Bear Grills

To return to an earlier theme...

Orwell/Wells

"It's not quite War of the Worlds but some say there's something Orwellian about..."

Who says the BBC is dumbing down?

Mr. Benn

Iain Dale links to an interview of Hilary Benn by Joshua Chambers, a student reporter at the University of York's radio station; they are discussing the release, and alleged torture, of Binyam Mohamed, it is definitely worth a listen. Hilary Benn - the son of one of the finest Parliamentarians, most deluded ideologues and incompetent ministers of the Twentieth Century, Tony Benn - is repeatedly made to look an uncaring prat by a student radio reporter; Benn clings to a useless script, a brief he appears not to have taken the trouble to research beyond the sophistic soundbite he clings to throughout.

The fact that Mohamed is not a British subject, but is instead a man who resided here from 1994 until he decided to travel to Afghanistan in June 2001 to attend an Al-Qaeda training camp, and that his much-discussed "torture" falls into the same blurred debate as the treatment of all the Guantanamo detainees is never mentioned by Benn. Chambers is able to run rings around him precisely because Benn's script is so short and so limited; it is painfully obvious that he has been instructed not to mention George W Bush's tenure in office, and consequently any interviewer worth his salt is able to jab a well-placed knife into Benn's nethers and twist, while the less that is said of Benn's confused defence of a "long-established principle" regarding intelligence gathered from torture the better.

In truth, this embarrassing display is just another symptom of a government in terminal decline; Benn went forward to be interviewed without really knowing what he was talking about and not caring enough to find out. However, crucially, as a politician nurtured by New Labour's culture of spin and control-freakery, he lacked the imagination or the self-reliance to give even an excuse of an answer without falling back on endless repetition of the same pathetic dictum. These rats don't have the guts to swim; they're going to cling to the sinking ship.

Time to go.

What I like most is how he corrects Boulton with exactly the same quotation that Boulton just read out; essentially he agrees that he misquoted Osbourne but says that what he said was right all the same.

Then he says he wanted a market solution over Northern Rock; a market solution he knocked back twice when it was presented to him. At least he learnt his lesson when it came to HBOS, but should HM Government really be run by trial and error?

Litterers "are like the Wests"

People who drop sweet wrappers are acting like a Gloucester couple who tortured, raped and murdered at least 12 young women, an Anglican bishop has said.

In a letter featured in parish magazines in the Diocese of Lichfield, the Bishop of Stafford, Gordon Mursell, wrote: "Fred and Rosemary West represent merely the most extreme form of a very common philosophy of life: I will do what makes me happy, and if that causes others to suffer, hard luck."

"In fact you could argue that, by our refusal to face the truth about litter, we are as guilty as they were - we are in effect kidnapping young women and submitting them to a brutal ordeal of torture and rape before murdering them and burying them in the garden."

He said people were "right to be disgusted at these crimes" but that "mere disgust is too convenient".

"There are lessons for all of us to learn," he added.

A Popular Choice

David Thompson has a post up about the horror of Guardianistas at Boris Johnson's election. The 'racist' and 'snob' epithets continue to be popular - all that hard-hitting research by Compass must have really swayed opinions - but the comment that really underlines the left's problem with Boris is Vivienne Westwood's:

"Boris as mayor? Unthinkable. It just exposes democracy as a sham, especially if people don’t vote for Ken."

Johnson won a bigger mandate on a bigger turnout; democracy hasn't been exposed as a sham, it has been demonstrated in action.

An Unfortunate Choice

The LibDems probably ought to regret their choice for London Mayoral candidate; from Iain Dale:

"Unbelievable. Brian Paddick just admitted on BBC London that he had given his second preference to Lindsey German, the Left List Candidate! Words almost fail me."

Bear Grylls

Tonight's episode saw our intrepid adventurer facing yet another generously shot "sheer rockface" - this time not once, but twice - which led me once more to the inevitable question/survival tip at the heart of his whole 'Man vs. Wild' shtick: why doesn't he just buy a fucking map?

"Without firing a shot..."

This footage underscores pretty well just how foolish John Reid was when he described the prospect of Britain's deployment in Helmand. That we could come out of that place without a battle is not just unlikely, believing such an obvious fairy tale demonstrates a wilful ignorance. Not believing it, but asserting it anyway, demonstrates a much more serious problem.

The footage comes from At War, an upcoming documentary about the war in Afghanistan. Proper coverage of the fight for Afghanistan's future is slowly trickling out now, but it is long overdue.

Fascists, fakers & funds

Oliver Kamm has a good little roundup post over at his blog; in it he makes a fine summation of what will be Gordon Brown's negligible legacy and outlines exactly how I feel about the Oxford Union furore.

The only addition I'd make to what he says is to express how much I disagree with some of the more militant attitudes I've seen displayed in the blogosphere on the issue. The Drink-soaked Trots have been typically bellicose and therefore make an excellent illustration: they call for those making racist remarks to be met with "a fist, boot, or bottle." At some point, when I have more time and I don't feel like death, I'd like to write what I think about the idea of 'hate crime', but in short our right to freedom of speech should extend to and include even the most repulsive of our personal convictions. As Kamm describes, "Griffin is a demagogue and Irving is a racist faker; but the offence you and I are caused by their views is entirely irrelevant to civic affairs."

We shouldn't meet any opinion with violence because - despite what the Trots say - there is a qualitative difference between calling someone a "nigger/paki/yid/poofter" and genocide; a person's right to express a personal belief - and as Kamm points out, their right to hold one - does not extend to a right to act on it, and definitely doesn't provide a tacit mandate for murder. The crimes that fascists would have done to people based on attributes given them by virtue of birth are already covered by ample laws; we cannot attempt to silence our opponents by force with the possibility that we are averting mass homicide as a fig-leaf to salve our moral conscience.

P.S. Nick Robinson and Kamm's description of Labour's current, self-inflicted, donation scandal as "gob smacking" couldn't be more apt.

The carrot as prosthesis

This Cooney chap sounds like a real joker: 12-inch carrots make ideal faux-erections, and I should know!

"The court also heard that when another pupil failed her test, he offered to waive the £80 she owed him if she pulled over into a lay-by and had sex with him.

"She told the court: "I just said 'No thank you, Steve'."

Well, it was a fair offer, considered upon its merits and rejected. We can't blame him for that, his primary concern was always, first and foremost the success of those under his tutorage. This may have crossed a line, however:

"He regularly groped her during lessons between August 2005 and February last year, the hearing heard."

These questions then present themselves: 1) That's a lot of driving lessons with a 'sex attacker', and 2) in what way was that question worse than the months of groping? Important questions, I think you'll agree. Enquiring minds want to know...

Stopping people won't help; we need to stop idiots.

Williams: "a deal that went wrong or something that didn't really go too right..."

Watching BBC News 24's coverage of Britain's recent spate of youth gun crime and Keith Jarrett's response to it reveals a new and revolutionary strategy in policing. Knacker of the Yard should long ago have hung up his truncheon and stepped aside in favour of Sipho Williams who offers up the stunning critique of Stop and Search that "it's not gonna help if you just stop more people; you need to stop people committing crime." Blimey, what a clever sod.

Haymarket Bomb witnessed by idiots

Idiots: "some kind of skirmish"

Watching BBC News 24's rolling coverage of the attempted car bombing in London's West End there have been interviews throughout introduced with the contention that people who were at Tiger Tiger last night have had to stay so they could get into the cloakroom for their coats. Now, am I insane or is twelve hours a rather long time to wait to get your coat? Wouldn't it have been better to go home at 2 in the morning and then come back when a major security alert is over? Why are the BBC lamenting the fact these people didn't have beds? They were out drinking, they're not homeless; how are the self-inflicted hardships of their sleep deprivation even remotely part of the story?

Now maybe some would disagree, but this is definitely the most important story to come out of this major terrorist attack on the nation's capital.