The real scandal? - by Richard... Saturday, September 04, 2010

The real scandal? - by Richard... Saturday, September 04, 2010

Not a few readers have been writing to tell me that I should "forget" about Hague and concentrate on the real scandal, the ongoing saga of Andy Coulson, the No 10 "communications chief" and former News of the World editor.

Actually, I would as soon forget about the whole bunch of them but, sadly, ignoring them does not make them go away. But the Coulson scandal will not go away either, as is gleefully recorded byThe Guardian and many others, who are picking up on the so-called mobile phone hacking scandal.

The current development is that Coulson, who has denied any wrongdoing, has been fingered by the New York Times as having freely discussed the use of unlawful news-gathering techniques, with a former News of the World journalist claiming that he had been ordered by the former editor to tap phones.

This is Sean Hoare, who has also told BBC Radio 4's PM: "There is an expression called the culture of dark arts. You were given a remit: just get the story. Phone tapping hadn't just existed on the News of the World. It was endemic within the whole industry. I have gone on the record in the New York Times and said I have stood by Andy and been requested to tap phones, OK, or hack into them. He was well aware the practice existed. To deny it is simply a lie.

For the Tories to have their spinmeister implicated in an illegal activity is bad enough, but to have him also accused of lying through his teeth is more than a little unfortunate. It points once again to the lack of judgement of the Tory hierarchy and to the generally tawdry nature of British politics and politics in general.

The impression is further reinforced that politics is not something that ordinary, decent people have anything to do with – an impression that is not wrong, given the people we see involved in politics and their various deeds.

The Hague affair, therefore, is not separate from the Coulson affair. They are part of a continuum. These are people we can do without.

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North talks - by Richard... Friday, September 03, 2010

It's funny, I can't stand the sound of my own voice, but fortunately that feeling is not universally shared ... hence some may care to listen to North on the Battle of Britain, discussed on the Beeb this morning. Thomas Harding also gave me a good outing in The Daily Telegraph recently - far more generous about my role than it warrants - but it is really good to have.

The project is generating huge interest. Of all the things I've done, I've never known anything like it!

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Al Gore lied, James Lee died - by Richard...

"At a gut level most left-wing environmentalists know that they're liars. Intellectually they might have somehow convinced themselves that Mother Earth is in some sort of man-made peril, but deep down inside where the truth won't be denied, these liars know they’re lying — know that the 'green movement' is all about a sinister political agenda to put them in the position of insect overlords in charge of we rubes who stubbornly refuse to let go of the idea that Marxism is a bad thing.

But Gore and Co. are consciously and purposefully using the most powerful propaganda device ever created to spread self-serving lies in the hopes of scaring us into voting for the kind of government that will give the elite more control over our lives."

My kind of writer here. The pic: all the "above the line" beautiful people ... lying through their damn teeth. And God help us, the stupid greenie proles believe them and lap it all up. Sadly, there is no cure for stupidity.

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Above the line - by Richard...

Expanding my collection of Battle of Britain books, I made the mistake recently of buying the highly regarded "With Wings of Eagles" by Michael Korda.

He is your classic "above the line" author, former editor-in-chief of Simon and Schuster US, a Brit living in New York with a host of titles to his name. And, in the acknowledgements to this one, he thanks his assistant, the "invaluable Mike Hall for his dedicated research skills" and Kevin Kwan "for photo research".

I think, in this context, the general rule is that you should never trust an author who does not do his own research. This would certainly stand up here. In the centre of the book is a two-page full-colour version of the above photograph, with the following caption:

A Hurricane Mk 1 (foreground) and two Spitfire Mk I's in the sky over England, summer of 1940.

To anyone with a little knowledge of the Battle, they will know this to be false. The pale blue band round the tails of the aircraft was a marking that was not introduced until the spring of 1941. No Battle of Britain aircraft carried this marking, so the photograph cannot have been taken in the summer of 1940. In fact, it was taken by Charles E. Brown in September 1942. And the Spitfires are not Mk Is, but Mk IIs.

Now, you would not expect the ordinary person to know this, but you would expect someone writing a book on the Battle of Britain, with his own research team, to be aware of such detail – and to get it right.

Given such an egregious error, what confidence can you have in the rest of the book?

But, actually, there is a broader issue here. One can almost advance the thesis that it is a characteristic of the "above the line" fraternity - be they politicians, broadcasters, journalists, celebs, writers, historians, academics, or whatever - that they will always get it wrong. The more famous they are, the more highly-regarded they are, the more celebrated they are, the more likely this is to be true.

UPDATE: the joys of having a forum. One of our readers reports on having found the photograph with its original caption:

"A Hawker Sea Hurricane IB in formation with two Supermarine Seafire IICs of 760 Squadron based at Yeovilton. This fine study was taken on 18th November 1942."

Is it possible for Korda to have got it more wrong? And is it possible that so many get it wrong? This blogger here seems to have the definitive answer ... August 1942 it is, a Hurricane and Spitfires from the Empire Central Flying School based at RAF Hullavington. The nose art is the "Red Pelican" (right).

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Wages of stupidity - by Richard...

I think the thing that worries us most about the foreign secretary and his current difficulties is the very evident lack of judgement – verging on, if not actually – crass stupidity.

In this extremely complex and demanding portfolio, we need someone of impeccable judgment, with the ability to command respect. It is now clear that we have a foreign secretary that has neither.

We are in troubled times and, although I keep saying it, I really don't think we deserve this from our political classes. Politics always was a pretty low-grade occupation, but the stench is something quite unpleasant now. We have reached a new low.