What I hate about television now

I can’t tune in for a relaxed evening in front of the goggle box any more, it’s too frustrating. If I want to watch a programme that starts on the hour, I know it’s not likely to start until two, three or four minutes past because they’re still showing ads and promos. But when it does get started, it’s increasingly likely they will go to their first ad break as early as eight minutes past although mostly they do that at about twelve minutes past and run ads until almost eighteen or even twenty past. It lasts that long because they’re not just running ads, they’re running trailers for upcoming programmes. So a typical sequence would be a bump slide or short for the programme sponsors, then perhaps a short promo for another programme, then some ads, then some ‘announcements’ about what’s on later in the evening, with perhaps another promo, then a bump slide or short for the programme sponsor again and finally we’re back into the programme for another few minutes until the next ad break. If I’m just switching on to browse what’s on, there’s a high probability all the channels I’m cycling through are on an ad break. Or I might be lucky and catch an actual programme, but it will only be for a few minutes before the ads start. Even the BBC routinely start programmes late because they show so many promos and announcements but I still think the license fee is worth the money to have a few channels ad-free. I just resent paying Rupert Murdoch a fortune each month and still having to watch adverts.

The only way I can cope with this is to scan the schedules for programmes I might like, and then record them. At least then I can fast-forward through the dross. On the whole, it’s a vicious cycle. The more ads the broadcasters show, the less attention we pay to them and the less impact they have. On the other hand, if they cut back on the time they sell to advertisers they could bill it at a higher rate. Fear causes broadcasters to slash their rates to compete with each other and with other media, and to increase the time they take from programming to keep revenue up, all of this to the detriment of everyone. I’d be happy to adopt the German model (as it as when I lived there, anyway) or now in China where ads are shown between programmes, not during. Maybe then we’ll see the classic advertising again that we used to enjoy when ads were worth watching as entertainment in their own right. Bring back the PG Tips monkeys.

Death of a Dictator. Another One Gone.

I’m a little peeved by all this sanctimonious twaddle from Western leaders over the “extra-judicial killing” or “execution” or “assassination” of Gaddafi. Who are we talking about here? We’re talking about a ruthless dictator who had tyrannised Libya for forty murderous years and who had just been cornered like a rat during a fire-fight, trying to flee from a city where he had orchestrated a desperate and bloody defence by his fanatical supporters. This was still the heat of battle. He was dragged out of the culvert where he was hiding by friends and relatives of those he had butchered during his reign of terror. Is it really surprising that some of them might have said unkind things to him? Maybe called him rude names? Spat at him? Slapped him about a bit? Smacked him with a shoe? Punched him? Kicked him? Shot him? These were ordinary Libyans who had taken up arms to rid themselves of this despot. After six months of bitter fighting they finally had him. They had cornered him. A mob of excited, heavily armed men surrounded him. They were jubilant and emotions were clearly running high. These were men who were not trained soldiers, but who had risked everything to go to the front line and if necessary die fighting for freedom. These were men who had ether visited the scenes of some of Gaddafi’s atrocities or had heard from those who had, or had brothers, sisters, mothers or fathers who had been Gaddafi’s victims. There were so many victims.

International condemnation and calls for enquiries are misguided and naive. We don’t need an enquiry; we’ve seen the videos, we know what happened. Someone now has his gold-plated pistol. Someone else can say they pulled him by his hair.  Someone else can say they kicked him. And someone else can say they shot him. I’m very happy for them all.

We should not be trying to impose our values, sitting in the comfort of our own armchairs, watching blurry cell-phone videos on TV and pontificating about what’s right and wrong.

I think the best thing to do with him now is to bury him in Misrata. They hate him there, and anyone who comes to visit his grave and pay any respects is going to stand out like a sore thumb. And maybe get a beating into the bargain. There would be no pilgrimages to his grave there as there would be if he were to be buried in Sirte.

Update from news reports

Fresh eyewitness accounts of Gaddafi’s capture suggested he tried to reason with the rebels, demanding his legal rights to fair treatment and asking them: “Do you know right from wrong?”

As arguments rage over whether to kill him, Gaddafi reportedly said: “What did I do to you?”

In Defence of Our Defenders

I’m not happy about the swingeing cuts being imposed on the military. It’s sad to see so many servicemen and women being sacked, especially those on the front line, and I’m sure it’s not necessary. I’m also sad about equipment cuts, particularly those that leave us with no maritime air power, I’m sure they are all harmful to our interests. I’m sad too to see the open squabbling between Defence Secretary Liam Fox who is ordering the cuts and the top service chiefs who are protesting against them.

It’s not a tough call to decide who’s side I’m on. It’s easy in fact. I’m on Liam Fox’s side. I’m not on the side of the pultroons who caused the problem by years of sheer incompetence and infighting. The admirals and generals and air marshals cannot say it’s all the fault of the politicians. True, Labour had some of the most useless defence ministers in the history of the department, but what did the top brass do? They went along with that circus of madness, they were and they remain part of the problem.

Quite frankly, now we’re facing up to reality again I would be quite happy to see everyone of two star rank and above made redundant. I know there will be many highly capable officers lost in the process, but the same can be said of sacking hundreds of lower ranks, we will lose a lot of talent there too. At least by sacking the upper echelons en-masse we will expunge the old attitudes that led to the present difficulties and we will create wonderful opportunities to promote fresh talent.

The truth is, Liam Fox hasn’t singled out who gets the sack and who doesn’t, it was the senior officers who are now hypocritically complaining about the cuts who made the choices.

I think we’re getting rid of the wrong people. We threw out all the useless politicians a year ago, now we must complete that process and throw out all the useless generals. All of them. I have no confidence they’ve learned what went wrong, and I’m more worried that the next level of top brass have all been selected and schooled in the same dysfunctional ways. We have institutionalised incompetence and as the present outbursts show, we reward in-fighting. Bin Laden probably died a happy man.

Another medical murder averted

Persistent vegetative state.

It’s a diagnosis that can be used for legal murder by starving the victim to death.  These cases always get to me. In this latest instance reported today doctors were supposedly within hours of turning off this guy’s life-support system and his relatives were already choosing the music to play at his funeral.

Telegraph report: Cyclist makes ‘miraculous’ recovery

I have blogged about this many times, here’s my most recent: When is starving someone to death ever acceptable?

Is there no way we can raise awareness amongst the judicial and medical professions, and amongst relatives of those afflicted?

Is there some kind of professional blindness at play here? Or a Harold Shipman syndrome? Are people like Aaron Denham seen as “bed blockers” who need to be cleared out of the way for “proper” or “more deserving” patients? Is it a budget issue? I cannot believe that the doctors and nurses involved in this case would knowingly put this guy to death if they thought he could be saved, so how did we get into this situation? If they honestly believed he was in all senses of the word dead, why wouldn’t they just give him a lethal injection instead of turning off life support? Had they pulled the plug Aaron would have died a terrible and traumatic death. It’s not just the fact of him being killed, it’s the slow and agonising way they would have killed him. Are they happy with that thought?

Please read my previous blog where I consider this subject in more detail. There have been so many cases where doctors have been proved wrong.

Please: Stop Killing Patients.

So that’s what they mean by counter-intelligence

Winston Churchill: “We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.”

I wonder what he might have said about the government’s wish to have more police on the streets coupled with their determination to press ahead with sacking thousands of them.

I’m sure George Osborne can do the maths, he’s an excellent Chancellor of the Exchequer, but are David Cameron and Theresa May really that innumerate? Some things are counter-intuitive, like taxes. Cutting the top rate of income tax results in more tax being paid. Raising the top rate of income tax results in less tax being paid. This was the message Churchill was trying to get across: that trying to boost the economy by taking more out of it is self-defeating.

As is trying to boost the number of policemen by sacking them.

Is it possible that the party of hunting, shooting and fishing applies the same philosophy to all walks of life? Understanding the need to cull deer to ensure a thriving herd, or the need to hunt foxes for their own good, perhaps they see a need to cull some police for the good of the herd? Except of course the police aren’t a herd and aren’t breeding more police to the point where they’re in danger of overwhelming their natural environment. In reality they are highly trained and motivated people and indeed we do want enough of them to overwhelm crime and lawlessness.

Here’s a thought: Cut the amount of government there is running our lives and see how much better it gets.

Riots: The result of thirteen years of Labour misrule

One of the things that struck me while listening to a reporter on the radio conducting interviews after the latest night of rioting was how eloquent the people were who had been trying to protect their communities and their property. The Turkish shopkeepers spoke perfect English and had no trouble expressing themselves, as did the Bengali Moslems who had been in their mosque that evening after the end of their Ramadan fast. Then the reporter interviewed a couple of the rioters and they had the greatest difficulty stringing a sentence together. Words and part sentences were repeated while the speaker was evidently struggling to finish the thought, and often failing. They spoke a kind of “gangsta” language but not very well, even they had trouble with it. Clearly there’s a whole sub-culture here that is completely isolated from mainstream society.

However, the photos of the looting show another aspect. Along with the young disaffected people just out to make mischief are a surprising number of other people out for some astonishingly petty thievery. A young woman with a scarf across her mouth that barely conceals her identity is seen chatting to a friend while holding two bottles of wine, one red one white, a bottle of sauce and a small packet of something. Obviously she’s expecting guests for dinner later. As well as the more obvious targets such as mobile phone shops (where everything on display is a non-working replica) the rioters are also looting charity shops (where donated items are sold cheaply to raise funds for charity) and Poundland stores (where everything is on sale for a pound or less). You can almost imagine the cry going up, “They’re looting Tesco!” and someone thinking, “Great, I’ve just run out of washing up liquid”.

Meanwhile, what are our leaders doing about it? They’re planning to talk about it. But not until tomorrow – five days after the riots broke out. Labour are meanwhile starting to put their argument together, which is that while properly condemning the violence in no uncertain terms, they put the blame squarely on the government’s cuts. For that argument to work we have to believe that on the day the Labour government left office there was no underclass, there were no disaffected youth, there was no economic crisis. We have to believe all that sprang up in the last year or so. We have to believe that a generation that left school educated and articulate suddenly became the mindless rabble we’ve seen rampaging in our city centres. No, the problem we’re seeing isn’t caused by this government, it was caused by thirteen years of a lying, deceitful, morally corrupt government that practically bankrupted this country.

This government, the coalition, has to pick up the pieces. The first thing they have to do is reverse the police cuts and re-employ all those experienced officers who have already been sacked. The second thing they have to do is issue new guidelines to the police for more aggressive action – it is okay to hit a rioter with your baton, that’s what it’s for. The third thing they have to do is get emergency legislation rushed through to protect the police from malicious prosecution as a result of doing their job. The fourth thing they have to do, and this will bring maximum squealing from Labour, is to reintroduce corporal punishment in schools. We’re not going to re-educate or discipline the current underclass but we can at least try to ensure they are the last of their generation because we can be pretty sure they will not raise their own kids to be decent and respectable members of society.

All this is necessary because over thirteen years the last Labour government abdicated all responsibility for governing. They passed ridiculous laws that favoured the criminal over the victim, even foreign murderers cannot be deported back to their own countries; they conspired to allow city high-flyers and bankers to legally loot their companies with unearned and undeserved bonuses; they presided over a culture of rewarding failure where in some high-profile cases senior council officials walk away with massive pay-offs after spectacular failures. The list is long. What example does any of this give to the rioters on the streets over the last few nights? What is amazing is how many decent people there are out there, such as those Turkish shopkeepers or the Bengali Moslems, and everyone else who is standing up for their communities and for law and order.

Labour haven’t completely ruined us after all.

Oh what a lovely riot

Who are the rioters? Bored youths.
Why are they rioting? Because they can.
What are they rioting about? Nothing in particular.

Let me take you back a few years, back to the 1980’s and Thatcher’s Britain. Massed pickets had become an industrial weapon used to close factories and impose the will of union leaders on employers during the 1970’s, but Thatcher resolved to bring back the rule of law. The police were given new equipment and training in dealing with large numbers of people to clear safe passage for employees who wanted to work and for delivery trucks to get in an out. Rioting as such wasn’t an issue although it became one as frustrations and tempers rose on both sides once they were in close physical contact.

One thing stands out in my memory from that era. The police took to drumming their truncheons in unison on their riot shields, like scenes from “Zulu” where long lines of warriors would pound their shields with assagais to intimidate Michael Caine and his few red coats. Amazingly, it wasn’t throwing bricks or bashing someone over the head with a truncheon that aroused public ire, it was that. The drumming. As tough as the striking miners were, and they did have hard physically demanding jobs, it was absolutely beastly to make them hear the drumming and after many complaints it was banned.

And it’s gone downhill since. The police are hamstrung because anything that is effective in managing large numbers of angry protesters is ruled out because innocent people often get caught up during the event, and rioters know how to exploit human rights legislation after the event. Anarchists have learned how to use peaceful demonstrations either to assemble under their cover and break away to riot, or use them as human shields. And we come down hard on the police. Certainly there are some bad apples for whom the full process of the law must apply, but we shouldn’t demonise them all.

These are not genuine protests and these are not innocent people exercising their democratic rights. This is sheer lawlessness by a violent minority that deprives the majority of honest law-abiding citizens of their own rights and opportunities. And we’ve gone soft on them. We try to police a riot with tenderness and it is the police themselves now who are usually intimidated. The slightest misbehaviour on their part and they feel the full force of the law while we provide the rioters with lawyers at public expense to get them off any charges and win compensation. The system has turned topsy-turvy.

I have a vested interest: it’s not inconceivable that I might be a peaceful protester one day. We’ve all got something to be angry and protest about. For example, I’m angry about the way the banks rip us off, and when they run into financial trouble themselves we have to bail them out with public money, and then despite having run their banks practically into the ground the top directors still pay themselves colossal bonuses, only now in order to make the balance sheet still balance they sack thousands of employees and increase bank charges. But it doesn’t make me angry enough to go out and riot.

Another thing I’m angry about is what has become of our police. The Bobby on the Beat was an enduring icon of British civilisation, but a generation of jobsworths with little front-line experience and plenty of office politics skills have risen to the top and ruined all that. They’ve built empires of pen-pushers with layers of management and turned the police service into a quagmire of red tape, driven by targets and quotas. And with the economic crisis brought about by New Labour and the need to make serious cut-backs, who gets the chop? The Bobby on the Beat. Thousands are to be made redundant.

We need new leadership for the police service and a renewed sense of purpose. And we need to keep every copper we’ve got.

We also need to remind ourselves what is important. These are difficult times and there are millions of ordinary people who have genuine grounds for grievance. Their right to complain and their right to peacefully protest is important, and that right is being put at risk by these rioters. People are being put out of work, small business owners are being put out of business, and communities are suffering. Our rights far outweigh those of the rioters and we have to give the police our complete support in dealing with them. 

Guantánamillionaire

You know, if I had my own terrorist organisation I would be fabulously rich. And I wouldn’t have to hurt anyone. I’d just recruit a few people with British citizenship, send them on holiday to north west Pakistan for six weeks (it won’t be necessary to train them to shoot guns and make bombs), then have them arrested. If I can get them arrested by the Americans, I’ve hit the jackpot. The Americans will rough them up a bit (you know, by not reading them bed time stories, giving them cold cocoa at night, not fluffing up their pillows, that sort of thing) and then when they get released and sent back to Blighty they can slap in a claim that their human rights were abused. And our government being so hide-bound by mostly EU-originated laws and an astonishingly simplistic world-view will pay them a million pounds each. I will have had contracts signed with these guys beforehand to split the proceeds 50-50, so ten of them will net me £5 million, fifty will net me £25 million, and the sky’s the limit. What will I call it? Al-Cashpoint sounds good.

MI5 and MI6 pay out £12m to Britons held in Guantánamo

Of course, there is no suggestion these guys were actually involved in terrorism, but if I were a terrorist it would be a great inspiration to me.

Here are some earlier posts by me on the theme of how we treat enemy combatants and conduct the war on terror generally:

How goes the war on terror? A round up of recent news
What part of “We’re at war” do you not understand?
The problem with treating enemy combatants as civil defendants. It doesn’t work.

Justice delayed is justice denied

We do not need another “Bloody Sunday” inquiry that will take years and cost millions, Lord Saville spent twelve years and over £200 million to accomplish nothing. The phone hacking scandal, which may be just the tip of the iceberg in terms of lawbreaking and misconduct by the media, requires new laws to be introduced at the earliest opportunity. At the very least we want tough new guidelines and sharper teeth for the complaints handling process immediately.

We are not going to get satisfaction from a ponderous inquiry. We want action.

If Lord Leveson cannot undertake to complete his inquiry within three months, he should step down now. We should instead put it out to tender. We should invite commercial bids to conduct the inquiry from suitable organisations. Interested parties submit sealed bids outlining their capabilities and setting out how they would conduct the inquiry. The government then appoints the most competent and cost-effective contractor to do the job. And of course, there must be a penalty clause for late delivery.

Should Lord Leveson get to drag his inquiry out as he plans, time will have moved on, dirt will have been brushed under carpets, excuses will be fine tuned, and we’ll all forget why this is such an important issue. The guilty will escape jail, they’ll carry on making money and eventually retire in ill-deserved comfort. And after a suitable interval we can be sure everyone will be back up to their old tricks again, write best-selling memoirs telling all and have the last laugh at our expense.

And there will have been no justice done.

Rupert Murdoch: Befuddled old man, or willful blindness?

Stockholders in News Corporation ought to be worried. On the evidence of his appearance before the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee yesterday, Rupert Murdoch is preparing a defence against any potential charge of “willful blindness” by presenting himself as a befuddled old man. He sat motionless and unawares during the shaving-foam assault on him towards the end of proceedings, it was up to Wendi Deng and an un-named woman to spring to his defence and wipe him clean afterwards, but in the three hours prior to that he had shown an equal degree of mental torpor.

The willful blindness charge matters a great deal, that’s why he needs to avoid it at all costs. It applies when executives try to deny responsibility for errors or illegal activity by their subordinates by claiming they didn’t know about it. That defence fails if it can be shown that they ought to have known but kept themselves in the dark or saw to it they were kept in the dark. The only other plea in that situation is insanity.

Some selected questions and answers from the Hearing to illustrate:

Louise Mensch MP: You are ultimately in charge of the company. Given your shock at these things being laid out before you and the fact that you didn’t know anything about them, have you instructed your editors around the world to engage in a root-and-branch review of their own news rooms to be sure that this isn’t being replicated in other News Corps papers around the globe? If not, will you do so?
Rupert Murdoch: No, but I am more than prepared to do so.

It seems incredible to me that being aware of how serious the situation is he hasn’t already launched an enquiry, but even more, when fed a leading question he still doesn’t announce that he will have an enquiry only that he is prepared to do so.

Louise Mensch MP: It is a much bigger ship, but you are in charge of it. As you said in earlier questions, you do not regard yourself as a hands-off Chief Executive; you work 10 to 12 hours a day. This terrible thing happened on your watch. Mr Murdoch, have you considered resigning?
Rupert Murdoch: No.
Louise Mensch MP: Why not?
Rupert Murdoch: Because I feel that people I trusted I am not saying who, and I don’t know what level have let me down. I think that they behaved disgracefully and betrayed the company and me, and it is for them to pay. Frankly, I think that I am the best person to clean this up.

Ms Mensch should have followed this up by asking “What will you do to clean this up?” but she did not, despite his acknowledgement that people he trusted have behaved disgracefully and betrayed the company. He knows people have lied to him or his subordinates, yet he shows no interest and has taken no steps to finding out who they are. The same line again in response to an earlier question from Tom Watson MP:

Tom Watson MP: If it can be shown to you that private investigators working for newspapers in News International used other forms of illicit surveillance like computer hacking, would you immediately introduce another investigation?
Rupert Murdoch: That would be up to the police, but we would certainly work with the police. If they wanted us to do it, we would do it. If they wanted to do it, they would do it.

A pattern emerged at the Hearing of Rupert Murdoch consistently failing to find out when he ought to have been finding out.

The track record of News Corp’s cooperation with the police is not good either. Leaving aside accusations that they were bribing members of the Metropolitan Police for information, and that they had a too-close relationship with some seniors officers, Keith Vaz, Chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee which is also investigating the phone hacking scandal has said, “…there has been a deliberate attempt by News International to thwart investigations…” Therefore, Rupert Murdoch’s assurance that they will work with the police cannot be taken at face value.

Furthermore, any reasonable person would think that someone in Rupert Murdoch’s position would order a thorough investigation immediately upon hearing about these allegations and without waiting for the police to launch a criminal enquiry. The scale of some of the out-of-court settlements which bought the silence of some News of the World victims, and the interference with some of the evidence by senior News of the World executives points to a culture of denial and cover-up. Did that culture extend all the way up to the top of News Corp?

Rupert Murdoch is in an invidious position. If he really is a befuddled old man from who other people were keeping the truth, then he isn’t a fit and proper person to be running such a large organisation. If on the other hand he is a fit and proper person to be running the show, he cannot deny responsibility for his failings.