the wider media world, let alone celebrities themselves. Her one and only quality, that she was an excellent networker and set people at their ease, has long since departed. It's almost enough to make you wonder if, secretly, Murdoch has realised that his days of ruling the roost, at least as far as newspapers go, are gone. Appointing Brooks could be one of his final slights to an establishment he has always believed has been against him, even if she's only there to manage the decline. If that is her remit, he could hardly have chosen better.
Of far more significance is what it tells us about Murdoch's previously decent relationship with his journalists themselves. At the height of the scandal Murdoch made public his first priority was "this one". That Brooks had worked hand in glove with hacker-in-chief Coulson, and her response until almost the bitter end was it was all a load of nonsense overblown by the BBC and Guardian was of not the slightest concern. Brooks' response to the first reports of Gordon Taylor's settlement with the News of the World was to attack the Guardian, rather than quickly realise this was a problem that wasn't going to go away. She continued the cover-up, a decision that has cost Murdoch in excess of £300m, and almost certainly the ultimate goal of taking full control of Sky, with the incalculable amounts that would have brought it, not to forget the accompanying all but complete stranglehold over the British media. Brooks herself got in the region of £16m in settlement, only to walk back into the job once a suitable period of time had passed.
How very different to the hacks and sources grassed up to the police by News Corp's Management Standards Committee, in an attempt by the company to further distract attention away from the bosses. This week saw Graham Dudman, previously managing editor of the Sun decide to leave the paper rather than return after his own acquittal on charges of conspiring to cause misconduct in public office. Dudman was the paper's spokesman throughout Brooks' reign at the Sun, as Becca herself had already made clear how hopeless she was under any sort of scrutiny, letting slip to parliament's media committee that the paper had "paid police officers in the past", the exact same thing some of her charges were subsequently tried on. However much Dudman and picture editor John Edwards are receiving in pay-offs, it's doubtful to amount to even a smidgen of the lucre handed over to Rupert's surrogate daughter. How the other hacks that have returned to the Sun feel about Brooks lording it over them once again, especially when their initial reaction to the closure of the News of the World was one of suspicion it was an attempt to save both Brooks and Murdoch junior, something rather proved by subsequent events, is anyone's guess.
Nor does it apparently matter to Murdoch that Brooks can hardly play the part he supposedly wants his UK papers to continue to. No one in politics is going to want to be seen anywhere near her, nor will many in the wider media world, let alone celebrities themselves. Her one and only quality, that she was an excellent networker and set people at their ease, has long since departed. It's almost enough to make you wonder if, secretly, Murdoch has realised that his days of ruling the roost, at least as far as newspapers go, are gone. Appointing Brooks could be one of his final slights to an establishment he has always believed has been against him, even if she's only there to manage the decline. If that is her remit, he could hardly have chosen better.
Labels: media analysis, News Corporation, News International, News UK, politics, Rebekah Brooks, Rupert Murdoch
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Wednesday, September 02, 2015
Subtext is everything.
There is always a danger in reading too much into works of art, whether they be music, film or animated comedies. The number of obsessives that regard American Pie (the song, not the film series, you dullards) as a masterpiece with meaning and allusions so deep that it can never be fully deciphered, or have detected things that were never there in the Eagles' Hotel California is testimony to that.
And so we must then return to Rick and Morty, for which I make no apologies whatsoever, although if you have been watching and haven't reached this point yet there are obviously spoilers ahead. The third episode of the new series ends in another exceptionally bleak denouement: after being dumped for a second time by Unity, a being that can take over the minds of the inhabitants of entire planets, Rick comes within a whisker of killing himself, passing out moments before the suicide machine he constructs would have turned him to dust. Clearly it's not just because of Unity that he tries to do so, and it's also the case that he's not certain about what he's doing, hence why he drinks a substance that he knows will knock him out very quickly, reducing the chances he actually will die. Does he also take it though because he doesn't want to experience even the momentary pain the instant cremation will have if he doesn't collapse before the beam reaches full power? Has Rick reached this point despite being a world-beating albeit unrecognised genius, or is it rather because of that genius, and that despite his intelligence he cannot overcome the failings of his own sociopathic personality, which in the words of Unity, makes him better at what she does without even trying? And as this is a world where there are an infinite number of alternate realities, as demonstrated neatly by the next episode, in just how many of those universes did Rick kill himself?
Or of course it could be that this was simply a neat way to end an episode that would get an already fevered fan base talking all the more. Such is television.
Similar pratfalls can result if you focus on one particular issue rather than the whole. Witness the silliness over the killing of our old friend Cecil, for instance. You could if you so wish reflect on the impression that gave of an awful lot of people caring more about the death of an endangered animal on the other side of the world than they do plight of other humans on their doorsteps. You could say that's understandable when animals are, unlike humans, far less complex creatures and operate only on instinct, however much we like to anthropomorphise them. It's also easy to lose proportion when you don't have to deal with the bottom line, with nature reserves unable to survive on tourism and government funding alone.
All the same, when images like the ones today of a drowned, tiny child washed ashore in Turkey are widely shared, the sort of photographs that manage to speak of both the simplicity and difficulty of the refugee crisis gripping Europe, you can't help but note the other items that are vying for attention alongside it. The latest on Taylor Swift's latent racism? How about every single one of you journalists involved in bringing us the latest on this thrilling saga build your own suicide machines? A 4-page feature on the styles for autumn 2015, including school bully hair, whether to channel the 70s or the 80s and where the only people smiling in the entire feature are notably those smug fucks that sit in the front row at all the shows? Fashion journalism has always been about incredibly privileged white people in a tiny part of London telling each other to buy £700 trousers and £1,200 pairs of shoes, but isn't it about time you stopped trying to tell us this is of any importance whatsoever or deserving of even the small space it still gets in the national press, especially when the writing reaches ever greater heights of absurdity and insularity?
The real villains are of course not these people, although they make for easy, highly punchable targets. According to our prime minister, taking in more refugees will do nothing to solve the root problems in Africa and the Middle East. Well no it won't, but then I don't think anyone was suggesting it would. It would be a gesture, a recognition that we along with a whole lot of others should play more of a role than we have so far. Except according to Dave we already are doing our bit to bring peace and stability to these troubled nations. It's not precisely clear what we're doing to help the situation in Eritrea, for instance, or how aid will help persuade the government there to stop terrorising its own citizens, nor is it obvious what we can do to fix Libya having helped to so comprehensively break it.
As for Syria and Iraq, presumably the fact we're playing a role in bombing Islamic State targets in the former and the government is likely to seek parliamentary authority to do the same in the latter is what Cameron means, although considering advances against IS have only been won with a combination of air power and ground forces, their defeat is hardly expected any time soon. Nor would IS's defeat immediately bring an end to the wider conflicts in Iraq and Syria, especially not in the latter, where for all the repeated claims that Assad's government is on the brink of collapse, the murderous stalemate continues.
This is without once again repeating the tedious argument that err, we've played quite a considerable role ourselves in creating this refugee crisis, whether by intervening in Libya and then all but abandoning the place, or by following the Saudi policy in Syria. If you're going to bomb somewhere or provide support to the people who operate weapons like this with as much impunity as the Assad regime, the very least you can do is offer sanctuary to the people who find themselves in harms way.
To Cameron, and it should be added a sizeable proportion of people in this country, the 200 who have been give refuge through the specific scheme and the few thousand others that have made it here through fair or foul means are more than enough. Cameron either doesn't feel any responsibility, or believes that to do the decent, honourable thing would cost him some short-term popularity. We know he's not going to serve a full term, his government currently faces almost no opposition except from the media; what is there to stop him from this once refusing to bow to those further to his right? Or is it that he really is just a completely obtuse, pompous snob, from whom there is no subtext to read?
Labels: asylum seekers, Calais, David Cameron, EU, European Union, Germany, immigration, immigration policy, politics, racism, Rick and Morty
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Tuesday, September 01, 2015
Germany: putting the rest of Europe to shame.
There is something quite extraordinary taking place in Germany. With predictions that the country will see 800,000 asylum applications this year, a figure that some are already suggesting is likely to be an underestimate, it's all too predictable that 199 attacks of varying severity on refugee hostels had been recorded by early July. Polls suggest 40% of Germans are opposed to taking in any more, while the rise of both the Pegida movement and the Alternative for Deutschland party have both further raised concerns.
Yet that only tells half the story. Established a year ago, the Welcoming Alliance for Refugees, based in Berlin, now has over 1,000 supporters and regularly sees more than 300 volunteers turn out to give donations and help newly arrived asylum seekers with their claims. Banners making clear that refugees are welcome have been waved not just at demonstrations, but at football grounds across the country. The German media, regardless of political affiliation, has almost as a whole expressed the same message. The populist tabloid Bild, which most closely resembles the Sun, declared at the weekend it too supported the "we're helping" movement, having in the past been accused of helping to ramp up xenophobia. Politicians too have almost universally said that the country can accommodate the numbers coming, even if there has been criticism they have at times been slow in acknowledging as much. Last week the government also suspended the Dublin convention, if only for Syrian refugees, making clear they would not be deported regardless of if they had already made an application in another EU state.
Indeed, in the main this has been the reaction of the locals at the sharp end of the biggest mass movement of refugees since WW2 regardless of country. Residents of places like Lampedusa and any number of Greek islands have shown remarkable patience and made great sacrifices to help those whom have landed on their shores, a kindness that has not always been extended by the authorities themselves. While few will begrudge the Greek government protesting about it being unable to cope, the refusal of other EU member states to agree to a quota system for refugees is one of the first signs of the possibility of the Schengen agreement breaking down. The Schengen agreement underpins the freedom of movement rules that have become the bete noire of those opposed to "uncontrolled" immigration with the EU, with Theresa May declaring at the weekend that freedom of movement ought to mean freedom to move to a country where a job is waiting, not simply to look for work.
Der Spiegel's depiction of both a "dark Germany" and a "bright Germany" is probably to overdramatise events in the country that will on current trends take in more refugees this year than the rest of Europe combined. Germany's stance is all the more remarkable when you realise it is motivated less by anything approaching guilt over the role played in the various wars that have led to the refugee crisis and more by memories of the suffering following the second world war, when millions were left to make their way back to places that were either in ruins or soon to be under a new tyranny. Germany, unlike ourselves or France, refused to get involved in the NATO intervention in Libya, while it has also played a less partisan role in Syria. The irony that it is now the major destination for refugees making their way through the failed state of Libya and has opened its borders to Syrians as a whole has not been lost on the German media: Bild for one has raged against David Cameron for shirking his responsibilities.
The attitudes of the German and British media could hardly be further removed from each other. At the same time as the German papers have welcomed the 200,000 that claimed asylum in the country in July alone, our finest have been thundering against the 1,500 that equally desperately have been trying to make their way to this country from Calais. Every solution other than letting those who clearly won't be put off by bigger fences and more security make their claims in France has been considered, including sending in the army. Some might argue that our papers are more reflective of public opinion than their German equivalent, and to judge by radio and TV debates that's probably the case.
That this merely demonstrates the nadir the debate on immigration has descended to is hardly something to say in our media's defence. The number of asylum seekers taken in last year made up only around a tenth of the overall net figure of 330,000, a number which is itself deceptive due to how it includes students coming to study from abroad. We've reached the point where a Songs of Praise broadcast from a makeshift church in the Calais "jungle" has become a front page outrage. That once these same papers did on occasion welcome asylum seekers, so long as they were from the eastern bloc, with even those who would now be denounced as people smugglers regarded as heroes just underlines the way in which the default tabloid position has become one of permanent suspicion if not outright opposition.
You could say the reality of mass immigration since 2005 has led to public opposition to migration in general, whether economic or for sanctuary, and there's a smidgen of truth in that. Easily forgotten is back in 2001-2003 the same scenes of chaos at Calais were a nightly feature on the news, with much the same reaction from the media, including alleged collusion between the Sun and the government over what the paper had deemed to be the biggest issue facing the country. The main problem for many seems to be those in Calais trying to get to Britain aren't completely helpless: that they are breaking into trucks, sneaking onto trains, cutting fences, scaring holidaymakers means they can't possibly be victims, not least when their actions are or were having such a knock-on effect in Dover and Kent in general. Combined with the questions over why they aren't claiming asylum in France or elsewhere in Europe, despite France taking more than double the number we have, such an atmosphere is hardly conducive to our politicians attempting to raise the tenor of the debate, let alone draw back from such self-defeating policies as the ever more ridiculous Conservative target of reducing immigration to the tens of thousands.
Credit must then be given to Yvette Cooper, for at least making the case for us to do more. To be frank, even accepting 10,000 Syrian refugees would be a fairly minor gesture, such are the numbers not just in Germany but throughout Europe and also Syria's neighbours. It would at least be a start, and as Cooper said, would go some way towards this country once again playing the role it has in the past. Without going further however, and providing a way for refugees to claim asylum from outside Europe, it is both ludicrous and downright stupid to talk about those involved in getting Syrians and others into Europe as the equivalent of slave traders. What option is there apart from paying smugglers when the other choices are staying or attempting the journey through Turkey and then the Balkans on their own? Stripped of those boats and vehicles there would be even less hope, terrible as the sinkings in the Mediterranean and suffocation of so many last weekend are.
That regardless Cooper is up to now the closest we've come to a politician recognising we have a responsibility, not just to Europe but to ourselves to do more is an indictment of just what a nasty, selfish and brutish country we are in danger of becoming. The very least a nation can do when it has had such a role in breaking the likes of Libya, Iraq and Syria is to give shelter to those who were in the way. The selflessness of Germany increasingly stands apart from a rest of Europe that seems all too willing to turn its back on its shared past.
Yet that only tells half the story. Established a year ago, the Welcoming Alliance for Refugees, based in Berlin, now has over 1,000 supporters and regularly sees more than 300 volunteers turn out to give donations and help newly arrived asylum seekers with their claims. Banners making clear that refugees are welcome have been waved not just at demonstrations, but at football grounds across the country. The German media, regardless of political affiliation, has almost as a whole expressed the same message. The populist tabloid Bild, which most closely resembles the Sun, declared at the weekend it too supported the "we're helping" movement, having in the past been accused of helping to ramp up xenophobia. Politicians too have almost universally said that the country can accommodate the numbers coming, even if there has been criticism they have at times been slow in acknowledging as much. Last week the government also suspended the Dublin convention, if only for Syrian refugees, making clear they would not be deported regardless of if they had already made an application in another EU state.
Indeed, in the main this has been the reaction of the locals at the sharp end of the biggest mass movement of refugees since WW2 regardless of country. Residents of places like Lampedusa and any number of Greek islands have shown remarkable patience and made great sacrifices to help those whom have landed on their shores, a kindness that has not always been extended by the authorities themselves. While few will begrudge the Greek government protesting about it being unable to cope, the refusal of other EU member states to agree to a quota system for refugees is one of the first signs of the possibility of the Schengen agreement breaking down. The Schengen agreement underpins the freedom of movement rules that have become the bete noire of those opposed to "uncontrolled" immigration with the EU, with Theresa May declaring at the weekend that freedom of movement ought to mean freedom to move to a country where a job is waiting, not simply to look for work.
Der Spiegel's depiction of both a "dark Germany" and a "bright Germany" is probably to overdramatise events in the country that will on current trends take in more refugees this year than the rest of Europe combined. Germany's stance is all the more remarkable when you realise it is motivated less by anything approaching guilt over the role played in the various wars that have led to the refugee crisis and more by memories of the suffering following the second world war, when millions were left to make their way back to places that were either in ruins or soon to be under a new tyranny. Germany, unlike ourselves or France, refused to get involved in the NATO intervention in Libya, while it has also played a less partisan role in Syria. The irony that it is now the major destination for refugees making their way through the failed state of Libya and has opened its borders to Syrians as a whole has not been lost on the German media: Bild for one has raged against David Cameron for shirking his responsibilities.
The attitudes of the German and British media could hardly be further removed from each other. At the same time as the German papers have welcomed the 200,000 that claimed asylum in the country in July alone, our finest have been thundering against the 1,500 that equally desperately have been trying to make their way to this country from Calais. Every solution other than letting those who clearly won't be put off by bigger fences and more security make their claims in France has been considered, including sending in the army. Some might argue that our papers are more reflective of public opinion than their German equivalent, and to judge by radio and TV debates that's probably the case.
That this merely demonstrates the nadir the debate on immigration has descended to is hardly something to say in our media's defence. The number of asylum seekers taken in last year made up only around a tenth of the overall net figure of 330,000, a number which is itself deceptive due to how it includes students coming to study from abroad. We've reached the point where a Songs of Praise broadcast from a makeshift church in the Calais "jungle" has become a front page outrage. That once these same papers did on occasion welcome asylum seekers, so long as they were from the eastern bloc, with even those who would now be denounced as people smugglers regarded as heroes just underlines the way in which the default tabloid position has become one of permanent suspicion if not outright opposition.
You could say the reality of mass immigration since 2005 has led to public opposition to migration in general, whether economic or for sanctuary, and there's a smidgen of truth in that. Easily forgotten is back in 2001-2003 the same scenes of chaos at Calais were a nightly feature on the news, with much the same reaction from the media, including alleged collusion between the Sun and the government over what the paper had deemed to be the biggest issue facing the country. The main problem for many seems to be those in Calais trying to get to Britain aren't completely helpless: that they are breaking into trucks, sneaking onto trains, cutting fences, scaring holidaymakers means they can't possibly be victims, not least when their actions are or were having such a knock-on effect in Dover and Kent in general. Combined with the questions over why they aren't claiming asylum in France or elsewhere in Europe, despite France taking more than double the number we have, such an atmosphere is hardly conducive to our politicians attempting to raise the tenor of the debate, let alone draw back from such self-defeating policies as the ever more ridiculous Conservative target of reducing immigration to the tens of thousands.
Credit must then be given to Yvette Cooper, for at least making the case for us to do more. To be frank, even accepting 10,000 Syrian refugees would be a fairly minor gesture, such are the numbers not just in Germany but throughout Europe and also Syria's neighbours. It would at least be a start, and as Cooper said, would go some way towards this country once again playing the role it has in the past. Without going further however, and providing a way for refugees to claim asylum from outside Europe, it is both ludicrous and downright stupid to talk about those involved in getting Syrians and others into Europe as the equivalent of slave traders. What option is there apart from paying smugglers when the other choices are staying or attempting the journey through Turkey and then the Balkans on their own? Stripped of those boats and vehicles there would be even less hope, terrible as the sinkings in the Mediterranean and suffocation of so many last weekend are.
That regardless Cooper is up to now the closest we've come to a politician recognising we have a responsibility, not just to Europe but to ourselves to do more is an indictment of just what a nasty, selfish and brutish country we are in danger of becoming. The very least a nation can do when it has had such a role in breaking the likes of Libya, Iraq and Syria is to give shelter to those who were in the way. The selflessness of Germany increasingly stands apart from a rest of Europe that seems all too willing to turn its back on its shared past.
Labels: asylum seekers, Calais, EU, European Union, Germany, immigration, immigration policy, politics, racism
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Monday, August 31, 2015
Jeremy Corbyn threat to economic security, says George Osborne.
Labour under the “far left” anti-nuclear leadership of Jeremy Corbyn will be a threat to Britain’s national and economic security, George Osborne has declared.
"The man is frankly a lunatic," the chancellor said. "Not only does he want to get rid of our insanely expensive doomsday devices, the ones we can't use without the permission of the Americans and have to be built with their help in any case, making them independent in the same way as my arsehole is from the rest of my body, and which are practically useless anyway when the main threat remains not an opposing state but international terrorism, he wants to let mass-murdering jihadist nutjobs off the hook as well! How can the rest of the world possibly take us seriously if we don't just slaughter our foes like they do? Put Bin Laden on trial? You're having a bubble mate."
George Osborne is likely to be our next prime minister.
"The man is frankly a lunatic," the chancellor said. "Not only does he want to get rid of our insanely expensive doomsday devices, the ones we can't use without the permission of the Americans and have to be built with their help in any case, making them independent in the same way as my arsehole is from the rest of my body, and which are practically useless anyway when the main threat remains not an opposing state but international terrorism, he wants to let mass-murdering jihadist nutjobs off the hook as well! How can the rest of the world possibly take us seriously if we don't just slaughter our foes like they do? Put Bin Laden on trial? You're having a bubble mate."
George Osborne is likely to be our next prime minister.
Labels: George Osborne, Jeremy Corbyn, lazy blogging, mockery, politics, Trident
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Friday, August 28, 2015
House of Lords number crunching.
8 - Number of Lib Dems voters saw fit to return to parliament after five years of coalition with the Conservatives
11 - Number of Lib Dems nominated to the House of Lords for services to the Conservative party
2 - Number of former Lib Dem MPs knighted for their help in getting the Conservatives their first majority in 23 years
4 - Number of honours handed out to various people for services to Nick Clegg
3 - Number of Downing Street staff given the resurrected British Empire Medal, a bauble recognising something that no longer exists, to honour years of service to politicians regardless of stripe
1 - Person bewildered by politicians' continuing insistence on making the public despise them, i.e. me
11 - Number of Lib Dems nominated to the House of Lords for services to the Conservative party
2 - Number of former Lib Dem MPs knighted for their help in getting the Conservatives their first majority in 23 years
4 - Number of honours handed out to various people for services to Nick Clegg
3 - Number of Downing Street staff given the resurrected British Empire Medal, a bauble recognising something that no longer exists, to honour years of service to politicians regardless of stripe
1 - Person bewildered by politicians' continuing insistence on making the public despise them, i.e. me
Labels: corruption, honours system, House of Lords, politics, stupidity
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Thursday, August 27, 2015
The worst is yet to come.
When it comes to covering breaking news, broadcasters and live bloggers are always going to be damned if they do and damned if they don't. Yesterday's murders in Virginia, notable internationally only because it involved two journalists being shot at live on air (however harsh that sounds) were always going to involve an element of voyeurism precisely for that reason. When they had already shown video of Adam Ward's camera hitting the floor and played the audio of the gunshots and Alison Parker's screams, as without it this was just another shooting in a country that sees dozens every day, it was hardly a leap to then linking to or hosting the videos the murderer himself shot. If one outlet decided not to, others would have done, while at the same time the videos were being shared on Twitter and Facebook regardless.
Getting too sanctimonious about the initial coverage is pointless. Decisions on featuring content that previously would have been debated intensely now have to be made in a matter of seconds, like it or not. The 24-hour news monster may have been created by the media themselves, but it has long since been overtaken by the demands of consumers. The BBC was criticised earlier in the month for taking slightly longer than its competitors to report on the death of Cilla Black, as it apparently awaited confirmation from a family member, for instance.
As I've argued in the past, looking for the transgressive, the extreme, the forbidden is just as normal as not looking for it. Judging people that choose to seek out the worst the internet has to offer, so long as that worst does not break the law, is not going to change minds, whether it's the hacked personal photographs of celebrities or Islamic State propaganda (and that so much as watching videos by Islamic extremists is enough in some cases to get you arrested is a disgrace in itself). At worst it is the height of hypocrisy: I've seen this material, I'm pretty much telling you where to find it if you so wish, but you're a terrible human being if you do.
This said, it should always be the active choice of the person to watch such material. Click and be damned. Search and be damned. When newspapers, forced or rather unable to compete with such rivals then make the decision to put on their front pages images shot by the killer pointing his gun at Parker, with the Sun going so far as to screencap the exact frame when he fired the first shot, grabbing the flash of the muzzle, the question of complicity comes very much into play, without any of the grounding that say films that have asked their audience why they're still watching have done. If anything, printing mere shots from the video is far worse than watching the whole thing. The grabs show the murderer as he imagined himself, in a position of power, stalking his victim, waiting for the moment he decides is best for taking the life of another person, for maximum impact. The full video shows Parker's absolute panic and terror, inviting sympathy and empathy for her and Ward. It also reminds of just how common gun violence is in the United States, an epidemic that could be curtailed if only there was the political will to do so.
It has also left almost anyone who has gone into a supermarket, off licence or onto a garage forecourt without the ability to make the active choice as to whether or not to see someone in the process of taking a life. Again, that this happened in the US has without doubt played a role in the editorial decisions: had it been in this country, it seems unlikely the papers that chose to use those grabs would have come to the same decision, precisely because the backlash would have been all the fiercer. The Sun for one made clear last year it would not print any of the images from the IS video that showed the murder of Alan Henning, as they would not give his "absurd murderers the publicity they crave". The killer of Parker and Ward may not have filmed his attack partially for the purpose of spreading fear, but he clearly did so knowing full well that he was about to have the publicity he had long craved and believed he had been wrongly denied. His task done, he further denied the families of the two people he killed proper justice by taking his own life.
You could if you so wished put the shooting and its aftermath down as just the latest extreme example of the latent narcissism that drives a minority into believing they are entitled to something they're convinced they've been wrongfully denied. It also though reflects on the media that so often encourages such beliefs, that thinks so little about the impact it has, and which it would be foolish to dismiss outright as having very little overall impact. It also, sadly, marks the beginning of what thanks to advances in technology and the internet of things is bound to be just the first in a series of acts committed with the intention of garnering the maximum possible publicity. It can only be so long before a spree killer streams live his trail of murder and horror, before someone who believes he has nothing to lose tortures a kidnap victim while taunting journalists, the police and the social networks over their failure to find where his feed is coming from. If yesterday was a challenge to the media's sense of ethics, morals and news values, the future promises far worse.
Getting too sanctimonious about the initial coverage is pointless. Decisions on featuring content that previously would have been debated intensely now have to be made in a matter of seconds, like it or not. The 24-hour news monster may have been created by the media themselves, but it has long since been overtaken by the demands of consumers. The BBC was criticised earlier in the month for taking slightly longer than its competitors to report on the death of Cilla Black, as it apparently awaited confirmation from a family member, for instance.
As I've argued in the past, looking for the transgressive, the extreme, the forbidden is just as normal as not looking for it. Judging people that choose to seek out the worst the internet has to offer, so long as that worst does not break the law, is not going to change minds, whether it's the hacked personal photographs of celebrities or Islamic State propaganda (and that so much as watching videos by Islamic extremists is enough in some cases to get you arrested is a disgrace in itself). At worst it is the height of hypocrisy: I've seen this material, I'm pretty much telling you where to find it if you so wish, but you're a terrible human being if you do.
This said, it should always be the active choice of the person to watch such material. Click and be damned. Search and be damned. When newspapers, forced or rather unable to compete with such rivals then make the decision to put on their front pages images shot by the killer pointing his gun at Parker, with the Sun going so far as to screencap the exact frame when he fired the first shot, grabbing the flash of the muzzle, the question of complicity comes very much into play, without any of the grounding that say films that have asked their audience why they're still watching have done. If anything, printing mere shots from the video is far worse than watching the whole thing. The grabs show the murderer as he imagined himself, in a position of power, stalking his victim, waiting for the moment he decides is best for taking the life of another person, for maximum impact. The full video shows Parker's absolute panic and terror, inviting sympathy and empathy for her and Ward. It also reminds of just how common gun violence is in the United States, an epidemic that could be curtailed if only there was the political will to do so.
It has also left almost anyone who has gone into a supermarket, off licence or onto a garage forecourt without the ability to make the active choice as to whether or not to see someone in the process of taking a life. Again, that this happened in the US has without doubt played a role in the editorial decisions: had it been in this country, it seems unlikely the papers that chose to use those grabs would have come to the same decision, precisely because the backlash would have been all the fiercer. The Sun for one made clear last year it would not print any of the images from the IS video that showed the murder of Alan Henning, as they would not give his "absurd murderers the publicity they crave". The killer of Parker and Ward may not have filmed his attack partially for the purpose of spreading fear, but he clearly did so knowing full well that he was about to have the publicity he had long craved and believed he had been wrongly denied. His task done, he further denied the families of the two people he killed proper justice by taking his own life.
You could if you so wished put the shooting and its aftermath down as just the latest extreme example of the latent narcissism that drives a minority into believing they are entitled to something they're convinced they've been wrongfully denied. It also though reflects on the media that so often encourages such beliefs, that thinks so little about the impact it has, and which it would be foolish to dismiss outright as having very little overall impact. It also, sadly, marks the beginning of what thanks to advances in technology and the internet of things is bound to be just the first in a series of acts committed with the intention of garnering the maximum possible publicity. It can only be so long before a spree killer streams live his trail of murder and horror, before someone who believes he has nothing to lose tortures a kidnap victim while taunting journalists, the police and the social networks over their failure to find where his feed is coming from. If yesterday was a challenge to the media's sense of ethics, morals and news values, the future promises far worse.
Labels: hypocrisy, media analysis, media complicity, media stupidity, Virginia TV murders
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