Mad swivel-eyed loons? Think before you laugh

Today’s newspapers are full of reports that an unnamed ally of the prime minister described Conservative grassroots activists as “mad swivel-eyed loons”.

Liberal Democrats might be inclined to agree. The idea that members of opposing parties are bonkers is a tempting one but we should avoid it. Tory blogger Iain Dale demonstrates why:

Of course there are swivel eyed loons among the Tory Party membership. Just as there are in any party. It’s just a shame that the Liberal Democrats have more than their fair share. Just go to a LibDem conference and you will see what I mean.

Not so funny now, is it? And this contemptuous view of Liberal Democrat members has been promoted less by Tories such as Iain Dale than by our own party leaders and their hangers on. A recent post on this blog discussed Nick Clegg’s travesty of his party members, but he is just the latest in a long line of Liberal leaders dismissing their activists. Indeed, successive leaders have accumulated so many straw men that they now constitute a serious fire hazard.

The bunker mentality and a fear of the ‘enemy within’ began during Jeremy Thorpe’s leadership. Iain Brodie Browne reminded us recently of Thorpe commissioning Stephen Terrell QC to investigate the Young Liberals in 1970. During David Steel’s leadership, his coterie regularly accused grassroots members of not being “serious about power”, when what was really happening was that local pioneers of community politics were winning power and outshining a self-appointed nomenklatura who had never won so much as a seat on a parish council. In 1986, the then chief whip David Alton made up a baseless story about people “walking in off the streets” to vote in the defence debate at the Eastbourne party conference. Immediately after the 2005 general election, Charles Kennedy launched an attack on party activists, blaming them for controversial policies that he felt had embarrassed the party.

Party leaders come and go but the dishonest narrative remains the same. A small elite is convinced that it knows best; that politics is all about the people at the top; that if we want to be “serious about power”, we must become more centralised and jettison party democracy (a process described as ‘modernising’); and that the job of party members is to shut up and deliver the leaflets.

This paranoid narrative says more about the accusers than the accused. And it is the same story in the other mainstream parties. But we know it’s untrue. If you have worked with members of other parties in some joint endeavour such as local government, you will know that most of them are basically decent human beings who share your sense of duty to society. Conversely, you will have encountered a few people in your own party who are deranged or complete arseholes (and in some cases, both).

So a lot of Tories oppose the EU and gay marriage? Of course they do. That’s why they’re Tories. It is a political position with which Liberal Democrats strongly disagree, but we live in a pluralist society and it is legitimate to express those views. The Liberal position is that such views are fundamentally wrong, not a form of mental illness. The way to deal with them is through argument, not exclusion.

I’ll leave the last word to Tory MP Douglas Carswell, not someone Liberal Democrats would normally agree with, who expresses a universal truth about political participation:

“The Conservative Party has haemorrhaged members since 2005, but my own association in Clacton has massively expanded its membership. Instead of treating the membership as the enemy, the modernisers should respect them as shareholders,” he said.

“If you treat the membership as the problem, you will eventually end up with a membership of one.”

Get ready for the Eurovision Whinge Contest

Tonight is the final of the annual Eurovision Song Contest, which the United Kingdom will lose. But don’t despair, because tonight we will also be treated to the annual Eurovision Whinge Contest, which the United Kingdom will win – hands down.

(If you want an assessment of the Eurovision runners and riders, visit Will Howells’s blog).

As usual, we will blame our dismal result on bloc voting. The Nordic countries will vote for one another, as will the former Soviet republics. But there is no Turkish entry this year, so the Turkish-German alliance can’t happen. Likewise, no Cyprus means no mutual back-scratching with Greece. And none of the former Yugoslav countries has made the final, so we will be spared the sight of incestuous voting by people who were literally slaughtering one another less than twenty years ago. The absence of these blocs won’t stop the accusations.

Then there will be British incredulity at the, er, musical tastes of East Europeans. How can people write, perform or enjoy anything so naff? Was the defeat of communism for this? (In an era of Simon Cowell’s talent shows, no one seems to notice the irony or hyprocrisy of this stance).

As Fraser Nelson reminds us, the British don’t get Eurovision. He also points out that this year’s British entry (‘Believe In Me’ by Bonnie Tyler) has failed to enter the UK’s top 100. Even we don’t like our own entry, so why should anyone else?

British reactions are conflicted. We know that Eurovision is an orgy of kitsch yet we wonder why there is no cutting-edge, quality pop. We think we should win yet make no serious effort to succeed. And then we wallow in the ensuing xenophobic media coverage, where the ‘unfair’ Eurovision will be used as a stick to beat Europe.

Britain needs to make up its mind. Either Eurovision matters or it doesn’t. If the UK wants to win, it should set about the task with ruthless efficiency – and could easily do so, given that the British have produced more quality pop than the rest of the world (apart from the USA) put together. Or we can decide that the whole thing is a joke, make no serious effort and accept that the victors will be countries for whom winning really means something.

But so long as Britain enters mediocre songs performed by has-beens or nonentities, self-righteous indignation is not an appropriate reaction.

Fairer society? You must be joking

If Nick Clegg and other Liberal Democrat ministers want to salvage any credibility for their repeated claim that they are creating a “fairer society”, they should act over the scandal of Atos Healthcare, which has been accused of using unfair methods in assessing people for disability benefits.

The BBC has interviewed Greg Wood, a former Royal Navy doctor, who resigned from Atos earlier this month after working as an assessor for two-and-a-half years:

Dr Wood says he believes Atos assessors are not free to make truly independent recommendations.

He said he felt compelled to speak out because it was “embarrassing to be associated with this shambles”.

“It’s very unfair on the people making claims, they deserve a fair assessment and as a taxpayer I’m pretty cheesed off about the £100m plus that’s being sprayed away on this dog’s breakfast,” he said.

Of course, you might prefer to believe Atos’s denials. If Atos is right, we can expect it to take Dr Wood to court and win. If all we hear from Atos is more PR blather, this scandal will only undermine the coalition’s claims about ‘fairness’.

Queen’s Speech amendment: “an act of venal self indulgence”

Former Tory MP Jerry Hayes is usually worth reading and his verdict on those Tories backing the Queen’s Speech amendment is no exception:

The amendment to the Queen’s Speech could be the beginning of the end of the Conservatives in office. It is an act of venal self indulgence which will horrify those sentient members of the electorate who actually think and care and will antagonise those who fear for their jobs and families.

What is it meant to achieve? No parliament can bind another. But this amendment doesn’t even try to. It is just an expression of regret that the government’s legislative programme doesn’t mention a referendum. Most Labour MPs and all Lib Dems will vote against so it will be defeated.

What a thoroughly futile and pointless exercise. And according to some MPs this is just the beginning.

So apart from making them all look like incompetent fools more interested in a stunt to save their own miserable skins it is a gift to the Faragistas.

Hayes’s views (which once would have been a mainstream Tory perspective) now seem like a voice in the wilderness. No wonder he is exasperated with his former colleagues:

This freak show has got to stop. But it will get worse. This is a gift for Farage giving him a sense of importance that is totally unwarranted.

But this whole farce is just beginning to gain momentum. The Onanistic wing of the Tory Party are now pressing for a referendum on gay marriage. Completely nuts.

Hayes recognises something that eludes most fanatical eurosceptics. In all the grandiose talk about what the Great British Public thinks about the European Union, an important fact is forgotten. Most of the Great British Public couldn’t give a flying fuck one way or the other.

Seventy years ago tonight...

Seventy years ago this evening, nineteen Lancaster bombers of the RAF’s 617 Squadron took off from RAF Scampton near Lincoln to bomb the Ruhr dams in Germany. The anniversary has been marked by events at Scampton and over the Derwent reservoir.

The Dambusters raid was an extraordinary act of bravery and a remarkable technical achievement for its time. The military usefulness of the raid was probably limited, but the propaganda value was immense.

The casualty rate was high, even by the standards of RAF Bomber Command. 53 of the 133 aircrew who participated in the attack were killed, a casualty rate of almost 40%.

During the Second World War, the casualty rate on individual RAF bombing raids was usually no more than 5% but the overall casualty rate was still very high. Wikipedia’s page on Bomber Command records:

Bomber Command crews also suffered an extremely high casualty rate: 55,573 killed out of a total of 125,000 aircrew (a 44.4% death rate), a further 8,403 were wounded in action and 9,838 became prisoners of war. This covered all Bomber Command operations including tactical support for ground operations and mining of sea lanes. A Bomber Command crew member had a worse chance of survival than an infantry officer in World War I.

Only 27% of all bomber aircrew who served during the war avoided death, injury or capture. The Wikipedia page adds:

Statistically there was little prospect of surviving a tour of 30 operations and by 1943 the odds against survival were pretty grim with only one in six expected to survive their first tour, while a slim one in forty would survive their second tour.

Pupils at my school in Lincoln had a sobering reminder of this. In the entrance hall was a glass case containing a book of remembrance to all the old boys who had died in the two world wars. Each day, the book would be opened to a different page, displaying portrait photos and brief descriptions of two of the dead. The casualties of the First World War were mostly infantry. Those of the Second World War were mostly bomber aircrew.

The controversy over the RAF’s area bombing campaign meant that wartime bomber aircrew were never issued with a campaign medal and had no memorial (apart from the Airmen’s Chapel in Lincoln Cathedral) until one was unveiled in London last year.

With perfect hindsight, it is possible to question the efficacy and ethics of the bombing. At the time, Britain faced an existential threat from the Nazis and did what seemed best to defend itself, when the final outcome of the war was by no means certain. It is right that we remember the self-sacrifice of people who put their lives on the line for the rest of us. In the case of RAF bomber aircrew, that means people who were effectively on a suicide mission and knew it.

UKIP’s new councillors: the implosion begins...

It’s started.

In Worcestershire, UKIP “race-ranter” Eric Kitson is embroiled in an on-off controversy over whether he has resigned as a county councillor, only a few days after being elected.

UKIP’s national office says he has resigned but the county council confirms he has not – at least not yet. The council is nevertheless investigating Kitson’s racist comments on Facebook.

In case you doubt the terms “race-ranter” and “racist”, consider this:

The posts made on Mr Kitson’s facebook profile, which has now been taken down, included one of a Muslim being spit-roasted on a fire fuelled by copies of the Koran.

He also said, in reference to Muslim women: “Hang um all first then ask questions later.”

UKIP admitted it had not been able to vet its candidates before this May’s elections, so we can expect more such episodes in the coming months. But given that the pre-election media hatchet job seemed to have no adverse effect on UKIP’s vote, don’t assume any post-election embarrassments will necessarily damage UKIP.


Postscript: Eric Kitson’s resignation is now confirmed. Kitson has also been interviewed by the police.

Bankwatch with Bill Oddie

In a spoof documentary, Bankwatch with Bill Oddie, the naturalist protests against HSBC’s illegal logging by entering the den of a creature closely related to humans: the banker.

HSBC has made nearly £100m bankrolling some of the world’s most destructive logging companies in Sarawak Malaysia, and is at risk of violating international money laundering rules.

You can find out more from the producers of the film, the NGO Global Witness.

Well said, Delia Smith

Delia Smith is quite right to criticise TV cookery shows such as MasterChef for intimidating aspiring cooks, and to claim that Britain has lost its grip on home cooking.

Never have there been more food programmes on television. Never have more cookery books been sold. Never have people spent more on fitted kitchens and kitchen gadgets. Yet fewer people than ever can actually cook.

Cooking skills are no longer handed down from generation to generation. Most of those who do ‘cook’ lack the basic skills but can only follow recipes. They can turn out a passable imitation of a TV recipe but have no idea how to make an omelette.

Traditionally, Britain took a puritanical, protestant attitude to food. It was simple nourishment and nothing more. Most people did not have the disposable income to indulge, yet in practical terms food was a greater preoccupation. It took more of workers’ income to buy and more of women’s time to prepare, since there were no convenience foods or modern kitchen gadgets.

Over the past forty years, the situation has been reversed. Food has become a positional good but people no longer have the time or willingness to cook properly. Cookery is something people experience vicariously via TV food programmes, while they shove a Marks & Spencer’s ready meal in the microwave.

Never have people been more pretentious or neurotic about food. But the advent of supermarkets, chemical preservatives, fridges and freezers means that most middle-class people are eating less fresh, seasonal, organic or locally-produced food than their working-class great-grandparents.

TV producers know this, which is why most food programmes have given up any pretence at instruction. They have become pure entertainment. The worst culprit is the BBC’s MasterChef (“cooking doesn’t get any tougher than this”), which promotes the mistaken idea that, for any domestic cook, nothing less than Michelin-starred restaurant standards will do. It makes people feel ashamed to produce a simple casserole, even though that is much more practical for home entertaining than MasterChef’s labour-intensive, chefy food.

One TV food programme defied the trend and exposed Britain’s dirty secret. The 2009 BBC2 series Economy Gastronomy revealed a nation spending a fortune on takeaways and ready meals, and apparently unable to shop or cook properly.

Delia would doubtless approve, since not all TV cookery programmes come in for her attack:

She admitted to having a soft spot for BBC2’s Hairy Bikers, David Myers and Simon King, who she said made cooking funny but also made viewers think they would like to make the dishes they cooked.

Nigel Slater likewise makes cookery accessible rather than intimidating. But ask yourself what most viewers of Nigella Lawson or Paul Hollywood are staring at, and it’s not their shortcrust pastry.

When the Germans envied British manufacturing

It seems hard to believe now, but there was a time when Germans envied British manufacturing. Admittedly, the German in question was Hermann Göring.

Göring’s envy was prompted by the performance of the RAF’s de Havilland Mosquito aircraft. Wikipedia’s page on the Mosquito explains:

The Mosquito famously annoyed Luftwaffe Commander in Chief Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring when on 20 January 1943, the 10th anniversary of the Nazis’ seizure of power, a Mosquito attack knocked out the main Berlin broadcasting station, putting his speech off air. Göring complained about the high speed of the aircraft and its wooden structure, built by a nation he considered to have large metal reserves, while Germany had shortages of such materials and could not produce such a design.

Göring said:

“In 1940 I could at least fly as far as Glasgow in most of my aircraft, but not now! It makes me furious when I see the Mosquito. I turn green and yellow with envy. The British, who can afford aluminium better than we can, knock together a beautiful wooden aircraft that every piano factory over there is building, and they give it a speed which they have now increased yet again. What do you make of that? There is nothing the British do not have. They have the geniuses and we have the nincompoops. After the war is over I’m going to buy a British radio set – then at least I’ll own something that has always worked.”

That’s where the Nazis went wrong. They had no Vorsprung durch Technik.

Where did the British go wrong? They replaced their geniuses with nincompoops.

Politicians on the couch

Is politics good for your mental health?

If you are an elected representative, you will both smile and wince at today’s 15-minute drama on BBC Radio 4 in the series How Does That Make You Feel?

Fictional MP Richard Fallon (Roger Allam, who played another fictional MP Peter Mannion in The Thick of It) is confessing his anxieties to his psychotherapist. He thinks he is being denied promotion because of his obese son and his lack of visibility. But his decision to remedy this problem by taking part in a fly-on-the wall TV documentary series has made matters only worse.

The programme is repeated at 19:45 this evening or you can listen online at any time in the next seven days.

Why re-privatise East Coast?

Just what is the point of re-privatising the East Coast railway operator?

East Coast is the state-owned inter-city train operator on the main line from London King’s Cross to Yorkshire, the North East and Scotland. It is due to be re-privatised this month.

Along with the rest of British Rail, the service was originally privatised in 1996 but it had an unhappy history in private hands. The first private operator was Sea Containers trading as GNER, but it was stripped of the franchise in 2007 due to financial difficulties. The franchise was then awarded to National Express, which lost the franchise two years later when it refused further financial support to its National Express East Coast subsidiary.

The franchise was re-nationalised in 2009 under the East Coast banner. This was always intended as a temporary measure, so a return to the private sector comes as no surprise. That is not the issue.

As Rachel Graham points out at OurKingdom, the issue is that East Coast is outperforming other operators and providing far better value for money:

The coalition government re-iterated their intentions to re-privatise the East Coast mainline rail network this month. This despite a new report by the Office of Rail Regulation (ORR) showing the line as the most cost efficient. The Financial Times stated that the report proves the East Coast line is “the most efficiently run rail franchise in terms of its reliance on taxpayer funding”.

The ORR report shows the East Coast line required the lowest level of government funding as a percentage of total income, at just 1.2%, a mere 0.2% of the overall share.

The irony of Britain’s privatised railways is that they receive far more in government subsidy – both in real terms and as a percentage of overall income – than British Rail did before privatisation. And this higher subsidy is being provided despite growing passenger numbers.

It is unclear what concrete benefits privatisation of East Coast would bring. The burden on the taxpayer is unlikely to go down. There can be only two possible motives. One is a dogmatic belief in privatisation regardless of the consequences. The other is a scorched earth policy, a desperation to privatise East Coast before the Tories lose the next general election (similar to John Major’s original privatisation of the railways ahead of the 1997 election). These two motives are not mutually exclusive.

Taliban 0 – Infidels 1

Gratifying news from Pakistan. Despite threats from the Taliban, there was a large turnout in Saturday’s election. This will also be Pakistan’s first transition from one elected government to another.

The victor, Nawaz Sharif, is not exactly a paragon of virtue. But the bravery and determination of Pakistani voters is something to applaud. They defied Taliban threats and turned out at considerable risk to their own safety – in the run-up to the election, more than 100 people died in election-related violence.

What can the Taliban possibly find objectionable about democratic elections? Reuters reported:

Gunmen kidnapped the son of a former Pakistani prime minister on Thursday as a letter from the leader of the Pakistani Taliban revealed plans for suicide bomb attacks on election day.

Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud, in a message to the group’s spokesman, outlined plans for the attacks, including suicide blasts, in all four of the country’s provinces on polling day on Saturday.

“We don’t accept the system of infidels which is called democracy,” Mehsud said in the letter, dated May 1, and obtained by Reuters on Thursday.

So that’s it. Democracy is a system of infidels. That probably explains why liberal politicians were most at risk. The BBC reported:

The Pakistani Taliban threatened to carry out suicide attacks ahead of the election. They have been blamed for numerous attacks throughout the campaign on Pakistan’s three most prominent liberal parties.

The PPP along with the Karachi-based Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM) and the Awami National Party (ANP) were singled out for threats, and were forced to curtail their campaigning as a result.

The Taliban is a source of much paranoia in the West, so an important fact is forgotten. The Taliban is deeply unpopular even in Islamic countries. The people of these countries are young, increasingly educated and urban, and have similar aspirations to young people elsewhere. The last thing they want is to be pushed back into the Middle Ages.

Today, the Pakistani Taliban must be feeling even more devastated than Manchester City supporters. At least City supporters can drown their sorrows with a few pints.

Empty rhetoric – 55 years on

A word of advice for our political leaders and the halfwits they employ to churn out banal slogans along the lines of “centre-ground-one-nation-squeezed-middle-ordinary-struggling-hard-working-families-alarm-clock-Britain”.

Apart from anything else, you are not original. Empty rhetoric is nothing new.

Peter Sellers nailed it in 1958, with two important differences. First, politicians in the 1950s were perfectly capable of making up their own bullshit without the paid assistance of an army of special advisers. And second, no one nowadays would heckle with “What about the workers?”