Meet the New Boss; Same as the Old Boss
When Mick Jagger was first nominated for a knighthood, the ‘Keeper of the Flame’, i.e. Keith Richards, reacted with disgust; his response was that for his fellow Stone to accept such an award would be to feed from the hand the band bit with such venom in the 60s. During the period when they were pursued all the way to prison in what appeared to be a carefully coordinated operation by the Ruling Class Ltd and their affiliated companies (Scotland Yard plc and Fleet Street Inc.) to put those long-haired yobs firmly in their place, the Rolling Stones were the antithesis of the British establishment.
Keith’s error forty years after the infamous Redlands bust, trial and sentencing was to perceive the contemporary powers-that-be as the same league of gentlemen that had once made his life hell, the same old-boy network that Peter Cook had mercilessly mocked when naming his ground-breaking comedy club The Establishment. Perhaps understandably distracted by other matters to pay too much attention to the changing of the guard back in Blighty, Keith Richards clearly had no idea that those who had put the name of his Glimmer Twin forward for a gong had done so because they had been on the right side of the barricades in 1968; he hadn’t realised they had now crossed over to the other side.
Long before Chris Huhne became yet another celebrity ex-convict-for-hire as a ‘Newsnight’ pundit, back in the days when he was running against Ming Campbell for leadership of the Lib-Dems, a photo emerged of him participating in a rowdy early 70s student demo, as well as an article from the same period penned for a student magazine in which he’d advocated the decriminalisation of various Class-A substances favoured by youngsters of the era – not exactly a shock, but embarrassing enough to elicit a retrospective apology. Like many 70s students from an affluent middle-class background, he went through a ‘Long-haired Lefty’ phase at university to annoy his parents and then knuckled down to the task of travelling towards respectability.
Huhne is hardly unique; whilst some of his contemporaries also turned-on and tuned-in, but never came back once they’d dropped-out, the vast majority showed their true colours and eventually made mummy and daddy proud by ascending to the top of the tree in classic careerist fashion – fulfilling their destiny after a dalliance with the dark side. One could point out most indulge in brief lightweight rebellion during adolescence, none more so than posh kids – just ask Jarvis Cocker about the Greek girl who had a thirst for knowledge; equally, if one’s view of the world stays frozen at eighteen, that doesn’t say much about intellectual development or a capacity to learn from mistakes. But discovering that today’s middle-management mannequins in suits sucking up to the same old symbols of power and privilege once professed to hold an opposing stance somehow makes them even more despicable.
David Cameron (without a hint of embarrassment) claims he slept overnight on the streets of London in the summer of 1981 in order to have a front-row seat for Charles and Di’s wedding carriage, not even pretending he was in the capital to nip down to the Blitz and hobnob with Steve Strange, so it’s safe to say he never posed as a radical; it is those that did who deserve the most contempt, and Chris Huhne’s journey is mirrored by many belonging to his generation who now hold public office or positions of power. They were no doubt unaware of it in the heady days of free higher education, toking with Trotsky beneath the watchful eyes of Che, yet hindsight makes so many of them seem reactionaries in radical’s clothing, as though all they ever really wanted deep down was to be Head Boy.
In 1973, DC Comics published a short-lived, non-superhero title called ‘Prez’, which depicted the First Teenage President of the US as a groovy dude, tapping into a cultural blip when it was thought that youth had all the answers; Prez was no doubt the kind of political figurehead the baby boomers envisaged as their leader whenever they seized power. They did seize power in the end, but resembling watered-down clones of their parents once they achieved it rather than the cool guitarist in a prog-rock band. If this similarity to their forefathers were restricted solely to looks, they could perhaps be forgiven; most, on the whole, shed the visual trimmings of the rebel once they bypass thirty, especially if seeking a respectable position within society. But evidence that the youthful fads of the current political class were precisely that is blatant in the manner by which they have been smoothly assimilated into the establishment and have embraced its inertia. For one-time student radicals, the goals at the end of the revolution are remarkably similar to those before it; many no doubt cherish their membership of exclusive golf-clubs, just like daddy did.
If challenged, they would most likely claim they have stayed loyal to their ‘radical roots’ and have merely modified the less palatable and unrealisable elements of their original blueprint for change to fit the twenty-first century model; they would point to the minimum wage, paternity leave or civil partnerships as proof they have been progressive social reformers true to the spirit of their idealistic adolescence. But does that really compare to Labour Home Secretary Roy Jenkins in the late 60s – legalising abortion, decriminalising homosexuality, reforming the archaic divorce laws and abolishing the death penalty, acts that improved (and in the case of the latter, saved) thousands of lives in this country? A bald and bespectacled, portly intellectual who looked more like Arthur Lowe than Arthur Brown, Roy Jenkins hardly inhabited a ‘crazy world’, but the social legislation he oversaw affected far more people than anything eventually achieved by those who once saw his head as a prime target for a student egg.
It’s hard not to respect those who stick to their political guns, whichever side they dress on; and whilst many who hold high office today are understandably keen to keep quiet about youthful indiscretions – such as Speaker of the House John Bercow’s early 80s membership of the horrible far-right Monday Club or Harriet Harman’s blind-eye endorsement of the P.I.E around the same time – those who sacrificed whatever principles they had in the rush to grab the reins of power are worse than those who were prematurely politically menopausal from the moment they first lectured a party conference as a fresh-faced sixteen-year-old.
It would perhaps be too obvious to evoke ‘Animal Farm’ and the manner in which the pigs who lead the revolution eventually morph into caricatures of human rulers whilst the rest of the farmyard beasts regress back to the oppressive state they were kept under before the farmer was ousted; that the pigs’ leader is called Napoleon could also evoke the image of the former First Consul of France crowning himself Emperor and taking an Austrian bride to establish a dynasty, just as his Bourbon predecessor had. One could even think of Howard Kirk, anti-hero of Malcolm Bradbury’s ‘The History Man’, who relishes his role as the Radical’s Radical, a 70s university lecturer gleefully exploiting the Permissive Society for his own ends, and whose wry obituary reads – ‘He voted Conservative at the 1979 General Election’.
So, perhaps Keith Richards had got it right, despite himself. Making Mick Jagger a Sir was not a belated apology by one establishment for past persecution; it was a reward from another establishment for composing the soundtrack of opposition, a soundtrack now replayed in air guitar-fashion by trendy dads in jeans…who just happen to run the country.
Petunia Winegum
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April 9, 2015 at 9:53 am -
I think Steve Coogan’s “Saxondale” is quite a wry observation in this vein. As far as the “Rolling Stones” are concerned I don’t believe that they were ever really that anti-establishment. They were nothing more than rebellious youths, like the vast majority of young people, it’s part of growing up. I’m sure we nearly all did “daft things”, wore “daft clothes”, said “daft things” and believed “daft things”, I know I did, and sometimes still do.
As far as Mick Jagger’s knighthood goes, I thought he got it for doing something out of the ordinary with a Mars bar.-
April 9, 2015 at 9:59 am -
It’s interesting that the Swinging 60s were tolerated by the powers-that-be up until around 1967, and then there appears to be a concerted effort to cut its main protagonists down to size. There’s certainly a Yewtree feel to the drug busts of the Stones, John & Yoko and others that gathered pace in the late 60s.
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April 10, 2015 at 2:17 pm -
Andrew Loog Oldham’s excellent book “Stoned” is a good read. His view is that Jagger & co were quiet, polite middle class boys who wouldn’t say boo to a goose. He invented their whole persona and manipulated the media into making them “the band you love to hate”, “the dirtiest band in the world” and inspiring such headlines as “would you let your daughter marry a Stone?”. He was way ahead of the game, but as the band got rich and famous (notorious) the Establishment had to put them in their place.
By the late 1960s Alan Klein had moved in, Oldham was shunted out and history was rewritten to erase him.
Listen to the soundtrack to the “Altamont” film. As the event descends into an orgy of violence you can hear the frightened, middle class boy from Dartford pleading with the crowd. Nothing was the same after that.
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April 9, 2015 at 10:22 am -
The bust at the country house also led to a court case and draconian establishment response (Richards and Jagger were sent to prison, but later freed on appeal) which prompted the then editor of The Times, William Rees-Mogg, to write his famous ‘Who breaks a butterfly on a wheel?’ editorial in the Stones’ defence. (Rees-Mogg’s children Annunziata and Jacob would grow up to become, not rock stars, but Tory MPs).
http://www.thelondonmagazine.co.uk/people-places/london-life/lord-of-the-manor.html
Page knew his stuff and was not just splashing cash for the sake of a status symbol, Press adds. “Like mine, Jimmy’s taste was always Gothic Revival and the Arts and Crafts period. He had the most refined architectural taste and interest in houses of any of my clients.” “In that era it was the thing to do to show off your bling in the form of bricks, with a country estate,” says music journalist Chris Roberts. “In later decades there were more tax exiles who would buy somewhere in Switzerland. The Phil Collins and Sting generation tended to buy places abroad, rather than Richmond.” He puts the 1960s and 1970s musicians’ love of country estates down to a mix of nouveau riche social aspiration (“Mick Jagger, for example, was never some oik from the streets, he always had upper class pretensions”) and a genuine creative need to get away from it all. -
April 9, 2015 at 10:26 am -
Ah yes, Roy Jenkins the person who said that “a permissive society is a civilized society.” I didn’t accept that then and 50 years on I think that I have been proved correct.
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April 9, 2015 at 11:11 am -
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/personal-view/3586178/Roy-Jenkins-made-Britain-a-far-less-civilised-country.html
It is, though, unfair to blame one man for all of Britain’s modern ills. Others, too, must take their share of responsibility for the nation we have become, not least the economic freedom junkies of the 1980s. Nevertheless, the Britain of 2003 is very much the Britain that Jenkins always wanted. The self-restraint and taboos of the 1950s have all gone. The “archaic” laws against which Jenkins railed have been abolished. -
April 9, 2015 at 12:43 pm -
And the same Roy Jenkins ( that “bald and bespectacled, portly intellectual who looked more like Arthur Lowe than Arthur Brown”) seemed jolly keen to sample the delights of the said “permissive society is a civilized society”, particularly with other blokes’ wives.
Wespect, Woy !
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April 9, 2015 at 10:27 am -
“infamous Redlands bust, trial and sentencing ………….. carefully coordinated operation by the Ruling Class Ltd and their affiliated companies (Scotland Yard plc and Fleet Street Inc.)”
OTOH, William Rees-Mogg wrote his scathing ‘breaking a butterfly on a wheel’ editorial in The (then excellent) Times excoriating that court action. And he was firmly in The Establishment camp and Fleet Street Inc.
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April 9, 2015 at 10:31 am -
Bugger. Moor Larkin posted as I was typing. Sorry.
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April 9, 2015 at 10:36 am -
We can be corroborative witnesses so MUST be believed…
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April 9, 2015 at 12:20 pm -
Well, Labour brought in a whole bunch of new “sex crimes” and speech crimes we didn’t have before. Only on homosexuality, the left’s pet cause (the championing of a discriminated against minority tactic of the left, which has replaced trying to awaken an often uncooperative and unreliable proletarian masses to their oppression), can I see criminal law having being really liberalised. We still have the ridiculous Obscene publications act, and it gets used at times too. While many of the public in some ways may have moved on, a Devil’s alliance of puritan hysterics and feminist extremists have had their favourite sexual agendas translated into idiotic laws in the past few years, principally by Labour. Cameron has said porn which doesn’t conform to UK age standards will be legally blocked if he wins the election- Labour is certain to do the same. It was that posturing far left 60’s radical Jack Straw who passed the legislation in the Criminal justice and immigration act 2008, which is unique in the western world in that it criminalises privately possessing certain purely adult consensual “porn”.
It’s interesting to reflect on the left/right political positions then and now in relation to something like the Oz trial 44 years ago.
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April 9, 2015 at 3:07 pm -
Obscene Publications Act? – does that mean you might get done for publishing dirty things, like?
Michty mei! Where I live you can get investigated and *do time* for singing a song.
And as the man says in the article, i don’t live in Russia nor Saudi neither. I’m just wondering after reading the whole article if it’s worth getting my things together and heading back doon the road tae England?“If you had to guess which country in the world recently sent a young man to jail for the crime of singing an offensive song, I’m guessing most of you would plumb for Putin’s Russia or maybe Saudi Arabia. Nope, it’s Scotland.
Last month, a 24-year-old fan of Rangers, the largely Protestant soccer team, was banged up for four months for singing “The Billy Boys,” an old anti-Catholic ditty that Rangers fans have been singing for years, mainly to annoy fans of Celtic, the largely Catholic soccer team. He was belting it out as he walked along a street to a game. He was arrested, found guilty of songcrimes—something even Orwell failed to foresee—and sent down.”
http://reason.com/archives/2015/04/06/scotland-the-brave-new-world-
April 9, 2015 at 3:40 pm -
Sounds like what was being discussed on yesterday’s post.
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April 9, 2015 at 4:18 pm -
If you “publish” it, Henry – the internet counts as that too.
Oh I know. The great SNP “sectarian” hate law. Possibly if the Scots fish, Fatty and Caviar, are propping up nice Mr Miliband after the election, we can expect the arrival of sectarian hate crimes in England too. I would love to see some SNPer ranting against the English get prosecuted under New Labour’s “race” hate laws.-
April 9, 2015 at 4:52 pm -
Aye, Zippgun, Scotland is definitely not the same country I moved to about 45 years ago. Even in the quiet backwater where I live there is a definite change in the atmosphere and especially from the “younger” set. The locals of my age often do not quite know what to say about things, they are as bewildered as I sometimes am.
In all honesty, my greatest and deepest regret is that after retirement I chose to settle here in the country which had given me work for some 40 years (30 years in oil) and which seemed like a great place when I finally called it a day. My instinct said “go home” – back to England, but my heart said, “I love it here, and here I will stay.” My heart was wrong for possibly the only time in my life.-
April 10, 2015 at 11:28 am -
England now isn’t the country I grew up in, Henry – the Jack Straw crowd have had their way with it – God help us. The tragedy has been that the Tories, SNP and Labour have had basically the same agenda, with a few minor differences. It’s really now too late for that agenda to be wiped away, even if we had someone unsympathetic to it in political power.
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April 9, 2015 at 4:54 pm -
My apologies, I did not manage to get in yesterday and will try to check in future before posting in case I am a day or two late.
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April 9, 2015 at 10:42 am -
Talking of 60’s counter culture and politicians, I watched the “Free For All” episode of The Prisoner for the first time last night.
Nearly 50 years after its conception and it’s just about come to fruition-
April 9, 2015 at 10:54 am -
Especially the part where the journalists simply make up all the candidate’s quotes for themselves.
Reassuring really that nothing much has changed in all these years… -
April 9, 2015 at 11:42 am -
The whole system of the village is akin to a blueprint for modern Britain.
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April 9, 2015 at 11:55 am -
Yes. I watched the series when it was first broadcast in 1967/8,. It was on at peak time on ITV.
It’s amazing how prescient McGoohan was. ” The Prisoner” is as important a statement about totalitarianism/statist manipulation as “1984”.-
April 9, 2015 at 12:03 pm -
I first saw it actually in 1984 when Channel 4 repeated it, then again about ten years later, and most recently a couple of years ago. It definitely grows more relevant with each decade. What seemed far-fetched in the early 80s now looks indistinguishable from a contemporary documentary.
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April 9, 2015 at 12:24 pm -
Even more so in the 60’s when we were, or thought we were, getting more “free” and would continue to do so.
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April 9, 2015 at 10:48 am -
Are you sure that’s Chris Huhne and not Charlie Gilmour?
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April 9, 2015 at 11:42 am -
Yep, the Huhne himself circa 1973. Mind you, Charlie Gilmour seems to be upholding the proud tradition of rich, privileged kids indulging in a ‘rebel’ phase.
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April 9, 2015 at 3:12 pm -
I was reading somewhere last week where Gilmour has seen the error of his ways and has repented. I wish I could find the link again as I wasn’t quite sure how to take it.
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April 9, 2015 at 3:45 pm -
Otis Ferry is another example. There should be some law that prevents rock stars from siring offspring. 20 years from now, we’ll probably have to endure the inevitable media careers of Chris & Gwyneth’s brats.
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April 9, 2015 at 6:00 pm -
If there’d been a law preventing all the pop fraternity from engaging in any fornicative activities, whatever would Operation Yewtree find to do with its time 40 years later ?
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April 9, 2015 at 11:00 am -
This article highlights why the whole “Savile groomed the nation” malarky is such a load of bollocks.
As highlighted in articles by Anna & Moor, in the 1960’s “pop culture” was tolerated – until it ‘went too far’. When the ‘long hairs’ got too big for their boots, there was a concerted effort to bring them down, and it wasn’t humility and decency that saved the day – it was cold hard cash.
Regardless of how edgy their music or lifestyles, the majority of rock stars became highly profitable brands and were granted ‘superstardom’ by the establishment. It went full circle, and ended up with the 1960s ‘enemy’ becoming the new ‘rock aristocracy’ and the reaction was ‘punk’ – and we know now how that was also usurped by the modern establishment.
http://retardedkingdom.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/the-auntie-fascists.htmlBe Seeing Yew.
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April 9, 2015 at 11:09 am -
“They were nothing more than rebellious youths,”
One thing that’s easy to overlook but is made clear by Richards’ fascinating autobiography (“Life”) is that the Stones worked very, very hard.
Characteristically, the photo at the back of the book shows Richards’ library.Richards’ had it right too about the knighthood: “And I told Mick, ‘It’s a fucking paltry honour, anyway. If you’re into this shit, hang on for the peerage.’” “Lord Jagger” has a real swagger.
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April 9, 2015 at 11:19 am -
“Harriet Harman’s blind-eye endorsement of the P.I.E around the same time”
You are right to have a go at Harman’s unprincipled expediency, Petunia, but that does not mean there were no good reasons for supporting PIE. Roy Jenkins, whom you apparently admire, and rightly so, once said he thought PIE’s legal proposals for reforming the age of consent laws were very good although “politically it hasn’t a chance in hell”.
I was chair of PIE in the Harman years referred to (late 1970s) and learned Jenkins’ opinion through a senior civil service source.
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April 9, 2015 at 11:54 am -
* I was a regular participant in meetings of the NCCL’s gay rights sub-committee in the late 1970s, representing PIE. None of the trio ever attended a meeting of that committee during the sessions I attended and I have no direct evidence of what they thought about PIE. The talk reaching me at the time, though, suggested that they were hostile to PIE, not supportive. To that extent, current Labour leader Ed Miliband is right to support his deputy, as he has done, against any suggestion that she (or indeed the other two) ever actively worked to promote “paedophile rights”. *
https://tomocarroll.wordpress.com/tag/roy-jenkins/Gay Rights and the age of consent were natural bed-fellows, but even the “Gay Left” never went further than suggesting 14 as a new age of consent: http://jimcannotfixthis.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/left-behind.html .. Actual Paedophilia, meaning pre-pubescence, was noted as being opposed in particular by feminists, into which group Harman certainly belongs.
On the basis that she would have been opposed to child sex, I cannot believe the likes of Roy Jenkins would have been in favour of PIE’s more ambitious proposals in the field.
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April 9, 2015 at 12:46 pm -
I believe the age of consent up until the 1880’s was 13 (it had only been raised to that age in 1875). In Europe today it varies between 13 and 18. Edgar Allan Poe and Jerry Lee Lewis both legally married their cousins in the USA at 13. Since New Labour, a “child” in images can be defined as someone aged 16/17, over the age of consent.
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April 9, 2015 at 1:22 pm -
“On the basis that she [Harriet Harman] would have been opposed to child sex, I cannot believe the likes of Roy Jenkins would have been in favour of PIE’s more ambitious proposals in the field.”
The Left was no more monolithic then than now. There was and remains, in particular, an authoritarian/libertarian rift (not many of the latter left now, though), with Jenkins famously on the permissive side.
Another relevant comparison would be with former Labour shadow cabinet member Bryan Gould. We invited him to become a PIE honorary vice-president. He declined, but wrote saying he had “a good deal of sympathy for your objectives”. This was publicised on BBC’s The World At One on 27 Feb. last year. See extract from his letter here:
You are right about Gay Left’s collective view, but they were at least open to discussion, not least as evidenced by them running one or two articles of my own.
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April 9, 2015 at 1:49 pm -
I had to laugh at that “trigger warning”. What complete hysterics these people are.
“my wife in particular reacts badly to it.”….. Was Gould’s wife a feminist I wonder…
Issue 5, July 1977
The cover of this issue had a picture of a young boy (maybe around 8) in shorts on the cover.Issues No. 6, August 1977
This had on the cover a picture of a young boy with their hands over their face.Issue No. 8. No date given.
The cover featured a picture of a boy with something like a coke bottle, in swimming trunks.Roy Walker used to suggest that the best way to figure the answer to any puzzle was to “Say what you see”
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April 9, 2015 at 3:39 pm -
Wonder how the first piece of Sex Pistols merchandise would go down now – the T-shirt of the naked post-pubescent boy smoking a fag? Can’t see that attaining ‘iconic’ status like Jamie Reid’s ‘God Save the Queen’ image, somehow.
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April 9, 2015 at 6:02 pm -
No problem with the naked post-pubescent boy – but smoking a fag ! That’s really beyond the pale.
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April 9, 2015 at 11:44 am -
“A bald and bespectacled, portly intellectual who looked more like Arthur Lowe than Arthur Brown” (Roy Jenkins). I like that!
Agree with Alex on the Stones. They were principally young hedonists, not radicals of any political stripe with a Harman style socio political agenda, though they may have been mistaken as such by “oldsters” in the 60’s. Even Dylan had a tendency at times to dissociate himself from the usually middle class university radicals who hung on his every croak, though undoubtedly “political” in many ways, it was with a small p, he was not some partisan communist lining folkie like Pete Seeger.
Pop/rock is and was a thoroughly capitalist business, which succeeds or fails in the market, unlike the public sector where leftism flourishes. In the UK in the 60’s it was the Labour government which was most fervently determined to sink the pirate radio stations (which played the Stones etc) which were giving the young people what they wanted; that is, lots of pop music on commercial radio, like they had in the US. Labour defended the monopoly of the BBC, which was not giving them what they wanted. In truth, radio in the UK was dying until the pirates spectacularly revived it in 1964. It was the pirates which were in a large part responsible for the success of the creative explosion in Brit pop in the mid 60’s, it’s doubtful it would have happened if they hadn’t been there. Future “radical” left icon Anthony Wedgewood Benn ( later “Tony Benn”…”He immatures with age” – Harold Wilson) lead the assault on radio piracy as postmaster general. Labour luvvie Richard Curtis in his film “The boast that rocked” (2009) altered this truth to suit his politics and misled the ignorant into thinking stuffy, reactionary old school Tory types were the ones who scuppered the pirates, though Curtis knew full well it wasn’t true. It was “radical” free marketeers who were the commercial wizards behind the pirates – men like Jocelyn Stevens and Major Oliver Smedley (Caroline), Roy Bates (Radio Essex) and the American entrepreneurs who created Radio London, out to provide an alternative to the seemingly sacrosanct and eternal British monopoly of the BBC. It was a Tory government, in the teeth of much statist/ pro BBC opposition, which had brought the UK commercial TV in 1955, and later land based commercial radio.
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April 9, 2015 at 12:03 pm -
What has changed for the worse in these supposedly “enlightened times” is that in the 60s, 70s & even the 80s & 90s the level of intelligent articulation these young long-hairs could muster in their music was often astounding, and that then equated to lots of young people putting those ‘voices’ at the top of the pop charts. Which is why most of it still sounds so potent, fresh and indeed often relevant all these years later, and most ‘pop music’ of today vacuous consumerist nonsense made for imbeciles.
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April 9, 2015 at 12:17 pm -
I found myself listening to Steppenwolf over and over again a while back… Think I’m over it now…
“And though the past has it’s share of injustice
Kind was the spirit in many a way
But it’s protectors and friends have been sleeping
Now it’s a monster and will not obeyThe spirit was freedom and justice
And it’s keepers seemed generous and kind
It’s leaders were supposed to serve the country
But now they don’t pay it no mind
‘Cause the people grew fat and got lazy
Now their vote is a meaningless jokeThey babble about law and order
But it’s all just an echo of what they’ve been told
Yeah, there’s a monster on the loose
It’s got our heads into a noose
And it just sits there watchin’ “ -
April 9, 2015 at 12:38 pm -
The 60’s.
From –
“Emily tries , but misunderstands, she’s often inclined to borrow somebody’s dreams until tomorrow…” – The Pink Floyd
To –
“Yummy yummy yummy, I ‘ve got love in my tummy…” – The Ohio ExpressThey couldn’t write things like that now!
The point you make seems sound to this greying 60’s “survivor”, though I’d have to confess I no longer listen to current pop music, unless forced to, hating just about everything I hear, so I’m no expert on it. The 60’s and to an extent the 70’s, seems to me to be the great Baroque era of pop music.
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April 9, 2015 at 12:54 pm -
Let’s take March 1980, as currently revisited by BBC Four when the censors allow:
Straight in at #1 on the last broadcast, The Jam ‘Going Underground’ – written by 21 year old Paul Weller“Something’s happening here today
A show of strength with your boy’s brigade
And I’m so happy and you’re so kind
You want more money – of course I don’t mind
To buy nuclear textbooks for atomic crimes
And the public gets what the public wants
but I want nothing this society’s got”“Some people might get some pleasure out of hate
Me, I’ve enough already on my plate
People might need some tension to relax
Me, I’m too busy dodging between the flak
What you see is what you get
You’ve made your bed, you’d better lie in it
You choose your leaders and place your trust
As their lies wash you down and their promises rust
You’ll see kidney machines replaced by rockets and guns
And the public wants what the public gets
but I don’t get what this society wants”“We talk and we talk until my head explodes
I turn on the news and my body froze
These braying sheep on my TV screen
Make this boy shout, make this boy scream!”Making it’s way to #4 is the debut single of the fully-formed UB40 – also in their early 20s – a comment on African famine wrapped up in a heavily-playlisted reggae pop song.
“Ivory Madonna dying in the dust,
Waiting for the manna coming from the west.
Barren is her bosom, empty as her eyes,
Death a certain harvest scattered from the skies.Skin and bones is creeping, doesn’t know he’s dead.
Ancient eyes are peeping, from his infant head.
Politician’s argue, sharpening their knives.
Drawing up their bargains, trading baby lives.”And a bit further down the charts at #13 are Canadians Rush – a little bit older (mid-20s)
“Invisible airwaves crackle with life
Bright antennae bristle with the energy
Emotional feedback on timeless wavelength
Bearing a gift beyond price, almost freeAll this machinery making modern music
Can still be open hearted
Not so coldly charted
It’s really just a question of your honesty, yeah
Your honesty!
One likes to believe in the freedom of music
But glittering prizes and endless compromises
Shatter the illusion of integrity, yeah”Also from Canada, Martha & The Muffins:
“I know it’s out of fashion, and a trifle uncool” – perhaps the only use of the word ‘trifle’ in a pop song?
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April 9, 2015 at 1:02 pm -
Great riff and chorus was what made it a hit though…
Weller was acclaimed as an astonishingly young prodigy in the NME, as he was only 19 when he first became lauded. Gary Glitter was singing in Clubs at 15… ditto Lulu and 15 was the age of the fictitious Nathan in “Queer as Folk”.
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April 9, 2015 at 1:02 pm -
Admit it Moor, you were “born to be wild”.
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April 9, 2015 at 1:41 pm -
Born to run maybe…
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April 9, 2015 at 11:17 pm -
Unlike me who was “Born to be mild”…
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April 9, 2015 at 12:28 pm -
“Pile all of your guns and watch them explode into space”- Steppenwolf
I bet a young, hairy Tone sang along to that in the late 60’s.-
April 10, 2015 at 2:25 pm -
As a four time watcher of “Easy Rider” I’m sure the lyric is
“Fire all of your guns at one and
Explode into space.
And like a trues nature’s child
We were born, born to be wild
Fly so high, never touch the sky”but it was 45 years ago
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April 9, 2015 at 1:29 pm -
Chris Huhne “then knuckled down to the task of travelling towards respectability”. Let me know when he gets there.
David Bowie was offered a knighthood in 2003 by Blair, ever hungry to associate himself with someone else’s intelligence, or glamour, or fame. Bowie declined – no fool he.
It’s a pity young people no longer have the space to explore, rebel, challenge, be challenged back, but are coerced into accepting the status quo because everything they do will be captured digitally as possible evidence for a later date. Instead, it’s all knuckle down, think of your career, you need to get on the property ladder, take out a student loan bollocks. Where will new ideas come from if not in that space where there is challenge? The future will be a pale ever fading facsimile of the past, with just more technology. Ugh. I’m glad I’m on the edge of “old”.
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April 9, 2015 at 3:44 pm -
April 9, 2015 at 6:12 pm -
Agree with much of that. As a teenager in the 1960s I explored, rebelled, challenged, demonstrated – all the things you did as any 1960s teenager with a brain and a heart. Then, as most did, I knuckled down, got a career, got on the property ladder etc. But it was actually in my career-phase when I was most involved in ‘new ideas’, most of the earlier rebellion part was merely peer-group auto-repetition.
Reflecting back as a trainee old-timer, I’m glad I did both, all that history is part of what I am – whether the next generations get the chance to amass a version of that mix seems unlikely now.
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April 9, 2015 at 4:33 pm -
But does that really compare to Labour Home Secretary Roy Jenkins in the late 60s – legalising abortion, decriminalising homosexuality, reforming the archaic divorce laws and abolishing the death penalty, acts that improved (and in the case of the latter, saved) thousands of lives in this country?
Abolishing the death penalty saved thousands of lives, did it? I don’t know about that. Legalising abortion has killed about seven million.
(It was David Steel who was ‘responsible’ for the Abortion Act 1967.)
Decriminalising homosexuality was an act of cultural sabotage. Reforming the ‘archaic’ divorce laws was also an act of subversion to weaken the family to destroy our culture.
As for the “counterculture,” it’s almost always the Establishment that runs it as well: The Controlled Music Industry and “Counter-culture”.
A good read apart from that.
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April 9, 2015 at 5:06 pm -
David Steel put forward a private members’ bill in parliament re abortion; but the decision ultimately rested with the Home Secretary. The long-term physical and mental damage done to a generation of women by backstreet abortionists urgently required a change to that law. The divorce laws as they stood required the employment of private detectives to observe one of the couple cavorting with a co-respondent, an expensive, protracted and ridiculous state of affairs; stopping men being sent to prison for their sexuality sounds like a good idea to me; and abolishing the death penalty meant no more cases like that of Derek Bentley and Timothy Evans. So I shall have to disagree with you on those points.
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April 9, 2015 at 8:17 pm -
I didn’t disagree with the abolitionism of the (adult) death penalty, but to replace it with a legalised death penalty for the unborn is not something I celebrate. But letting off the guilty and punishing the innocent seems to be the in-thing. And what of the millions of women who have had a ‘legal’ abortion and spent years/decades crippled with guilt?
Our society and culture are disintegrating because the family and morals are been continually eroded.
It is all part of a package to control the population via sexualising, dumbing down, creating fear, using ‘equality’ and human rights to steal every one of our freedoms.
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April 9, 2015 at 8:26 pm -
The unborn are a bit like the undead. They cannot be killed.
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April 9, 2015 at 10:34 pm -
Another thing I read this week and I cannot find a link again, is that “chop to pieces” abortions, where the child is beyond a certain age, and in order to abort such children, apparently they used to allow these children to be cut apart into kind of like little meat joints, by “doctors” using internal scissors/blades on the child, and then for the remnants to be sucked out by a “vacuum” machine – (I definitely did not say “vacuum cleaner” because that phrase is not allowed by some proponents of “human rights”)
Anyhoo, it seems one or two States in the US are finding this practice revolting and are attempting to change their laws accordingly.
With great opposition to face …-
April 10, 2015 at 1:15 am -
Henry, according to “windsock” why not chop up babies in the womb and suck them out? Apparently, they are akin to the dead, which is about the most stupid thing someone could say, but that’s a blog comment for you.
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April 10, 2015 at 9:15 am -
If you want to get emotional about this – whatever way abortion is performed is never pretty, I’m not going to argue that. But many are naturally “aborted”, i.e. miscarried, in the very early weeks of pregnancy anyway. If your God is so munificent and “pro-life”, why would he do that to many women who want those potential humans? We have free will, and if a woman does not want to be pregnant it is her choice. Making difficult, horrible choices is the price of adulthood.
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April 10, 2015 at 7:45 pm -
“We have free will, and if a woman does not want to be pregnant it is her choice.”
Excluding rape cases, where a woman has unprotected sex then she has already ‘chosen’ the risk of becoming pregnant, that’s the ‘Free Will’ bit.Whether a sperm fertilizes a egg is something a woman has no mental control over- more’s the pity (ask any barren couple).
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April 9, 2015 at 8:25 pm -
Decriminalising my sexuality was “an act of cultural sabotage” – well thank fuck I got something right. I suppose in your view I’m so degraded by fancying other men and wanting to have consensual sex with them, I am not not worth the oxygen I breathe and do not deserve the same respect of my individuality that you would claim for yourself.
Hang on to your pearls, Blanche, but people have been having gay sex since , I don’t know, Homo Sapiens evolved, and there was homosexual culture even when it was illegal. What did it actually achieve in making a common cultural activity by making it illegal? Oh, only ending the careers, marriages, and even lives of those who go caught. If course, it didn’t count if you did it at public school or buggered a butler at your weekend retreat.
Cultural sabotage, my arse. I think that’s apt.
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April 10, 2015 at 1:35 am -
Windsock – The homosexual agenda *is* subversion. “Gay marriage” was never legalised by any government or monarchy at any time of history anywhere in the world prior to the last few years of “PC gone mad”.
I think homosexual behaviour is disgusting, as does the majority of the human race, but we have all fallen short of the glory of God. I think abortion is terrible as well as lots of other things. I’m not casting the first stone, but I don’t glorify my sins, I try to stop them with God’s help.
And the Theory of Evolution is a lie, so we didn’t ‘evolve’; we were made by God with specific body parts which makes your “sexuality” a sin if acted upon and not tackled.
“Equality” was spread by the KGB to bring down the West. Is that good enough for you? https://youtu.be/5gnpCqsXE8g
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April 10, 2015 at 9:07 am -
Stewart, please see my reply to Contrary view re gay marriage.
And another thing that puzzles me – if our behaviour as homosexuals is so disgusting, why does it appear that many opponents spend so much time thinking about it?
Theory of evolution is a lie? Proof?
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April 10, 2015 at 11:39 am -
Yes, the abortion act. It was “sold” in 1967 on it being something which would only permit terminations in very limited circumstances. But the mental health proviso in the legislation meant that the law could be much more open ended and that is what is used to “justify” most abortions. We have seen that terminations are being carried out which are certainly illegal under the present law (the Telegraph did an investigation a while back). Predictably, while fiendish DLT was tried and convicted for touching an adult woman’s breast, nothing had been done about the many abortions being carried out in contravention of the law.
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April 9, 2015 at 6:40 pm -
Petunia; Abolishing the death penalty saved ‘thousands of lives’?
Maybe if it had been abolished in China, yes, but in the UK the noose was used almost frugally, often with fewer than a nine a year going to the gallows between 1900-64. In the eight years between the passing of the Homicide Act in 1957 and the last execution in 1964 the average dropped to under four UK executions per year with one known ‘didn’t do it’ over the Christie case.
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April 9, 2015 at 7:27 pm -
The sentence is supposed to read that thousands of lives were improved by the change in the homosexual, abortion and divorce laws, and lives saved by the abolition of the death penalty (in brackets) wasn’t meant to read as thousands there. I could’ve phrased it better, but I didn’t mean thousands in that specific case – though a good few innocent men have been saved from the gibbet as a consequence.
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April 9, 2015 at 8:26 pm -
What about the countless millions of us who didn’t vote for these changes (or get the chance to) but have found ourselves condemned to live in this dystopic “democracy” where none of us has a say in anything and we won’t get off the slippery slope until we crash into the pit?
There are reasons why:
a) There was a death penalty for the most heinous crimes;
b) Abortion was illegal;
c) Homosexual behaviour was illegal;
d) Divorce laws were strong.-
April 9, 2015 at 8:29 pm -
Pray, give us those “good” reasons. They will be quality judgements that basically boil down to either “I don’t like it” or “God said so.” Neither work, for most of society these days.
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April 10, 2015 at 1:42 am -
That’s why most societies are up the creek. Morals out the window to accommodate carnal pleasures and lust and greed and the “me” and “now” culture.
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April 9, 2015 at 9:16 pm -
a) There was a death penalty for the most heinous crimes; And a flawed justice system which imposed it on some innocents – and one dead innocent is one too many.
b) Abortion was illegal; Resulting in countless deaths from back-street processes which we don’t want to see again.
c) Homosexual behaviour was illegal; Ensuring that those so inclined were compelled to live miserable, deceptive or clandestine lives.
d) Divorce laws were strong. Meaning those discovering their incompatibility after marriage were compelled to live miserable family lives.We all have a say on these things. Go to see your MP, tell him/her how strongly you feel and that your future votes will depend on his/her actions. He/she should then take a view based on the accumulated input from various constituents on any topic. You may lose the argument, but that’s your channel to get your view into the forum, then it’s his/her job to evaluate the input and act accordingly. Your vote then follows those actions.
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April 10, 2015 at 1:44 am -
Except, Mudplugger, I’m up against millions of people who have fallen for the mind control over the decades.
When was the last time an MP represented his constituents anyway?
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April 10, 2015 at 9:22 am -
The main reason is the disastrous influence of organised religion.
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April 9, 2015 at 11:26 pm -
Mudplugger,
Is today dystopia, or is it actually just a different set of values? Today is different to 50, 100, 150 years ago. Humans seem to be able to cope with radically different societal norms, although rural Pakistan and urban Rotherham have a lot in common, or so it seems. The past was emphatically not a golden age in every respect, but sometimes our forefathers did things in a way that some people would prefer, and sometimes today’s norms may suit another bunch of people better than those of the past. But your assertions are as flawed as those you set out to challenge, so in turn, I challenge you.
Surely the answer to a flawed criminal justice system is to put the system right, isn’t it? There are absolutely clear cases deserving of the death penalty, such as the Drummer Rigby murderers. The loss of the ultimate penalty in that case is as offensive to some of us as its misapplication to an innocent person may be to you (and to me, by the way, before you ask). The flaws in the justice system still exist, and if you have been wrongly imprisoned for 20 years your life has been about as effectively f*cked as if you had been topped. Removing the death penalty was a way of preserving the injustices in the system but feeling better about them.
There were nowhere near as many deaths from backstreet abortion as there are from legal abortion, but in the former case it was mainly the mothers, who by and large had some measure of choice as to whether or not to become pregnant in the first place (OK, granted, not absolute choice in every case), but if you are so concerned about the innocent, how blameless is a foetus? (And I don’t mean William Hague). Answer: (and you may not like it) every single one! And before you say that are a meaningless collection of cells, then so is a mature human when we have billions to spare. Many cultures, through history and even today, hold life to be cheap. We pretend to be better than that, but we kill the helpless because they are simply inconvenient.
Plenty of homosexuals found it possible to carry on their lifestyle even when it was illegal, including many in the public eye. A proportion of those pilloried would have caused equivalent distaste if their public behaviour had been heterosexual. Having a view that homosexuality is not deserving of death or imprisonment (or any punishment) is not the same as believing that it is equal to marriage. And the idea that homosexuals can call each other buggers or queers, but heterosexuals who do the same are ‘hate crime criminals’, is frankly barking mad.
Finally, marriage is a contract, and if you aren’t prepared to honour the terms of a contract you shouldn’t enter into it. Breaches of contracts deserve penalties. Are the divorced happier than the unhappily married? I don’t frankly care, but I can tell you that the children of divorced parents (who may or may not be innocent, but probably are) are much more likely to be unhappy – up to the point of being mentally disturbed – than even those in an unhappily married household. So where’s your compassion for the innocent again?
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April 10, 2015 at 12:33 am -
I’m not going to get drawn into a pro-life debate, but the only comment I’ll make on the points raised is one on marriage. You need to remember that, unlike now, few couples lived together before they got married back in the 50s/60s due to the whole ‘living in sin’ stigma; the advantage now is that many who marry know each other inside out and have a pretty good idea if it will work or not because they’ve already effectively lived as man and wife. Before, it was a case of being dropped in the deep end and crossing fingers, hoping it worked out. Many couples were forced into shotgun marriages when the bride became pregnant; this happened frequently before the pill was widely available and most men had to visit the barbers in order to purchase some condoms. Otherwise, the child born out of wedlock was gifted with the charming label of ‘bastard’. And I think you’ll find just as many children who grew up in households where their parents were constantly bickering have suffered in ways they wouldn’t if their parents had split. I personally don’t believe in marriage at all, but I’m fortunate in a way my parents and grandparents’ generation weren’t.
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April 10, 2015 at 1:52 am -
Oh come on Petunia, “Contrary view” is right. Our society has been re-engineered into a steaming mess in 50 years.
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April 10, 2015 at 11:44 am -
I’m very personally unsure about the abortion issue, but I like Ronald Reagan’s neat reply to the abortion on demand crowd –
“I notice everyone in favor of abortion has already been born.”-
April 10, 2015 at 12:39 pm -
The reverse of this is now in place. People want to die, but are not allowed to. I think there is at least a consistency here, even if it does seem like quicksand rather than custard sometimes.
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April 10, 2015 at 9:03 am -
There’s a couple of points I’d quibble with.
Most gays I know were happy with Civil Partnerships and there was no real mass agitation for “gay marriage” until Cameron wanted to use gays again, this time to show how “modern” and “tolerant” the new Tories were (that worked out well for him, didn’t it?). We, and Stonewall, were as much taken by surprise when the proposal was made as anyone else, but you know what they say about gift horses….
And I totally agree about hate speech, in this or any other context. Call me what you want. But context is everything. Call me a “big old bender” while watching football together in the pub is different from shouting “you fucking queer cunt” as you walk down the street past someone you don’t know. One can show affection. The other, you know (usually from experience), is a precursor to violence.
As for carrying on your lifestyle while it was illegal… if it was consensual and hurt no-one, why was it illegal? Many of those prosecuted in earlier times were consistently nicked as easy targets, and having “pretty policemen” stings in public toilets was not a useful way to use police resources and resulted in much unnecessary harm.
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April 10, 2015 at 11:47 am -
The problem is the 1980’s public order act is too absurdly broad and adding on the hate speech provisions to it has made it worse.
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April 10, 2015 at 12:48 pm -
* there was no real mass agitation for “gay marriage” until Cameron wanted to use gays again *
Wicked Tories. Can’t do right for doing wrong…
I think Cameron was just sick and tired of Tory Gays being outed by the prurient press, on behalf of the prurient socialists seeking blue meat and perhaps also sending a message about promiscuous behaviour. If you want to be gay, fine, but stop with the multiple boyfriend thing, and keep out the bloody toilets and leave the kids alone.
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April 10, 2015 at 1:07 pm -
Who needs toilets when you’ve got Grindr? Promiscuous – well, that’s in the eye of the beholder. And why are you bringing kids into it. What’s that got to do with the subject?
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April 10, 2015 at 1:10 pm -
Tories and boy-child abuse? You need to read the papers mate…
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April 10, 2015 at 6:12 pm -
Oh, that. didn’t make the connection, sorry. Nobody really believes that anyway. Pour amuser les sans culottes.
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April 10, 2015 at 12:25 am -
a) There was a death penalty for the most heinous crimes; And a flawed justice system which imposed it on some innocents – and one dead innocent is one too many.
Agreed:- couldn’t have put it better myself.b) Abortion was illegal; Resulting in countless deaths from back-street processes which we don’t want to see again.
Also agreed; with the proviso that the current limit of 6 months or so is far too late. That is the destruction of a human being – someone pregnant should be able to make their decisions well before that point.c) Homosexual behaviour was illegal; Ensuring that those so inclined were compelled to live miserable, deceptive or clandestine lives.
Perfectly happy to go along with that, and with anti-discrimination laws too but I do find the aggressive public pursuit of gay pride etc. irritating:- I wouldn’t particularly wish to know if any friends, colleagues or workmates had a rubber fetish or a foot fetish or whatever. It’s not my business, I see know reason why I should even be aware let alone have it rammed down my throat, as it were.d) Divorce laws were strong. Meaning those discovering their incompatibility after marriage were compelled to live miserable family lives.
That by itself is true, but the pendulum has swung much too far the other way: I have seen men have their lives totally destroyed on the whim of a woman – to the extent that visiting rights are totally ignored, repeated trips back to court despite ‘final settlements’ having been agreed and all with total impunity for the woman. I can well understand why so many young men are reluctant to get married.-
April 10, 2015 at 1:47 am -
Must admit I agree with most of what you say. However with current methods it is much less likely that innocent people would be convicted and quite a few murderers have been released to kill again. I can’t think of any reason for the likes of child killer Robert Black should be kept alive at great expense.
Agree that, except in very rare cases, the abortion limit is far too high. I would make it on demand up to 12 weeks, on medical advice 12 – 20 weeks and only in exceptional cases after that if there is a good medical reason.
I agree about homosexuality, a bit uncomfortable about age 16 but no logical reason for a difference I accept that. Agreed with civil partnerships but not keen on redefining marriage as same sex., when I hear a same sex partner referred to as husband or wife it just sounds wrong somehow, maybe we need new names. Very much agree that the activists put me off, not content with equality and acceptance there is almost an air of superiority and nothing is ever enough, I know these people are a tiny minority but they make a lot of noise. Who someone chooses to sleep with is their business and sexuality is only one aspect of their personality and it doesn’t influence how I think about that person. My gay grandson can’t stand the activists either, just wants to get on with his life, just glad that being gay is no longer relevant to most people.
Divorce does seem too easy now, it should be if there are no children but if there are perhaps in most circumstances it should be a last resort except in cases of physical or mental cruelty. My first husband and I divorced in the 70s , just outgrew each other but a decade earlier we would have worked at it and likely survived. I don’t regret it, had a very happy second marriage but my son does to this day and still wishes we had stayed together.
Men do seem to be getting a raw deal these days and I don’t blame them for being reluctant to marry. Anyway I guess I am just gettng older, some things are much better but I regret the passing of others.-
April 10, 2015 at 8:48 am -
“My gay grandson can’t stand the activists either, just wants to get on with his life, just glad that being gay is no longer relevant to most people.” Fair enough – but maybe he should consider whether he would have the freedoms he has now if those activists of earlier years had not stood up for themselves (and ultimately, him). I know I’m grateful to them.
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April 10, 2015 at 1:48 am -
An abortion from a contraceptive pill is just as much “the destruction of a human being”. Time is of no importance; the unique new human being’s DNA is complete at conception.
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April 10, 2015 at 8:44 am -
“I do find the aggressive public pursuit of gay pride etc. irritating”…. I never can get my head around this. Why? I’m not being aggressive here, but just genuinely puzzled. You’re not forced to attend, watch or even acknowledge the existence of these things. They are simply a (dated) hangover from a time when strength of numbers and joyful solidarity was a way of showing the world that we are, to paraphrase Harvey Milk, your sons and daughters, your brothers and sisters, your aunts and uncles, your workmates, your teachers, your students your patients in some cases your even your parents. Why should we hide?
I actually find Pride beyond its sell-by date now but treat it as a sort of “gay Christmas”.
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April 10, 2015 at 12:04 pm -
It has changed from campaigning for for homosexual acts to be legal and socially acceptable, to bullying individuals into not being allowed to disapprove of the practice by heresy hunts. As a libertarian I believe people should be permitted to approve and disapprove of what they want, and to say it publicly, only facing legal action when violence/encouragement to violence is being used. By and large, except where race is concerned, this is still what the British state allows to happen legally, though the law can intervene in cases of workplace discrimination and such. However, we have mobs of vigilantes who believe they unilaterally should be allowed to silence anyone they disagree with, quite apart from the requirements of the law. It is their right to make their views known, but those who intimidate, harass, and commit public order offences, such as the Farage baiters often seem to, should themselves be prosecuted.
Freedom of speech on university campuses should not be curtailed, and the “no platform crew” prosecuted if they use violence and intimidation to prevent it – followed by expulsion on any conviction.
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April 10, 2015 at 12:19 pm -
If you have been to a Pride event, you will, I sincerely hope, notice that bullying anyone is the last thing on anyone’s mind – apart from the religious hecklers at the roadside which are treated with either disregard or derision. The “no platform” argument is stupid – the only way to win an argument is to defeat it openly, not deny it breathing space – Sinn Fein’s words being mouthed by an actor seems to me the apotheosis of that argument.
The Farage baiters – hmmm, isn’t that the rough and tumble of politics?
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April 10, 2015 at 12:53 pm -
* Sinn Fein’s words being mouthed by an actor seems to me the apotheosis of that argument. *
Stopping them being heard at all would have been an apotheosis. That they were voiced by an Irish accent just made it silly. Given that they refused to take their seats in parliament I’m not sure which part of the demokratik process they merited anyway. But there we are, soppy liberals like Thatcher had these strange ideas about freedom of speech and tied themselves in knots over it all. Labour’s brilliant idea about Hate Speech would have been useful to her… Could have shut that Paisley creature up too.
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April 10, 2015 at 1:10 pm -
Yes, you’re right – I think I was trying to say it was the apotheosis of silliness in how to deny your opponents a platform – if you see what I mean. I hope..
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April 10, 2015 at 1:20 pm -
Imagine Gerry Adams with the voice of David Starkey. Dead in the water.
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April 10, 2015 at 7:56 pm -
This would make a good game: Martin McGuinness = Charles Hawtrey….
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April 10, 2015 at 1:47 pm -
She certainly did, Moor, and not ones I’d always go along with.
Thus the 1986 “Public order act”, section 5 ,which is amended by New Labour’s various hate speech acts on race, sexual orientation, religion. In the latter two cases, their legislative bills were cunningly amended, to Labour’s chagrin, by the good old house of Lords, which, ironically enough, means we have quite clearly defined and robust rights when it comes to expression of opinion on race and sexuality, ones which mean the POA should be less a threat than before when it comes to free speech in those areas!Public order act 1986
Part 5 Harassment, alarm or distress.(1)A person is guilty of an offence if he—
(a)uses threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or disorderly behaviour, or
(b)displays any writing, sign or other visible representation which is threatening, abusive or insulting,
within the hearing or sight of a person likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress thereby.
(2)An offence under this section may be committed in a public or a private place, except that no offence is committed where the words or behaviour are used, or the writing, sign or other visible representation is displayed, by a person inside a dwelling and the other person is also inside that or another dwelling.
(3)It is a defence for the accused to prove—
(a)that he had no reason to believe that there was any person within hearing or sight who was likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress, or
(b)that he was inside a dwelling and had no reason to believe that the words or behaviour used, or the writing, sign or other visible representation displayed, would be heard or seen by a person outside that or any other dwelling, or
(c)that his conduct was reasonable.
(4)A constable may arrest a person without warrant if—
(a)he engages in offensive conduct which [F2a] constable warns him to stop, and
(b)he engages in further offensive conduct immediately or shortly after the warning.
A campaign not long ago to get the word insulting removed was successful; so its gone, but “abusive” remains, as that means basically the same thing, it’s difficult to understand what the point of getting insulting out without abusive as well actually was.
As you will see, windsock, it would not be difficult to collar just about anyone under the provisions of the POA, and 5 -1 (a) (b) could be used to charge persons abusing/conducting themselves in a disorderly manner. If, let’s say, Mr Farage said he felt “harassed”, “alarmed” or even somewhat “distressed” by it all, the public house incident a while ago (where Mr Farage was having a meal with his family and not politicking when it occurred) might have led to prosecutions under the POA if Nige had taken it up with the police.
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April 10, 2015 at 1:54 pm -
Duh…Amending what I wrote previously – the Lords amendments to the legislation give significant legal guarantees over religion and sexuality when it comes to speech, not to speech about race – race has the much broader criminalisation than the other 2.
It doesn’t seem as if you can edit comments for errors here, so proof reading first before posting becomes that much more important!
…My brain hurts…….
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April 10, 2015 at 7:42 pm -
I just always think of the parody from ‘The Day Today’, where Sinn Fein are only allowed to speak on TV if they inhale helium beforehand.
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April 10, 2015 at 11:24 pm -
Gerry’s voice sounds more helium-high than the actor’s oddly enough, where the BBC alllow a tiny snippet of his voice to slip through the censor before another oirishman lips up … … https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m79mr4AoSiA
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April 10, 2015 at 11:27 pm -
Hate the way youtube automatically switches the links these days as one clip ends and before the next one sashays in….
This is the one I meant…. https://youtu.be/Hdf4xOdas1g
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April 11, 2015 at 11:50 am -
Farage baiting “the rough and tumble of politics”… not, I think when it consists of harassing him and his family at lunch in a pub to the extent that they are driven from the pub. That is just bullying. The ‘direct action’ types that undertake this sort of behaviour, it seems to me, are mostly just insufficiently mature to accept that their view, however strongly they feel themselves to be ‘right’, is not the only one that can be reached in good conscience.
I think that this sort of immaturity underlies a lot of the intolerance of alternative viewpoints that we witness on a daily basis and is encouraged by people coming at politics (in a general sense of the word) from a purely moral standpoint. I understand the need for morality in politics but a purely moral viewpoint gives us ‘I’m good and I believe X; you don’t believe X therefore you’re bad’. This is why so many Labour supporters childishly regard Tories as evil people. Tories on the other hand have a view of politics which has practical and moral components and consequently many Tories regard Labour supporters, not as evil people, but rather as fools.
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April 11, 2015 at 12:34 pm -
Right – that practicality of Conservatism that has been on show while trawlingEd Miliband’s sex life and accusing him of fratricide and almost treason? They are as bad as each other.
And while I don’t approve of barracking a lunching family, Farage is a marmite person and his mates in Britain First aren’t too shy about confronting those who they see are his enemies.
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/03/31/britain-first-beyond-ukip_n_6976868.html
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April 11, 2015 at 2:19 pm -
As bad as each other ? Probably so. I wasn’t making a better/worse case, I was suggesting that the attitudes of their supporters towards each other come from very different perspectives. The tone of your comment seems to suggest that you find yourself on the moral high ground. I personally find all political organisations equally unattractive.
It is always amusing to read that someone doesn’t approve of something being done except when it is being done to someone of whom they disapprove. Similar to the ‘I believe in free speech except when people say stuff I don’t approve of’ position, I guess.
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April 11, 2015 at 2:40 pm -
Who said I disapprove of Farage?
The point I am (obviously, clumsily) trying to make is that I watch these things unfurl and it doesn’t seem to surprise or shock anymore. I find it hard to approve/disapprove when they are all as bad as each other. Politics has largely become a Punch and Judy show, encouraged (produced?) by the media, in my opinion.
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April 10, 2015 at 7:57 pm -
I’m violently Pro-Life (yeah, it’s a dichotomy, sue me).
There are similarities between the Pro-Choice arguments and the Anti-Smoker lobby. One might, with some justification, enquire where all the bodies of those female VICTIMS of back street abortionists are buried and if it is anywhere near the graves of all those barstaff who died from 2nd hand smoke inhalation.
I remember seeing the stats on “Females Of Child Bearing Age Who Have Died per annum” (snappier in the original German) for Germany upto the time when they stopped collecting such stats…strangely enough that was around the time they legalized abortion -“My Belly Belongs To Me”- I wonder if there was a connection (*folds tin hoil into a picklhaube*)…
Anyways I don’t recall the exact figures but it came down to about 10 woman a year who may have died due to having a rusty coathanger inserted in their uterus. Ten women is ten too many but when you consider the, what, 1/2 million abortions in Germany each year…
Middle son was born prematurely, no much bigger than a packet of smokes and on the very outer edge of ‘no fucking chance of surviving’ [sic- the doc]. The Surgeons battled to keep him alive and they succeeded -in the main although he’s crippled. They, the Docs , then went downstairs to the next theatre and had to ‘terminate’ a child no much ‘younger’ in the mother’s womb. I know this because the Doc mentioned in passing how it pissed him off.
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April 10, 2015 at 8:12 pm -
This is just a personal thought – I have lived between extremes….not financially, but certainly emotionally, beyond exhilaration, beneath abject despair, inside euphoria and buried by loss….. I ask myself, bloody often, given my current circumstances, is what difference would it have made to anyone if I had never existed? By extension… I wonder about what value people see in their own lives and in those of others around them.
On the one hand we tut at incompetent parenting, mothers of children of many different fathers, and the societal costs thereof. Many don’t like immigrants although they are people too. Who would argue that sometimes it would be better if some were never born?
This is not meant to be either pro or anti abortion but just musing on a theme.
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April 10, 2015 at 9:03 pm -
Who would argue that sometimes it would be better if some were never born?
I have said here many times that I was an appallingly bad father, a self obsessed, alcoholic criminal and The Bestes Wife In The World was mostly no kind of mother- violent paranoid psychosis and good parenting not being happy bedfellows. But there was never any doubt in our minds that whatever kind of childhood we could offer our kids, however crappy, that no childhood is never the better option for the child. (NB I did finally man up and have a vasectomy -and that at 21 or so when normally no doctor will perform one.).
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April 11, 2015 at 9:30 am -
In the matter of spokesmen from Sinn Fein etc in the aftermath of IRA terrorist acts, it was felt that victims/relatives of victims should not be subject to the sight of people on the news justifying in any way an atrocity which has just been committed.
The broadcasters got around the Thatcher government ban. But New Labour were more draconian as to what would be covered by a new law. Their legislation is much wider, seemingly pretty all inclusive –The terrorism act of 2006 –
1 Encouragement of terrorism
(1)This section applies to a statement that is likely to be understood by some or all of the members of the public to whom it is published as a direct or indirect encouragement or other inducement to them to the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism or Convention offences.
(2)A person commits an offence if—
(a)he publishes a statement to which this section applies or causes another to publish such a statement; and
(b)at the time he publishes it or causes it to be published, he—
(i)intends members of the public to be directly or indirectly encouraged or otherwise induced by the statement to commit, prepare or instigate acts of terrorism or Convention offences; or
(ii)is reckless as to whether members of the public will be directly or indirectly encouraged or otherwise induced by the statement to commit, prepare or instigate such acts or offences.
(3)For the purposes of this section, the statements that are likely to be understood by members of the public as indirectly encouraging the commission or preparation of acts of terrorism or Convention offences include every statement which—
(a)glorifies the commission or preparation (whether in the past, in the future or generally) of such acts or offences; and
(b)is a statement from which those members of the public could reasonably be expected to infer that what is being glorified is being glorified as conduct that should be emulated by them in existing circumstances.
(4)For the purposes of this section the questions how a statement is likely to be understood and what members of the public could reasonably be expected to infer from it must be determined having regard both—
(a)to the contents of the statement as a whole; and
(b)to the circumstances and manner of its publication.
(5)It is irrelevant for the purposes of subsections (1) to (3)—
(a)whether anything mentioned in those subsections relates to the commission, preparation or instigation of one or more particular acts of terrorism or Convention offences, of acts of terrorism or Convention offences of a particular description or of acts of terrorism or Convention offences generally; and,
(b)whether any person is in fact encouraged or induced by the statement to commit, prepare or instigate any such act or offence.
One wonders if anyone who speaks/writes favorably about such things as as the assassination of Czar Alexander II in 1881, or even then 1944 Hitler bomb plot, where several were killed and injured (“whether in the past…”) could be found guilty of breaching the legislation. After all, writing/speaking favourably about the attempt on Hitler could be said to encourage others to commit acts of terror against those they consider “fascists/Nazis” today.
And it doesn’t matter if the statements are couched in generalities rather than particulars; thus –
(a)whether anything mentioned in those subsections relates to the commission, preparation or instigation of one or more particular acts of terrorism or Convention offences, of acts of terrorism or Convention offences of a particular description or of acts of terrorism or Convention offences generally; and,
(b)whether any person is in fact encouraged or induced by the statement to commit, prepare or instigate any such act or offence.
Some of the wording here is very amorphous (“direct or indirect”)
“Glorifies” is, of course, one of those subjective words which Labour were so fond of making into definitions in their legislation. According to the Oxford English dictionary it can be used to mean –“Describe or represent as admirable, especially unjustifiably”
So, just about anything that is said or written which speaks with some degree of favour about a past/present or future “act of terror” is potentially breaking the law if the other stipulations are met.
This is a difficult area, but it does seem to me that the legislation we now have puts potentially very wide and ambiguous legal restrictions on freedom of opinion.
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