The underlying problem

Sunday, March 15, 2009

The underlying problem

It is the Ides of March and, therefore, issues of importance need to be looked at. Not that the EU is not important but, in many ways, it is the symptom, not the cause.

Yesterday I did a longish stint on the BBC Russian Service and, in the course of it, spent two minutes talking about the growing popularity of Ayn Rand's novel "Atlas Shrugged" in the United States and the ever more frequent signs of "Who is John Galt?" appearing at the continuing Tea Parties across the country. (This movement has been documented extensively by Instapundit, Sister Toldjah and Michelle Malkin, among others.)

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Comatose

There is a good round-up piece by Bruno Waterfield today, with him writing of the "Return of the East-West divide: European Union in chaos as global recession deepens."

A lot of it seemed awfully familiar though, and indeed it was. Many of the issues explored were rehearsed in Deutsche Welle on 24 February – three weeks ago – reviewed by us on the same day.

This is no reflection on Bruno – he could have written a version of today's article any time in the last three weeks, had he been given the space. It more accurately reflects how low down the food chain comes news on EU politics, despite their importance to us.

The debate about whether MPs (of the male variety) should wear ties in the House gets more overall coverage in the British media (and "political" blogs). Meanwhile, if you want an analysis of how and why the BNP is experiencing electoral success, go to the Al Jazeera website.

Interestingly, of late we have been lamenting about the paucity of coverage over defence policy, on the EU and on the bias on "climate hysteria". But that really does tell you all you need to know about the British media. 

Nevertheless, the author of the Al Jazeera piece reckons that the June euro-elections will be a "wake-up call". I suspect not. It is more difficult than that to wake people from a coma.

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A turning point

When distant historians come to write an account of the early 21st Century, one hopes they will accord more than a footnote to the events of this past week, and note the extraordinary significance of the almost universal self-censorship of the media on one of the most important political issues of our time.

It is to this which Booker refers today in his column, the only MSM report of the New York Heartland Institute conference on climate change in a week dominated by elevated "climate hysteria" from the Copenhagen conference.

Of the two, the scientific credentials and the gravitas of the former undoubtedly outweighed the shrieking claque of the alarmists in Copenhagen, yet it was to the latter that the media hordes gravitated, clearing space for their ever-more fantasmagorical predictions, all directed at shaping and distorting the political agenda.

The proceedings of the New York conference are admirably summed up inAmerican Thinker blog and it is a measure of just how far the media have abrogated their responsibilities as news providers that you have to go to this site for a report. Booker apart, you will not find anything like it in any mainstream print journal.

Instead, in a classic of its kind, we get The Sunday Times devote two whole pages to climate hysteria. But such is their confidence that chief cheerleader Jonathan Leake does not even bother to disguise the real agenda. He writes:

The director of a Nasa space laboratory will this week lead thousands of climate change campaigners through Coventry in an extraordinary intervention in British politics. James Hansen plans to use Thursday's Climate Change Day of Action to put pressure on Gordon Brown to wake up to the threat of climate change - by halting the construction of new power stations and the expansion of airports, with schemes such as the third runway at Heathrow.

The emphasis is mine, but the words are not. This is nothing to do with science – it is political. The "climate hysteria" movement is a political movement, which – as we pointed out - has an agenda and values wholly alien to those of any liberal democracy.

For the media to have so consistently ignored the Heartland Institute conference yet give such prominence to Copenhagen is akin to it reporting the Labour party conference and ignoring the Conservative conference – it is of that magnitude.

Thus, we see emerging from a political conspiracy a coup d'état. And sadly, while the hysterics dictate the political agenda, the self-referential political claques prattle on, wrapped up in their own little preoccupations, blissfully heedless of the fact that the ground is being cut from beneath them.

That is also something for the historians to note – how the politicians retreated from politics, and ceded the ground to the activists, with the willing complicity of the media. To that extent, last week was a turning point – unrecognised as yet for what it was. The accounting is to come, when people learn that we have truly been sold out.

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Blowing smoke

The hubris of the media is always a little entertaining, not least when one newspaper breathlessly claims an "exclusive", only for another to runexactly the same story.

Both are "revealing" that the Government's "top doctor" is recommending price hikes for alcohol, although why they have to use this infantile description is beyond me. He is Professor Sir Liam Donaldson, the "chief medical officer" – is that so hard to understand? That actually means he isn't a doctor. He is a medical bureaucrat, but what the heck.

Anyhow, neither of the newspapers pick up the EU link so well described in The Times the other day. But then, to have done so would have spoiled the headlines, and we can't have that.

Looking at the ECJ rulings, and the EU treaty requirements, the arguments against minimum price imposition are pretty persuasive. The likelihood, therefore, is that Donaldson is blowing smoke, just as is the Scottish government. Minimum price imposition is illegal under EU law.

That they should even propose this, however, points to the head-in-sand attitude of our own authorities who themselves do not seem to be able to come to terms with the fact that our superior government is in Brussels and that their freedom of action is heavily circumscribed.

There is, of course, the other possibility – that we have a strong element of kite-flying here, softening up public opinion for a massive tax hike on booze. That is the only legal option available to our provincial government. But, as we asserted in our previous piece, Mr Brown needs the money and if he can cloak another tax grab in the cosy garb of a "public health measure", he will be only too happy to avail himself of the opportunity.

The one thing we won't get is a sensible or even adult discussion in the media. There is plenty of evidence, from Sweden and other high-tax countries, that high cost does not affect consumption rates – although if booze does get too expensive, the kids turn to drugs.

Alcohol misuse is a symptom of a broader malaise and if Donaldson was a proper doctor and not a bureaucrat, he would know that treating the symptoms rather than the underlying cause of an ailment is rarely successful. But then, when it comes to "cures" which end up costing us all money, it really is quite remarkable how quickly medical principles are ditched.

It will, nevertheless, be marginally interesting to observe how the current players square their enthusiasms for price-hikes with the limitations imposed by EU law. Watch for some delicious squirming, and then an announcement that "taxation is the better option". You know it makes sense that you should give more of your money to the government.

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