LETTER FROM LONDON NOVEMBER 2012
What a depressing few days,
with the debacle at the BBC dominating the headlines characterised by the
ludicrous sight of BBC reporters standing outside the BBC, as if to distance
themselves, pointing at the building to indicate that this organisation was in
a mess. Not since the reports of Mark Twain’s death has a state of affairs been
so greatly exaggerated.
The most tragic aspect of
the whole affair, surely perplexing to anyone outside the UK, has been the
damage inflicted upon the whole issue of the sexual abuse of children by men,
often men in positions of power and authority. Now anybody accused of such acts
and therefore appropriately named to the police can simply refer to the
Newsnight debacle and claim that they are victims of mistaken or malicious
claims. Already on the BBC we have witnessed the malodorous ex Tory MP David
Mellor feel confident enough to characterise one of the victims at the North
Wales Children’s home, who was systematically abused, as a ‘weirdo.’The most stomach turning moment must surely have been the sight of Philip Schofield handing his list of names, “found on the ‘internet in 10 minutes,” to the Prime Minister David Cameron on daytime television.
Well if it’s on the internet
Philip it must be true. Here is a so called journalist with all the
scrupulousness of a hoodie wearing conspiracy theorist.[1]
Now we have that most
disgusting of all blood sports so popular on the British political scene, far
more popular than fox hunting, the
hounding of the BBC; Paul Dacre, The Murdoch Press[2]
and sundry Tory right wing zealots crying tally ho as they bare down on the
already blood spattered Corporation.
The real issue in all of
this, in danger of being submerged, has been the systemic abuse of children, going
back decades, in a society that chose to turn a blind eye, not some rather
shoddy journalism on a late night news magazine.
Monday this week saw the
appearance before the British House of Commons Public Accounts Committee of
representatives of Amazon, Starbucks and Google, to explain why their
corporations feel themselves under no moral obligation to pay taxes in this
country, despite making millions of pounds here. As entertainment it is
difficult beat. You can view the whole proceedings at:-
Talking of shameless
shysters it now appears, thanks to a whistleblower,[3]
that the energy market is being systematically fixed. With many banks now
exposed as little more than criminal front organisations, M P’s having
routinely fiddled their expenses, the press regularly hacking into peoples
phones, blagging their bank accounts and medical records, we now find that the
price we pay for gas and electricity is being fixed. It would seem that far
from living in as citizens of a modern democracy we are in fact servile subjects
of an offshore banana monarchy.
Finally if all this was not
dismal enough on Sunday someone was arrested and held by the police for the
heinous crime of posting a picture of a burning poppy on his Facebook page!
Comment feels superfluous here.
As to the wearing of poppies
I wear one and am in favour of wearing one however the growing coercion to wear
one, it seems to have become compulsory before appearing on the BBC, is
increasingly concerning.
Oh well ‘have a nice day,’
as the Americans say. Then again perhaps you have other ideas.
[1] Of course the wild and
wholly un-sourced allegations thrown about on the internet are a gift to those
seeking to censor the web and consequently they now feel emboldened to step forward to
demand ‘action’ Now I can throw shit around like the best of them but feel that
anyone writing a blog, for no matter how small an audience, is under an
obligation to make sure that any allegations they make can be substantiated.
[2] Can you imagine the
popular press ever indulging in the degree of self examination, indeed self
flagellation as the BBC? Of course the Murdoch’s have their own agenda here,
which I surely don’t have to spell out?
[3] One interesting feature of
all this is the growing role of the whistleblower. To paraphrase Marx a spectre
is haunting corporate capitalism, it is the spectre of the whistleblower
