It's for your own good

I will take this opportunity to point out that several of my comments on the Peter Hitchens blogs about the 'hacking scandal' are being censored

Literally all I did was point out to people Guido's interesting post obtained via the Information Commissioner's office regarding the press and recorded offences of 'blagging' - that's it, in fact I didn't even mention details, but advised people to seek out information on the blogs

Absolutely nothing libellous, offensive, rude etc nor is anything in Guido's chart, it's all freely available government information - yet it didn't make it through

When I made the comment (which is often found on the Hitchens blog from a variety of posters) that my posts were disappearing without notice, this too failed the mods - I deliberately kept it that brief because I was pretty confident it would happen, I don't know of a way to prove this, I'm not that tech-savvy and didn't bother taking a screenshot, but I am hopeful a couple of other people had the same problem

I am not outraged by this behaviour - I think it perfectly reasonable that a company choose not to publish harmful information about itself - that's the job of others - isn't it?

Not if you listen to Hitchens arguments, last week he was warning us of the big bad politicians and how they need to be held to account

All true, but as we've just seen - nobody is holding the press, who lie, cheat and flout the law, to account and I can see no condemnation of this behaviour from Hitchens - he seems to take a 'better the devil you know' approach, and seems to justify the culture of silence between the press as a necessary evil to maintain commercial success

If we criminalise the press, and take away a vast resource of information from them (the tabloids at least) then they will not have the power to scrutinise the government

But I'd like to know who is meant to scrutinise the press - controlled by a tiny elite, they have vast power themselves and arguably papers like the Mail have a detrimental effect on our society by reducing debate to that of childish name-calling and scaremongering, we need these publications and they need to be allowed to do what they want? It's all for your own good you see

Hitchens, supposedly a man of strong moral conviction (something I've always questioned seeing as he opts to work for probably the least moral paper of them all), is quite happy to allow the press the freedom to make up s h one t, so they can make money and scrutinise the politicians, but yet won't allow people on his own blog to scrutinise one of the most powerful and influential industries in our society? The press do not scrutinise themselves ('dog eat dog'), that would just bring chaos - so how exactly do the public bring newspapers to account? They can't, which is why this hacking scandal has been quietly kept away from the public for the best part of ten years

Nobody is denying that politicians are scum, but the media are also scum, and it can quite easily be shown that the law has been violated for decades to make grubby stories about royals and celebrities to line pockets 'hold the government to account', this is not a price we must pay - scrutiny of the press will not bring about a North Korean situation, in fact the British press is infamous for it's cut-throat behaviour, you don't find it in perfectly free countries like the US, Australia, Japan or Sweden, a few ethical rules, such as those that we are supposed to already have and don't enforce, would quite easily control them

The real truth behind this is that the press in Britain need to behave in this manner to be successful, not because nobody would pay them without their gossip/nonsense, but because competition is fierce - Britain has a huge amount of national dailies, all vying for a piece of a dwindling readership - they need to be shocking, and therefore their tactics verge on the desperate - if the Sun doesn't do it, the Mail, or the Express, or the Mirror will

Whereas, in Australia for example there is only one populist rag - the Telegraph (or it's local NI equivalent), then there are two 'high-brow' papers - one left, one right - all controlled by one of the two main media players

While we're on it, virtually nothing the press do scrutinises politicians anyway, 'investigative journalism' essentially means celebrity/royal sex scandals - in fact I am struggling to think of an example of illegal activities bringing us a story for the public good (eg expenses scandal, WMD) - public interest arguments easily override this anyway, the crux of Hitchens defence (which I regard as a squeal) is that they need to be able to generate revenue, but the revenue is fixed - they just compete for a share, and in doing so engage in a race to the bottom (declining moral standards eh?)

Proper rules would not stop scrutiny, I find that scenario incredibly hard to believe when our media is so powerful anyway - it would just rid us of a few silly newspapers that are, in essence, solely there to sell smut

Losing a few unpopular (intelligent) papers might be bad for decent opinion you might say, but there'll be no trashed murder victims either

I know I have posted a few times before regarding Hitchens, first I lost respect, then I came to see him as a troll, but now I'm struggling to even take a word he says seriously - this act of self-serving deflection and hiding behind supposed 'freedom of the press' and an Orwellian nightmare is pretty abhorrent

Actually why do I keep going back? Silly boy

An experiment

Two stories mildly piqued my interest this week, not in themselves so much, but because they both reminded me of Peter Hitchens

A man (I believe 'thug' is perfectly appropriate considering his frequent use of the term) in Bristol is let off a custodial sentence after stuffing ham into the shoes of worshippers at a Mosque in Bristol

The other story is about the scouts openly recruiting more gay members, a Christian organisation, which has irked some (in my view, I don't see why, it seems Christianity has to be represented publicly by Catholics and right wing bible bashers, many Christian groups tolerate homosexuality, the established church of England being one of them, and the scouts adhere to that church)

I have a theory that we may be seeing the scouts story, as it's one of those slightly off-the-beaten-track, Christian-beat up stories, but not the bloke who got let off

Of course, the drunken racist being let off is as good a case as any for his dislike of soft sentencing, as he showed last week, but I am curious as to whether we'll see it..and if we do see it it would be a delicious irony if it focuses on how an attack on Christians is never punished

But hey, I don't want to prejudge, it may be neither, so my apologies in advance to Hitchens Jnr if this week's article is a balanced piece of critical thinking - I simply wanted to put this down before it happened rather than just say 'I said so, honest' and I couldn't really leave it in the comments, could I?

If I want to call you Hitler, I will

Guido has the news that Sir Andrew Green is taking legal action against Sally Bercow:

after Sally dismissed a MigrationWatch report that proves a link between a rise in youth unemployment and immigration was “dangerous propaganda” and compared it to arguments used by Hitler and Mosley. Live on Sky News

He has since clarified the issue with a link to the Index on Censorship and doesn't expect anything to come of it, probably never did

The reason I am posting is to question why this issue ever came up in the first place - she called a MigrationWatch report 'dangerous propaganda' - surely nothing defamatory in that, certainly no more than in your typical tabloid rag

She then likened it to arguments used by Hitler and Mosley - again, I'm not aware there's a law that states you can't bring up Hitler - with the obvious exception of Godwin's, which isn't usually a legal matter

Even calling someone Hitler, or shouting 'fascist' at them, which she didn't do, is not defamation - it's all fair game in the discourse of politics

The English libel laws are a joke, their main use seems to be exploiting them to stifle political debate

...and I'll stop there for fear of legal action

1 vote for Guido

While I admit Guido's campaign against Hague's SpAd Christopher Myers, complete with a lot of speculation about sexuality, may not be the most important political issue of the day and he should be relaxing on holiday, he is ultimately, right

Now the boy has quit, Hague's crying about miscarriages and Iain Dale is a very angry homosexual

Firstly, I think Guido is bang on for questioning why an inexperienced personal friend was parachuted into a plum SpAd role over other, more qualified candidates, and the fact that they shared a room only serves to lend weight to the theory that his appointment is personal, not professional, regardless of whether there was anything going on or not

Secondly - if this was a 25 year old woman, would it be, as Guido says, heterophobic? It's perfectly legitimate to question the scenario, and in fact surely this is the way forward for homosexuality - to be seen as usual, if we expect a politician to be bonking his male assistant as much as his female one surely that's a good day for equality?

I'm not dead

It's amazing how you get out of the loop in just three weeks...

Well, I'm back now - but I've got a new job (finally) so blogging may take a while to get back into gear, I haven't even been reading Guido lately

In the meantime - Brown has a nerve trying to 'woo the middle classes' and Cameron is an arse who can stick his marriage idiocy where the sun doesn't shine

So nothing new then...

A Belated Happy New Year

I'm still here!

Off on hols now! Blogs will be intermittent for a few weeks

Wishing all a clean break for the new decade


except Gordon of course

(aww that's not nice - he can have my wishes when he leaves office)

Off Sick

I don't know what's happened but I'm ill - I think it's just a bug, but I'm in no condition to blog

Hopefully be back soon

Remember, Remember

Yes folks, it is that historic day and it is probably the most poignant November 5th we've had in some time

Our politicians have not only been exposed as thieves, but many have revealed their contempt for us and showed us their arrogance and own sense of privilege, while we suffer under an unelected prime minister with no mandate, who has lied repeatedly and is supported by a bunch of spineless apparatchiks 

And we're still waiting on an election we should've had at least 6 months ago...

And so I must draw your attention to Old Holborn's stroll in Westminster - where as many Guy Fawkes as possible will descend upon our parliamentarians and expose the fascist nature of the metropolitan police and their new 'terrorism' laws at the same time

Full details at Old Holborn's, remember -

The police have no right to say 'papers please', nor do you have to show your face (you are a muslim in a burqa), or give your name or address if you don't want (do not take ID)

You are only walking with a mask on, not protesting, you ARE allowed in the public gallery of Parliament without a ticket, or ID

PCSO's cannot arrest you, or search you

The only thing that can happen is a search under section 44 of the Terrorism Act - itself a travesty, but that is all they can do, and they won't find anything - just take cash and a camera, they are helpless to stop you, ensure that it is a *police officer* not a jumped up mini-Hitler

Everybody should film it or take pictures, you will be in a public place and they cannot stop you recording, they can physically try but they have no right to say 'stop filming' (even though they will), and they cannot confiscate cameras unless they arrest you on suspicion of sigh..'terrorism'

I wish good luck to all that are going, the police will undoubtedly be monitoring, as they did last year - but they can't do a thing, so I look forward to seeing the films of them trying to bully people in the next few days - the police shouldn't even be there by rights, although I guess an army of Guido Fawkes wandering around could warrant some public safety concerns, but either way, they should be polite and have no right to stop you once they have checked you are unarmed

I am afraid I can only attend in spirit - but I will hopefully be back to be able to cast my vote when the time eventually comes

OH says all are welcome, so the more, the better

Back from hiatus...and already exposing awful bias

The people over at Biased-BBC do such a good job pointing out our state broadcaster's left-wing agenda, George R carefully points out that:

Far-left BBC says that 'far-right' Geert Wilders has arrived in London.

"Far-right Dutch MP arrives in UK"

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8308982.stm

Far-left 'Guardian' chums of BBC also describe Geert Wilders as 'far right' -presumably, 'far right' now means someone who believes in free speech, and not the incitement of Islamic jihad violence.

Ah, exactly the same language as the leftie paper

Except:

Far-right Dutch MP Geert Wilders faces Muslim protest after arriving in the UK

That'd be from the Mail, but those good old proper journalists at the Times left such an allegation out of their headline, they just snuck it into the first line

 A very easy target for me, I admit, and I don't want to become like OMTE, because that's his turf and he's very good at it but I really do get fed up with the idiocy and misinformation on B-BBC (it's in my blurb after all - I hate hypocrisy) - it's doing no-one any favours, boys (and occasional girls) - it's just a smear campaign dressed up as some sort of review site

Light Blogging

Blogging is to be light over the next few weeks as I'm on hols - but I'll be back soon!

Dear God (or L.Ron)

Just reviewing my own blog - the bloody ad was for Scientology - a full length vertical banner, my apologies if you see that - it's Google ads, not me

Feeling lazy

I'm feeling a bit lazy at the moment - haven't posted all weekend, and now I've lost my rhythm a bit

I want to say something on tuition fees and all the bollocks about it right now, but I just don't feel like getting my head round it, think I'll just read around til something really pisses me off

Update: Greg Dyke's take on the world also pleases me - he's not accusing the BBC of an actual conspiracy but he clearly feels the establishment, which includes the BBC and all mainstream media, are natural roadblocks to improving our democracy - he makes some very good points

A Tory who speaks sense on drugs

Pity he's retired (aren't they always)

Over at Mark Reckons there's an interview with Phillip Oppenheim on drugs policy - some absolutely bang-on analysis

Sadly it's true that the mainly-conservative media dominate the agenda despite the reasonable views held by many...Mark Easton at the BBC really needs a bigger profile

another reason to say good riddance to the dead tree press

hat-tip: Guido

New poll: The Speaker

Well my poll is ridiculously old and I have been trying to think of something decent to ask, but I just haven't been able to - the best I came up with is 'what colour is Gordon Brown's underwear?'

So anyway, I believe the vote for the new speaker is a week away so I've asked about that

For what it's worth I favour Frank Field, Richard Shepherd, Alan Beith and Parmjit Dhanda (in no particular order)

My selections are based on the ones I feel are most likely to be helpful to reform, the others I view as too 'establishment' for the role

Naturally none of my choices have a chance - it seems Labour will scupper Frank Field for being too popular and independent minded reformers are hardly likely to be elected by the current load of traditionalists - Bercow seems to be the favourite and he wouldn't be the *worst* choice - personally I think he's better actually being allowed to have an opinion

There is also the 'Widdecombe Wildcard' - I wouldn't support her if it was up to me, independent she is, but impartial, never - but she is only standing to be an interim speaker, stepping down at the next election

Now that I can agree with, this clamour to restore the authority of Parliament would be best served by having a new Parliament electing a new speaker, rather than let a load of old duffers who are resigning for 'family reasons' choose - I mean, we are going to lose 100-or-so MPs at the election so why should we let them choose a speaker? Couple that with the obvious reality that there will probably be another few hundred casualties and quite a few new Tory MPs it makes sense for the speaker to be chosen then

Then of course there's the irony that none of us will have a say anyway - this time the election is seen as pretty important but we still leave it up to the selfish interests of the party politicians, which wouldn't normally be a problem considering we normally jut regard the speaker as a part of the furniture, but this time it feels like the public should be involved

Pay Me For Talking

I saw this little piece by Christina Patterson this morning, and to sum it up: what utter guff it is

She is of course talking about the imminent death of the 'fourth estate' - how the newspapers are in terminal decline thanks to the internet, what with it's up-to-date and (crucially) free, information

She bemoans the people who decided to give away the news-stories for free on the net as lacking any sort of business sense

Well, personally I think she's a little naive - firstly, it's not bad business sense, it's far better than simply printing a paper and not offering any online content, or the ludicrous idea that people would pay to read an opinionated rag when they can read everything else for free, surely you should be trying to rake it in with advertising?

Yes, it's true that paper sales are down - but here is the important point: they would be down anyway! Why do you think people want to buy a paper that's full of yesterday's news when they could read it before they even go bed the night before on the net, or watch a news channel? Papers do not provide news to people anymore, they barely ever reveal anything in the morning release - we already know what has happened, and as a result all a paper is nowadays is a collection of opinions on the stories, anything 'exclusive' will be around non-stories (ie. the tremendous rise of 'celebrity' news that dominates our most popular papers) - the era where one gets their news for the day from the papers in the morning and the six o clock news in the evening is long gone, and I'm afraid the newspapers have to keep up

What Christina wants is for her content to not be read by those not willing to pay for it, and I'm afraid she sounds like an outdated protectionist, akin to the music companies determined to keep profits for themselves in an era when someone off myspace can have more fans than 90% of their clients

The system is simply unworkable - I think she wants to set up a system where the press only provide their online news to paying customers - the idea is frankly ludicrous, I barely need to explain why, but for one: news sites are not just run by newspapers! There are plenty of free news sources out there - the BBC is a slightly odd example as it's public-funded, but nonetheless a valid one, as it's the most used news website in the world - you don't need to go to the Indie, Sun or Telegraph, you can go direct to Reuters if you want

Because let's face it, what do the newspapers offer now? As I said, they don't have the exclusives anymore, and if they do, an online outlet can easily pick up the story, as they have done with MPs expenses - I'd love to know how she would justify stopping someone like the BBC not covering a story broken by the Telegraph.... I digress, my point was that newspapers really have little to offer now - all they have left is opinion, which is exactly what she is peddling - why should I pay for that? I can go all over the net and find opinions, the Indie and all the rest have the benefit of a brand, but opinion is opinion and it means bugger all in reality, I only peruse the newspapers' sites to have a look at how they are manipulating people on any given day, and to have a good rant - I don't need to, and wouldn't pay for the privilege when I have the BBC, Guido and Reuters, to name but a few, available to me for the actual story

No, this is merely another case of what I call 'deer-trapped-in-headlights' protectionism - look at any industry through the past centuries and see how they fight tooth and nail to prevent their own destruction as new technology makes them redundant - it's human instinct to protect your livelihood, but it's also counter-productive and never wins out in the long run

Information will become free, and I don't see anything wrong with breaking people like Murdoch's grip on it - they are at the end of the day only out to serve their own interests and line their own pockets, they have (or had) a monopoly on it

She does make one valid point however - the issue of investigative journalism (which I note, does not seem to be part of her job as a 'cultural commentator') - who will pay people to investigate dodgy dealings? And how can you trust a blogger? These are valid concerns that have been raised occasionally - but as we've seen, the people on the net can do a pretty good job at investigation, all Dizzy does is send off FOI requests and finds great stories - that is actual journalists' work, all done for free, and money can be made with advertising revenue. There are countless examples of information being exposed first on the net (see: Drudge) and at the end of the day that can be used by sites to make money, and no doubt a system of regulation will be built, just as happened around the two centuries we've had of print dominance - and to use a rather cheap and lazy argument: while we have the convenience of the powerful BBC to investigate (scoff if you wish) there remains some authority in the media

She also worries for prose - well, casting aside her obvious snobbery (she's covers 'culture' after all) she is being quite rude to a lot of bloggers out there - many write superbly, and I myself tend not to 'vomit out vitriol' too often (noticed a mistake?), it is simply a case of separating the wheat from the chaff - and let's not forget the ridiculous spelling and grammar issues in those well-respected names, the Mail and the Sun, oh and Gruniad anyone? She is in a very privileged position being paid to comment on her arty topics, but that doesn't mean others can't do it - part of the threat from the internet is that it shows 'real' people can provide just as much insight as those who've been fortunate enough to get their name in lights, as it were - why do you think people in the 'blogosphere' are popular? It's just sheer arrogance to assume those in the papers are really any better

People have always found a way to make money out of information, and I'm sure it will continue, just in a new form that we are only just coming to realise - the newspaper, however, is a dying form, much like typewriters and VCRs once were, and it will take some business nous to properly tap into the new system, but people will, and if an old media outlet does adapt then it will do fine, but there will be casualties, and Christina Patterson is simply a fearful Luddite

*Note: I am aware the FT has an online subscription service - but that is a specialist publication with a dedicated readership and an actual product to sell, there is nothing of that sort in the other papers

On break

Unfortunately I, much like Nick Robinson, must take a bit of a break from my computer screen during Easter

I will still endeavour to post, but I can't spend all my 'workdays' on the net for the next few weeks

The current news story around Damien McBride, Dolly Draper, Guido and the Telegraph frankly confuses me - so I'm not really worthy of an opinion on that anyway, all I know is I wouldn't vote for Labour anyway

Ultimate bias

So the 'blogosphere' has been in overdrive the last day or two with Daniel Hannan's speech and here it is on the BBC

The BBC were of course too biased to show it when it first came to light, as every other media outlet did...

In fact I'm lying - nobody carried it, there was no editorial reason to publish it any more than any other speech, as Andrew Neil pointed out in his blog, its massive viral impact is what has made it newsworthy - and particularly relevant to the Daily Politics, who are currently obsessed with blogs, and rather conveniently had the grand debate between Guido and Derek Draper due today.

It has now gone stateside, thanks to Drudge and consequently Fox picked it up right away (See Guido, I'm not giving Fox a hit) - if you really want to know bias, you should take note of them - not even our most partisan of broadcasters come close to the asshattery of Fox News.

See Hannan's blog here - he also made a good point about how Americans seem to dominate the net readership, I noticed my own traffic shot up after I posted about the AIG bonuses

It's odd for a highly connected, densely populated country like ours to not have much blog presence, considering how far we have embraced internet shopping and business - I've always assumed we get drowned out by the vastly higher number of 'foreign' english speakers in America, but maybe we have just not embraced the political side of the internet yet

"ooo, a blog! how 2008"

So, I did it, I finally made a blog...yay me

Fed up of posting comments on a multitude of blogs and forums under the usual guise of Tarquin, I decided to collate my rants into one easily-ignorable blog

This is of course the benefit of being unemployed - at least in this recession we all have something to do with our free time (until we can no longer pay the broadband bill, that is)

Whilst I have an obscure, oft-used personal blog already out there (mostly a combination of football and rants about various political issues) I have always avoided writing a proper blog, mainly because I expect no one to read it, but frankly right now seems the perfect time - and I have spent too long reading the various "real" blogs out there (like Guido, Dizzy, even John Prescott, as well as BBC and newspaper blogs) to not want to bleat on too

I have always been cynical of the "blogosphere" and its impact on politics as basically an extension of the so-called Westminster village - the internet may provide us with a new tool for the disemination of data but few real people out there (the ones whose votes carry the real power) engage with discussion, never have, and I wonder if they ever will - they are more likely to vote for Daz on the X factor than some bloke in a suit every five years, and I cannot really blame them

But that should not stop me, or anyone else, from doing something, for as Burke said - "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing"

Or did he?