The Politics of Dancing

Reginald D Hunter The Daily Mail this week was shocked, the shock delivered in the form of the comedian Reginald D Hunter who during an FA dinner used the N word. The Mail you see is perturbed by Mr Hunter’s use of this word, a word so enmeshed in the history of slavery, torture, subjugation, segregation and discrimination. The Mail would have you believe that Mr Hunter, a black American hailing from the Southern states of the USA , is using the word in the same manner that Bernard Manning or Jim Davidson might. I must pause here for a moment of silence in respect for the word Chutzpah, which just died, unable to take the strain of the Daily Mail’s ‘outrage.’ The Daily Mail is the newspaper whose glorious past includes an owner, Lord Rothermere, who hailed both Mussolini and Hitler, the latter of which he was proud to call a friend. Under Rothermere the Mail produced a forged letter to discredit the Labour Party, and threw its considerably weight behind Oswald Mosley and the ...

There was a speech last week made by Maria Miller the Culture Secretary. In this speech, which, though widely reported, seems now to have sunk without trace, Ms Miller set out the governments priorities respecting the arts. This speech was the clearest indication of not only this government’s ideological basis but more widely that of the whole ruling elite. I qoute:- Culture Secretary Maria Miller has said the arts world must make the case for public funding by focusing on its economic, not artistic, value. She told arts executives in a speech that they must "hammer home the value of culture to our economy". Ms Miller said: "When times are tough and money is tight, our focus must be on culture's economic impact." But arts organisations were told they should "demonstrate the healthy dividends that our investment continues to pay". Ms Miller said British culture was "perhaps the most powerful and compelling product we have available...

 Well the shortlist for the Orwell prize is out again:- ‘ The prize is awarded annually to the book that comes closest to George Orwell's ambition "to make political writing into an art". Prize director Jean Seaton said they were looking for "writing that was measured and calm not simply angry." The BBC Website March 2013. I should have given up by now on the Orwell prize, but something, I think it is the name Orwell, keeps me engaged. Like most literary prizes it has now become completely subservient to fashion and the mores of political correctness; both of course anathema to Orwell himself. As I have written before Orwell would not win The Orwell Prize.  I can think of no writer as angry as Orwell was after he returned from Spain in 1938. Out of this he produced Homage to Catalonia, not only one of the greatest books of war reportage ever written but also a scathing assault on Stalinism and the Stalinist mindset that then grippe...

Yesterday was a day to be cheerful for anyone concerned with freedom of speech. ‘Laws that led to London being dubbed "the libel capital of the world" will be reformed after peers in the Lords voted to pass the defamation bill, ending a three-year campaign led by Liberal Democrat peers Lord McNally and Lord Lester.' Amongst other things. 'The new law will also stop cases being taken in London against journalists, academics or individuals who live outside the country, denting the libel tourism industry, but not ending it altogether, as foreigners will still be able to lodge claims in the high court. [1]   This measure would not have been passed without the continuing pressure from the Campaign for Libel Law Reform and marks a significant victory in the ongoing struggle against the censors and gaggers, a significant victory for free speech. There is however a sting in the tail:- ‘…the failure of a bid to bar private companies contracted to run schools, prisons or h...

'Hundreds of penniless benefit claimants who qualify for a short-term financial loan to tide them over until their first payment arrives are being told by jobcentre officials to ask for food parcels at local council welfare offices.' The Guardian 21/04/2013 The man behind the desk said to me, “We cannot help, outside official regulations you see.” I looked across the desk and made it clear “I think you’ll find you can, it’s under section 3.” He shuffles papers with poison in his eyes Then with a paper smile “Of course I was about to say…,” he lies. This is the land you learn to live in When you cross the border into sin Each day the malign bureaucrat The official with a grudge or target You are now the enemy within.     Having visited this page I would be grateful for your feedback, either tick one of the boxes below or make a comment via the comments button.

ERIC SCHMIDT HEAD OF GOOGLE http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/apr/22/google-eric-schmidt-tax-avoidance Once upon a time businessmen did bad things, unethical things, and criminal things. Of course they kept these things hidden, even felt shame that they were engaging in such practices. If caught they expected to face the consequences, public humiliation, opprobrium and in some instances the full force of the law. Not so today. If caught, say avoiding paying tax, they simply brazen it out, they not only insist that they have done no wrong, they declare themselves to be the wronged party. With a degree of chutzpah that would make a pickpocket blush they shout back at the enraged citizens “we are the good guys here.” What is more, for the sake of their own self esteem they seem to need to believe it; such days indeed. Having visited this page I would be grateful for your feedback, either tick one of the boxes below or make a comment via the comments button.

‘A poet is before anything else, a person who is passionately in love with language.’ W H Auden The 1930’s for me will always be the poets decade. Many fine novels were written in the thirties but the commanding heights were occupied by the poets, Cecil Day Lewis, Stephen Spender, Louis Macneice, and of course W H Auden.[1]T S Eliot and Ezra Pound were both still dominant figures, though both had been supernova’s in the 1920’s and Eliot’s concerns were not those of ‘the thirties poets.’ These concerns, politics, particularly communism, social conditions and the struggle against fascism. The thirties poets tend often to be characterised as Auden and co, and it was Auden who shone brightest and there is still a wide audience for his work “Poetry” Alan Bennett remarked, “ has the power to do magic.[2]This seems to me to be unquestionably true and no more so than in the case of Auden. The first Auden poem I ever read ‘What is That Sound’ with it chilling repetition, growing sens...