Monday Moan 53



 

Playground spat ……

Ever watched children arguing in the playground by calling each other silly names designed to be insulting and to make their watching friends giggle?  If you want to return to your younger days and experience this kind of thing again then the best way to do it is to watch the UK House of Commons in action.

 

Last week we had the weekly slanging match that is Prime Minister’s Questions, during which the leader of this nation decided against taking the moral high ground by venturing down the road of insults, likening his opponent to Bert, a character from The Muppets.

 

It was pathetic, but it left me with an uneasy feeling that Ed Balls, that most unimpressive and unlovable of politicians, would be unable to resist lowering the tone still further. Sure enough, hectoring Ed decided that the mature way to put over his argument was to compare the Prime Minister and the Chancellor to Bungle and Zippy – apparently characters from the children’s tv series Rainbow.

 

I’d like to think that the nation felt insulted by this childish behaviour, but I’m afraid that the number who felt like that was probably matched by those who thought this was the height of great political debate – and an even greater number were simply unaware or didn’t care.

 

 

Got a question?  Want to hear a debate?  Don’t bother watching this then

Having fallen asleep during the BBC News last Thursday, I woke to find that Question Time was on my screen again.  Aaaaaaaaaaaaah!

 

Here we had the combined intellectual forces of David Willetts, University and Science Minister, Liz Kendall, Shadow Health Secretary, Simon Highes, Deputy Leader of the Lib Dems, Jill Kirby, ex-leader of the Centre for Policy Studies, and Mark Steel, comedian.

 

Unfortunately, the assembled panellists decided to adopt the same approach as just about every other set of panellists I have seen in recent years – no listening to what others had to say, no debate, just regurgitation of entrenched views, talking (often shouting) over the other panellists, and all delivered in a self-righteous way.  The ‘comedian’ (or equivalent) is often the worst, particularly if they bring with them (as in this case) very obvious political views. 

 

And then we have the audience.  Now, we all know that the audience comprises people with political allegiances – that’s how the tickets are distributed, and the BBC says it aims to get an audience representing all political views. Unfortunately, the result if often that the members of the audience who are called upon to speak do so with even more venom and bile than those on the panel.

 

Unedifying and dispiriting.  Wish I’d stayed asleep.

 

 

Revenge is sweet ……………

So, Kevin Rudd, ex-Australian Prime Minister, elbowed aside by Julia Gillard in 2010, got his revenge last week and was re-elected as leader of the Labour Party and, therefore, became Prime Minister again.  Julia Gillard said she would quit politics.

 

Australian men have a reputation for sporting prowess and a generally macho approach to life.

 

And then there is Kevin. 

 

 

 

Glastonbury – kick off the slippers

OK, I’m getting on and I have to accept that I no longer recognise most of the names of the acts who appeared at this year’s Glastonbury Festival.  That’s just the way life goes, and I feel no shame in it at all.

 

But I am confused.  Sir Bruce Forsyth at Glastonbury?  Made the Rolling Stones seem like young kids – joking, of course.  Average age of 69, apparently.  Best act ever at Glastonbury, apparently.  That must make all the headliners from the previous festivals feel great.

 

Best of all was the brief piece on the BBC News interviewing people who had queued the longest to see the Rolling Stones and were happily waiting at the front for most of the day.  They ranged from youngsters whose grandparents probably remember buying Rolling Stones records in the 1960s, to the grandparents themselves – as shown in the picture. 

 

Couldn’t help wondering how they were going to cope with having to stay in their front row position for all of those hours though.  It’s a long way to the toilets, for example.

Monday Moan 41

 

RED RAG TO A BULL?

Delegates to the NUT’s Annual Conference at the weekend were being asked to send a message to Education Secretary Michael Gove via the medium of pre-printed forms available for them to complete. 

 

According to Rita Chakrabarti, the BBC’s Education Correspondent, Michael Gove had sent the teachers a message wishing them a very successful conference.  Rita’s analysis of this message from Gove was that it was “a red rag to a bull”. 

 

Oh really?  Either her powers of analysis are lacking, or the teachers are a sensitive lot.  Let’s see what you think: –

 

Which of these statements would you consider to be a red rag to a bull?

(a)    I hope you have a very successful Conference, or

(b)   I don’t know why you are bothering with your Conference and hope you soon realise that it will be just so much hot air and a complete waste of everyone’s time.

 

 

MYTHS AND THE USE OF THE MEDIA

According to the Methodist Church's public policy adviser, Paul Morrison, the British public has "come to believe things about the poorest in our society which are just straightforwardly not true”, including that “the public believes that the major cause of poverty is laziness”.

 

Paul Morrison was featured heavily in the weekend’s coverage of the impending changes in the Government’s approach to welfare and other spending.  Morrison was the spokesperson talking about the joint report from the Baptist Union, the Methodist Church, the Church of Scotland and the United Reformed Church “The lies we tell ourselves: ending comfortable myths about poverty”.

 

The Report is an interesting contribution to the debate. Some might say a more interesting, reasoned and persuasive approach than that adopted by the Labour Party.  However, as a seasoned reader of such documents the first thing I looked for was the evidence to support Morrison’s claims that the public believed certain things, including that the poor are poor because they are lazy.  The Report itself says that “The most commonly cited cause of child poverty by churchgoers and the general public alike is that their parents don’t want to work”,  but in a quick scan of the report I couldn’t find any reference to the source of this statement, or indeed to any evidence that ‘people believe’ any of the ‘myths’ that the report sets out to explode.  Perhaps there is some evidence referenced somewhere in the report to back up this fundamental part of its narrative, but surely it should have been cited prominently?  And I hope it turns out to be a credible source, and not some shaky survey of a handful of people as they left church one rainy morning.

 

 

ROCK & ROLL - REBELLIOUSNESS OF YOUTH

The British ‘summer’ is packed with an increasing number of music festivals, mostly designed to part thousands of music fans from their cash in exchange for a couple of days of living in squalor listening in less than ideal conditions to a succession of artists they might not otherwise have chosen to hear.  Each to their own, of course.

 

The Glastonbury Festival is the king of all such festivals, pulling in huge numbers of people paying extraordinary amounts of money and generating an unbelievable amount of coverage on television and elsewhere.  But as an expression of the rebelliousness of youth (one of the founding principles of early music festivals) it falls far short of its ancestors.  Recent headline acts have included Stevie Wonder, Rolf Harris, Ray Davies, Leonard Cohen, Neil Diamond, Dame Shirley Bassey and Neil Young.  Rock and Roll it ain’t. 

 

This year (after missing a year because they couldn’t find enough portaloos because of the Olympics) they appear to have taken the ultimate step into old age with the promised appearance of the waxworks that are the Rolling Stones.  Perhaps they would have done the decent thing and renamed themselves The Zombies if that name had not already been taken.  The Zombies are actually the youngsters (Rod Argent and Colin Blunstone being only 68 rather than the almost 70 that Mick Jagger and Keith Richard have each (amazingly) amassed!

 

 

BRITISH CULTURAL TRIUMPH GETS JUST REWARD?

What an accolade for British culture - the 2012 Olympics opening ceremony has been nominated as one of six programmes to be the subject of a public vote for the Radio Times audience title at this year's Bafta Television Awards.

 

Apparently, previous winners have included ‘Celebrity Juice’ (a ‘comedy’ game show) and The Inbetweeners (an adolescent sitcom) – heady company for Danny Boyle.

 

Depressingly, Ben Preston, Editor of the Radio Times, thinks the shortlist (which also includes Strictly Come Dancing) captures a ‘sensational television year’.

 

Heaven help us.