the brilliantly leaping gazelle

Good news! In the less than three months after taking power, Plonker is really making headway in delivering on his election pledge to change Britain. And whilst he may lack many qualities, ambition certainly isn’t one of them.

He wants to ban death.

Specifically, the ones caused by smoking. Commenting on reports that the government is seriously considering a ban on smoking in some outside spaces, he said “My starting point on this is to remind everybody that over 80,000 people lose their lives every year because of smoking. That is a preventable death, it’s a huge burden on the NHS and, of course, it is a burden on the taxpayer.’

Mmm. 80,000? Thats a wonderfully round number isn’t it?  Are all those deaths caused directly by smoking – cancer, lung disease or spontaneous human combustion – or were there other, more primary causative factors? Are we to believe that all of those 80,000 led lives comprised solely of healthy diets, plenty of sleep and exercise, had no stress or anxiety issues and basically lived the life of the idle super rich?

 And let’s not forget, we’ve been here before. Remember how in the dark days of Covid, the BBC would publish the daily death tolls from Covid on its website? But in much smaller print it would then confuse matters by adding that they were deaths that had occurred within 28 days of a COVID vaccination, essentially taking two possibly unconnected events – having the jab and then dying within 28 days of that – and using that as somehow evidence of a causative link. So it didn’t matter if you were hit by a bus, some masonry fell on your head or you were gorged by a bull, if it was 28 days after having had a Covid vaccine, it was Covid that did for you.

You may think that I’m making light of this, but perhaps Covid is more involved in smoking deaths than it might appear. ‘Almost 2.5 million Britons have not been screened, tested or treated for cancer because the Covid-19 pandemic has led to “enormous disruption” of NHS care for the disease, experts have warned.’, reported The Guardian citing figures from Cancer Research UK.

The article goes on to quote various studies, reports and estimates which all suggest that the then governments exhortation to the public about protecting the NHS may have had disastrous unintended  consequences. That a delay in getting diagnosed might have had resulted in treatment being started too late to be effective.  

Obviously deaths from cancer can be minimised, but the idea that death is preventable is a dangerous nonsense because, as Jim Morrison said, ‘No-one gets out of here alive.’ We are all going to die. It is the only absolute in life. Knowing this, we have a duty to ourselves to enjoy our brief period of life as much as we can without harming others. And if that involves smoking, great. 

Treat adults like adults. People know the risks from smoking. And if they still decide to do it, fine. Life is risk and it can’t be legislated out of existence. I don’t smoke. But if the government succeed in restricting smoking to an such an extent that it becomes a de- facto ban, then eventually they’ll ban something I do.

**********************************************************************************************************

In all the discussion surrounding te the recent rioting, politicians and the media have been quick to blame ‘far right racist thugs’ for the violence. As I made clear in my last post, the the term ‘far right’ is a term that is basically a nonsense, and if you thought that that idea was preposterous, this one proposes that the notion that to label all the rioters racist is in itself racist. 

First thing I need to do is to define what racism is. I’ll let the Oxford English Dictionary do that. ‘Prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism by an individual, community, or institution against a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular racial or ethnic group, typically one that is a minority or marginalized.’  

I suggest that the white working class are a clear definition of of a minority racial group because they exist so far removed from the white middle and upper classes so as to be a distinct ethnic group in their own right. The speed with which the rioters were tagged as being racist by those in positions to do s not only underlines this, but also acts to distract attention from other, more pertinent factors. 

To label the rioters as ‘racist’ is to believe in the false assumption that all white people are similarly advantaged and share the same imagined ‘white privilege’. In this fantasy world, no social, economic or political differences exist between classes of white people, and that’s its only the colour of ones skin and not the contents of one’s parents bank accounts, the school one attended or one’s parents connections connections that determine life chances. The only white people who bang on about ‘white privilege’ are the ones who’ve done very well out of it.  

The media, always so keen to accuse someone of engaging in ‘dog whistle politics’, fail to realise that by rushing to judge the rioters as ‘racist’ they are themselves engaging in ‘dog whistle politics’. By doing so, they reassure the public that the rioters have no other motivating factor than simple racism and that they certainly don’t have any deep seated grievances that deserve to be discussed. Of course some of the rioters may hold some racist views, but to suggest that racism was the sole motivating factor that governed their actions is crudely simplistic and simplistically crude.

To argue that racism can only be directed by white people towards non-whites is in itself racist, because its a belief predicated upon nothing more than skin colour. This absurdity is only matched by the belief that there exist no religious or cultural tensions between different ethnic groups. The outbreak of violence in Leicester in 2022, between British Muslims and British Hindus bears this out. 

Indeed, I’d go further and suggest that the white working class man provides a necessary function in todays Britain; he can be safely be ignored or vilified as and when politicians and the media find it useful. Hence the incredibly reductive narrative that the rioters were racist and thus any concerns that they might have can dismissed. 

I don’t know if any of their concerns were valid. But in a culture that is worrying obsessed with denouncing ‘white privilege’ will anyone be bothered to find out?

*****************************************************************

Plonker is reportedly an Arsenal fan, which means that he can’t like football that much, but in advocating a smoking ban he’s going for the quick win rather than playing the long game.

There exist in in health the same differences that there do in life, depending on how rich or poor you are.

Earlier this year, a study by the Institute of Health Equity at University College London, using Office for National Statistics figures, found that between 2011 and 2019, over one million people died people died earlier than they would have done if they lived in areas where the richest 10% of the population reside.

According to the Health Foundation a woman born in Wokingham can expect to live 15 more years in good health than a woman born in Blackpool. A man born in Richmond upon Thames can expect to live 17 more years in good health than a man born in Belfast.

This shouldn’t come as a shock. Analysis of health funding by the British Medical Association found that more is spent by the NHS per person in London than anywhere in England. (Health being a devolved matter).

There’s loads more depressing information available online about regional health disparity, the links between longevity and poverty, none of which should surprise anyone.

But yeah, ban smoking. That’s easy. But fixing the entrenched social causes of ill health, properly resourcing the NHS and thinking how those two might be linked, that’s hard. That requires the grown-ups to start acting like gown-ups as opposed to just pretending to be.

And if smoking were banned tomorrow, where would the almost £9 billions it generates in tax revenue come from? This government repeatedly tells us that the public finances are in a parlous state, so why do they want to make them even more so?  Less tax revenue because of doing one thing means having to other things to create that lost revenue. 

But don’t think about that and certainly don’t think about Nazi Germany. Not renowned for its public health measures, Nazi Germany led the first anti-smoking campaign in modern history and was the most powerful anti-smoking movement in the world during the 1930s and early 1940s.

**************************************************************

Better minds than mine might provide a much more satisfying explanation as to why there has been this sudden outbreak of rioting in parts of England and Northern Ireland, and to also to explain why it has become so widespread so fast. I don’t have one of those minds, on account of how mine is brain damaged. 

Perhaps thats why I focus not on the violent lawlessness itself, but more on the way that its reported. Perhaps that’s why I keep thinking of Humpty Dumpty whenever I come across the term ‘far right and what he said to Alice,

“When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’

The term ‘far right’ is one of those political epithets that is so ubiquitous that the need for any explanation of what exactly is meant by it is never actually specified. It means different things to different people, but crucially the term ‘far right’ has been specifically manufactured for this very purpose. For people to imagine they are thinking about the same thing, when often they are not.

Because to believe that ‘far right’ actually means anything, one first has to believe in a nonsense and then to believe that that nonsense isn’t a nonsense at all. Very quickly, the nonsense soon piles up.

To begin with, one first has to subscribe to the notion that there exists a perfect set of political opinions and that these opinions reside in the middle of the entire spectrum of political thought. Because for some views to be considered to be ‘far right’ to exist, it necessarily follows that there has to be something for the ‘far right’ to be further from. So already there are two nonsenses, 

These two foundational nonsenses both share the same third nonsense, namely no matter how much societies attitudes to certain issues may change over time – think homosexuality and environmental issues – the spectrum will always be the same spectrum. It is the middle precisely because of its ability to adapt, to absorb and to venerate opinions that were not previously included in it. And as the middle expands, so to does the spectrum, meaning that the ‘far right’ becomes even further from the middle

This presents us with yet another nonsense. Who was it exactly decided that there is a political spectrum in the first place? I don’t believe that there is, I think its a fundamentally flawed concept for the reasons set out above, but because of the reasons set out above, the spectrum has to exist for some people. 

So who are they and who gave them the authority to construct one? This then presents another problem; who gave them them the authority and who was it that gave them the authority to give authority and on the nonsense goes.

Then we need to consider those political opinions that make up the political spectrum. Were all political opinions considered or were some political opinions deemed for whatever reason not worth considering? This brings us back to the people who decided on constructing the spectrum in the first place and calls into question their impartiality. 

I’m only joking, there is no impartiality in politics. We are all as much defined by what we do believe in as by what we don’t, and because of this, the term ‘far right’ is functionally meaningless in defining any political opinion.  Would Stalins notion of ‘far right’ be the same as Hitlers?

But as we’ve seen over recent days, the term ‘far right’ is used as a handy way by politicians and the media to effectively negate whatever grievances – perceived or otherwise – the rioters might have. Clearly some of them are just relishing the chance for violence because some people enjoy violence in and of itself and some others might believe in a wide range of opinions so far removed from any semblance of objective reality that we should condemn those who create those beliefs in the first place.

But the vast majority would, I contend share concerns that not only can they cannot properly articulate – and for which they shouldn’t be blamed, after all, it isn’t their job.  But unforgivably, by the people whose job it is to take their concerns seriously, address them and possibly take remedial action. Doing this only achieves only two things, both of which ultimately creates the violent disorder of recent days. 

Firstly, as I hope I’ve made clear, whilst the term ‘far right’ not only doesn’t exist, it paradoxically also makes it much easier to demonise people holding ‘far right’ views. When some opinions and points of view are considered so beyond the realm of reasonable political discourse, this then creates a space for opportunistic agitators to exploit for not entirely noble aims.

But saying someone or their views are ‘far right’ says more about you than them. It says that you’re Humpty Dumpty.

***************************************************************

And then I also think about George Orwell, who correctly predicted the future years before it happened, especially the way in which language can be malleable. How instead of a word having a fixed and universally understood meaning, once set free from notions of linguistic integrity, can mean anything.

Orwell referenced the cynical nature of this when describing the cyclical nature of linguistic laziness. In his essay ‘Politics and the English Language’, he observed out that language shapes our thought as much as thought shapes our language.

“ (Language ) becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.”

I know that language needs to evolve and that as new words are created to describe the new, so too words used to describe obsolete things will themselves become obsolete. But when words that used to have fixed meaning are now employed to describe a non-specific and highly subjective corruption of its previously understood meaning, thats when language ceases in its primary function. Words then become functionally meaningless and rather than to aid clear expression of thought, do the very opposite.

And few words have fallen prey to this abuse more than ironically enough, fascist. A fascist, as I’d always understood the word to mean, was someone who believed in fascism. Fascism, according to wikipedia is ‘ an authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement, characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation or race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy.’

But now we live in an age where fascist no longer means  any of that, no longer does it immediately call to mind the worst example of human barbarity ever. Precisely because we don’t live in a fascist state, one in which extreme violence is sanctioned by it, and the threat of it used as a means of social control, precisely because it hasn’t happened here, we can can abuse the word. Now it can mean someone who simply disagrees with someone or is guilty of nothing more than hurting their feelings. It is now a word, which like so many others, are losing their functional meaning and being replaced by an individualistic meaning instead.  

We now live in a world where everything is transactional, so is it that much of a shock when words are? I believe that it is, and because I believe that language is by quite a wide margin the single greatest achievement of humanity, one that we are now constantly undermining if we allow such linguistic folly to become even more prevalent than it already is.

This story, that appeared in ‘The Daily Mail’ earlier this week, typifies both of the phenomena I’ve been describing in todays post.’ Nans against Nazis: Defiant Scouse pensioner, 71, takes to the frontline in Liverpool to protect mosque from ‘far-right protesters’ amid another night of rioting in Britain’

Where to even start with this? ‘Far right’ means only that whoever uses that term as an idiot and ‘Nazi’ is yet another word that has lost all functional meaning – describing something specific – but now can mean anything. If there were Nazis rampaging across England, a pensioner armed only with a cardboard sign wouldn’t  protect anything. 

‘Frontline’ implies there’s a war. There so isn’t. There is as much a war as there is a ‘far right’.

***************************************************************

Hurrah! The real cause of the riots has finally been revealed to us. Ignore the fact that the most of the communities where the riots are happening took place in some of the most deprived in Britain. Forget about the increased burden sudden population growth has on already underfunded and overstretched public services in those communities. Dismiss the idea that some grievances are deemed more worthy than others of being addressed, and that this feeling of being abandoned by the political class and being demonised by the media might exacerbate the tensions further. 

No, the real cause is social media. Plonker said so, so it must be true. “Violent disorder clearly whipped up online: that is also a crime. It’s happening on your premises, and the law must be upheld everywhere.”

Sadiq Khan’t, agrees with him “I think very swiftly the government has realised there needs to be amendments to the Online Safety Act. I think it’s not fit for purpose.” And another chancer, albeit one with no chance getting the thing he wants said that ““Useful idiots” on social media were exploited by Britain’s enemies to stoke rioting around the country.’

Isn’t this all missing the point? And haven’t we been here before? That some people can’t have genuine grievances, grievances that have been borne out by their own experience. Or that for years they’ve been made to feel that their grievances have lesser value than others? 

This is typical of the mindset that negates any proper analysis of what might be motivating the rioters but instead prefer to use a narrative chicanery that worked so well once before. They were lied to. They were duped. Its all the fault of the various kinds of mis-information and fake news one gets on social media. They didn’t realise.  

So we had this on the BBC a few days ago,

‘Ofcom has published an open letter to the (social media) platforms saying they should not wait until it gets enhanced powers under the Online Safety Act before taking action.

Policing minister Dame Diana Johnson agree, saying tech firms “have an obligation now” to “deal with” material that incites violence.

Speaking on Today, on BBC Radio Four, Dame Diana left open the possibility of revisiting the Online Safety Act, which is due to come into force early next year.

“Of course the events of the last few days have meant that we need to look very carefully at what more we can do.”

Its all a bit too Joseph Goebbels and “The Big Lie’ for me, to tell a big enough lie often enough so eventually it becomes the truth. Yes, it’s all social medias fault.

All we need now is a big red bus.

Well I’m glad that one’s been cleared up. I’d always been labouring under the misapprehension that men shouldn’t hit women. But if you do hit a woman, make sure you do it in a boxing ring at the Paris Olympics. Then its OK. You might even get a medal for it.

The specific details surrounding this incident are best discussed elsewhere. But for me, this highlights a growing trend, not just in sport, but in society, specifically societies in parts of the global north. Ones that are so enlightened that the rights of women can so easily be discarded. Ones who are governed by a political elite so in thrall to idea of being seen as progressive that their blind adherence to a bastardised notion of inclusivity results in assault.

When is this madness going to end? When will the rights of women be taken as seriously as the rights of men? How inclusive can any activity be if by doing so it excludes people who place their own safety at a higher premium rather than suborning it to a dangerously nebulous concept?

Despite having been thrown out of the boxing world championships in Delhi last year amid questions over their biological sex, the International Olympic Committee IOC) have given them a free pass to go up against female opponents in the most dangerous sport, and on the grandest stage of all.

Whilst that is bad enough, it is the trickle down effect that this insanity will engender further down the line that really concerns me. Far removed from elite sporting competitions, sporting at a local level will be impacted. Thats where the real harm its; it isn’t to one Italian boxer with a broken nose and shattered dreams. It’s to athletes at the grassroots, at schools and colleges, because various different sporting organisations have different classifications as to who can be classed as a man and who can be classed as woman. Some have even reverted back to their old classification. But sadly some will interpret the IOC’s decision as legitimising the idea that biological sex is a traceable commodity and not an inalienable fact.

The only benefit that one can possibly take from all of this is that it simplifies for many what can be a confusing issue. All of the disputed science and all of the difficult to understand claims and counter-claims that that arise from all of the background noise has hopefully become irrelevant. Most people accept it as a given that a man shouldn’t hit a woman. Most people accept that there do exist differences between men and women.

Most people understand unfairness when they see it.

.********************************************************************************************************

But the IOC reminds me of Eddie Izzard when they parrot the the notion that just because someone has a passport that declares them as woman, they are one. Izzard did a routine where he explained that Britain only got an Empire thanks to the cunning use of flags. ‘I claim India on behalf of Queen Victoria.’ ‘ You can’t do that, there are 500 million of us, we live here! ‘But do you have a flag?’

*****************************************************************************************************

In a recent post I suggested that an exculpatory narrative has become so embedded in our society that for some it is a default setting with which to interpret the world. The notion that the colour of ones skin is largely, if not exclusively, the determining factor as to whether or not one has an adverse experience in any given situation. 

I’m not denying that racism exists and can be expressed in many ways. I’m not a fool. But that this belief is not ‘just’ confined to some among certain groups that might have direct experience of racism and is arguably much more socially problematic as a result. I refer of course to our public bodies and institutions, media and other dissemblers of information that imagine 21st Century Britain to be a racist hellscape. 

This thinking inexorably creates in those who believe Britain is but a jackboot away from a nightmarish apartheid regime, a suspicion that there is always a hidden explanation behind the ‘official’ version of any event negatively impacting a non-white person, especially if that event involves violence. That the ‘official’ version exists only to deflect blame, to protect the guilty, obfuscate reality and to act, quite literally, as a white-wash. 

That the ‘truth’ is now nothing more than an increasingly contested fabrication to be disputed over by various interest groups. That whoever can shout  the loudest and for longest will have a greater influence in controlling the direction of such a contest.

The last few days have afforded me a particularly blatant example of how all of the previously mentioned factors – how the perpetuated narrative of a Britain being a racist hellscape feeds a distrust of the ‘official’ – can be weaponised by those who are only too keen to see Britain as a racist hellscape. 

I refer of course to the incident at Manchester Airport after video emerged that appeared to show an armed police officer stamping on a suspects head. Despite this video clip being less than thirty seconds long and therefore only showed what we were meant to see, nonetheless the ‘racist hellscape’ industry was soon working overtime.

The less credulous might have remembered the last time another short video clip purported to show another example of heavy handed policing. Remember the ‘openly jewish’ brouhaha of a few months ago? 

According to ‘The Guardian’, ‘Footage released by the Campaign Against Antisemitism last Friday (19th April) showed its chief executive, Gideon Falter, being told by a police officer that his “openly Jewish” appearance risked antagonising pro-Palestinian marchers. This precipitated claims Falter was prevented from going about his business simply because he was a Jewish man in the vicinity of a pro-Palestinian demonstration.’

The reaction was predictably calm and sober. ‘Fury as Met Police officer is filmed accusing Londoner of being ‘openly Jewish, was ‘The Daily Express’s’ take on it. ‘PM refuses to back Met chief over ‘appalling’ treatment of Jewish man’ was what ‘The Daily Telegraph’ added. . To add more confusion to an already confused situation, ‘The Independent’ reported that the’ Met Police apologise for earlier apology about ‘openly Jewish’ comment”

And so it was with tedious inevitability that a video clip which had been drastically shortened so that it to showed just what what it had been intended to show – that the police were anti-semitic – turned out be nothing of the case. A longer 13 minute of the same exchange appeared on ‘Sky News’ showing the officer patiently explaining that his concern was that he had seen Falter acting in a way that led him to believe quite reasonably that he was trying to provoke a confrontation with marchers.

But by then the shorter clip had done its job, had proved once again that the police were just fascists with a warrant card and that they couldn’t be trusted. And the same thing happened again with the Manchester Airport incident. A short video appearing to show one thing was subsequently contradicted by a longer video showing the incident in completely new light. 

The fact that both of the shorter video’s were so quickly seized upon and widely proclaimed to believed to be evidence of a police ‘ist’ by the press and social media is evidence of a society that can all too easily be manipulated. Of a society in which people are increasingly willing to interpret that society through the reductive prisms of identity, difference and otherness. But a society that is seemingly predisposed to disbelieving authority cannot be too surprised to learn that ’Police officers quitting in record numbers’ as ‘The Daily Telegraph’ reported three days ago.  

I’m no fool. Racism exists. Just as do unintended consequences.

Wow! Did you see the Opening Ceremony of the Paris Olympics! Obviously I don’t mean ‘Wow!’ in the ‘how amazing was that!’ sense, but ‘Wow!’ in more of a ‘was that it? sense.’

At times it reminded me of an amateur production of a Cirque de Soleil show, an episode of Eurotrash ( but without the knowing wink ), an even more grandiose and camper version of the Eurovision Song Contest, ‘Its a Knockout’ and the Thames Diamond Jubilee Pageant.

Had the organisers been given less than a year to put this together then judging it to be a unmitigated disaster might be seen as harsh. But Paris was announced as the host city for the 2024 Olympics in July 2017. 

Enough time, one would’ve thought, cobble something together. But no. The initial planning meeting must’ve gone like this.

Frenchie Un:        I’ve brought you all here because your the best creative minds in all of France, and know we have  and..who are you?

Siobhan Sharpe: Siobhan Sharpe from PR company Perfect Curve. I helped with London 2012 –

Frenchie Duex:    We don’t need your help –

Siobhan Sharpe: That you even think that means that you do! Here’s the thing. You need to leave the past of the rearview mirror of never happened. Forget everything. Be bold –

Frenchie Un:        We can’t. We’ve already booked the Stade de France –

Siobhan Sharpe: What’s that?

Frenchie Trios:    The largest sports stadium in –

Siobhan Sharpe: That is so 2012. Times have changed. Sport is fluid, dynamic and fast moving. So too must be the venue.  C’mon guys, get with the programme. It has to be on the river!

Frenchie Trois:    Its the scene of our greatest sporting triumph –

Barney Lumsden; And it can be again. A triumphant procession –

Frenchie Un:         Who are you and how the hell did you get in here. SECURITY!

Barney Lumsden:  I work with Siobhan –

Siobhan Sharpe:   For Barney for. We’ve spoken about this.

Barney Lumsden: So all the athletes are in boats, yeah, and all along the river way will be these amazing dancers, the bridges as performance areas and catwalks –

Frenchie Trois;       We won the World Cup there in 1998-

Siobhan Sharpe:   Whatevs. Its 2024. We need to project a confident version France, one that celebrates diversity and is out and proud, one that is comfortable with a celebration of love featuring a thruple –

Frenchie Deux:   Come again?

Coco Lomax:        In a thruple could be easy! Three people in a relationship. Two of one gender, or one non-binary other. Who knows! Who cares! Or three of none. Its 2024!

Frenchie Deux:      You work for Siobhan, yes? The hair and the shoes give it away. Siobhan, this is going to be televised live. To some of the most morally conservative countries in the world, no not some of them, all of them!

Frenchie Un:           And isn’t the opening ceremony meant to be about the athletes, an acknowledgement of all of the hard work, the single-minded focus, dedication and sacrifice that got them here in the first place?   

Frenchie Trois:        Exactly! And if it rains and they get colds and can’t compete, what will it achieve? Angry badminton players are one thing. But angry weightlifters, javelin throwers, shot putters…

Siobhan Sharpe:    This is so going to happen. We’ve got it worked out. Trust me, nothing will go wrong. Listen up………..

**********************************************************************

I never thought I’d think that the Opening Ceremony for Rio 2016 wasn’t the worst one. And that was bad.

What I consider to be both one of the most divisive and reductive narratives of the modern age was perfectly illustrated in a headline in the ‘Guardian’ the other day. Namely, that the colour of ones skin is largely, if not exclusively, the determining factor as to whether or not one has an adverse experience in any given situation. 

‘National disgrace’: black mothers in England twice as likely to have NHS birth investigated’

Clicking  on the link, I was informed that the ‘Head of Royal College of Midwives (RCM), blames ‘institutional racism’ as black women face greater risk of death and stillbirth

The Maternity and Newborn Safety Investigations is a safety programme that examines serious instances of maternal or neonatal death, stillbirths and babies born with severe brain injuries across the NHS in England.

Freedom of information requests and research by the Guardian shows black women are almost twice as likely to be subject to a maternity investigation than their white counterparts.’

But isn’t that a good thing? That all deaths in childbirth are properly investigated? Wouldn’t it be an actual ‘national disgrace’ if an investigation into such a tragedy was conducted for white women only? Wouldn’t that better prove that ‘institutional racism’ (IR) existed, if only their cases were investigated? Or am I missing something?

Further down in the article, away from the initial claims of IR were these rather more helpful observations, which to my mind at least, provided a more plausible explanation for why the disparity might exist.

‘The higher rate of investigations is a reflection of black women’s increased likelihood of experiencing maternal death, stillbirths and having babies born with severe brain injuries.

Black women across the UK are four times more likely to die in pregnancy and childbirth, and also more likely to experience some of the most serious birth complications’

Whoa! Back up! In a couple of sentences the whole premise of the article has been negated so yes, it is a ‘national disgrace’ – the readiness of an organisation to view everything through the reductive prism of skin colour and to cite IR as an explanation to explain this. And of a press that is all too willing to promulgate the narrative that IR exists. Yes racism exists and yes, organisations are operationally flawed, but those two things don’t necessarily prove the existence of a third.

As a white man is this evidence of my ‘unconscious bias? Or of an appreciation that there may well be many other interlinked factors at work here, factors that may be more complicated than others and which may be more difficult for society to accept.

For example, are the incidents triggering these investigations spread evenly throughout England or are there some regions where there are more than others? If so, why? And if there are, do these incidents disproportionally affect one ethnic group more than another? Additionally, might seemingly unrelated social and cultural factors be at play here? Are the mothers disproportionally younger or older than their white counterparts? Have they suffered health problems that are worsened by socio-economic factors? Is accessing proper pre-natal information an issue? Is it a skill shortage – a lack of awareness and training – about the some of the medical challenges that certain ethic groups might present in childbirth?

And might this situation be further exacerbated by a lack of midwifery staff in the NHS? The Royal College of Midwives, estimated in 2023, that there was a shortage of over 2,500 midwives in the NHS. 

‘Too often staffing shortages, mean women aren’t receiving the high-quality care midwives can and want to deliver as they are spread too thinly. Also, the rise in more complex pregnancies, which may place women and babies at higher risk of complications, means pregnant women often require more care and need more time with midwives so any issues can be picked up.

Solve the shortage and value midwives so they don’t want to leave. Because when they leave, they take years of experience with them that can’t then be passed on to newly qualified midwives joining the workforce’

But now Gill Walton, the chief executive of the RCM, claims the issue is “purely down to institutional racism”. She is quoted four times in the article saying as much. Quite who is responsible for this and how this directly impacts non-white pregnant women, she keeps to herself.

All of which leads me to think that claiming that IR is responsible for for something is in itself proof of an unconscious bias. Among those whose own predisposition to discern racism as being everywhere and yet another unhelpfully reductive prism to view society through, and because of that, views that bias as a not existing at all.

**************************************************************

As things change, so they remain the same and whilst there are new passengers riding the political gravy train, the same hypocrisy continues unabated.

This story appeared in ‘The Daily Express’ a few days ago, ‘David Lammy flies on private jet Angela Rayner blasted Tories for using

The Foreign Secretary used the Airbus A321 private jet to head to New Delhi in India today (Wednesday)

But when Liz Truss travelled on the jet in 2022 the Labour deputy leader branded it as “obscene”, “brazen” and a “disgusting waste” of taxpayer money for “vanity and comfort”.’

****************************************************************

To mark the start of the Paris Olympics, here’s a quick question for you. 

What proportion of the British Olympic team attended public schools? Before you think of answer, I’ll give you some help. 330 athletes make up the British team. Roughly 7% of children go to public schools.

The figure is 106, or 33%. Thats up from the 28% who went to Tokyo in 2021 and that was up from the 24% who went to Rio in 2016.

So it seems only fitting that both of the UK’s flag bearers at tonights opening ceremony – Tom Daley and Helen Glover – went to public schools. 

The fact they attended public schools because of being given scholarships by those schools underlines just how stark the choice is for parents with principles and children that display sporting prowess. State schools have neither the facilities, the staff or indeed the time required to turn potential into podium places.

*****************************************************************

The main problem I have with this whole ‘virtue’ signalling epidemic is the basic foundational assumption upon which all ‘virtue’ signalling is built on. Namely, is whatever is being portrayed as the ‘virtue’ actually a ‘virtue’ and if it isn’t, then how virtuous are the people who keep on telling us that it is?

Few things in recent months have better illustrated this than the than the ongoing brouhaha that passes for reasoned debate surrounding the two child benefit cap (TCBC). I know that it may appear that I’m inordinately fixated upon this topic, but to me it is a perfect embodiment of what can happen when groupthink, social media and ambition all conspire to elevate one issue above all others.  

Not that I’m suggesting that there’s a conspiracy, but there do seem to a lot of happy accidents that surround the TCBC, its supposed unfairness and calls for its repeal. By groupthink I mean the existence of a gradually evolving consensus around one particular issue, a consensus which is only arrived at only by allowing certain opinions and views to be expressed.

The various charities, think-thanks and activist groups who all demand that something be done. Who publish ‘important’ policy documents, all ‘shocking’ facts and ‘alarming’ statistics and who bolster the unassailable righteousness of their very existence by calling upon a legion of academics to provide some scholarly heft to their claims. Which are then turned into press releases, and because of a prevalent groupthink that the charities and academics have helped create, are massively amplified by a predisposed press.   

And if done well, this can lead to a slew of stories all appearing on the same day, all quoting the same headline grabbing facts, all featuring the same supposed ‘heart-wrenching’ testimonies and all quoting various politicians all saying the same thing. This happened only the other day, in yet another attempt of the British version of the Gaste e Eshrad to propagate the idea that scrapping the TCBC is a ‘virtue’. 

But is it a ‘virtue’? Or is indicating abhorrence of the TCBC merely one of many ways that newspapers and charities, academics and politicians, and people on social media and at dinner parties can all impress each other?  Is it an easy way for a politician to hitch their wagon to, a no-cost move that can enhance their career because of wilful mis-representation of the facts which if repeated loudly and often enough, quickly become the truth.?

This headline, typical of many that have appeared over recent months, and doubtless will continue to do so until a new virtue. needs to be signalled, graced  ‘Daily Mirror’ a few days ago.

’Mum-of-five surviving on leftovers due to devastating Tory child benefit rule

Rachel, from Sheffield, has five children with her partner aged from nine months old to nine years old.

She gets more than £3,400 a year in universal credit for each of her first two children. But due to the cap, she gets no financial benefits for her three younger children.

The cap – introduced by the Conservative Party in 2017 – prevents parents from claiming universal credit or child tax credit for a third child.’ 

This is true enough, it was introduced in April 2017, but it was announced in July 2015, so sorry Rachel, but if you and your partner can’t practice proper birth control, then how is that anyone else’s fault? 

This idea that having children is somehow such an inalienable right that any government should provide financial various supports for, is socially, politically and morally unaffordable. 

It is socially unaffordable because in believing that such a ‘virtue’ exists – which in this case it doesn’t – it transfers power away from our elected representatives and into the hands of a small coterie of unelected individuals and organisations. All of whom share an increasingly prescriptive notion of the way things should be done and this article is proof of this.

It gets its statistics from the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG), which is an example of this press releasing activist charity and think-thank sector I mentioned earlier. This narrative, so assiduously finessed by CPAG and others for dissemination to the wider public, is further bolstered by Professor Sir Michael Marmot, Director at the Institute of Health Equity University College London, who says the cap is “aimed at poor people” and “I don’t want public policy punishing people for having children,”.

It’s a strange equity that elevates the needs of the minority above the needs of the society in which they live. If people can’t do simple maths – announced 2015, implemented 2017 so no conception after July 2016 – again, whose fault is that? And what about the third child.? Why does their right to be born to parents who can offer them the best possible life chances somehow matter less than the imagined right to have children no matter what? Where’s the ‘virtue’ in that?

That’s what I mean when I suggest that its socially unaffordable. A groupthink made up of academia, the press, the charity sector and other actors within the social and cultural commentariat that only acts as an echo-chamber of itself, drives the ‘debate’ – such as it is – in one direction only.

It is morally unaffordable for those on benefits to have an expectation that the state will subsidise their reckless parenting and morally opportunist for others to suggest that it is. To present opposition to the TCBC as a virtue is as staggeringly obtuse as it is unforgivably self-serving. Because the corrollory of opposition to the TCBC is that the idea that such a measure should never be and essentially commits the state to an ever increasing spend in pursuit of misguided tolerance.Is that really what any society should be encouraging? I think not.

And it is also politically unaffordable because not only does it give undue influence to those members of the groupthink I mentioned previously – dissenting voices expressing contrary opinions are excluded from the groupthink – it also calls into question who exactly is deciding policy. If a government is so easily swayed into doing something because a tiny handful of charities and think tanks can adeptly use the press, academics and social media to demand that something be done, how is that democracy? 

Just because some people feel strongly about something, doesn’t make them right. It feeds into this bizarre idea that now permeates our culture of conformist absolutism. That there is only one correct way to see any issue and that any differing view is not just wrong, but believers of that wrongness should be publicly denounced and shamed.

**************************************************************

Mind you, the one ‘virtue’ that towers above all the other virtues is one that signifies support for the Palestinians in their war against Israel.

It is the single most defining ’virtue’ of the age, and by signalling that this is a ’virtue’ that one believes in, one also signals belief in other things that permit that this ‘virtue’ to be so considered. As numerous as they are contradictory, these are properly the subjects of other blog. But for now I want to draw your attention to one example of how this supposed ‘virtue’ is can be used to confer a diluted version of the same ‘virtue’ onto an opportunistic politician of no regard,  

‘Bournemouth Green councillor demands town drops twin link with Israeli city’ was a headline in ‘The Daily Telegraph’ last week.

‘Bournemouth should “de-twin” from an Israeli city in a bid to protect its “reputation” amid the ongoing war in Gaza, a Green Party councillor has said.

Joe Salmon put forward a motion for the seaside resort in Dorset to end its association with its sister Netanya in west central Israel, which has been twinned with Bournemouth since 1995.’

I was curious to discover what reputation it was he thought Bournemouth had that was worth protecting, so I had a quick shufti at the Bournemouth Daily Echo yesterday. 

‘Huge group descends into ‘fight’ by pier’, ‘Teen girl ‘sexually assaulted’ at seafront’ and ‘Bournemouth and Poole among worst 50 seaside towns for 2024 

The ‘Telegraph’ article added, ’ A spokesman for the Bournemouth Palestine Solidarity Movement said they will continue to campaign for Bournemouth to end its association with Israel.

Racism, anti-Semitism, apartheid, and genocide are not the principles on which the people of BCP stand.’ 

The self-important, self-righteous and self-serving attitude that this represents is indicative of a mindset that allows people who believe that there’s ‘virtue’ in being opposed to the right for Isreal to defend itself. And that being convinced by the certainty that this ‘virtue’ exists, one is also convinced that anyone holding a contrary opinion must be morally deficient.  Not only that, but the more that you manage to make this ‘virtue’ the reductive prism through which all things are judged and so loudly and so frequently declare this to be that it becomes almost a kind of situationist prank, the more of this kind of nonsense you’ll produce.

That of people of no consequence saying something of no consequence that will have no consequence. 

**********************************************************************************************************

There appeared a slew of stories in a number of newspapers recently, all on the same day,  all on the same subject and all, curiously enough, having the same opinion on it. 

If one were cynical, one might imagine that an enterprising charity might have drafted a press release written is such a way that when it came across an editors desk, all they had to was grab the nearest journalist, thrust the press release at them and bellow ‘Give me 800 words now!’

A press release that urged Plonker to do something, which in this case would involve him reversing a reversal. In July last year he said the wouldn’t scrap the two child benefit cap introduced by the Tories in 2017, but now that Labour is in power there are renewed calls upon on him to do so.

As the ‘Guardian’ put it ‘Pressure grows on Labour to scrap two-child benefit cap with 1.6m youngsters affected’, which omitted to point out that the pressure is coming from other newspapers. Newspapers which in turn seemed to have strongly influenced by the same press release.

Probably a press release from the Resolution Foundation and the Child Poverty Action Group, as they both feature prominently in stories that appeared in ‘The Daily Telegraph’, ‘The Guardian’, ‘The Independent’, ’The Daily Mirror’, and both the ‘Sky News’ and ‘BBC News’ websites. They all quote the same statistics, all of them either copy and paste passages of the press release into their article wholesale or change bits here and there and most quote one or more of the same politicians saying the same thing.

Here’s the new work and pensions secretary, Mint-Cake, “We will work to give every child the best start in life by delivering our manifesto commitment to implement an ambitious strategy to reduce child poverty.” Really? How ‘ambitious’ can any ‘strategy’ to reduce child poverty actually be if that ‘strategy’ lacks the ‘ambition’ to tackle the systemic and cultural forces that have created it. Namely, feckless parents and decades of successive governments subsidising the low wages paid to some of them by their employers.

 I mean, I understand how blaming the Tories for everything will be the default setting for Labour for the entirety of their time in government. All incoming governments do this, and whilst it might have some plausibility in other cases, a brief reminder of the facts of this one suggest otherwise.

Basically, introduced in April 2017 the cap prevents parents from claiming child tax credit or universal credit for any third or subsequent child born after that date. It wasn’t suddenly announced in the March of that year, but instead as part of the 2015 budget, with the implications made abundantly clear and with advance waring given. So as I see it, it isn’t really the government that is pushing children into poverty. If parents on benefits conceived a third child after July 2016 and choose not to abort it or put it up for adoption, well they’re to blame. Or am I missing something?

One of the most quoted statistics quoted in most of the articles was this one. ‘A total of 1.6 million children – equivalent to one in nine of all UK children – were affected by the policy last year, an increase of 100,000, the latest statistics show, while 59% of the 450,000 households hit had at least one parent in work.’

This underlines one of my points, how exactly is it the governments fault if the feckless feckers keep on being feckless? How is there an increase? How exactly can any of this be fairly held to be the governments fault? Well, in one way it kinda can. Employers know that they can get away with paying low wages to their employees because they know that government subsidies allow them to do this. 

What else are ‘Working Tax Credits’ other than a massive bung to employers? One way or another, the British state has been doing this since 1971, and whilst the names of the bung might change, a bung is still a bung. And because this bung is bunged in with other bungs and called Universal Credit, the exact cost of this bung is hard to work out. But last year, Universal Credit bung cost us is £80.9 billions.

So if Mint-Cake had said something along the lines of ‘Yes, I know it initially looks like a simple problem to solve, but it isn’t. We need a cross party consensus and long term commitment to ending the age of government bailouts to employers who pay low wages. The work on agreeing that consensus starts now. It won’t be easy. But the sooner we start, the sooner we get it finished.’ Then yes, she’d have a ‘strategy’ and yes, it’d have ambition.

But simply blaming the the Tories? Nah!

************************************************************************

Football is one of the greatest games in the world. It is. Any game that can be played at its simplest level by three players, two jumpers and one ball has a simplicity that transcends the current carnival of capitalism it has now become. The latest show ends tonight in Germany, but where there’s money there’ll always be people wanting to make it. Women’s football is either another advance for equality or just a cynical attempt to make even more money from the expiration of a previously untapped revenue steam.

I was in my school football team, not the 1st XI but the 2nd XI and the sheer joy of playing is something mere words can’t express. But soon after I stopped playing it, I realised that I could never be just a spectator, watching other people having the fun I wasn’t. It’d be like watching two people having sex,. Young, handsome and incredibly lithe people, not two wrinkles, obviously.

Hearing people discuss it is even worse. The detail that the television pundits go into is alarming. The analysis, the competing opinions and forensic discussion of the frankly irrelevant becomes mind numbing after a while. And where was a similar level of expertise to help make sense of the recent general election? 

Plonker got a largely free ride from the media about what exactly his plans were. There was no sustained examination about any of the promises he made, no proper scrutiny of what life under a Labour government would mean for the average Briton and no challenging him about the impact of pursuing a transition to Net Zero might have on the cost of living crisis.

Because watching 22 grown men kicking a ball about was more important, and in the first two weeks at least, over 10 hours of this irrelevance was broadcast a day.

I’m not sure which makes me angrier; the fact that broadcasters do this or the fact that the public doesn’t have any problem with them doing it

***********************************************************************

Because if there had have been decades of proper scrutiny and analysis of the various political choices this country had been offered, then we’d possibly have a more politically aware public than we do now. 

One that has the both the skills and willingness to critically evaluate what they’re told. Not to be the bullshat. Certainly not a public that is easily distracted by television game-shows, cookery contests, property porn and anything with the word ‘celebrity’ in it. This creates a culture wherein politics is much rather left to politicians and all the public does is occasionally complain when things turn to shit. 

I mean a public that didn’t believe that simply lifting the two child benefit cap would do any good whatsoever. Apart from allowing Plonker and Mint-Cake to appear to be doing something to alleviate child poverty. Had we such a public, one used to knowing that everything is interconnected, one that is aware that not not only do the dots exist, the wherewithal to join them up and to be aware of the fact that some dots will always remain invisible, then this travesty could not happen.

Low paid jobs, zero hour contracts and the ‘gig’ economy can only happen when a system of government subsidies that allows employers to do this. The irony is that as the workers earn less, so the less tax they pay, which means that out of that reduced tax revenue the government picks up the tab. Meanwhile the very companies and corporations that benefit from these subsidies also benefits from a shockingly malleable tax system. So we’re fucked at both ends.

 But we want cheap food, we want next day delivery, we want shiny, we want easy answers and we want more Gary Hamas.

**********************************************************************

I know that I can be less than complimentary about politicians, often casting doubt on them personally, the motives, policies and priorities of parties they represent. And the failures of them both to properly act in the best interests of those who did – and didn’t – vote for them. 

Given the new name under which subsequent posts will be tiled, ’34; 63 presents’ – highlighting as it does what I discern to be the most fundamental flaw in our ‘democratic ‘system, namely how it is that  34% of the votes somehow means 63% of seats – suggests that this will be a constant theme of this blog.

Well one of them anyway. Politics doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Just as much as politics embodies the best and worst in our society, that society is also partly responsible for the politics and  politicians it creates. Politicians were once children too. They didn’t just materialise as fully formed venal narcissists with low morals. 

That whole era of aggressive Thatcherism, of privatising as many of the publicly owned utilities as she could and of her being able to declare ‘that was no such thing as society’, ironically, could only happen in a society where such a politician, espousing such divisive politics, was repeatedly given power.

Sorry, went off one there.

So before I start with all of the scathing cynicism and the withering scorn that this blog will soon be full of, I just want to take a moment to acknowledge that there is one politician who I genuinely admire.

Kemi Badenock.

Not for her staunch defence of the rights of women – proper ones, the ones with vaginas and ovaries,  not penises and delusions – although in this day and age, its an almost heretical belief and admirable enough as that is, though, it isn’t that. In fact it hasn’t got anything to do with politics whatsoever, and is something that I only discovered by accident, when searching the internet, trying to find a speech that she’d made. 

As the BBC puts it,

‘Born in Wimbledon, south London, to parents of Nigerian origin, the 44-year-old grew up in the US and Nigeria, where her psychology professor mother had lecturing jobs.

She returned to the UK at the age of 16, and studied for her A-levels at a college in south London while working at a branch of McDonald’s.

After completing a degree in computer systems engineering at Sussex University, she developed a career as a systems analyst while working part-time to gain a second degree in Law from Birkbeck University’

That to me is way beyond impressive. 

A’ Levels, McAncne, two degrees and one of them from Birkbeck? I know exactly how difficult that is, because I got my politics degree there in 2002. On the first day of the course in 1998 there were nearly 60 students. Only 14 of us graduated and politics is a piece of piss compared to law. To do that and hold down a full-time job, its hard to put into words just how difficult that is. How focused and single minded one needs to be. How ruthless, selfish and indefatigable.

That’s why she has my respect, because I’ve walked in shoes she has, and I know how uncomfortable they can be. That’s why she alone will called by her name on this blog, and not as every other politician is treated. They deserve me using some arcane cultural reference known only to me, a sly reference to a long forgotten misdeed of theirs or just some peculiar bit of devilment on my part that I think they’re deserving of, to mock them.

She doesn’t deserve that. But what she does deserve massive respect for is never mentioning it, especially how in this day and age where politicians are always searching  to have an emotional backstory. Something that humanises them, makes them seem just like one of us – like they were on the fucking ‘X Factor’ and they were doing it for their nan who had died of cancer – or else some other thing that makes them ‘relatable’. 

I bet that you never knew that about her, but I bet you could tell me what Plonkers dad did for a living, couldn’t you? 

*****************************************************************

It just occurred to me that Plonker is just like Willy Clinton, inasmuch as he tells his own version of the truth, according to what he understands the truth to be.

When Willy Clinton denied that had had ‘sexual relations’ with Monica Lewinsky, he was sort of telling the truth. I mean to the average person, if you get a blowjob off someone, then that someone uses a cigar to masturbate with and then you smoke that cigar as you cover her dress in hundreds and thousands, that’s sex. 

But that definition of sex that had been agreed by his lawyers and those wanting to impeach him allowed him the necessary wriggle room to claim that sex had never actually happened.  

That’s what Plonker is doing, not the cigar thing – he doesn’t seem that imaginative for one thing – but over Brexit. I recall him  just as the election campaign was nearing its close, saying that under Labour government Britain wouldn’t rejoin the E.U.

What he didn’t say however, was that Labour had been conducting secret talks with the EU about closer co-operation on a wide range of issues. Or that one of the first things that the new Foreign Secretary, OnTheLam would do, was to hold face to face talks with EU leaders to signal a reset in relations.

So whilst he wasn’t lying, neither was he being completely honest. Not for the first, and certainly not the last time , he was practising the political variant of Schrodinger’s cat. He had to keep his own party happy and not lie to the British people which he has done, although the British people have suffered the same indignity that befell Monica Lewinsky’s dress.

*****************************************************************