National Treasures

I was going to do a post about how "national treasure" seems to be a code for overrated idiot.

However while preparing to take pot shots at smug celebrities like David Attenborough and Stephen Fucking Fry I came across a piece by Nick Cohen on rather more sinister national treasures, Cyril Smith and Jimmy Savile.

Well worth reading.

Media Bias- Not That Important?

In the Observer Nick Cohen makes the claim:

The belief that the media manipulate the masses appeals to the far left because its supporters must explain why they can never win or come close to winning a democratic election. Rather than accept that electorates reject them because their ideas are false or foolish, they decide that corporate puppetmasters jerk the strings of citizens and induce them to vote against their "real" interests.
Trotskyists are not the only dupes of the fantasy. Conservatives are as convinced that sinister media manipulators frustrate them. The Mail and the Telegraph's assaults on BBC bias are an equally self-serving attempt to avoid facing their own inadequacies. If it were not for the propaganda of liberal broadcasters, the British would respect the sanctity of marriage, go to church, renounce the welfare state and demand the privatisation of schools and hospitals. 

I think he is more or less right. Media bias cannot simply control people's beliefs and opinions.

Like many people I have long felt that the BBC exhibits a strong bias towards the EU and the Euro- but enthusiasm for a single currency has never been more than a marginal interest and recent polls suggest that only 9% of Britons still want to join it. A similar pattern can be seen with immigration- the BBC pretty solidly for, the public remaining very much against.

The media is not devoid of power to influence opinions- I am pretty sure if they want to influence public opinion about an individual then they can do it to some extent. Issues that people don't care too much about can probably be shaped by the newspapers. The big issues though- health, education, tax- not so much and claiming that it is the media that stops your point of view being widely accepted is a cop out and an excuse not to try to persuade people.

Cohen then goes on to claim Rupert Murdoch has too much control of the media, which doesn't really make sense given the media's supposed feebleness in telling people what to do.

Last Year's Moderates Are This Years Extremists

Nick Cohen writes of the rather worrying developments in Hungary where the ruling Fidezs party appears to be authoritarian and extreme:

You can catch a smell of it in Fidesz's propaganda. Its first act was to order public buildings to display a passage from its manifesto. "In spring 2010, the Hungarian nation gathered its strength once again and brought about a successful revolution in the polling booth," the citizenry was informed. They should rejoice because Fidesz will lead Hungary to a bright new tomorrow based on "work, home, family, health and order".

Fidesz then seized control of private pensions, hacked back the powers of a supreme court that might have checked its supremacy and established a media council, which can impose large fines on broadcasters and print and online publishers for such fuzzily worded crimes as "offending human dignity". It has packed the council with party loyalists, naturally, and already Hungarian newspapers and magazines are publishing blank pages in protest against official censorship.

The case against them looks very strong and their behaviour does not seem in keeping with the behaviour of a democratic party.

However last year Cohen was attacking the Conservative party for leaving the European grouping to which Fidesz belongs on the grounds that it was rejecting "moderation" and embracing extremist parties from Eastern Europe. Wonder what's changed since then?

Mock The Weak.

Nick Cohen takes on the BBC's comedy panel show "Mock the Week" in his Standpoint article this month. There is much to dislike about Mock the Week, but Cohen picks the wrong target in Frankie Boyle, who for all his crudity and abusiveness often comes up with very funny lines and delivers them excellently. Contrary to Cohen I don't think he particularly targets obvious victims in his jokes. The humour is vicious and doesn't appeal to the better part of human nature so I can see an argument for saying it shouldn't be on at 9:00 in the evening but it is still amusing.

Besides which Cohen misses the more deserving targets. How can any attack on Mock the Week ignore the comedic black holes that are Andy Parsons and Russell Howard though?

Parsons is a kind of trollish looking man who seems as if he ought to be funny until he opens his mouth. Then he tells unfunny jokes in such a way that you can see the punchline coming a mile off. Also every single joke is told with the same rhythm so even if the punchline isn't immediately obvious you can tell it is coming anyway by the change in tone after the painfully contrived set up, (which usually consists of "They're saying that {insert some crap} eh?!").

The nicest thing that can be said about him is that he isn't Russell Howard. His jokes aren't always terrible (many of them would be funny if said by someone else), but he creates such an irritating persona as an attention seeking child who is always acting up to try and win the approval of his elders that he simply makes me want to slam his face in a car door. I wouldn't actually do that to an attention seeking child I must add.


{Via Jonathan Pearce at Samizdata and possibly via Blognor Regis although I'm not sure}

Extreme Extremists & Their Extremism.

Nick Cohen joins the long line of left wing and europhile commentators denouncing the Conservative Party's new European allies. Cohen isn't a crude partisan charlatan like others who have made these claims- Denis MacShane for instance.

His insinuation that Poland's Law & Justice Party is antisemitic- in particular the leader of the European Parliamentary group, Michal Kaminski, looks weak. Judging by the enthusiasm of the editor of the Jewish Chronicle for Kaminski I doubt the smears will work either.

Some of these continental parties have their share of nutters no doubt, however in order to make a case that leaving the EPP is a mark of extremism then you don't simply have to demonstrate that the new bedfellows are unsavoury but that they are worse than the previous allies, or the allies of other parties.

The supposedly moderate EPP for example includes:

• The Alleanza Nazionale of Italy who are the direct descendants of the Fascist party and whose Mayor of Rome has promised to expel all of the capital's gypsies from the city.
• The German CDU who have campaigned on slogans of "Children Not Indians".
• Poland's Civic Platform party who support removing children from Lesbian mothers.

So those are the moderate right wing parties Nick Cohen wants the Tories to hook up with. How about the Labour Party's allies in the European Socialists:

• An Irish MEP who used to be in the IRA
• The Self-Defence of the Republic Party of Poland, whose leader has praised Hitler and has received honorary degrees from the antisemitic Interregional Academy of Personnel Management, who are connected with David Duke.
• An Italian Truther
• The successor parties to a number of Eastern European communist parties.
• A Turkish party with links to the PKK.

You might think it would be hard for the harmless bearded Lib Dems to sit with nutters, but their Irish allies Fianna Fail are currently trying to get a blasphemy law on the statute books. Jorg Haider was in their group for a long time.

Contrived alliances with ideological extremists is an inevitable result of the structure of the European Parliament and the fact that it only becomes an issue when those nutters are less than 100% committed to an ever deeper European Union suggests that it isn't their extremism that it the issue.

Update: There is a great comment from Marko Attila Hoare, who is not a Conservative or on the right in any sense, in the comments at Harry's Place:

The pot is calling the kettle black.

The Labour Party in the Council of Europe belongs to the Socialist Group, which includes Russia’s Liberal Democratic Party of Vladimir Zhirinovsky - a Russian counterpart of the BNP. The Socialist Group also includes Aleksandr Babakov, the former leader of the Rodina party - whose members in the Russian Duma called for all Jewish organisations in Russia to be closed.

......

Sarkozy and Merkel are a disgrace to Europe - responsible for denying a NATO Membership Action Plan to Georgia and Ukraine last year; then muting European resistance to Russia’s invasion of Georgia. It’s totally understandable that David Cameron wants other allies. Unfortunately, he isn’t exactly spoilt for choice…

The last point is true, it isn't a case of the Law & Justice Party being great, they aren't, at best they are extremely chauvinistic and reactionary, but a case of whether they are markedly worse than the alternatives.

Now & Then

This is a pretty spectacular volte face by Nick Cohen on the subject of Anthony Browne.