"Our Society Stands for Democracy and Proper Drains"

The last two weeks, as revelation after revelation, has exposed goings on in the press, the police and government have been, to say the least, memorable and undeniably worrying about  the state of the nation. On more than one occasion in the past week or so I have felt quite sorry for TV newsreaders who seemed to be in the position of making it up they went along – so rapidly were the revelations coming! However, for me, a serious situation in the past two days has now descended into the realms of bizarre farce – and  I find this rather more worrying. It’s about the direction that our whole society is moving not just a few bent coppers, sleazy politicians, powerful media moguls and the like.

Shaving foam pies -
but where is the security!

Firstly, two days ago the two most senior police officers in the country were forced to resign. Whatever the rights and wrongs of their alleged involvement with misdoings both said that a major factor in their resignation was that they could not continue to devote their full attention to issues such as national and London security – especially with the upcoming Olympics. In this context, therefore we should be seriously worried that security was so lax at yesterday's Select Committee interviewing of the Murdochs and Rebecca Brooks that a man was easily able to ‘attack’ Rupert Murdoch with shaving foam. If the Met’s and Parliament’s ability to provide adequate security in a relatively small area of Westminster is so poor that the 43 year old wife of Rupert Murdoch seemed to be the fastest to react to the situation we should indeed be worried. One could not have written a  script for it. The culprit of the attack was not a highly skilled terrorist, trained to perfection in some remote place – he was a rather "sad", fifth rate night club comedian. How low have we sunk. But in the great scheme of things this is of little consequence.

Is this really a requirement
 of  press freedom? 

Tabloid 'news' - and what
our society seems to want
 to read about

Secondly, as I write this I am watching the Prime Minister’s statement to the House as he seeks to defend his role especially in relation to Andy Coulson. Cameron is, I believe a victim of circumstance here – had Tony Blair or Gordon Brown still been PM they could very easily have been in Cameron’s position – they cosied up to the Murdoch empire in the same way that the Conservative Party has done. But for the life of me, whatever excuses and good reasons Mr Cameron gives for appointing and not sacking  Andy Coulson one thing totally baffles me. In my teaching career I have, on  many occasions, been in the position of reading letters of job application and reviewing CVs for would be members of staff. I have written countless references for people wishing to apply for a post elsewhere. Had anyone applied for a job as a teacher and said that their last position was as editor of the News of the World – a newspaper which fills its pages with scurrilous innuendo and unpleasant sex stories -  I would have undoubtedly concluded that whatever academic qualifications, experiences or otherwise they possessed they essentially were unsuited and unacceptable as a teacher. And yet, this aspect seems to have been totally disregarded. People who have "earned their crust" in this dubious manner are welcomed into the highest corridors of power!. Indeed, as the revelations have unfolded in recent days it seems that the police and government have filled positions with ex-News of the World employees all with dubious backgrounds. Whenever I complete a reference I am asked the same question – "can you recommend this candidate unreservedly?" It is a time to express reservations and provide an assessment of the worthiness of the applicant to fill the position.  Presumably Andy Coulson’s referees made no reservations or if they did they were ignored. There is something very wrong with the moral compass of some of our nation’s major institutions when, although 'security checks' are undertaken, no-one seems to ask the question, "is this a fit and proper person to hold the position".

The Mother of Parliaments. Hmmmm!

Thirdly, the quality of debate and comment seen in Westminster is unendurably depressing. I often wonder what a visitor from another planet would make of it. One can dress it up with all sorts of names and virtues – adversarial politics, Mother of Parliaments, democracy at work – but in the end it is not an edifying sight. The quality of debate borders on the banal. We have a Prime Minster who seeks only to defend his position, we have political point scoring and hypocrisy by the shed load. What has happened to the  brilliant minds and the great orators - great politicians who were capable in a few short words of inspiring a nation or bringing down a government. Where are the Thomas Rainsboroughs, the Oliver Cromwells, the Winston Churchills, the Enoch Powells, the Nye Bevans the Michael Foots? It is, perhaps, a measure of how far we have fallen when, as I wrote in another recent blog, the grandson of Winston Churchill, Nicholas Soames, MP for Mid-Sussex and recently created Privy Counsellor is best known  as "the most sexist" MP, with several female MPs stating that he makes vulgar comments to them.  Soames makes repeated cupping gestures with his hands, suggestive of female breasts, when women are trying to speak in parliament, in order to distract them. He allegedly harassed  Alistair Campbell by telephoning him and saying "you sex god, you Adonis, you the greatest of all great men." Unfortunately he made  a mistake -  he was actually speaking to Campbell's young son.  But Soames is not alone – you need only watch and listen to any debate. I have heard no-one yet who I would willingly "follow into battle" – and when people feel this then democracy and government are at risk for cynicism, disaffection and corruption are the beneficiaries. Despite the trials of Parliament over the past few years with the expenses scandals and the rest, our elected representatives have not learned. The conduct of members of both parties in the Chamber is a disgrace. I’m  watching  the Prime Minister and see in him the many little boys I have told off in school playgrounds over 40 years and who always  used feeble excuses like "he told me to do it" or "it wasn’t me sir" or "I didn't mean it, it just sort of happened" – a manifestly pathetic response from a man who is supposed to lead the nation. Like Manuel in "Fawlty Towers' he says '"I know nothing." And I see the rest of the chamber behaving like a baying playground mob witnessing a playground scrap. We are lead by a set of  third rate nodding donkeys with little brain and even less moral fortitude. And we call this democracy. And this in a debate about the very nature of power, influence, good government and indeed democracy.

Hateful politics
but total integrity and
brilliant mind

Oh for a Foot in today's public life

And fourthly, the whole debate and scandal revolves around something we call "press freedom". There is common agreement and  offence that in the case of News International and perhaps other tabloid organs press "freedom" has become press "excess". We have much hand wringing  and debate about the need to monitor and police the press. This is such a complex area that I could not even begin to understand how this can be done with some measure of success. But the real issue for me here is that the tabloid press only pursues its current policies of publishing scandal, innuendo, scurrilous stories and the like because the readership is interested and will buy. What have we become as a society when this is seen as worthwhile "news" or "entertainment". We have grown into a society with a very shallow and strange value set – it can be seen nightly on TV or in the News of the World; it can be seen when millions will tune in to watch "Big Brother" or will buy a magazine like "Hello" and think that it is of some worth. And people like Rupert Murdoch simply feed the beast – he is doing what all good business men do – spotting a hole in the market and filling it. That is the worrying thing - if society did not have the insatiable appetite for the stuff of the tabloid press then we would not be in the situation that we are today. We all want press freedom – it is a cornerstone of free speech but like free speech and other rights and privileges we enjoy  it has its limits and responsibilities. Freedom of the press is not and should not be a right to print or report scurrilous scandal, items of doubtful moral or ethical content or to provide justification for actions that are illegal. In her evidence yesterday Rebekah Brooks commented upon her (and the News of the World’s) various campaigns – such as that against paedophiles and the introduction of "Sarah’s Law". Brooks stated that these things were every close to her heart, she thought it was the right thing to do, she saw it as part of her role to mount these campaigns to change the law. Well, I’m afraid I have to disagree with her – her role as an editor is to report the news not make the news. It is for her to provide facts – no more no less. She is not an elected representative, her opinions and viewpoints are no more or less important than those of any other member of the community.  

Is it the Met. or is it the Keystone
Cops - at the moment it's a bit
difficult to tell!

In this morning’s Guardian Marina Hyde likened the whole debacle of the past few days in Britain, Westminster, Fleet Street and Scotland Yard  to  "slapstick" . She was right. Yesterday a number of commentators used the phrase "banana republic" –a  crooked police force, bent politicians, unelected people wielding power, "Keystone Cop" security, shady meetings and entrances through the "back door" and "shaving foam pies". And indeed that is what we look -  a banana republic. A country that could once hold its head high and be a world leader for its values and integrity is now reduced to this. Unfortunately the solution will not be found by simply tweeking a few new rules, by being a bit more "transparent" (God, what a meaningless and truly awful non-word that is – is David Cameron on a commission bonus for the number of times he can utter it within any given thirty second period!) or by having a few public enquiries. No, things will only improve when the whole of society starts to look hard at itself and to re-asses what it values and aspires to. I see no prospect of that happening.

Thomas Rainsborough
- great exponent of  individual
liberty and responsibility
in society

On the Today programme this morning a  representative of UNICEF spoke with sadness,  despair and  no little emotion about the situation in the Horn of Africa. He despairingly pointed out that while a state of famine had been declared in  a huge area of the world we in this country are more besotted by a plate of shaving foam – the newspapers are so full of the Murdoch fiasco that humanitarian issues are being squeezed out. He is right and it reflects our values  – and says much about the society we now have. Even in the Guardian I have to go to page 20 before I see any mention of the famine – and then it is a full page advert by UNICEF not a piece of reporting. Prior to that I have eleven pages of reports and analysis of the Murdoch happenings, two full pages of adverts for mobile phones, a whole page devoted to whether "Adele" (who the hell  is "Adele"? ) can win the Mercury pop award, and various other page fillers. There is no reporting of the situation in the Horn of Africa. The Telegraph does slightly better – they fill the first nine pages with the Murdoch reports and provide  about half a page of news of the famine on page 16.

In the sport section of the Guardian, the major headline is about the  need for lie detectors in international cricket to help stamp out corruption.  Even the majestic game of cricket, the ultimate sport of gentlemen, sportsmanship and high moral standing – now needs lie detectors. But even this has links with the current political crisis – cricket like most other sport is now the plaything of big business in general and Rupert Murdoch in particular. His sponsorship of the game has made greed and the chasing of money as the prime motivation. Should we be so surprised? Can we sink any lower? 

I don’t blame the Guardian  or the Telegraph – I’m sure other papers are the same – but it reflects our strange values. A major article in the Guardian is the reporting of the £14 billion pounds paid in city bonuses – a quite legitimate piece of reporting – but what a crass and unsound society we have  created where it is accepted that these values can appertain when huge areas of the world starve. Earlier this week we heard of the couple who won £161 million on the Euro Lottery – well, good for them, but what does it say about society as a whole. No, we have created a society whose values are so perverted that things are going to go badly wrong  and it is taking up more and more of our time and effort to sort them out.

As I watched what I will loosely call the "debate" in the House today I felt real sorrow for the Speaker, John Bercow in trying to keep order amongst the rabble. It was just like watching an inexperienced teacher trying to control an unruly class (a thing I have done many times). In the end he was always going to lose – he kept having to remind the class to behave, and of course, like unruly pupils they soon forgot and began shouting and cat calling again. Mr Bercow and the class would, I’m afraid, have failed their OFSTED inspection. How sad that our elected representatives at the Mother of Parliaments are so badly behaved. But a good teacher would have known what to do and would have been helped by the school ethos which would have had high expectations for its pupils and implicit and explicit sanctions for the teacher to use. And this is the problem, be it in parliament or the press or the police or wider society the high expectations have gone – the "ethos"- and the result is episodes like News International, the appointing of undesirables like Andy Coulson to high position, bribery and corruption. Whether it is in parliament, in the city centre, in the newspaper, on TV or in the high street the expectations for quality, high standards of behaviour and relationships, gracefulness, rather than gracelessness, sportsmanship, courtesy  and the rest have been slowly and irrevocably replaced by crassness, low expectations and a quick buck. Mr Murdoch’s press (and the rest), the behaviour in the Met, the actions of politicians and the rest merely reflect wider society’s mores, values and expectation.  It’s just what happens on the playground when the schools ethos, expectations and values are not of the highest – the bully and the mob take charge – and it is happening on our society.

Jonathan Swift - he would have
seen through the hypocrisy
 of today's politicians and society

The term "banana republic" was used to describe the situation. It’s an  apposite  analogy but far more serious than that. I prefer to think of Jonathan Swift and his tales of Gulliver. Swift, the arch critic and satirist would have been scathing of the whole affair, the pathetic response of our leaders and the state of our society. The attitude in the House and in  wider society is reminiscent of Gulliver’s escapades and adventures with the  Lilliutians, the Brobdingnags, the Laputians, the Houyhnhms and the Yahoos. Swift would have recognised the small minded Lilliputians in our society and parliament, he would have derided those in our society and media who, like the Brobdingnagians, exhibit themselves and others for money.  He would have condemned  a society which increasingly acts like the Laputians blindly following hedonistic and unnecessary schemes, values and life styles (will "Adele" win the Mercury prize when thousands are dying of hunger and the famine and this is not even reported in a responsible newspaper)  – the modern equivalent of the Laputian’s pointless quests such as extracting moonbeams from cucumbers or – and here is a terrible irony - uncovering political conspiracies by examining the excrement of suspicious people (hence the term muckraking – which is what the last few days have been all about). Or, finally, he would have seen in our society, our press, our parliament and the police – and many other facets of our national life – evidence to support his vision of the Yahoos – as deformed base humans.

Back to the trough guys

I have just read that this evening, David Cameron spoke to members of the Conservative 1922 committee – the senior back bench committee of the Party. Reportedly "he was not asked a single question about the scandal, he was adamant that he would not apologise for trying to get the media onside ( I wonder what this implies) for the run up to the election, he received the warmest ever reception including 40 seconds of table banging".Well, that’s all right then. The problem’s over - except it isn't. It sounds to me as if it's "Back to the trough guys!"

I will end with two of my favourite quotes. Poet John Betjemin once famously said "Our nation stands for democracy and proper drains!" In the current state of society and democracy how right he was – we need drains as never before - as a society we seem to be peering into a swirling cesspit and effective drains would seem to be an essential requirement! Bent coppers, sleazy politicians and law breaking journalists float in the cesspit but they are only a small part of the bigger picture. And, what I find really frightening, is that as  society we seem to take great pleasure in reading about it and watching it in our tabloids and TV screens! And people like Murdoch, Brooks and the rest feed on this and give us more of what we want.  Tabloid papers and people such as Rebekah Brooks  hold up their hands in horror,  point fingers of disdain, claim the moral high ground - but as a society we are incapable of changing our habits and they know it.  And the second quote?  Social researcher and academic Richard Titmuss famously said "Without knowledge of wind and currents, without some sense of purpose and value, men and societies do not keep afloat for long, morally or economically, by bailing out the water". All we have done for years is bail out (a commission here, a bit of transparency there, a public enquiry instituted) and society has sunk lower and lower in the water. News International and all that goes with it is merely a reflection of this. We will not  right the ship until the whole crew, the whole of society re-assess what they are about – and that, I fear, is beyond us all.