Saturday, July 26, 2003
Mau-Mauing the Flak Catcher «
The Guardian profiles Andrew Gilligan.
Since joining Today as its defence correspondent from the Sunday Telegraph three years ago he has repeatedly irritated Tony Blair’s director of communications, Alastair Campbell, and the Labour spin machine with stories that the government would rather had not seen the light of day.
Simon Hoggart profiles Alastair Campbell.
…he hit my colleague Michael White for making a joke about Robert Maxwell…
Could anyone be so heartless as not to like Robert Maxwell, that paragon of Labour virtue? There must be some good in Campbell, perhaps it’s blind loyalty.
And positively the last quote from the Guardian today, Alexander Chancellor on leadership.
Have you noticed that the only people who really value leadership are themselves leaders, and that what they think of as leadership is not usually what we mean by it? This is certainly the case with Bush, who admires the leadership of foreign leaders who support him, and finds it lacking in those who don’t, irrespective of whether they are actually any good at leading. It is ironic that both Blair and Berlusconi have had their leadership held up for the highest presidential commendation at the moment when it is looking weak—Blair is down in the polls and losing his grip on his party; Berlusconi’s rightwing coalition is coming apart at the seams.
Both leaders are also widely suspected of losing their marbles. "Nothing," said Lord Howe, the former Conservative minister, last week, "is more likely to impair the judgment of a British prime minister than a standing ovation from both houses of Congress." He said this before Blair even left for Washington, where he was to receive 17 such ovations, and at a time when Downing Street was already formally denying that he was mad. So one doesn’t like to speculate about his mental condition after his intoxicating experience on Capitol Hill
But not all the commentary comes from the Guardian. Boris Johnson in the Torygraph claims Andrew Gilligan got it right.
Are these Gilligan-bashers really saying that the public should not know how these documents [the Iraq dossiers] were produced? Would they rather we were ignorant of the direct and controlling hand taken in the process by Alastair Campbell; the 11 changes he demanded to the September dossier alone, some of them clearly tendentious?
Well, yes, Boris, they are saying just that.
Marc Shultz reports Careful: The FB-eye may be watching. The Feds called round after someone reported that he was reading a printout of Weapons Of Mass Stupidity. Good to know that Americans are so vigilant. Guy, has beard, can read, report him at once!
Hurriedly scribbled @ 9:36 pm GMT
Sunday, July 27, 2003
Moral Integrity «
To quote Anil: I take it back, let’s get that "death penalty for flag desecration" amendment passed.
Hurriedly scribbled @ 11:29 pm GMT
Peter Hain is widely reported as accusing the BBC of behaving like a tabloid. If he said this, he would be right. The BBC is behaving like a tabloid, the Daily Mirror in the days before Maxwell, when it boasted reports like John Pilger’s on Pol Pot’s Year Zero.
Hain complains,
We have seen the absolute extreme of this in the recent row between the BBC and the Government. A story, based on one source, and "sexed up" to make it more interesting — with the seniority of that source also spun to give the report more credibility — to ensure the greatest embarrassment, in the best traditions of the tabloids, rather than a public service broadcaster.
This can only be a reference to the role of Dr David Kelly. So we leave it to Raymond Whitaker, Paul Lashmar, and Severin Carrell, also in the IoS, to reveal Bit by bit, the real Dr Kelly emerges from the shadows.
More than anyone else, Dr Kelly was instrumental in getting the regime to admit the existence of its biological weapons programme.
This was an achievement for which Dr Kelly and his team deserved a Nobel prize, according to the then chief inspector, Rolf Ekeus — only for that achievement to be slighted earlier this year in The Independent on Sunday by the Prime Minister.
The UN inspectors found no trace at all of Saddam’s offensive biological weapons programme — which he claimed didn’t exist — until his lies were revealed by his son-in-law, Mr Blair wrote in answer to an IoS reader’s question in March. In fact, Dr Kelly’s work had wrung this admission from the regime more than a month before the son-in-law defected to Jordan — according to at least one expert, it was probably what caused him to flee.
The print edition of the Sunday Telegraph has a photo of Kelly seated one place away from Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, and makes similar claims about his seniority. So perhaps Hain made an easy mistake; Kelly’s importance wasn’t spun.
Radio 4’s Broadcasting House spoke to the Chinese student who asked Tony Blair if he regretted starting the war, and she said Blair was very eloquent, but "didn’t answer the question." A similar problem affects Hain’s piece. He calls for a "new deal," though he manages not to ask the media to go "back to basics." He argues,
The media cannot have it both ways—we cannot be both "control freaks" and then, when we ease up on that control, be accused of having "lost control".
Well actually, they can. Being a "control freak" does not mean you are in control. Saddam is probably one, but he controls very little at the moment. Hain’s whole piece is about the horrors of spin, and he says
And the truth is that most voters — who are also readers, viewers and listeners — want to read or hear about how policies are likely to affect their lives, not about the self-obsessed little world of the political class.
I wouldn’t argue with a word, but the dispute between Campbell and Gilligan is not about spin: it is about policy, not the how of policy, which Hain apparently considers is all we should concern our pretty little heads with, but the why. We went to war. British people lost their lives. I believe that the reasons for that war were fictional. The UN weapons inspectors were inspecting. Saddam was evasive and non-cooperative, and many thought that meant that he must have something to hide, and the weapons inspectors were remiss in not finding said weapons. Well, the US have the run of the country now, and they still haven’t found these weapons. We can’t even say that the intelligence from Iraq was wrong, because the intelligence came from Dr Kelly, but clearly made no impression on Blair and the published intelligence was cobbled together by Alastair Campbell. Hain claims this is all ‘spin.’
Hain’s article was seen by Broadcasting House as a discreet chucking of a hat into a ring. I’m still a member of the People’s Party, and I’ve kept my membership in the very hope that these days would come. But if Robin Cook’s name is not on the ballot paper, I’m off.
Hurriedly scribbled @ 8:06 pm GMT
History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce. Karl Marx.
It didn’t strike me yesterday, that there is a certain historic irony in Alastair Campbell’s attack on Michael White. Campell, as an erstwhile Mirror employee, must have contributed to the pension fund.
So, while Campbell’s loyalty to his boss is in some way an admirable trait, its reptition belies Marx’s celebrated dictum. As we raise our hats to a certain literal-minded prostitute,* we cannot help but thing that it was the first instance in Campbell’s history which was farcical. This time, it’s tragic.
* Maxwell’s last words: I want you to toss me off. Sorry Alastair :)
Hurriedly scribbled @ 10:04 am GMT
Monday, July 28, 2003
Pathological Hostilities «
Conrad Black bemoans the BBC in a letter to the Torygraph:
The BBC is pathologically hostile to the Government and official opposition, most British institutions, American policy in almost every field, Israel, moderation in Ireland, all Western religions, and most manifestations of the free market economy.
This is exactly the sort of fling at the Beeb which ought to offend me: whatever I think of Lord Black, this is an excellent list of what the Labour Party is for. Instead, they out-Tory the Tories, so as some other commentator said, Nature abhoring a vaccuum and all that, the BBC are acting as the official oppostion. As I’ve said before, I’m a member of the People’s Party, and I regret as much as anyone its role being usurped by the BBC. The BBC is an institution, and who wants to live in one of those? [Enough with the quotations — Ed.]
Conrad Black continues:
Though its best programming in non-political areas is distinguished, sadly it has become the greatest menace facing the country it was founded to serve and inform.
If this is the case, why DID we invade Iraq where the locals don’t seem to want us, the heat is unbearable, and soldiers’ boots melt? We should have attacked Broadcasting House at far less cost to the taxpayer.
It is not the BBC’s function to assassinate the truth about the Iraq war.
The Telegraph publish the best reply to this.
From Jeremy Paxman’s insolent question of the Prime Minister: "Do you pray with" President Bush
Now I don’t see why this question offends Lord Black. One of the interesting minutiae of British political life is that the last Prime Minister, John Major, used to end interviews with "God Bless." Tony Blair, an avowed Christian, does not — because Alastair Campbell’s line is "we don’t do God." It’s therefore an excellent question, trying to peel Blair from the shell of his minders. But one of the meanings of "insolent" is rude, and if that is Black’s meaning, I am prepared to accept it. There is a discrepancy of intellect, ability, and so forth between the two men, and it was indeed rude of Paxman to let it show. A gentleman is always discreet, what?
Andrew Sullivan praises Black’s position, though he is honest enough to note that Black is writing to his own newspaper.
Hurriedly scribbled @ 11:18 pm GMT
Devouring Time blunt thou the lion’s paws,
And make the earth devour her own sweet brood,
Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger’s jaws
Shakespeare Sonnet 19
Good to know that the Sex Pistols can still annoy the odd old fart. Makes one glad to be alive, even if not as young as one used to be.
Hurriedly scribbled @ 10:34 pm GMT
Tuesday, July 29, 2003
The Ties That Blind «
Tight ties could damage eyesight. I suspect that this is an oversimplification. I’d expect a personality factor in there too: more casual men may loosen their ties readily; and some of the tightness could come from middle-aged weight gain and a refusal to move up a shirt collar size.
I couldn’t resist the pun, though I’m sure someone else got there first.
Hurriedly scribbled @ 5:46 pm GMT
Wednesday, July 30, 2003
Should I smite them? «
Slow day on the anger front, so a couple of funnies. Dear Dr. Laura, a much copied letter to Laura Schlessinger, an Orthodox Jew, who said that homosexuality was an abomination, asking advice on other Old Testament observances; and the Snopes bebunking of the urban myth of the man who tried to scratch his nose with a power drill (warning: disturbing picture).
Hurriedly scribbled @ 5:44 pm GMT
Thursday, July 31, 2003
Every Liddle Counts «
Rod Liddle accuses the government of confected outrage. I’d love to quote from this wonderful article, but I wouldn’t know where to start or stop, and copying the whole thing is simply plagiarism. Essentially, Liddle claims that Campbell’s attack on Gilligan and the BBC is a distraction. The media love stories about the media, so any dispute would be reported. The BBC behaved correctly in my view. Campbell called a truce almost imediately, because he’d seized the initiative with his attack and wanted to keep it. This would be like one boxer being allowed to call time, and declare the winner. The BBC rightly turned the truce down. I don’t know if Campbell had expected that and hoped their decision would make them look belligerent and unreasonable. I said I wasn’t going to quote Liddle, but I feel that I must.
Alastair Campbell chaired meetings of the joint intelligence committee; he should not have done so. De facto, then, he influenced the way in which the security service information was presented to Parliament, the press and the public.
He should not have done so is a strange statement to my ears, and yet I agree wholeheartedly. What was he doing chairing these meetings? Were no regular civil servants available? or even elected politicians? Didn’t he have enough to do?
Liddle is priceless on a certain thrice-disgraced former Cabinet member
…the revolting Peter Mandelson, that mincing embodiment of sanctimony and obfuscation…
I’m sure some would be quick to shout "Heterosexism," but it hits the nail on the head for me. I say thrice-disgraced when he has only been sacked two times because as #1 crony, I’m sure he’d have been back in the Cabinet after the last election (and by the reshuffle have made Deputy Prime Minister in charge of Scotland, Wales, Energy, Telecommunications, Health, Overseas Development, and Defense) if he hadn’t made that speech after the count.
I mentioned Conrad Black’s letter to his own paper before, but whether he knows it or not, the Telegraph seems to be raising a finger to Campbell by running at least one photo of Carole Caplin a day in the print edition. She’s easy on the eye, and a subtle poke in Alastair’s.
John Mortimer was beatified by the scurrilous pinkoes at the Beeb, in the form of Alan Yentob on BBC1 last night, and took a chance to complain in the Telegraph, We have a Cabinet full of lawyers with no idea of justice. In the Yentob programme, Kathy Lette called Mortimer a "babe magnet" but his attraction for actors seems even stronger by the appearances of Alan Bates and Lawrence Oliver in A Voyage Round my Father, and Leo McKern as Rumpole. Mortimer doesn’t need me to defend him. I only wonder if some in the cabinet think that Lolita or Lady Chatterley’s Lover are dirty books. Best not read such things, eh?
Hurriedly scribbled @ 4:33 pm GMT
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