the brilliantly leaping gazelle

Yesterdays “Guardian’ thought it a good idea to give Enoch Powell a go at being a journalist. Thankfully for all concerned, it isn’t her full-time job. Worryingly though, she is a Labour MP and former leader of the House of Commons who is running for deputy leadership of the Labour party. She also neatly encapsulated why exactly it is that the public have always held politicians in low regard, and paradoxically, why Nigel’s Farrago popularity only ever seems to increase.

Of course, his popularity only increases with people who don’t read ‘The Guardian’. They’re certainly not the sort of people who would ever vote Labour, not that Enoch would ever want them to. Although she has to pretend that she does, to be seen to be going though the motions.

So we got this. ‘Labour must grab the microphone from Reform UK and stand up for true British values.’ That’s a strong headline, which suggests that she knows what these British values were and if there was any doubt as to what these were, she was going to tell us. But no. A headline, and nothing else. Nowhere in the article did she even hint at what vague sentiments these values might embody, let alone boldly claim what they were. But job done, she might think, anticipating that most Guardian readers would only glance at the headline, whilst scrolling down its homepage for something else, assured that they were left with a good impression of her. 

That’s because in order to define ‘British values’ are, one first has to clarify what one means by ‘British values’. Numerous problems immediately preclude this. Who is British and even if the government thinks they’re British, do they? Championing and encouraging ethnic diversity, as successive local and central governments have done, whilst simultaneously inculcating a sense of guilt about being British, hasn’t exactly fostered a shared pride in Britain. This leads to there not being a shared set of values, fundamental core beliefs that are universal to everyone just by dint of them being here. Because one of the things that ethnic diversity necessarily brings with it is the idea that every ethnicity has its own differing set of values. It’d be preposterous to suggest otherwise.  

But whilst there isn’t a set of ‘British values’, there does exist a set of ‘Guardian values’ and a quick shufti at the comments section article reveals what they are. One word sums them up, and there’s no prize for guessing what that word is, because you and I both know what that word is. 

Brexit. Its the political equivalent of snake oil for “Guardian’ readers. It not only helpfully explains away the problems of now and the causes of the problems of tomorrow but crucially, reinforces their own perceived moral superiority 

It increasingly occurs to me that if Brexit had never happened, I mean if the referendum had never taken place, something broadly similar to it would need to have been invented to explain away working class disillusionment with the political process. One which, regardless of the solemn promises that each party makes to them prior to each election, they had consistently failed to honour.  It was more convenient then to explain away the frustration that Brexit revealed as evidence of manipulation, of misinformation and symptomatic of the ‘xenophobic and bigoted tendencies of the working class. 

Indeed, the more we hear it, the more it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, an instinctive narrative which frames our understanding of anything involving any expression of working class discontent. It is also indicative of the groupthink, the consensus view that has infected the Labour Party amongst other institutions, such that it is considered politically unconscionable to even talk about British values, lest they be mistaken for something else.

And Powell knows this only too well. In May this year, whilst taking part BBC Radio 4’s Any Questions commentator and Reform UK member Tim Montgomerie asked Powell if she had seen a recent Channel 4 documentary on the rape/torture gangs. She responded with “oh, we want to blow that little trumpet now do we” and “let’s get that dog whistle out shall we”. Making allowances for someone saying something they might have said more judiciously had she had time to think, doesn’t really cut it. She is a politician and knows, or should have known, how that that comment would’ve sounded to different ears.

But it was only on Radio 4, which is basically an audio version of The Guardian’, after all, so no harm really. So the controversy that engulfed her following broadcast must’ve taken her by surprise. I suppose one of the ‘British values’ she can’t quite place is the idea that being concerned about easily the worst scandal to have emerged since Saville, isn’t a ‘dog whistle’. Its a normal to ask why this happened, why it was allowed to happen and why it happened in so many parts of the country, often at the same time and often with the same victim/perpetrator profile.

But her eagerness to dismiss it as a ‘dog whistle, together with her inability to even tentatively suggest what British values are, speaks of a deep mistrust, a loathing even, for what those values might be.  Much easier to talk about them, to give the impression she knows what they are, rather than betray her own ignorance. 

It also betrays the unbridled contempt that the Labour Party, along with ‘The Guardian’, has for the working class. That a belief in cherishing the traditions of and celebrating the culture of one’s country is a good thing, just as long as that country isn’t England and certainly not held by the English who voted for Brexit.

The British press love a scandal. But it has to be the ‘right’ kind of scandal, obviously. The ‘right’ kind of scandal usually involves sex, the more depraved the better. This gives the press the benefit of allowing details of the depravity to be discussed in salacious detail or as much detail as the press regulator or their readers will allow, whilst also giving them the opportunity to go full on outraged morality. It also needs a celebrity, or someone the press can quickly turn into one, because a good scandal needs a proper baddie, and if they’re rich, so much the better. Because in the twisted morality of the press nowadays, anything involving someone rich is automatically more worthy of attention than if the same thing happened to someone poor, and the richer they are, the more newsworthy it becomes by dint of that fact alone. 

If all these things are present, then politics can enter, ideally in the form of a political figure the press has groomed the public into hating. Finally, the person whose reputation is to be tarnished ideally doesn’t have any reputation left to be tarnished, having already been embroiled in many scandals and court cases over the years. To keep the lawyers happy, its better if they’re dead because as the dead can’t sue, speculation can run wild.

The news that broke yesterday that Peters Out was sacked by Stymied because of his relationship with Jeffrey Wrongun bears this out. It also bears out another truism about the press’s concept of the ‘right’ kind of scandal, one of which is of it being a scandal whereby the main scandalous elements of it happened years ago. Another being that, if either the victim, victims or perpetrator are not rich or has some other cultural cachet that renders them newsworthy, they should at least be foreign. It also means that if there is a ‘right’ kind of scandal, it therefore follows that there’s a ‘wrong’ kind of scandal, a scandal which elicits no prolonged scrutiny by the press, no headlines dominating the news cycle for months and definitely not where the victims are British, white and working class. That, as far as the press is concerned, is three strikes against them, which all but renders them invisible. Think I’m wrong?

 Then ask yourself exactly how long, and into what detail, did the press cover the Jeffrey Wrongun story, a story which up until recently, offered no plausible reason as to why the press were so interested. The British press, that is, given that none of his victims were British. Nonetheless,  the stories kept on coming and the resources, both financial and human, were seemingly endless in pursuit of discovering more about a matter of little or no consequence to the British public.

Wild speculation as to who else might have been involved in his sordid doings. Hints at a cover up. Political collusion in keeping his crimes hidden that stretched back years and implicated both parties. The royal connection. The suspicious death. It was like a news Hydra, one new angle seeming to create yet more angles to be speculated on. 

Eventually, and to their great relief, a Tangoed connection was found. Nowadays it seems any that scandal becomes more scandalous once Tangoed can be attached to it, no matter that to call the connections tenuous would be be to afford them a gravitas they ill-deserved. These were the clearly damning revelations that he’d sent Wrongun a birthday card and once had his photo taken with him. A photo that proves its own irrelevance by being seen; both men are clearly at least thirty years younger and all the card proves was that one incredibly rich American businessman knew when another incredibly rich American businessman’s birthday was. Or more probably one his staff did, which only emphasises how trivial the whole thing had become. 

Then one considers the press reaction to ‘the grooming gang scandal’. The very fact they called it ‘the grooming gang scandal was yet another obscenity added to the numerous other what was already enough of an obscenity such as to make the Jimmy Saville scandal a textbook example of officialdom at its best. ‘Grooming gangs’? They weren’t pampering fucking pets! They were rape/torture gangs and the sheer scale of what they did, the number of victims and different locations it took place in, is matched only by the abject failure at every level of the state.

The gangs operated in predominantly the North of England. At least 1,400 girls were abused in Rotherham and more than 1,000 children in Telford. The gangs were also active in Newcastle, Bristol, Derby, Oxford and Halifax. The victims were white and working class, and most were either in local authority care or else known to social services, whilst many of the perpetrators were mainly British Pakistani men. Much attention has been given to that fact and this isn’t what this post is about. 

I mention it only as an explanation as to why the press weren’t as dogged in their pursuit of this story, why they didn’t hold councils, the police and themselves up to the same excoriating scrutiny that they undoubtedly would have done had the races of both victim/perpetrator been reversed. Indeed, even looking at the wikipedia page for the ‘grooming gangs’ scandal, I was struck by just how much of it was devoted to refuting the fact that race had anything to do with it. The lady doth protesteth too much, methinks.

So unfortunately and for may reasons, the rape/torture gang scandal wasn’t the ‘right’ sort of scandal.  For one thing, it hadn’t happened years ago and far away and even worse, It had happened here, quite recently and possibly still is. To further compound matters, it was difficult, required the kind of actual investigative journalism our press no longer does and not just a rehash of information others had uncovered. Additionally, it questioned a foundational principle that underlines multiculturalism, namely that if assimilation had been achieved, and the British born Pakistani men who made up those gangs had been fully integrated, how could this evil have happened? 

For good measure, they might have asked why such evil flourished in different parts of the country, usually with the same victim/perpetrator profile and often with a similar modus operandi. They might also consider whether the fact that most of the towns where these gangs operated were run by Labour councils and that if this played any part in the abject lack of action. If a desire not to be seen as racist, to prioritise ‘community relations above all else, was only extended to one part of the community.  All of which demands perseverance in the face of official stonewalling, determination when confronted by blanket refusals to co-operate and the sort of fearless leadership needed when the lawyers get involved, qualities our press is not renowned for. Calls for questions to be answered are easier to ask if those answers will have negligible repercussions for those asking them and then only if there exists the will to ask them in the first place.

By focusing on Wrongun the press demonstrated yet again how poorly they serve the public and how, as the saying has it, what interests the public isn’t always in the public interest. Why isn’t the rape/torture gang scandal still in the news, why has a public enquiry still not happened? Why does the press think that we want to know anything about Wrongun, beyond the bare facts. Or be deluged with endless news concerning the assassination of an American activist? Is the American media as obsessed by our country as ours seem to be with theirs?

Far from being the impartial observers they delude themselves to be, loftily asserting the mantra to the Leveson Inquiry that they simply recount events without fear or favour and not create the news by reporting on it, they not only choose which stories to run and how long to run them for, but which to ignore. The real scandal is why some scandals become scandals whilst others do not.