All manner of economic, social, cultural (not least, academic) and political good would be done if, between the secondary and the tertiary stages, there were universal non-military, but nevertheless uniformed, ranked and barracked National Service, doing good works while travelling around the country and beyond, and while meeting significantly broadening the range of one’s friends and acquaintances. For rather longer than one summer, of course.
As much as anything else, for those who went on to universities, it would drain the swamps of Marxism (including neoconservatism) and anarchism (including anarcho-capitalism), which the students would arrive far too worldly-wise to consider for one moment. Too bad for many of the lecturers, but then that generation is on the way out anyway.
Thursday, 6 September 2007
Soap Required
The increasingly potty-mouthed EastEnders was joined at least once last night by Coronation Street. The BBC's deal with EastEnders is that it can be as violent, gangster-ridden, drug-addled and sexually irresponsible as it likes, provided that nobody swears. That deal is no longer being adhered to. As for Corrie, it is a sign of just how far standards are slipping in this country. And I really do mean that.
If anyone thinks that this is a matter not worth bothering about, think back to when the then Prime Minister and the then Leader of the Opposition both called for "Deidre Rachid" to be released from prison.
Indeed, only in today's Northern Echo, and no doubt in comparable publications around the country, teenagers are exhorted to learn skills because, "If it wasn't for Sarah's encouragement to Jason to take over Charlie's business, he wouldn't be where he is today."
Now, I watch the soaps. I don't deny it. But the characters are not real. Have you got that? They are not real.
However, the actors and the writers are real. And soap is exactly what they need. Soap and water. To wash out their filthy mouths.
If anyone thinks that this is a matter not worth bothering about, think back to when the then Prime Minister and the then Leader of the Opposition both called for "Deidre Rachid" to be released from prison.
Indeed, only in today's Northern Echo, and no doubt in comparable publications around the country, teenagers are exhorted to learn skills because, "If it wasn't for Sarah's encouragement to Jason to take over Charlie's business, he wouldn't be where he is today."
Now, I watch the soaps. I don't deny it. But the characters are not real. Have you got that? They are not real.
However, the actors and the writers are real. And soap is exactly what they need. Soap and water. To wash out their filthy mouths.
Wednesday, 5 September 2007
Let's Have A Heated Debate?
The BBC could even bring back Mrs Merton to chair it.
Seriously, though, is the Leader of every party standing candidates to be given equal airtime in the course of this debate, should it ever happen? If not, why not? And what about Independent candidates?
Seriously, though, is the Leader of every party standing candidates to be given equal airtime in the course of this debate, should it ever happen? If not, why not? And what about Independent candidates?
"All The Talents": That Doesn't Mean You
Following the appointment of two Tory MPs and a Lib Dem MP to the Ministerial office in all but name and salary, we are once again being assured that this is about constructing "a government of all the talents". That was what was said when such office was conferred on Lib Dem peers, and when people were raised to the peerage specifically in order to be made Ministers in name and salary without having to join the Labour Party.
For Labour Party members, please note, do not have "talents", according to Gordon Brown. Consider, say, Kevan Jones MP. Whatever else one might say about him, he is certainly not without gifts. He has devoted his entire adult life to Labour and the GMB. He signed the "Blair Must Go" gizzajob letter.
And for what? Lib Dems and now Tories have been preferred to him. People who have never stood for election, or even exhibited any political tendencies in the ordinary sense, have been wafted into the parliamentary process and straight into government. And poor Kevan is not so much as a PPS or an Assistant Whip.
One example among so very, very many.
Those of you reading this and still in the Labour Party: WHY?
For Labour Party members, please note, do not have "talents", according to Gordon Brown. Consider, say, Kevan Jones MP. Whatever else one might say about him, he is certainly not without gifts. He has devoted his entire adult life to Labour and the GMB. He signed the "Blair Must Go" gizzajob letter.
And for what? Lib Dems and now Tories have been preferred to him. People who have never stood for election, or even exhibited any political tendencies in the ordinary sense, have been wafted into the parliamentary process and straight into government. And poor Kevan is not so much as a PPS or an Assistant Whip.
One example among so very, very many.
Those of you reading this and still in the Labour Party: WHY?
Is Brown Really The Heir To Thatcher?
Suggestions, please, as to how Brown stands in the tradition of the Single European Act, the Exchange Rate Mechanism, the Anglo-Irish Agreement, the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, the replacement of O-levels with GCSEs, the closure of so many grammar schools that there were not enough left at the end for the record ever to be equalled, the rise of Political Correctness, the massively increased welfare dependency of the 1980s, that decade's general moral chaos, and the key factor that was the erosion of patriarchal authority in working-class communities by the destruction of that authority's economic basis in the stockades of working-class male employment.
Blair did. And Cameron does. But Brown?
Blair did. And Cameron does. But Brown?
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