Election Selection

In the BBC's coverage of the British election, they take care to include a page about Iraq's WMD's and the partys' stands on them. This is surprising, in a way, because I don't think Howard ever accuses the Prime Minister of fabricating the reality of Saddam's WMD threat- what he deplores is Blair's casual use of the broad brush WMD argument, and in a deceptively direct way he calls this lying. Strictly speaking I think Howard is right, and Kennedy is wrong in saying that Blair misled us. Kennedy sounds like a good guy as usual, but in fact is calling Blair a fool as well as a knave. Howard is in fact the moderate because he accuses Blair of playing fast and loose with facts, which is a safe bet with Mr Blurr. There is no doubt he and the Sun did that.

Meanwhile, the Beeb were only too pleased to state its own definition of Charles Duelfer's conclusions to add a spin to a band wagon which doesn't represent the views of the main political opponents to Blair. Howard of course should make this clear, but he doesn't seem to see the need, relishing any criticism of Blair rather than the right criticism.

However, Captain's Quarters in a well argued post says that the MSM, with of course the BBC at the fore, have jumped far too soon and far too clumsily onto Duelfer's WMD negatives. The story's an old one, but it's important not to lose sight of it.

Good times roll for the Beeb.

Just over a year ago the BBC were in crisis as Lord Hutton's report caused the departure of three key BBC men: Gilligan, Dyke and Dayvies (ok, Gilligan wasn't too key, but his symbolism was.)

As a long-term BBC critic I can say those were heady days, yet I didn't feel too optimistic because our success came down to the good fortune (thank Tone) of having an old-fashioned, undiplomatic judge, and a BBC which decided (wisely, in one sense) that drastic action was required.

That drastic action, which gave people like me so much entertainment, saved the BBC for another day. They won their battle to have their charter and license fee renewed.

I knew, at the time, it would have been better for us had Dyke and co. hung tough, played down the Hutton findings after having briefed their journalist friends to expect the worst, and been the target of the New Labour machine thereafter.

That having been avoided, the BBC needed only to wait for events. Apart from the re-election of George W. Bush, which was an event not really on the BBC's beat anyway (though they love to dabble), these have favoured the Beeb.

First and foremost of course was the charter renewal I've already mentioned. That gives the BBC the breathing space which none of their commercial competitors enjoy. I've no doubt they're taking pleasure in it.

Second is the fact that their general scepticism about WMD, always a political football, has been given cover by both the trend towards questioning the war from all points of the political spectrum, and the findings of the likes of Duelfer which give no concrete support to those who proposed a WMD inclusive argument. Other related 'good news' for the BBC, given their pitch pre-war, might be the failure of the Volker report to eviscerate the UNscam, and the success of Gorgeous George in using a libel case to sweeten the stench given off by the anti-war mob, while punishing some of the BBC's detractors.

Third is that, after sacrificing to appease New Labour, the Beeb have been rewarded not only by their charter renewal, but by the cover that comes from having reconciled themselves with the party that is likely to be in charge of the political situation in the 'base country' for the foreseeable future.

That's why the Beeb now seem far surer-footed, despite lapses which demonstrate their innate tendencies. Some examples of surefootedness here and here that I would call good journalism were it not for the fact that the only good journalism that comes from the Beeb comes when their ideological budget affords it. In other words, when it doesn't damage their ideological agenda. It's so much easier to control those tendencies though when they have a defensible position in the scheme of things, and an assured future. When the Augean stables looks set to remain a major employer, it isn't hard to get the stable-boys to keep trying to freshen the top layer.

So, am I downhearted? No, is the answer to that- because the whole exercise is about recognising the BBC's institutional nature, and feeling the weight of its velocity, so as ultimately to destroy it if it will not be radically altered. The Gilligan-Dyke-Dayvies phenomenon showed how deep the BBC's culture runs, and how important it is to the socialist project as it has been conceived in Britain. Two deep-dyed socialists (Dayvies and Dyke, especially Dyke) fell on their swords to save the BBC and deliver it into today's calmer waters. Only by understanding that can I hope, in a small way, to facilitate the perfect storm which will end the BBC and all it stands for.

A clear view of what makes Tony Blair an overwhelming favourite for the election emerges from this article by Micklethwaite and Wooldridge in the LA Times.

There's a pathetic predictability in the way they describe Howard's success in appealing to Conservative support:

'the Conservatives have run their best campaign in a decade, talking tough on "dog-whistle" issues such as crime and immigration (in which their core supporters respond instinctively, even if you cannot hear the whistle).'

Whether they realise it or not, they have encapsulated the very quality in the British public's mentality at present which makes Howard's pitch unfeasible. The view of dog-and-whistle Conservatives is very far from the reality, since today's Conservatives have to grasp hold of things that matter through a fog of opposition. The British people are currently blind to Blair's simplism, locked into a false consciousness of celeb laden Britpop-inspired anti-Thatcher soft-focus love-see-no-colour complacency. All Tony Blair has to do is pose with a few celebs and babble on about how he and Gordon have mastered the economy and he's, as Campbell is said to have said, home and dry.

What's tragic is that history's real opportunities are passing us largely by as Blair poses for the cameras. The economy is only successful because of previous decades' reforms and the dividends of globalisation. Blair and Brown are simply setting us up for a fall by signing a contract with bureaucratic dead-ends, with the longer term vista of Europe their only get out clause. All the time they are setting up new shibboleths, such as the new vows they are making to the NHS, which cannot be sustained in the new world order that is coming.

Oh well.

To get a flavour of the greek tragedy that is the modern Britain's mindset, this Melanie Phillips post is a good place to start.

Outrage! There ought to be some, though the fact that I have only heard about the BBC's rent-a-heckler scheme to barrack Howard, as far as the MSM is concerned, from the Telegraph and a little snippet on Sky suggests that it will slip smoothly down the well-worn memory sinkholes out there. (This first link is to BiasedBBC's snippet-summary.)

However, I have to say that I agree with David Vance that 'The BBC is a menace to democracy in this country and that is one more reason why it should be privatised.'

This follows from my agreement with the Rottweiller Puppy that 'The fact of it is that when you're actually bringing in demonstrators and filming them while they disrupt a political rally, you've stepped across the wire, so to speak, between filming the news and actually manufacturing it. This isn't documentary-making, it's political activism.'

One could add to that nascent chorus USSNeverdock's conclusion: 'What a pathetic, biased and bumbling organization the BBC has become.'

My own view (to add that) is that this incident is not surprising. Observing the Beeb's tendancy to highlight every utterance of Howard on the subject of immigration it's clear they feel he is one step away from warranting 'Griffining'. They've been itching to have a go at Howard for weeks, and in the spirit of over-zealous theologians if there isn't a heckler for Howard then it's time to go and invent some.

An interesting insight into the media world we live in is available if we contrast the BBC's unheralded manufacturing of stories (which, as we know from Gilligan and other incidents is something of a Jayson Blair-like habit on a grand institutionalised scale) with the reaction to a very simple Channel Five documentary gleaned merely from dropping in on life in average British Comprehensive schools. Laban Tall has that story.

A couple of things are confirmed a little for me by this story. One is that British schools are about as bad as your worst intuition might have told you. Another is that Channel Five is a place where interesting outcast programme-makers can find some of the interest they deserve.

Lifting my gaze for a moment from the squalidness of what can be called the detritus
of cool Britannia, I note that some big events are taking place around the world. This post from the diplomats at the New Sisyphus blog, and this from Mark Steyn, are sufficiently sobering to make me see that Howard's seriousness in taking on Blair, and the disservice that even the most moderate or supportive media are doing him, are really quite serious matters indeed. We need a serious leader for the coming years, and we can't afford a lame-duck Blair or a scheming Brown, but the MSM in Britain is likely to deliver us to them.

Bowing by the Beeb.

A new trend in BBC coverage seems to have been thrust at me recently: that of the deferential coverage of China. Report after report has told of the Chinese anger against Japan as though a)The population of China has spontaneously arisen in response to Japanese provocation and b)The Chinese government, having nothing to do with the public responses to Japanese actions, has acted to subdue them despite having sensible grievances against the Japanese. This is a good example.

Surely this is just a superpower flexing its muscles, and surely the BBC, with its usual fairmindedness, would act to balance out the scales, as it seeks to against the US hegemon (alleged)?

Oh, I forget, we have to be deferential and polite to the Chinese. Meanwhile British ex-servicemen and families, who suffered at the hands of the Japanese, are, I suppose, merely nursing old grievances- that is, according to my BBC schooling. The results of a search of the BBC site which used the words 'Japan British Prisoners war' can be viewed here. There are no immediate results relevant to the case of British prisoners held under appalling conditions by Japan, and this one, found on the second page, merely talks about a new tourist attraction founded on the slave railway between Thailand and Burma, yet the Chinese anger, 60 years on, it practically unquestioned by the BBC.

The only recent BBC entry which mentioned warcrimes and Japan, referred most directly to warcrimes- but John Simpson was talking about Nagasaki and Hiroshima, which of course helped to hasten the end of the treatment of British POWs in ways unimagined by the Abu Graibised public consciousness. A serious film for the graphic modern mind remains to be made, if anyone can stomach it.

So let's summarise, on this St. George's day:

Grievances from British victims can be sidelined. Grievances from China must be mainstreamed. The only unequivocal warcrimes from the period that we will foreground are the Allied uses of the nuclear option against the vicious Japananese resistance.

That'll be balance, Beeb style.

Good News.

Warmest best wishes to Frank Gardner as he resumes his work following his convalescence in the wake of the awful attempted terrorist execution that he suffered in Riyadh last June. His life has been changed permanently, but he survived and is telling a little of his tale on the Beeb at the moment. Sadly Simon Cumbers wasn't so fortunate.

I'd also like to say, while I'm being a slightly above-decent fellow to the Beeb for a while, that I don't harbour any grudges towards any of them; not least someone I often snark at- Paul Reynolds. It's that they set themselves up at the head of a society I find it impossible to hold back from questioning that makes me seek to undermine their role- if possible.

Scum on top

After Paul Reynolds' tour de force contrasting The French success in maintaining their flagship enterprises with the demise of Rover, it seems very pertinent to link to this news report showing how trade with China can really be secured. I have to admit I was relieved to be led to understand that China wasn't interested in Rover, so that our foreign policy (such as it is under the Eurobrolly) wouldn't be determined by the flow of Yuan to Brum. Now we just have to watch for the French Cockerel trying to crowbar us into appeasing China via the CFP (Common Foreign Policy).

Samizdata, from which I discovered this latest French perfidy, also offered this interesting Observer half-condemnation of the Blairite strategy for Rover- sourcing the trouble right where it struck me it belonged, with Byers' promotion of the BMW-Phoenix deal.

It's the fact that the Guardian suite can produce this kind of sense that makes you weep for the Conservatives' incapability (in advance of their supposed poll failure):

'Now we are asked to believe the real plan all along was to ease the workers into redundancy, and to view industrial policy as an extension of the social security department.'

All of which turns me- almost, almost- to seeking religious succour in the comforting stability of the Roman Catholic faith, which unlike Rowan Williams has a semblance of self-respect.

In this vein it was amusing for me to find what a lot in common Larry from BlameBush had with Timthy Garton-Ash from the Guardian in their view of the new Papa- proving that the Graun hasn't yet croaked and been reborn as a sensible newspaper.

Election Comment... has been somewhat lacking from this blog so far.
Well, on this blogger's part there was a little sharp intake of breath as the Conservatives went into the campaign putting pressure on Labour, albeit having to ride their gaffes as they did so. Would it work? I wondered. Were all the people I admired wrong in considering Howard a duffer in a lawyer's guise, possessing only the patina of well-heeled experience in high places, rather than the judgement needed to expose the Blairmonster?

Well, there is something like this Larkin poem about the Conservative's campaign, and even US Conservatives don't know who to root for (unless it's Blair). Even Steyn would vote for the big B's grinning mug (and it has to be said Howard is wrong to attack on the smug smile front as he looks every inch as smug in his own way)

To top that off, the polls show a general Conservative slum of percentages huddled bleakly at around the 30 mark (well, a little above, being charitable). This despite the fact that I'd say the 'base', so-called, is fairly well motivated.

Melanie Phillips has been lambasting Howard for months and months, especially over his Iraq war opportunism, and I think she's taken time out from Howard bashing (being, as she is -I believe- a Conservative at heart) to lambast Blair for his unwillingness to take on his critics over the war. She's right there too, though I think the whole phenomenon Howard has failed to understand, completely, and Blair has failed to take to heart, is that the party that will succeed in changing this country in a genuine way is the one which stands up and argues with the British people, as it were, man-to-man, as fellow adults, with adult complexity. Naivity, perhaps, you may say- but courage and naivity often appear the same when we're trapped in a cycle of cravenness.

Serial abuser Bolton

It must be the way he looks or something -perhaps he cuts his own hair- but everyone has it in for John Bolton, President Bush's nominee for UN ambassador.

As Mark Steyn points out, he's been accused of grave offences such as standing with hands on hips.

Maybe a bit camp, but does it warrant the Beeb's parroting of his proposed status as 'serial abuser'? I quote:

'When asked by correspondents whether accusations that he was a serial abuser stood up, she [Condi Rice] said: "It's certainly not the John Bolton that I know or that a lot of other people know."'

Indeed. The Beeb's list of accusations is about as devastating as the crushing 'hand on hips' episode. I only hope I never make anyone that angry.

Through a glass, darkly.

Forgive my attempt to beef up my headlines after some lame ones recently, but the thought occurred to me that if the BBC consider a Eurosocialist EUtopia to be their idea of heaven, in only makes sense for them to report it as though partiality in their coverage was natural.

Paul Reynolds has an article about the EU Constitution which majors on the contrast between the French and British approaches to business highlighted by the demise of Rover. I thought Steyn summed up the British attitude perfectly when he said 'I would hazard that most Britons psychologically closed down Longbridge a generation back.', and followed it up well when he said 'Permanence is the illusion of every age'.

Indeed. And we Brits, while accepting the latter point and preparing for the consequences using the former strategy, have tended to tolerate any kind of Canute (eg. Phoenix) who promised to stop the tide of history and maintain prestige ventures like MGRover.

It's therefore impossible to go along with Reynolds' idealised notion that somehow our attitude is that 'For the UK it is a matter of regret that the last major British manufacturer has gone, but it is not a matter that will change government policy. The market has spoken and the market must decide.'

The fact that we are not oriented the way the French are doesn't mean that the market is somehow rampant in the UK (don't forget Mr Reynolds that we are part of the EU). To say so seems disingenuous.

As the EUserf points out covering similar territory, 'Companies need to be protected alright, but not from the competition. Rather they need protection from the ravages of rapacious tax collectors and regulation wielding Eurocrats.'

In his article Reynolds goes on to make a list of the things the French are doing better than we are, including the openness of their debate on the European Constitution. Amongst the nuggets, 'Few people in London know that their supplier, EDF, is actually Electricite de France.'. Speaking as a regular payer of Wanadoo internet charges, I know exactly what I pay the French on a regular basis, and though I don't pay EDF for my electricity I knew that Londoners do.

But what's missing from Reynolds' little fit of brand-envying prose is the fact that despite these wonderful headline names France can still boast unemployment of ten percent. This contrasts sharply to Britain's economy, denuded though it is of brand manufacturers- though, having said that I expect that Mr Brown has fed in enough fat tissue to the economy to see the British unemployment wasteline grown considerably in the coming years (it's already starting).

For Reynolds, the reason for the French opposition to the EU Constitution lies in the perception 'that free market doctrines are embedded in the new treaty in a way that makes the kind of social and industrial policy that is such a feature of French life much more difficult to pursue.'

For me, meanwhile, the reason for the French intransigence is their confidence that they are the arbiters of the future of Europe, and their conviction that (given the servility of British Pols to the Euro-agenda) they could soak the Brits a bit more and gain more accommodations for the various 'features' of French life that they hold dear.

But anyway, EURef gives a list of real rather than existential incursions into British economic freedoms, starting with one that directly impacted Rover's sustainability. While Britain grins and bears the ministrations of a statist system modelled on France's economic strategy, France seeks to make sure the project doesn't depart from the script.

Funnily enough Reynolds didn't put it quite that way. We'll just have to wait until we get to heaven. Update: the Rottweiler Puppy weighs in.

Setting Annan straight. While the BBC employs its old Punch and Judy tactic regarding international disputes where it would rather not see moral clarity emerge, The Washington Times offers the critical US-UK responses to Annan's attempt to fling a little mud in the 'international community's' eyes.

Key points:

'British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said Britain was "consistently in the lead in seeking to enforce sanctions against Iraq" ... "There were no occasions, which we can recall, on which the United Nations made representations to the United Kingdom" regarding smuggling activities'

'exemptions from U.N. sanctions that were granted to Turkey and Jordan had been implemented with the full knowledge of the U.N. Sanctions Committee and other U.N. bodies and officials.'

You know, that's really game over, isn't it? I know of no real contradictory arguments. We would be left contemplating Koffi's moral/political failures.

So what do the Beeb consider the proper continuation of the fight Annan picked to coincide with the indictment of some of the few US connectors to Oil for Food?

Oh yes, Mr Punch, it's 'UN must reform or die, says Rice'

Not that I really disagree with the sentiments of Ms Rice, but it is the Beeb's habit to seek a mudslinging session when a clear view would see their chosen ones (and if ever there was a chosen one it was Koffi) deselected by history.

Just a post to note the absurd BBC policy of soft-pedalling the Oil-for-Food scandal until they can make it a partisan 'them and us', US/UK vs the decent chaps just doing their transnational duty etc etc. Such dishonesty is sickening, and Koffi, like one of those slapstick comedians in old Western comedies, crawls out from the melee he's encouraged on his dirty hands and knees. I noted a couple of related articles in the post below (maybe even the one above is an updated form of one of them), where the Beeb were building a little bandwagon of blame to counteract what they habitually term the 'hostility' of the US to the UN.

To be honest it doesn't matter if the US were letting Saddam get away with smuggling, to some degree. Let's see: they ejected him from Kuwait a the cost of US lives; they policed his dangerous territory at the cost of a permanent presence there. What did the UN ever give? What right had it to make strategic decisions? yet they were doing just that, and for profit. Surely the crucial point is that Saddam's sources of money went far beyond the US's ability to control them, significantly due the UN's incompetence and criminality. Consequently the threat Saddam posed was being bumped up by UN actions and UN inaction. Reason enough to sack Koffi.

Simply superb: Steyn on the future, in the Speccie. What can I say? I agree with every word. I'll link the print version too, as it's an article that deserves to be read whole. He picks out so many of the telling instances that epitomise the looming realities that are making so much of the current baggage of thought that passes for politics in the UK just that: baggage.

To give one example, I'm sure a lot of people noticed an appalling 'Christian' Aid advert recently. Well, Natalie Solent noticed it. Steyn says:

'in the Guardian last week, Christian Aid took out the following advertisement: ‘It’s not called slavery nowadays. It’s called free trade.’

Yeah, sure. I’d love to email to India the CAT-scan of whichever Christian Aid wallah thought that would work, even as overheated rhetoric. The popular British ‘charity’ is campaigning for what it calls ‘trade justice’: ‘Poor countries must be given the freedom to help their own farmers and industries.’ By ‘poor countries’ they mean the dictators and crooks and incompetents who run ‘poor countries’; by ‘given the freedom to help’ they mean encouraged in the delusions that have made ‘poor countries’ out of once prosperous territories.'

So, what we can say is that whatever is the right thing to do by the developing world- or whatever the latest apologetic term is- we're not doing it by placing our trust in the likes of Christian Aid, and we're not doing it by trusting State proxies, or the nice GDP percentage targets of aid that everyone murmurs assent to, from Left and Right alike in British politics.

Moreover, we're not learning about that failure from the BBC- quite the opposite. They tell us about capitalist criminality, the failure of UK and US politicians, the outdatedness of global corporations (a photo-article, unavailable to links, asked the question, 'is the Burger giant showing its age?'): you name it, anything but the real waste of western wealth and western advantages that the statist projects of western nations entail.

Podhoretz versus the Beeb:

Says the Beeb:

'Mr Sharon said Maale Adumim "would be part of Israel" and that there ought to be "contiguity between Maale Adumim and Jerusalem."'

'The international community considers all settlements in Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, as illegal under international law, though Israel disputes this.'

Says Podhoretz:

'With Israel's successful defeat of the Palestinian intifada, the death of Yasser Arafat and Sharon's stunning decision to cede Gaza to the Palestinian Authority, the terms of the discussion between the two parties have changed entirely.

The astonishing changes on the ground over the past 18 months are creating a new political dynamic between Israel and the Palestinians. The effort on the part of the press, the pundits and the Europeans to make the theoretical Maale Adumim issue a major scandal is an effort to deny the existence of this new political dynamic.'

Let's see now; which one seems to be carrying the news, and which seems about as relevant as an aged Metternich bleating on about the Congress of Vienna?

Political limbo dancing: how low can they go?

Pols behaving despicably. For every pseudo-example of the politics of the gutter, such as when Michael Howard raises the question of UK immigration, there are many more examples of the real thing which happen when no one is paying attention.

The basic definition of gutter politics I'd offer is that it's politics which puts lives at stake for the sake of personal satisfaction.

The sharp intake of breath taken by liberals when they heard whisperings that Bush was pursuing his aggressive War on Terror strategy 'because he could', ie. because of the US' power and unique position, was the sound of affronted hyprocrites.

The reality is the Left does everything it does because it can, and thirsts to do more whenever it can.

John Kerry, for instance, is talking about intimidation at the US polls, claiming his voters were cowed by Republican rottweilers- because he can- despite the fact that he knows well what use his words will be put to in the prejudiced and propagandised world media. American lives may be lost due to the perception he fosters of American corruption. Kerry talks of having 'no magic wand' to end this corruption (though he has a magic hat, as we know), but I am just struck with a saying such as 'once a traitor, always a traitor', to sum the Senator up (Chrenkoff also reports)

Oona King, in the UK, is facing a torrent of abuse and pressure from anti-war 'ethnic communities'- despite her own ethnicity, and, certainly in part, because she's Jewish. George Galloway is opposing her in her constituency, playing on all these factors to gain personal revenge for his near-brush with political extinction, and lucrative notoriety- because he can (because no one saw fit to put him behind bars already). In so doing he is stirring the anti-Semitism which endangers Jewish lives everywhere, and stoking the Jihadic drive which endangers us all. (Arthur Chrenkoff also reports)

The BBC are questioning the anti-Aids strategy of perhaps the only good example of a country that has combatted the disease effectively: Uganda. Where is the sense in that, when Mbeki's gross ignorance and stupidity in allowing the disease to take hold in Southern Africa is the continent's big political story, allied to his tolerance of the stinkingly flea-bitten and diseased Mugabe regime? Why are they doing this kind of journalism? Let Uganda tinker with its policy however it wants since at least it has a successful policy to tinker with. The Beeb are doing this kind of journalism, in fact, to satisfy anti-religious and anti-US prejudice- because they can, having been given the carte blanche of the licence fee for another ten years.

French Chauvinism

While in perfect nuLabour Britain we're supposed not to have any illicit stirrings of nostalgia in the nether-regions of our hearts and minds for British power and influence (maybe it's best to keep quiet while we still have some- but rather than shaking Mugabe's hand I'd have been inclined to break his wrist, as a sign of peace, of course (though, when you think about it, what on earth was Robert Mugabe doing at the Pope's funeral, and what esteem do the Pope's lieutenants hold Charles in that he was seated just two seats away from the Thugocrat himself when there are stories like this circulating involving senior Zimbabwean Catholics???)), in France things are rather different.

The hilarious spectacle of French politicians muscling up to convince their ovine-like nervous proletariat that the big bad capitalist wolf wouldn't eat them if they said yes to the European Constitution was not only highly entertaining, it also provoked much more of le candour from our neighbours than is usual.

The invaluable Eursoc carries a plat principale of tasty soundbites that have been circulating during le campaign (I can't resist using some bad French-like language, any more than they can resist mispronouncing English). My favourites (but they're all goood!):

'* "This Constitution allows the French ambition to assert itself in the big Europe that General de Gaulle hoped and prayed for." - Education Minister François Fillon (Le Figaro, 7 April)'

'* "We have finally obtained this 'Europe à la française' that we have awaited for so long. This constitutional treaty is an enlarged France. It is a Europe written in French." - Justice Minister Dominique Perben (Times and AFP, 4 April)'

See- like I always always all my life said, a grand French strategy to dominate Europe. The only thing missing from the quotes is the name Napoleon.

Scroll down the last couple of Eurosoc posts for more frogdiculous antics.

See also this from the Times on BBC bias and Gavyn Davies their former CoG- via Mr F&M.

So full of crap he needs an enema.

Yes, yes I know. Crudeness. And from me, too. But Justin Webb really merits it, and I hope that having expressed my disgust so obviously I can take a few breaths and examine an article that could actually tell us much about what is wrong with today's BBC, and what is wrong about the BBC's Britain too.

I said a lot about the tragedy of the Schiavo case, but at least it made Webb feel better about America. As he concludes his article he says:

'It is common to mock at American attempts to export Jeffersonian democracy, but after these two weeks the mocking should stop.'

Now that Schiavo has died her legalistic death he can rhapsodise about the 'complex and vital soul of America' .

Really, this is straight out of LiberalLarryland.

The calm Webb feels after his humanist prejudice has been satisfied with its ultimate sacrificial vindictation allows him to be even more candid than usual. He admits a significant amount when he says:

'America is often portrayed as an ignorant, unsophisticated sort of place, full of bible bashers and ruled to a dangerous extent by trashy television, superstition and religious bigotry, a place lacking in respect for evidence based knowledge.

I know that is how it is portrayed because I have done my bit to paint that picture'.

It's funny. As a product of the Beeb's Britain I've been brought up to believe that no stereotype can ever really be true (that is, I've rejected the Beeb's favourite nostrums and bugbears, and what's left to stereotype?). Stereotypes exist in defiance to reality. This is evidently an invalid assumption as far as Justin Webb is concerned. He adds to the above quoted stereotype:

'that picture is in many respects a true one.'

Webb finds his comfort in the thought that many Americans agreed with him that Schindler should die (I was going to say Schiavo but I think that her husband effected a common-law divorce long before her death). He may say that it's the following of due process that he finds has revived his faith in America- but what's telling is that it's the following of so-called due process against what he believes is religious bigotry that he finds comforting:

'Americans do believe in God and they do believe in life, but they also believe in law, and rules, and the need for democracy to restrain, not satisfy, the wishes of politicians.'

It's quite interesting that Webb's faith in America depends on its subordination of so-called religious values to secular protocols.

These so-called religious values clearly include the right to life, which I wouldn't have thought was any more religious than many a secular nostrum. To believe in this right to life though is to be prejudiced, and to depart from acceptability. All that is acceptable is summated by the grey mass of humanist consensus (in other words, a world where humanists win votes):

'Plenty of honest disagreement among reasonable people, religious and non religious, Republican and Democrat.'- and death on demand.

What's weird for a self-styled ratonal man is when Webb disparages the power of observation, and the medium which he relies on for his life's work and his credibility:

' the television news showed pictures of Terri Schiavo looking responsive, even affectionate, and above all looking vulnerable.'

Yeah- almost as if she had something approaching those qualities.

It's not Webb's rationalism that impresses me about this article- as the Voice of Reason tells us all is well now Terri's dead- it's the coercive irrationality of it.

So what have we got so far: condescension, humanism and socialism, all mixed together to give us Webb's view of the world. He offers us subtle inducements to follow his position (by praising the heart of the US, for instance), but all the long he has a little spiteful wishlist to impose on the unlovely subjects of his journalism (that's you and me, as much as it is the hicks who are, in Webb's vision, beyond feeling like Schiavo herself, almost).

I've gone on long enough- maybe I even went off topic, but as the intro made clear, I was dismayed and angry. Anyway, you can find a parallel take here at the Rottweiler Puppy. Thanks to DumbJon for introducing me to this excellent site.

Death in the Americas

It just seems to me that the Beeb, as well as their liberal transational partners and proteges, are in a horrible twist over the death penalty.

When the Beeb reports a rise in the number of death sentences it somehow winds up in the 'Americas' section, which is wrong not just because the US is a minor contributor to their statistics, but also because at the present time falling numbers of death sentences are being given there, and of course an immensely lengthy judicial system is devoted to cases, frequently alotting more time than was alotted to Terri Schiavo.

What you can say is that the US' death penalty is the big attention-grabber, thanks to the policy of media such as the Beeb, so it makes 'media sense' to put it there- though the Beeb always carefully retains the State's financial and moral support while applying it.

This comes after the BBC asserted- via a journalist's manipulation of an interview with Iraqis concerning instability in their country- that the death penalty was inconsistent with democracy, a common prejudice it seems. In the latest article they pointedly mention that the US is 'one of the very few democracies on the list' (of killer-nations).

But the twist comes when China (responsible for the vast majority of death sentences) says that it

'would improve its justice system so the death penalty would be given "carefully and fairly", the official Xinhua news agency reported.'

and, following that, we find that

'Sarah Green, a spokeswoman for Amnesty in London, welcomed the announcement, but said the group wanted action, not words. '

Whereas, when it comes to the US, we find that

'"There is so much evidence that the death penalty is being applied unfairly, the very possibility of executing anybody who is innocent is reason not to have it," she said.'

So it's good news that China is insisting on a 'fair' death penalty (which, you have to say, seems to need a pinch of salt adding to it), while in the US there's soooo much unfairness in the death penalty waaaaah waaaaah.

To cap it all the report ends by quoting Ted Heath, who has been conpicuous in his admmiration for totalitarians, Chinese in particular. I recognise the unfairness comes via an interlocuter, or 'proxy', as I prefer to see these mouthpieces, but the BBC knows all about selectivity yet fails to apply it when it suits them.

Such inconsistency is consistent with only one thing: a bandwagon, whereby fairness is nothing and the end is everything. The BBC is firmly on it, generally whip in hand.

Sorry to harp on Paul but...

Reynolds versus Coleman...

also known as...

Elected politician versus Koffi's state-funded cheerleader:

Says Reynolds-

'UN Secretary General Kofi Annan will be hoping that the latest report into the Iraqi oil-for-food programme will help put his ship back on an even keel, though there are still squalls ahead.


Annan said he expected the highest standards of integrity from Kojo


The report effectively cleared him of corruption, though he must be wishing that the lawyers' language it used was more definitive.'

Says Norm Coleman-

''The Volcker report did not "exonerate" Annan, as many have claimed; to the contrary, it pointed the finger directly at him. Indeed, one member of Volcker's committee, Mark Pieth, made that point loud and clear: "We did not exonerate Kofi Annan."

With that in mind, I reiterate my call for Annan's resignation.''

Some reading... and things... a little different.

Anyone who has read this website at all over the last year or so will know my views on the war with Iraq. For me it was always an unlosable argument that Saddam could be removed from power forcibly and his regime extirpated without the slightest danger of compromising the morality (such as it is) of the countries taking part in his removal from power. Plus, of course, we live in a world where weapons of mass destruction are a prevalent reality, and Saddam had a penchant for them. End of argument, boring readers to tears etc.

I only add that preamble (reluctantly, I have to say) to make clear that by recommending this poem (did you know Clive James was a poet? You do now.) I'm not endorsing its viewpoints- though it slips down a heck of a lot more easily than the NIMN antics that have passed for the antiwar movement. As usual with James he prides himself on being that bit broader-minded than the next man; I'm sure he'd like to think he was a man with 'bottom', and he'd make a lot of fun of it too.

In a similarly contrarian vein, here's Hitchens on Pope John Paul; a mixed bag as usual.

Meanwhile, this photo of an Islamic terrorist in Jenin from LGF tickled me, mainly because my Grandma (now 94) has always talked about her nightmares of early (orphaned) childhood where, based on the stories she was hearing of the First World War, she always imagined there was a German under her bed at night.

I'll be back to Beeb-bashing no doubt shortly, though there's no doubting they're aware of our existence.

How angry should I be?

A bit, certainly. Probably very.

In this article I originally thought the BBC were doing their usual talking up of obscure racial and tribal matters which makes them feel so good about themselves that a) They're the only global broadcaster global enough to pick up these things and b) They're the only ones who care enough to do so.

But wait! There are Jews involved, so it can't be so straightforward. No, we have not simply got the recognition of an interesting racial link between Israelis and people living in India, we've got a sinister Jewish plot to reinforce the Israeli population and deny the Palestinians their rightful demographic ascendancy. That's why they mention many times in some detail, that the recognition of this link to orthodox Jewry means that these 6000 people (6000! More people than several years of valiant suicide bombing managed to exterminate.) can all up sticks and settle in Israel.

But the extent of the BBC's pro-Palestinian paranoia against Israel can be seen in the choice of commentator they make to inform us of the sinister plot, a man they refer to as just an 'Israeli Social Scientist'. What that they don't mention is that Lev Grinberg is a supporter of Palestinian terrorists and a vicious critic of his own people, whom he likens to Nazis and psychotics.

Here is an example of his writings:

'The murder of Sheik Ahmad Yassin by the government of Israel is part of a major move carried out by the government of Israel, which can be described as symbolic genocide.'

Here's a critique of the same.

A great deal of bloggy goodness from the excellent EUReferendum blog. Go ye and read, is my advice.

Starting afresh. Thought I'd start a new post (but don't forget Steyn in the post from 'yesterday'- truly a tour de force). The reason? To give a proper frame to this excellent article (why is it we're coming up with this kind of clarity after the loss of Terri Schiavo when we couldn't put things so clearly before?) from William Anderson in the Weekly Standard. A taster:

''Students of law, medicine, and ethics will examine this tragedy for decades to come'...

'Much mischief is set loose when the uncertain judgments of medical diagnosis are conflated with the rigid categories of the law. Unlike coma or brain death, persistent vegetative state is a diagnosis that depends on subjective judgment. It requires a finding of unresponsiveness in an awake and alert person. Even skilled diagnosticians may disagree on this assessment. It does not necessarily preclude the possibility of improvement. It has no definitive laboratory tests.'

So Terri Schiavo has died, and I'm sad about that, but why did the BBC describe her in their headline as 'brain damaged'? (I mean, not as a person who is brain damaged, but a brain damaged person, which though it might seem a pedantic distinction, is in fact what disabled people have long complained about in the presentation of their identities: disabled first, person second). Is this their tacit admission that they always sided with the group that put her in a special category of disabled ie., the vegetative one? Next time they report ex-Home Sec. David Blunkett I'll expect them to put 'blind (ex-Home Sec.) David Blunkett', not.

Post Updated: Melanie Phillips underlines the point.

Forgive another update: there's so much to say about the Schiavo case. There are those who will say this is opportunistically reading political concerns into a personal matter, but I honestly regard the Schiavo case as emblematic of a point in cultural history where we can go in several directions, but it's clear which direction has the greatest momentum.

Steyn touches many of the points of interest, dramatically. So, fascinatingly, does the more prosaic G.W. Bush: Terri and the War on Terror? (Via R.C.P.) W. undercuts the columnists. Who else would dare put it that way?

Experiencing sexual problems? Thought not. Still, if you were, like these people, you'd want to go to the experts.

Does this sound like they think the UN might be happy to point a finger or two for a change this season? Echoes of Oil for Food and the allegations of CPA corruption in Iraq (a report always available at the BBC site, and always updated regularly), which John Simpson alluded to recently.

Whooeee the BBC's 'study' (er, not the BBC's study, if you get my drift): tranzis at their finest. If you've come within half a blogospherical mile of the BBC's website you can't have missed how they are hot on the case trying to save the world, plastering their front page with articles like this.

As usual the most sensible thing to do is follow the links (commendably placed there for the purpose, as is customary), but not before looking closely at a front-loading adjective such as 'comprehensive'. It you collect your thoughts about this one you realise that here comprehensive doesn't mean 'deep', or 'thorough', 'logical' or even 'scientific'. In this context it probably just means that a lot of people contributed to the study in some way. A dictionary defines 'comprehensive' here.

It's a good starting point, because when you follow the link of the link of the link you find (partially, you give up searching for clarity when the third link leads you somewhere your ill-equipped computer will not follow) made clear that this project involved 'natural and social scientists from developed and developing countries'. By my brutal arithmetic that means that you can divide the overall numbers involved by about four to calculate the number of contributors who theoretically were in a position to say something scientifically meaningful, as opposed to saying what they thought would be received well by the powers that were. Another way of looking at that; when I say scientifically meaningful I mean other than just intelligent hearsay or naked eye observation that you and I can engage in too.

Comprehensive here definitely means quantity rather than quality. When you factor in the extremely bureaucratic nature of the study, and its politicisation (it was engendered by the UN, included UN chief-advisor whatnots, and explicitly had one eye on immediate agenda setting for the great W.C. - world community), it is clearly a monster bred for one purpose only: to leap off the BBC's, and other organs', front pages.

To underline the desire of this study to intimidate the sceptics who oppose their bandwagon, the Beeb enlists a vociferous titled talking head as rottweiler-General:

'"There will undoubtedly be gainsayers, as there are with the IPCC; but I put them in the same box as the flat-Earthers and the people who believe smoking doesn't cause cancer," said Professor Sir John Lawton, former chief executive of the UK's Natural Environment Research Council.'

(all textual shenanigans mine alone)

So, there we have it, a quangocrat on the world's greatest quangocasters' website telling us all to be good and obey the quangos or we'll be called very naughty boys and lumped in with the boys that nobody wants to play with.

It's all a long way from 'here is the news', isn't it?

Where the lawyers might have started.

No I'm not a lawyer, but I think I have a feel for the law (and not just because I've successfully defended myself in court, I just always tend to take narrow legal view of things, which has its drawbacks I can assure you. I thoroughly appreciated Lord Hutton's report, which was dry as dust really; not, I think, because the outcome suited me, but because it was so careful and precise. Hutton's errors are there for anyone to find as a consequence of this, though I would consider them negligible).

Mark Steyn's not a lawyer either, and I think he's just too rounded a person to be a legal sort. He can hobnob and talk morality too, and get on with backwoodsmen as well, apparently, as he shmoozes with the high and mighty. But I think that he appreciates the kind of solid framework on which justice is founded.

His take on the Schiavo affair is not arrogant, assuming he knows better than the courts, but he zeros in effortlessly on areas that could have founded a simple and effective case for Terri.

'There seems to be a genuine dispute about her condition -- between those on her husband's side, who say she has ''no consciousness,'' and those on her parents' side, who say she is capable of basic, childlike reactions. If the latter are correct, ending her life is an act of murder. If the former are correct, what difference does it make? If she feels nothing -- if there's no there there -- she has no misery to be put out of. That being so, why not err in favor of the non-irreversible option?'

'Michael Schiavo took a vow to be faithful in sickness and in health, forsaking all others till death do them part. He's forsaken his wife and been unfaithful to her: She is, de facto, his ex-wife, yet, de jure, he appears to have the right to order her execution. This is preposterous. Suppose his current common-law partner were to fall victim to a disabling accident. Would he also be able to have her terminated? Can he exercise his spousal rights polygamously? The legal deference to Mr. Schiavo's position, to his rights overriding her parents', is at odds with reality.'

'it behooves us to maintain a certain modesty about presuming to speak for others -- even those we know well. Example: ''Driving down there, I remember distinctly thinking that Chris would rather not live than be in this condition.'' That's Barbara Johnson recalling the 1995 accident of her son Christopher Reeve. Her instinct was to pull the plug; his was to live.'

The tragedy is, I think, that we don't have people who speak as simply yet as eloquently as Mark Steyn in positions where they can uphold justice; they're too rounded to fit into the system, preferring maverick roles with some kind of sex appeal (Steyn would laugh, I think, but it is the case that columnists are sexier than lawyers). Then again, the notion of 'due process' which I hear bandied around in all sorts of contexts (take note, BBC), strikes me as little more than playing the system, which doesn't appeal to narrow types like me who prefer the idea that 'due process' refers back to a common pool of experience and wisdom too wide and too rich to make justice a matter of legalism.

The Law really is in the news at the moment, and what's interesting is that the Left, having lost so many battles in the court of public opinion, are deciding to put their undoubted (by themselves) superior intelligence quotient to the test in the narrower arenas of the legal profession. Steyn also has things to say about this (at least, in one instance of it).

At bottom though the reason Leftists run to their mamma courtroom is that they know they have the energy to bore other people into the ground. The trick will be if the Right, in which I would claim a small demesne, has the energy to counteract the overwhelming will to self-justify and express their sacred POV which motivates their opponents.

Life and Death

The more I think about it, the more I agree with Orson Scott Card about the Michael/Terri Schiavo case:

'The incredible thing — to me, at least, and yet I have to believe it, don’t I — is that he was able to find a judge who would give him the right to kill this woman.'

I appreciate that most people would say, with some reasonableness on their side, that we can't possibly know the ins and outs that all those court cases involved. That we shouldn't comment from ignorance, driven mainly by our emotions. However I think that my interest has not be emotionally driven except by the curiosity (a kind of species of intellectual emotion) of seeing advocates of death saying that the moving eyes and lips and head of a clearly brain damaged woman are no evidence that she feels anything whatsoever. Perhaps there is a deeper form of logic at work there than that of traditional empirical observation, willing to bet all on the efficacy of those brain charts.

I agree with these Weekly Standard contributors that those who promoted the death of Terri Schiavo as part of the panapoly of right-to-interfere and right-to-die issues, apparently as a trial of their own strength, will be unleashing a perfect storm upon themselves. I think that the Schiavo case will be a wake-up call for many, and it certainly deserves to be on merit.

What's clear as well is that legal minds have been more concerned in the Schiavo case with the enforcement of 'due process' than with a sense of Terri Schiavo's right to life. Terri's parents (the Schindlers) do appear to have antagonised the profession by apparently ingenuously and passionately believing that to state the obvious ought to be sufficient. Unfortunately for lawyerly minds seeing and not believing is pretty much part of the reason for their profession's proud place in society.

I might just add one little point about the recent attempts by the Schindlers to claim that Terri recently uttered several syllables in answer to an invitation to indicate her will to live. To me this encapsulated the Schindler's naive approach. I'm not inclined to believe that it happened at all, frankly, but one could see in it an obvious attempt to echo the vague claims about Terri's wishes that were offered by Michael Schiavo's representatives, and accepted. The trouble is that proving double standards will not shame a court, or a judge, at all, if they already consider that you are troublemakers.

I honestly believe that savvier representations would have seen Terri's right to life upheld. That's the shame of it; not that I find the outcome unappealing, but that I find many of the steps involved to be brazenly counter-commonsensical and actually unfair.

To demonstrate that grasp of reason is not limited to the rationalists advocating Terri's death, have a look at Malkin's demolition of some unfair personal journalism. To show that I can listen to the other point of view, Donald Sensing makes as good a case as anyone (but I think he's wrong). Oh yes, and this a pretty intelligent anti-Terri case too (terrible to put it in these terms but she is dying)

David Frum wishes you a happy... well, a good... well, it's a nice day anyway, and he wishes you well in it, as do I. Mind you it has to be said that at this time of year it's traditional to set bad news alongside good (which is not even to mention Terri Schiavo- excellent article linked via Real Clear Politics. Actually a thought occurs to me- while I keep updating this post- that Terri Schiavo could die on Easter Day, which would be poignant to say the least.)

New Sisyphus has a terrific analysis of the trumpeted UN reforms where they set their legal minds racing to interpret what Koffis definitions and notions of enhanced missions really imply.

A New Offensive(ness)

I meant to get round to reading this Paul Wood article since I was sure that the Beeb's notion of an Iraq 'balance sheet' would interest me. Ok, I'm a bit late, but it didn't disappoint.

It's funny, maybe BBC journalists get so familiar with the medium of words that they think of them like numbers, so that if, in establishing a metaphorical balance sheet, it is loaded with extensive negative expressions, that can be balanced by one or two big plusses. Woods' article is like that. All negative bar the important inescapable plusses (which say nothing really about his desire to recognise all the data, since they couldn't be left out under any circumstances)- the end of Saddam (mentioned obliquely) and the Iraqi elections. The trouble comes if you are confused as to the overriding value of these latter two points, which is actually where the battle for public opinion takes place. Clearly the beeb are hoping to overwhlem these two strong positions of the pro-war crowd.

The mood music of Woods' article is entirely negative, the anecdotes (extraordinary and extreme) basically negative, the bottom lines assumed (positive).

It's just so Not-In-My-Name it's difficult to conceive it could be more so.

But, well, there's more from the Beeb in a similar, perhaps deeper, vein. This article is crazily lop-sided. What I object to most of all though is not the unrestrained negativity- or rather I do object to that but surmise that it is due to a lack of context.

It's a story from Matthew Price about the kidnap of teenage girls. The girls interviewed go to the same school, which gives a mixed Islamic/Catholic education in a compound surrounded by barbed wire and garrisoned by guards. Sounds dreadful, yes?
But what I want to know is quite simple. How rich are these girls' fathers? How unusual is a mixed religion school in Baghdad? What kind of muslims go there, Sunni, Shia or both (I am not satisfied with Price's idea of a 'crosssection' of conservative and less conservative when we all know the divide that counts in much of the troubles of Iraq is Sunni-Shia)? What kind of backgrounds do these girls have? Were they from families who had status within the old regime, or do their families have status within the new one?

The final point of call is another BBC article but not a specifically BBC issue: the legal justification for the war in Iraq, which is just one of the windows of opportunity that Stoppers have tried to open to justify their position against the removal from power of Saddam Hussein.

This is clearly an election-inspired put up job from the most radically leftist media broadcaster in the UK: Channel Four News (they would like to hear that, actually):

'The revelations came in a censored part of ex-Foreign Office lawyer Elizabeth Wilmshurst's letter, obtained by Channel 4 News.'

The silliest thing about this non-story (non- because it exactly accords with my memory of how things unfolded in the public eye. Goldsmith advocated a second UN resolution to make absolutely sure of legality, which seemed as equivocal then as it does now in the light of Ms Wilmshurst's revelations) though is Jack Straw's defence of his government against its closest challengers for the prize of governance of the country:

'He accused the Tories of trying to use the issue as a "smokescreen to avoid their own responsibility for the fact they voted for this military action".

Straw is an old woman of long standing on just about everything, but this is absurd and demonstrates why you can think that the Government did absolutely the right thing in supporting Bush militarily against Saddam, yet still deserves to lose the general election.

The main accusation against the Beeb though is in a way minor (with major implications): that they take all this at face-value and don't question the triviality of the news value because for them the anti-Iraq war view will be news until it becomes an active consensus.

Bush, Sharon, Podhoretz, his daughter, and me. I've rarely, if ever, found such as strong echo of my feelings and views about an issue as in this long essay about Sharon, and Bush, and the Gaza withdrawal plan.

Difficult to summarise, and not easy to select quotes from, it is a fascinating meander through one of this century's great foundational dilemmas. Podhoretz thinks that in the end it might come down to a question of faith, but then again, his discourse is one where reasoning, wrestling one might even say, abounds.

It's the travail of a principled thinker and writer.

Podhoretz defends his faith in Bush, whose motives and Sharon's form a kind of nexus out of which Podhoretz believes that security, and eventually peace, ought to come. Explaining his faith in Bush he refers to the kind of historical disappointment only a man of maturer years can have felt:

'I had expected Moynihan [Patrick Moynihan, hero of the Democrat right in the 70's, apparently] to persist in the battle we had all been waging against the steadily leftward drift of the Democratic party. But when he broke our hearts by joining in that drift himself, I resolved that from then on I would abide by the words of the Psalmist: “Put not your trust in princes.”
...

[of his misplaced trust] Is it now flying out again in relation to George W. Bush? I cannot in all honesty dismiss the possibility. And yet neither can I dismiss the possibility that this is one prince who, on the basis of repeated demonstration, deserves to be trusted.'

Here I think is where Podhoretz can rest easy, and on that rest can found his confidence, 'cause Bush ain't no Prince. Terrific article; took a long time to read.

The Mugabe Effect. Since the BBC have been unable to drag their eyes off Mugabe's lively personality and his anti-colonial rhetoric (or random dribblings, if you ask me), and since Bob went all neo-con by praising George Bush jnr, Mr Geldof's not had the best of presses. The Beeb have become critical of him, and the sign of this is that when few hundred Government inspired drones take to the streets of a random African capital because Bob questioned the divine rights of their latest dear leader, the BBC are all agog, and wish you to be too.

I was going to post the following post yesterday, but a combination of Blogger woes and time constraints meant I left it, and now Steyn has produced the perfect article to complement it. PS: see this also, a fine summary argument I found at Real Clear Politics.

Healthy Words from a woman I fancy

I don't normally bother to fancy women in the public eye- it's too obvious and well, rather futile. I'll make an exception for Joanna Jepson, though, because not only is she attractive, she's full of good works when it comes to following through against one of the scourges of our age, what she terms 'abortions for eugenic reasons'

She authored a fine article for the Telegraph yesterday (Sun), as at last a little controversy is being injected into the abortion debate by Michael Howard, Conservative leader.

I recently had to endure some Talking Head (on Sky) saying that it wasn't easy to get an abortion, in the same interview where it was stated that there had been 180,000 abortions in the UK last year. Not easy?

This all comes at a time when the Terry Schiavo case is so critically poised in the US (see also Michelle Malkin's updates).

Although the Schiavo case is clearly different in that the life in question is that of an adult reduced to an inability to exercise her own will rather than a child too young to have attained it, the variety of such cases demonstrates the way 'the system' is biased towards death rather than towards life, such that an exceptional intervention is required to preserve life.

I can also declare a personal interest in the age of abortion matter in that my niece was born prematurely at 24 weeks, and I only wish I had a photo available to show you how healthy and happy she is now, one and a half years after her early appearance (at which time she was thoroughly lively and quite responsive).

It's good that Joanna is around to highlight this issue (and its shameful there aren't more doing the same), and to raise questons like this:

'Mr England said, in response to my complaint about the abortion, that he was satisfied the two doctors who authorised the termination of the 28-week-old foetus in Herefordshire in 2001 had acted "in good faith".

What does that mean, exactly? It strikes me as the kind of phrase wheeled out by politicians when they've done something especially disgraceful, as if to say: yes, what I did was wrong but I was thinking the right thoughts while I did it. In the same way, Mr England appeared to be saying that as long as the two doctors did not believe they were breaking the law, their actions were justified.'

More about Jo Jepson and her family here.

Simpson's middle road

The BBC's John Simpson has quite a tendentious article at BBConline. The one point that I'd highlight is the centrepiece fact of his argument:

'the basic problem remains: the Sunni population is as angry, resentful and resistance-minded as ever.

As the supporters of the invasion are finding two years on, you cannot step in, change the structure of a nation fundamentally and make everyone happy. There is a ferocious price to be paid, and on average two coalition soldiers and 20 Iraqi civilians pay it daily. '

I'm not sure about the civilian figure, though I doubt it, but I do think that Simpson ought to have known the latest stats whereof his argument gains its stature. It's not enough to say well, on average, if you intend that average to be a current one, and then to get your figures about thirty percent wrong.

The Quieter Approach

The BBC has gone rather quiet over the quagmire that was Iraq. Paul Reynolds still keeps throwing up the spectre of Vietnam ('there is an interesting precedent...After the Vietnam War'- previously linked on this site), not because it was similar (that hope has evaporated), but because he's still hopeful of manipulating opinion in the same way. It can be like Vietnam for him and his ideology. Anytime there's a 'bang', you can guarantee the BBC will report it the loudest, but still, things are quiet.

Recently they took a break from making their lengthy compendiums of Iraq violence (often stretching over several days) to make separate reports- both of which linked to the anti-war protesters who parade with the BBC's heart with them alongside the mock coffins.

In their report about the marchers, or about the latest 'bangs', they don't find time to allude to trends like this (reg required), reported by Belgravia Despatch, though they do mention that 100,000 casualty figure produced by the Lancet and hotly disputed ever since.

However, in addition to highlighting Turkish anti-Americanism, they found time to bring to everyone's attention that Leftist professor Cole who tried to discredit IraqtheModel. The world according to Cole is a world of US neoImperialist oppression, and the Iraqi democracy's a sham. It's a subtler argument than usual, in that instead of condemning US attempts to bring democracy to the undemocratic, it criticises the imperfection of that attempt as all part of the evil conspiracy.

Meantime the insidious attempt to reconfigure Saddam as our fault in the first place was given a boost by the Dutch (and occupied BBC frontpage space for quite a while). This is pure scapegoatism (not that the Dutchman deserves any sympathy), but when you consider that brand new French missiles were fired at US forces in Iraq in the last two years, you have to say that the Euros are highlighting old chesnuts to deflect attention from newer ones. The same muddying tactics are working on the UNscam situation. To my mind the failures of the international community were greater in the 90's than in the 80's (all things considered) but it's much more convenient to root around in almost defunct criminality than to dig up less decayed corpses.

The BBC demonstrates again and again its commitment to the transnationalism of the UN and the EU, and all agencies in between.

The March of Freedom.

I'll just start by mentioning my surprise today when, on Sky television I saw the often anonymous and unspectacular (except for the shoes) Teresa May of the British Conservative party being given a chance to make a case against Cannabis as a 'C class' (ie. minor, unmeriting legal action for users) drug. She did a bad job, as did the interviewer in examining her, but the striking thing was that she was there questioning whether the Blair Government hadn't made a big, big mistake in previously declassifying the drug. The Blair government? Mistakes? Shsssssshh!

My point is that for the first time in a long time it felt that we might have the decency to engage in democracy in the UK.

Returning to the May interview, it was noticeable that she was allowed to criticise the Home Secretary (and former Home Secretary) without being made to 'win' the argument over Cannabis-as-a-danger-to-society first, or being browbeaten with a barrage of 'I used it and I'm fine even though I used to be middle class and now I live on benefits in a broken down semi' type personal testimonies.

To me this felt like freedom, as it appears that finally journalists might be considering that good compos mentis people might not automatically approve of Blair, so that it would not be necessary to subject them to the third degree 'normalcy' test before they criticise him or his representatives. In fact, I think even the Blair-Brown heavyweigtitis virus may be losing its potency (another Sky journalist thought that Brown was laughing at Blair as he floundered while trying to fend off a hostile question at a recent photo-op they took together.)

Strangely enough, what seems to underlie this change of heart is the wake-up that we've experienced over Sinn Fein IRA. I think that Blair's dynamic 'Good Friday agreement dash' in the early part of his reign, and his post-modern declarations that Britain was a young country, were designed, and had the effect of, putting people's critical faculties to rest. His other half (certainly their tiff seems like a lover's one) Brown played out similar tactics in the economic sphere with his rhetoric of 'prudence'.


In reexamining Adams and co. we reexamine Blair and co (shame on Blair that there should be this connection; long may the reexamination continue, and let's kick Adams all the way into the Atlantic Ocean and Blair from his office). There's a lot to reexamine. I look at journalists today and I get a sense they no longer like the Blair government very much. For neo-Conservative Thatcherites like me the Blair government has always been a sham and a shambles, though apparently a functioning one, but I did consider that Blair was right about Iraq, which goes to show that his belief that he can act as a statesman has reality at some level. The trouble is it's a level of absurd hubris and self-regard, as he and his minions thought that very little existed that couldn't be spun into something else.

It's surely a fact that very many socialists are fantasists, and there are also very many fantasists in today's Britain, so there was a very good match going there for a while. But the fantasy fragments and the centre cannot hold, and the terrible truth for the Blairites, and the BBC, and the neo-socialists (those fantasists who held their noses while Blair got entrenched through spin) is that only those with the facts of life straight stay standing.

Looking into the Ireland issue recently have been Mark Steyn and Simon Jenkins. I mentioned their articles earlier as differing about apportioning blame for the appeasement of Irish terrorism between the US backers and apologisers for Sinn Fein (sometimes at the highest levels) and the British ones. Curiously enough there can be no argument that Blair and Clinton between them could resolve the Jenkins/Steyn argument- since they united in this policy, as Gerard Baker points out in an article selected by Real Clear Politics where he illustrates what a fine writer he is, and with what good sense.

When to disagree.

Ok, here's the scenario: You're a person who becomes loyal to a commentator or opinion-former, and the person in question is very incisive and persuasive. When, or how, do you bring yourself to disagree with them?

I was tuning in, metaphorically, to Melanie Phillips' excellent take on the international appointments recommended by W. recently. This was after reading Steyn's definitive take on John Bolton's appointment as ambassador to the UN in the Spectator, an excellent magazine judging from what I read of it.

I was just leaning towards Melanie's viewpoint that Bush's actions actually showed that the 'neo-cons'- as the BBC enthusiastically calls them- were being cleared out of the main centres of political power in the US, though I was resisting a little because, reading Steyn, I had become very enthused about the magnitude of Bolton's appointment. Then I remembered Max's tip about the New Sisyphus's powerful assessment of the progress being made at the United Nations by the US perspective on world affairs. While there, I came across this post. Don't miss it- it's a nugget. The outstanding point regarding Melanie's thesis:

'We recently heard a high-ranking member of the State Department announce to a group of assembled junior FSOs that whoever the President picks as the next Under Secretary for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs will be a strong indicator of the direction the President intends to take not only this crucial component of our Department, but the Department itself.

What that means is that the President's appointment of Karen Hughes to that position has effectively ended the mini-debate about whether Condoleeza Rice's appointment could mean either that the President intended to engage the foreign affairs establishment or shake it up. The appointment of Hughes can only mean that the President intends to shape and bend the bureaucracy of the Department to suit his needs.'

Impossible without the Internet, the inside view of shifting sands within the US government ecosystem provided by the Sisyphus helped me to make up my mind.

P.S. Speaking of when to disagree, here's Eursoc disagreeing with Steyn and siding with Sir Simon, a bit. Maybe I would too. Here's Jenkins' effort- worth reading.

P.P.S. Thanks to Mike in the comments I realise I messed up the Karen Hughes link, which was, well, more or less the whole point. Duh. Apologies, but it's fixed now, and I noticed one more lovely quote to point out from the clever fellows at Sisyphus:

'If this keeps up, we'll be forced to implement the foreign policy of the United States.'

Heaven (and the BBC) forbid!

Clear-sight.

President Bush's nominations for key international roles are both excellent choices. Paul Reynolds makes an apt allusion to Nelson and his lieutenants, when the proteges of the master were sent out to greater responsibility away from their mentor. A strange one too, though, partly because a militaristic one. And since when was Bush regarded as the father of the neo-cons? Is this a promotion for Bush or a demotion for Wolf-o-Witz in Reynolds eyes? The only other comparison he can come up with comes from the Reynolds' list for Father Christmas- that Wolf-o-Witz will be another such 'repentant' warmonger as there was after Vietnam.

Of course the Euros respond as Euros do, with condescension or rudeness masquerading as humour, a human quality which in the case of most of Western Europe is notable by its absence.

The clear-sight of these so-called neocons is exceptionally necessary in the current period.

Clear-sight.

President Bush's nominations for key international roles are both excellent choices. Paul Reynolds makes an apt allusion to Nelson and his lieutenants, when the proteges of the master were sent out to greater responsibility away from their mentor. A strange one too, though, partly because a militaristic one. And since when was Bush regarded as the father of the neo-cons? Is this a promotion for Bush or a demotion for Wolf-o-Witz in Reynolds eyes? The only other comparison he can come up with comes from the Reynolds' list for Father Christmas- that Wolf-o-Witz will be another such 'repentant' warmonger as there were after Vietnam.

Of course the Euros respond as Euros do, with condescension or rudeness masquerading as humour, a human quality which in the case of most of Western Europe is notable by its absence.

The clear-sight of these so-called neocons is exceptionally necessary in the current period.

Continuing Boyles.

It was Dennis who was labelled a menace after he decribed Europeans as cockroaches. Well, he had a point, in the metaphorical sense of them being practically intolerable and hard to expunge from the mind. Once again this can be illustrated- when you look at examples such as the recurrent anti-war demonstrations, presently (at this general time) taking place in European capitals and elsewhere to mark the injustice perpetrated by the US and allies in removing Saddam from his golden toilet seat, for instance. Anti-war even when there's no war to be anti.

Amir Taheri has a great article where he labels these people 'Pests in freedom's way'.

Taheri thinks that we should worry about what the symptom of anti-war derr-brain demos means for the health of the West, and Europe in particular.
'Why are so many Westerners, living in mature democracies, ready to march against the toppling of a despot in Iraq but unwilling to take to the streets in support of the democratic movement in the Middle East?', he asks.

The answer seems to be that their idotarianism is tolerated, condoned even, in a Europe without a heart for the stakes and without a serious brain for analysis- yet needing excuses for itself. Our politicians, unable to argue coherently for anything in particular, are forced merely to lie or pander to the mob desire to be morally or socially significant. This applied to the Blair argument that took as to war in Iraq, and applies as well to the Straw argument to take us deeper into Europe. Both quite deliberately emptied of true content and filled with less true, or downright false, content (although I knew what Tony meant about Iraq ;-} )

EURef exemplifies this with their fearsome 'we are more powerful' series of posts, inspired by the FO's man of Straw.

They also link to an excellent blog intended to cut through the obfuscation of European thought. The Transatlantic Intelligencer inspired this current post. Its latest post exposes the 'pests' or 'cockroaches' (yes, these are the kind of Europeans Boyles had in mind) for what they are: dumb irritants scratching at the very surface of our culture, yet drawing everyone's energies and attention, not to mention the panderous activities of the politicians. The really amazing thing is just how ignorant, just how contentless, these people are. One keeps imagining that to shout so loud somewhere in their morassed consciouness there must be a clear idea, some kind of reality beyond their reflexive (insect-like, swarming and making noise) anti-Americanism. But no. 'Argument weak- shout loud', as a friend of mine liked to say.

These are the kind of people which media organisations like the BBC- which claims to be an intelligent broadcaster- unquestioningly admires, or of which it asks admiring questions, or to which it offers admirable representation.

Too Rude to the French?

No, you never can be. Once you start down that road you know they'll be taking l'avantage at every turn. It's France's fault that democracy in Europe is so stunted, and that Europe's idea of enterprise involves smoke-filled rooms and corruption.

That's why I welcome a new book by Dennis Boyles, who, having lived in France for several years, and with great experience of the world at large, is well placed to tell it like it is. Says Boyles in his blurbing effort:

'"What we mistakenly see as a craven, anti-Semitic, insecure, hypocritical, hysterically anti-American, selfish, overtaxed, culturally exhausted country, bereft of ideas, fearful of its own capitulation to Islam, headed for a demographic cul de sac, corrupted by lame ideologies, clinging to unsupportable entitlements, crippled by a spirit-stomping social elite and up to its neck in a cheesy soufflé of multilayered bureaucracy is actually worse than all that. It’s vile." '

In case that seems just a little OTT, consider this latest episode in France's proud history- their cosying up to China by attempting to open ways to sell arms to them and putting the frighteners on Taiwan. Never mind that they fail to offer any support for democracy's rise in the Middle East, they go looking for more shame to heap upon themselves, as the Taipei Times opines magnificently:

'when those who have influence can persuade the government to do their bidding, the result may quite possibly be terrible - France conniving at the destruction of a liberal democracy simply to enrich its "merchants of death" and their politician friends.'

(thanks to the moderately Franco-sceptical blog EUReferendum for the link.)

Got to mention Nicholas Vance. Talk about talking sense. He was linked at B-BBC just today but not for this. Nicholas has been pursuing the BBC in his own way at all sorts of levels for well over a year online, and getting better and better. The depth to which he has taken the argument is really a great example for people like me to follow.

Back to Ireland, and events are developing hearteningly. Powerline, most anglophile of US blogs (well, one of them does support Everton FC) reports George Bush's contempt for Irish terrorists (it is, sadly, necessary to make that distinction) and describes Gerry Adams as 'head of the IRA's political puppet group, Sinn Fein'

They also link to this timely Mark Steyn article (Steyn who has an ancestor for every occasion) about St. Paddy's day. It's about time for the full rhetorical broadside to be unleashed on the IRA/Sinn Fein, driving them into the political ocean.

Not forgetting of course that Teddy Kennedy has taken a tactical step away from the gangster group. It's all good.

Let's hope for more of the same, and some greater understanding than this demonstrates:

'"It's hard to understand how a European country in the year 2005 can have a private army associated with a political party," said Mitchell Reiss, the US envoy on Northern Ireland.'

Well, not really. Too many unquestioning friends for too long, not enough enemies, and an incurable nostalgia for a defunct fantasy called 'nationalism'.