The Arrogance Of Leadership

 Politics  No Responses »
Dec 102012
 

In the last week, we have seen two example of the arrogance of leadership; on both occasions David Cameron has unilaterally decided that the considered opinion of a group of experts is wrong and his snap judgement is right. Of course he is not the only example of this sort of thinking – most Prime Ministers of the past have committed the same sort of error of judgement.

The two decisions in question were the response to the Leveson report, and today’s report on the future of recreational drug legislation. In both cases, people have gone to a considerable effort to consider what to do about certain issues. And of course have spent a lot of my money on doing so.

I do not resent my money being spent on such things; what I do resent is that some puffed up politician is wasting my money by not spending an appropriate amount of time considering the report(s).

A snap decision is necessary in some circumstances, but not in these circumstances! There should be nothing wrong with a political leader saying that they would like to spend some time considering the report – rather than respond with gut instinct to the report’s headlines.

Ripping up a report within hours of it being released is contemptuous of the work that has gone into it, and wasteful of taxpayers’ money.

It may well be that ignoring the report’s recommendations is the right thing to do, but to do so too quickly is definitely the wrong thing to do.

The Leveson Report & The Tory Reaction

 Media, Politics  No Responses »
Dec 012012
 

So Leveson has finally released his report on press regulation, and as quick as a flash the Tories and the chief Tory (David Cameron – the Prime Minister) have announced that they will have nothing to do with it. They prefer some form of self-regulation; in other words a toothless organisation which the press routinely ignores or sticks a middle finger up to (i.e. a modified version of the old Press Complaints Commission).

Nothing could demonstrate more clearly that the Tories will bend over backwards to support any kind of business (including the demonstrably corrupt), and ignore the needs of the public. Without reading the report, it is still possible to determine that the recommendations are sensible merely by looking at who opposes it – the Tories, and the press themselves. Just about every other politician is right behind Leveson.

The big trouble with self-regulation (at least of the press) is that it has been tried again, and again, and still fails. As Leveson himself reports, we have had 7 inquiries into press standards over the last 70 years. The press regularly acts “as if its own code, which it wrote, simply did not exist”.

Or in other words, when the press barons say that they will behave now, we know they are lying seeing as they have promised that before and have yet to live up to their fine words.

Interestingly the Tories seem most concerned about Leveson because they believe that the government and parliament should have no say  in the regulation of the press. Thus demonstrating that their reading comprehension is perhaps at the level of a 10 year old.

As Leveson himself says :-

Not a single witness has proposed that the Government or Parliament should themselves be involved in the regulation of the press. I have not contemplated and do not make any such proposal.

Personally I am not opposed to self-regulation in general; at least until that self-regulation has been demonstrated to be useless. But in practically every case where an industry or professional group has regulated itself, it has failed to do so properly. We have trusted the press to regulate itself and ultimately it has failed to do so.

Statutory regulation of the press is very definitely something to be wary of – let the politicians have a say in how the press is run and we would never have heard of the MPs expenses scandal! But this is not what Leveson is suggesting; he is suggesting that an independent body regulates the press with statutory authority.

Frankly if a regulatory authority wants to punish a rogue editor – perhaps with a thousand lashes of the cat – it needs statutory authority or the rogue editor is likely to raise the finger and walk out.

Finally, and the main reason for this post; time to give the Tories a bloody nose by telling them that we want the Leveson recommendations implemented. Visit the petition site and tell them so!

 

Tory MP In Reality Show Furore

 Media, Politics  No Responses »
Nov 062012
 

Today came the news that Nadine Dorries (a Tory MP) is being suspended as a Tory (not an MP) for appearing on the reality TV show called “I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here”.

Now I’m hardly the most ardent Tory supporter in the country – in fact I can’t stand them, and a quick look indicates that I’m even less likely to like Nadine’s favourite hobby horses. But I believe all this fuss is a little over the top, and perhaps there is a certain amount of snobbishness getting involved here. To a certain extent this is understandable, as the reality show in question is hardly in the calibre of “Question Time” or some other serious current affairs programme.

And there is the concern of who will do her job, when she’s off in Australia getting filmed doing ridiculous stuff on camera.

But we do not know that Nadine hasn’t already or plans to make suitable arrangements to ensure that any urgent demands by her constituents are met in some way or another. And what about all the other part-time MPs? Is Nadine the only MP who has ever taken time off from her duties to do something else? Let’s not have double standards here.

And similarly, there have been plenty of MPs on TV shows of one kind or another. Is it just the type of show that is of concern here? Are other politicians concerned that an MP appearing on this show will bring politicians into disrepute?

If so, I have news for those other politicians – politicians have such a poor reputation that this appearance on a reality show is likely to improve their reputation. And I’m not a fan of the show in question.

Limiting Family Size For Those On Benefits

 Politics  No Responses »
Nov 042012
 

Those sneaky Tories have announced plans to limit child related benefits so that families with large numbers of children would only get benefits for the first two. With this, they have implied that “out there” is a large population of benefit scroungers who make tons of cash by simply breeding like rabbits.

And of course when you put it that way, it sounds like a great idea. Why should those in work pay for the comfort of those too lazy to do anything other than breed like rabbits?

Except those benefits are for the children involved. It is always worth remembering that any benefit cuts in this area will have a negative effect on the children involved. Or do the Tories plan to take into care any “surplus” children by force?

And even if there were a large number of benefit scroungers benefiting from the “generous” child related benefits, they are almost certainly far outnumbered by those who are not scroungers, but need benefits for genuine reasons.

What about the carpenter who whilst he earns a reasonable wage to support himself, his wife, and a single child, suddenly finds himself the father of sextuplets ?

What about the house husband whose wife previously earned big money as a hot-shot barrister, had 6 children over a number of years and who suddenly finds himself along with those six children after his wife is killed in a road accident ?

Or the single mother who works hard at a cleaning job, but finds it hard looking after her three children that her feckless husband left her with ?

The Tories have come up with a scheme to punish the poor, and yet have sold it in such a way as to get those poor to support it. What you could call a masterpiece of Machiavellian politics.

 

Mocking Islam

 Politics, Religion  No Responses »
Sep 232012
 

Over the past few weeks, there have been dramatic (and violent) protests over a certain anti-Islamic film clip from which were originally released to YouTube on the 1st July this year. The film was made in America, but apart from that it’s origins appear very shady although an organisation called Media for Christ, although it seems there are multiple organisations with that name.

It would appear that the film is a deliberate attempt to stir up trouble in the Middle-East, and it appears that Islamic extremists have played into the hands of the film makers. Whilst peaceful demonstrations against the film are both understandable and indeed perfectly justified, some of the reactions come across as extreme or bizarre in the extreme :-

  1. Attacking a US diplomatic missions (and even killing the US Ambassador in Libya) when the US government had no involvement in the film.
  2. Ransacking a Catholic cathedral in Niger … even if the original film-makers were Christian, the Catholic church had nothing to do with it.
  3. Increasing the bounty on Salman Rushdie’s life despite his condemnation of the film.
  4. Torching various US fast-food businesses. Sure the food is awful, but burning the business down is a little extreme.

What is less well known is that most of the protests around the world were peaceful (excluding a touch of flag burning). It is also remarkable that the protests happened to have occurred on or around the 11th September, which may have something to do with another event in history. It is also interesting to note the reactions of Libyans to the storming of the US consulate in Bengahzi – which probably had nothing to do with the film.

Given the numbers who turned up at the various violent protests, it is blindingly obvious that the overwhelming majority – however unhappy they may be with the film – are not violent extremists.  But the violence does give the impression that Islam is extremely intolerant of any form of criticism. Of course that is not limited to Islam as most religions have their extremists who react in similar ways, but it does seem that Islam is particularly prone to extremism.

Criticism? Of course this latest film probably (I haven’t seen it) doesn’t qualify as criticism, but is probably just some Christian extremists trying to get a rise out of Islamic extremists. Mocking someone’s beliefs is fundamentally a nasty thing to do. But so is threatening people with eternal damnation.

But genuine criticism also seems to generate this sort of reaction. And the dividing line between genuine criticism and mocking someone’s beliefs is very grey; you could even argue that mocking Islam to generate the kind of reaction it provokes is itself a piece of criticism through demonstration (although  going too far).

Criticism is not necessarily a bad thing. At “best” it allows for misconceptions of Islam to be corrected – perhaps that the death penalty for apostasy is a radical interpretation, and at “worst” could provoke a useful discussion.

 

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