This is Peter Hitchens' Mail On Sunday column Willam Hague was dead right when he warned against the EU’s attempt to create its own armed forces, increasing harmonisation of economic policy and a Europe-wide justice system. He thundered: ‘Together these things amount to a blueprint for a single European state.’ And he was equally right to chide the Prime Minister for his feebleness, saying he was ‘going with the flow’ of recent alarming developments in the EU. ‘Like the little boy who cried wolf too many times, nobody now believes the Prime Minister when he says he will fight to protect Britain’s interests in Europe.’ You didn’t notice? Alas, Mr Hague said all these things when he was still at least pretending to be a conservative. His words, entirely applicable this week, were spoken on December 4, 1998, when the PM was David Cameron’s hero and exemplar, Anthony Blair. Mr Blair had just been mauled over Britain’s colossal contributions to the EU, as happens Then, as if to emphasise our national weakness, he had sought to appease our European rulers still more by surrendering control over our own armed forces. This shameful event, the St Malo Agreement, is still far too little known because it was obscured at the time by the Budget row. But I remember my shudder of apprehension and disgust. A beautiful warship, the now-scrapped HMS Birmingham, was moored in the French port of St Malo, so that British naval power could be formally ended beneath the shadow of the White Ensign. How the French must have smirked to see the heirs of Nelson reduced to providing a stage set for the symbolic cancellation of all those great naval victories that secured British independence from the Con tinent, especially Trafalgar – for which they have never forgiven us and never will. This agreement is the main trunk of the deal under which we have now absurdly agreed to ‘share’ warships – and troops and nuclear matters – with France, though its roots actually lie in an earlier document signed under John Major’s leadership by Michael Portillo, in Bordeaux in November 1996. The Cameron-Sarkozy bargain has been treated as a joke because it is so obviously silly to imagine that Britain and France could ever agree on how to use such things if their interests differ. But those who laugh at it miss its point. From now on, neither country has any independent defence policy. Both have handed it to the EU. The French don’t care about this because they long ago recognised their defeat by Germany in 1940 as permanent, and resolved to live with it in return for prosperity and the outward appearance of grandeur. That, enshrined in the Elysee Treaty of 1963, is the unspoken pact at the heart of the EU. Just as the original Franco-German currency deal was the beginning of the euro, the union of Europe’s two remaining serious military and naval powers is intended as the beginning of Federal European armed forces. These will be controlled by the new post-Lisbon ‘legal personality’, the European Superstate they keep telling us doesn’t exist. Well, it does exist, and Mr Cameron and Mr Hague are its obedient servants. I was told the ‘opposing’ teams of soldiers – having goose-stepped almost into each other’s faces and glowered at each other till their moustaches touched – often gathered afterwards for a convivial curry. And the cheering, flag-brandishing crowds were a good deal less menacing than British football fans confronting rivals at a local derby. It may even have been a safety valve. And no conflict in the world is more in need of one. They could claim that they were ‘forced’ to do these things by the raggle-taggle judges in their palace on the banks of the curiously named River Ill. So his whinnying claim that he ‘had no choice’ but to yield to the demands of a drug-hazed axe-killer and give votes to serving prisoners is particularly contemp tible. He had a choice. He just preferred not to exercise it. If Britain pulled out of the Strasbourg court, and resolved to regulate its own liberties, nobody would lift a finger to stop us. This man has ‘I give in’ written on his heart (see how long his tough line on immigration lasted). I advise all news papers to keep the headline ‘Cameron backs down on . . .’ set permanently in large type. We are going to need it a lot. On Wednesday night, at a debate in London mentioned elsewhere here, Matthew Parris said the following about a broadcast exchange that he and I had on Sunday 31st October, on Radio 4's Sunday programme. If you want to comment on Peter Hitchens, click on Comments and scroll down. One or two readers complained about the cost of attending the 'Intelligence squared' Debate in London on Wednesday night, in which the proposition was that Britain is becoming an anti-Christian country. For the motion were Howard Jacobson (whose speech was a tour-de-force), Lord Carey (the former Archbishop of Canterbury) and me. Against were Geoffrey Robertson QC, Matthew Parris, the Liberal Conservative Times Columnist and frequent Radio 4 presenter, and Dom Antony Sutch, RC divine. I hope a recording of the whole thing will eventually become generally available, but in the absence of this, here is the text of the speech I delivered, for those who are interested. Here it is: As I survey the pleasant faces, and savour the patrician tones of my opponents, it seems to me that *they* are the voice of the establishment, whereas I and my allies in this side of the question are the cheeky, irreverent rebels against convention and respectability. Doesn’t Geoffrey Robertson remind you – as he does me – of one of Anthony Trollope’s handsome, worldly, self-satisfied deans? Or, for those of you who know what I am talking about (and I am sorry for you if you don’t) of Peter Simple’s magnificent creation, the great progressive Bishop of Bevindon, Dr Spacely-Trellis, forerunner of and perhaps model for the real life Bishop Jenkins of Durham, and even our own beloved old Rowan Williams. If you want to comment on Peter Hitchens, click on Comments and scroll down. It's amusing, if frustrating, to see the response of dogmatic unbelievers to my brother's thoughtful and generous remarks. It is clear that many of them find such thoughtfulness and generosity repugnant in their hero (and some of these contributions are embarrassing in their sycophancy). They would much prefer him not to have said this. If you want to comment on Peter Hitchens, click on Comments and scroll down. If you want to comment on Peter Hitchens, click on Comments and scroll down. If you want to comment on Peter Hitchens, click on Comments and scroll down. David Cameron does not want to be a Conservative Prime Minister. The idea fills him with disgust. He much prefers a Coalition with the ultra-Leftist, anti-British Liberal Party. Why? Because he is much more like them than he is like the silly sheep who voted Tory in the deluded hope of getting a patriotic, respon sible and just government. I warned everyone against Mr Cameron when there was still time to stop him. And he repeatedly helped me by confirming that what I said was true. He made it plain, when he shamelessly broke his pledge on an EU referendum, that he was not to be trusted on the Brussels issue – as we now see. He refused to reply when I asked him, during the Election, if he was closer to Nick Clegg or Norman Tebbit. He gave his answer days later, after the sheep had voted, as he formed a Coalition with Mr Clegg. But conventional wisdom – which is always wrong – has since then claimed that Mr Clegg is in some way the prisoner of the wicked Tories. He is portrayed as Mr Cameron’s fag at school, or as his helpless underling, by politically illiterate cartoonists. On the contrary, Mr Cameron is the willing prisoner of Mr Clegg. He loves to have a permanent excuse to tell the shivering, lonesome clumps of real conservatives in his party that he cannot do what they want him to do. In fact, he loves it so much that he really wants a merger between the two parties – in all but name. Hence the most fascinating – and so the least discussed – political revelation of the week. My colleague Simon Walters reported last Sunday that Francis Maude, one of Mr Cameron’s closest and most astute lieutenants, had told a private gath ering that the Coalition is a ‘bloody good thing’, adding that there was very little difference between the Tory and Liberal parties and that many Tories want the pact to continue far beyond five years. ‘Even if the Conservatives win a majority at the next Election, there will be a desire to continue with the Coalition among parts of the Conser vative Party,’ he said. Those parts will be the ones concentrated in the smart area of West London where Mr Cameron and his allies dwell. They are Liberals. They will govern as Liberals. Vote Blue. Get Yellow. If that isn’t what you want, stop giving them support, time, money and votes. When Mr Richards tumbled out of a tree and hurt himself some years ago, he received a get-well card from none other than Anthony Blair, Her Majesty’s First Lord of the Treasury and Keeper of the Nuclear Button. Mr Blair, gushing like a teen groupie, informed Mr Richards that he had always been one of his heroes. Mr Richards’s response does him credit. He said: ‘England’s in the hands of someone I’m a hero of? It’s frightening.’ And it was. More frightening than he knew. Mr Blair, like far too many of his generation, still suffers from the terrible arrested development that causes grown fathers of families to strum guitars, listen to interminable self-pitying songs and wear trousers that are far, far too tight for them. This also makes them prone to accept simple-minded solutions to the world’s problems, like bombing other countries and looking the other way as their inhabitants are tortured and murdered. And saying they did it for a good cause. But where does this leave the enthusiasts – usually panic- mongers on the subject of Iran – who claim that our soldiers must continue to be blown to pieces to prop up Mr Karzai? And more importantly, where does it leave our soldiers? Whatever are they still doing in Helmand and Kandahar? Mr Cameron has had plenty of time to come up with a coherent explanation for his support of this war, and hasn’t done so, so we can only assume it’s part of the price he pays for the saliva-stained support he gets from the Murdoch press. Bring them home now. Each new death and injury is intolerable and unforgivable. Who'd have thought that the planned merger of the French Navy and the Royal Navy into an EU Fleet – the end of centuries of independent British seapower – should have been announced with so little clamour, just days after Trafalgar Day? Far more important, I should have thought, than a grounded submarine. Try venison stew, not daft sentimentality This beast may look very nice. But if he hasn’t been shot, he’ll die horribly from a broken leg, or contract TB. And in the meantime he is getting up to things with his younger female relatives that have no place in a family paper. I’m hoping for a nice venison stew for supper. Most of it is a waste of time. Worse, I suspect it is done for propaganda reasons – to spread the irrational fear of terrorism, so doing the terrorists’ work for them. I think it is also meant to make us more willing to accept grotesque laws such as the Terrorism Act, shown last week to be a crazy increase in state powers for no gain at all. Friday’s strange new scare on cargo jets doesn’t change the argument in any way. I think it’s my Cornish roots, but I have to make a huge, almost physical, effort to suppress a rebellious rage every time I am compelled to undergo nonsensical airport checks. I submit only because I know that if I protest, or even mock, I won’t be allowed to fly. And I need to fly to do my job. When will anyone in Parliament be prepared to stand up against the totalitarian propaganda of the ‘security experts’, incessantly used to make us less free while leaving us just as unsafe as we were before? If you want to comment on Peter Hitchens, click on Comments and scroll down. If you want to comment on Peter Hitchens, click on Comments and scroll down.
Two ‘conservatives’ humble the heirs of Nelson ... oh, how the French must be smirking
to all British Premiers.
A sad end to friendly rivalry on India’s front line
What a pity that the mad but hugely enjoyable Indo-Pakistan border ceremony is to
come to an end. Having witnessed it from the Pakistani side, I can see it would be hard on the knees, but the really good thing about it was that it actually promoted friendliness.
‘I give in’ – the words written on Cameron’s heart
The largely powerless Strasbourg Human Rights court has functioned for years as an excuse for British governments that badly wanted to do stupid, liberal things – but feared punishment at the polls.
Oddly enough, it was David Cameron himself who punctured this delusion, by promising in an unwise moment to pass a ‘British Bill of Rights’ (we already have one, but this Oxford-educated ignoramus doesn’t seem to know this).
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The interesting thing about Professor David Nutt and his silly pseudo-scientific report about drugs last week is that this pitiful stuff was treated with seriousness by the BBC and several major newspapers. Why? Our media and our politics are deeply corrupted by drug abuse now and in the past. They still won’t admit they were wrong.
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Why was it even necessary to tell us about a bomb in a freight plane that didn’t go off? Is everything we are being told about it true? And I still haven’t seen a convincing, satisfactory explanation of precisely how these devices could have been detonated. Remember that neither the shoe bomb nor the underpants bomb ever went off.
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The widespread acceptance of pornography, bad language and general sexual licence make child sex abuse easier and more likely. Surely that is one of the most striking lessons from the inquiry into the horrible goings-on at Little Ted’s Nursery in Plymouth. The monstrous Vanessa George created an atmosphere in which staff felt it ‘prudish’ to challenge her behaviour. In a world where people are ashamed to be prudes, and unashamed of pornographic dirt, this is what you get. Smut matters.
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Some public figures attract a sort of love from their admirers. One such is Matthew Parris, the radio presenter and columnist who appears so sweetly reasonable. Is he as he appears? On Wednesday, Mr Parris, in the course of a rather acid attack on me in front of a London audience, gave what I shall politely describe as a severely inaccurate account of something I had said on Radio 4. (Details are below.) I have asked him to correct it but he shows no sign of doing so. If he is as reasonable as he likes to sound, he will put this right.Share this article:
04 November 2010 2:12 PM
Matthew Parris and Accuracy
‘It is always a pleasure to be harangued by a Hitchens, and Peter started limbering up at 7.30 on Radio 4 on Sunday morning. The programme was called “Pause for Thought”, an injunction Peter has built a media career on overlooking.
‘Among his arguments, I recall, was the assertion that discriminating against gays is OK because it is an objective fact that gay relationships are inferior, whereas discrimination against Blacks or Jews is not OK because it is an objective fact that this is sheer prejudice.’
Those interested in hearing the whole exchange can find it on the BBC iPlayer about 25 minutes into the programme, transmitted at around 7.35 am.
I haven't time at the moment to transcribe the entire segment, but I urge everyone interested (and Mr Parris) to listen to it in full. There is an initial exchange in which I mention the Dawkins equation of the raising of children as Christians with child abuse. I also put my case that the new dogmas of 'Human Rights' and 'Equality and Diversity' are supplanting Christianity as our main moral system, and driving it out of the public sphere. I make no mention of homosexuality at this stage of the argument. Mr Parris, however, does. But I have transcribed here the later part of the discussion to which Mr Parris was referring.
It begins with him recounting that he was born in South Africa, where the Dutch Reformed Church promoted racial bigotry. He then equates this bigotry with the Christian attitude towards homosexuality, the second time he has mentioned the subject in this short debate - though on this occasion he has been prompted to do so by the presenter, Edward Stourton, who mentions the case of the couple, Owen and Eunice Johns, told they cannot foster in future because they are not prepared to tell their foster children that they approve of homosexuality. The important thing about this case is missed by Mr Stourton and Mr Parris - that what is required from the couple is not discretion, or even silence, but an actual positive affirmation of a way of life which they think wrong.
Instead Mr Parris launches into his equation of racial bigotry with Christian sexual morality.
I respond. ‘It's a false comparison.
‘Racial bigotry is irrational, stupid and indefensible. It is based on a fundamental misunderstanding. There is no difference between people of different skin colours apart from their colour.’
At this point Mr Parris interrupts, rather bizarrely.
‘That is what you say, Peter.’
To which I retort:
‘You don't think that? I think so.’
Mr Stourton intervenes to prevent Mr Parris interrupting further, and I continue:
‘I am completely opposed to racial bigotry precisely because it is irrational and stupid. The argument about homosexuality is a tiny side-issue of the major point - which is “is lifelong heterosexual marriage the only sexual relationship which society is prepared to endorse, or not? Which used to be the case, and is now not the case.”
‘That is a different argument and involves the application of reason and a number of other things. It is not to be compared to racial bigotry by any serious and thoughtful person - and to do so is simply a smear.’
At this point the discussion is brought to a brisk end by Mr Stourton, against my pleas for more time.
So far as I know, there is no such programme as ‘Pause for Thought', though this alleged title gives Mr Parris a cheap laugh line. I do not think Mr Parris's account of what I said can be said to be an accurate one. I told him so, fairly forcefully, both during the debate and after it. He was taken aback by my unconcealed scorn for his behaviour, and responded by telling me that the New Testament has several injunctions against anger. Indeed it does. But it also has some fairly strong suggestions that we should try to tell the truth.
Go here for the Intelligence Squared audio from Wednesday November 3 and scroll down for the audio.
Go here for the audio from Radio 4’s Sunday programme. The discussion begins about 25 minutes in.Share this article:
Wednesday Night's Debate
I don't often write texts but on this occasion decided to do so. As a result, it slightly over-ran, and I had to leave out one or two of the points towards the end. But it is very close to what I actually said, and I have inserted one or two things which I recall saying, but which were not in the original text.
Then there’s Matthew, whose ever-so-slightly strangled vowels, so often heard upon the radio, always make me think of one of those stricken, tortured curates who could only swallow about 23 of the 39 articles and were constantly on the brink of resigning their livings.
As for Dom Antony, has he perhaps escaped from one of the earlier novels of Evelyn Waugh, when priests were priests and Mass was Mass, Hell was Hell and Limbo was Limbo, and a jolly good dinner was a jolly good dinner?
I think, in a very slightly different world, not far distant in time and space from where we are now, that Matthew and Geoffrey might easily have been the authoritative voices of the established faith – precisely because it *was* established, as theirs is now.
I should add that what Antony is doing here remains a mystery to me. I can only hope that it is a Holy Mystery.
Now, here’s a test.
How would it be, do you think, if I began with a prayer? How many of you would shrink with embarrassment if I did so? Let’s try, and see what effect it has. Let us pray.
‘O Almighty God, who alone canst order the unruly wills and affections of sinful men, grant unto thy people that they may love the thing which thou commandest, and desire that which thou dost promise; that so, among the sundry and manifold changes of this world, our hearts may surely there be fixed, where true joys are to be found. Through Jesus Christ Our Lord, Amen.’
See. Nobody joined in.
That’s the Collect for the Fourth Sunday after Easter, and a hundred years ago your equivalents would for the most part have known it by heart (as I do) along with large chunks of the Bible and the Book of Common Prayer.
Now it rings disturbingly upon the secular ear, because of the unaccustomed beauty of its language in an age of bureaucratic ugliness, but more importantly because of the alien concepts it raises.
The modern mind demands to know: ‘What is this stuff?’
Unruly wills and affections?
Who dares say my will or my affection are unruly? I can do what I please.
Sinful men?
Apart from the fact that this should be ‘sinful people’ to be inclusive, surely ‘sin’ is a reactionary and repressive concept, years out of date?
Jesus Christ our *Lord*?
Nice chap Jesus. A lot of sound ideas. But I acknowledge no Lord. The very word’s embarrassing.
The reason for this feeling of queasy discomfort is of course that Britain has in the last century ceased to be a Christian country in anything but name.
We don’t read the Bible. We don’t go to Church. We don’t believe the Creeds. We don’t sing hymns. We don’t think Christ rose again or that there is a life beyond the grave.
And we think that those who do think this are rather weird.
Take me, for instance. Hardly a week passes by without someone describing me as a ‘Devout Christian’?
You might think that I go about with a barbed-wire garter tightly wrapped round my upper thigh.
Or that I end each evening, after beating my children severely, by reciting two or three long, penitential psalms.
No, I am not remotely devout by the standards of any age. I am an ordinary backslider, who loses his temper and eats too much and does many other wrong things each day between sunrise and sunset.
But I attract this nonsensical description simply because I openly say that I am a Christian believer. Such people are so rare in my generation and my milieu that the assumption is that we must be fanatical, pious and in many other important ways bizarre.
This came about mainly because of the decline of Christian faith, common to most of Western Europe but particularly severe here. This was caused mainly, in my view, by the First World War, foolishly and wrongly supported by the churches of Europe.
But the fading of faith was not specially welcomed by those among whom it faded, and it suited most people to continue to behave as if we were still a Christian country. What’s more, many who did not believe in God recognised the social benefits of faith, and were happy to see its outward forms observed.
Now we have reached a new stage.
One. Christianity is in conflict with the modern attempts to replace it – specifically the ‘Human Rights’ movement which is a substitute for a God who has been officially declared dead in Europe (note His absence from the EU constitution despite the undoubted fact that ‘Europe’, a political entity, is an entirely Christian construct) gives the liberal state – or liberal supranational institutions – the supreme power to order the unruly wills and affections of competing pressure groups, and their conflicting desires.
And also with the modern state ideology of ‘equality and diversity’ not only a respectable name for political correctness but also the title of a more or less Marxist ideology.
Two. Christianity’s message is specifically unwelcome to many people, most particularly because it tells them that there are some things they cannot rightfully do, which they would like to do without any feelings of guilt.
Some may recognise that Christianity provides an indispensable and unique force for good in society, as Matthew eloquently and very honestly confirmed when he wrote about African missionaries, and the power of Christianity to liberate men on that heartbreaking continent:
‘It would suit me (he wrote in The Times on 27th December 2008) to believe that their honesty, diligence and optimism in their work was unconnected with personal faith.’
However, he added these startling words: ‘Their work was secular, but surely affected by what they were. What they were was, in turn, influenced by a conception of man's place in the Universe that Christianity had taught.’
He added, in a passage which I treasure, and which is one of the wisest things written about this subject (but which Antony Sutch may dislike): ‘Christianity, post-reformation and post-Luther, with its teaching of a direct, personal, two-way link between the individual and God, unmediated by the collective and unsubordinated to any other human being, smashes straight through the philosophical/spiritual network I’ve just described. It offers something to hold on to, to those anxious to cast off a crushing tribal groupthink. That is why and how it liberates.’
But even so, for whatever reasons, they regard Christianity’s prohibitions and moral authority as too high a price to pay for this great benefit.
Though perhaps they think that the afterglow of Christianity will continue long, long after its sun has set, and its precepts have disappeared from the hearts of the millions.
You will have to ask them.
But the plain truth is that they have sought to replace Christianity with a secular set of beliefs which are not only quite different from it, but which *must* in their nature be hostile to it.
Examine these cases.
Olive Jones, a teacher disciplined in Somerset 11 months ago for offering to pray with a pupil.
Caroline Petrie, a Nurse suspended for offering – offering, mark you - to pray for a patient. Her union wouldn’t help her, because they are committed, as are most professional organisations these days, to the active promotion – the active promotion – of something called ‘Equality and Diversity’.
Equality, always a tricky word, means in this case that things which Christianity would not have treated equally must henceforth be treated equally. The Christian discrimination between the married and unmarried state is not permissible.
Diversity means that no religion can be treated as more valid than any other, so all faiths must be treated with respect, and consequently Christianity – *precisely because it was previously established* – has to suffer a shrunken, diminished status, forced to queue up along with the Pagans, the Jains and the Buddhists ( a small exception tends to be made here for Muslims, but that is because the new establishment is scared stiff of them, not because it likes them – and also because, being a ‘minority;’ they are entitled to an extra dose of equality).
This is a misleading name for a powerful non-Christian ideology, which cannot coexist with Christianity. Why? First, because it is based upon worldly utopianism, the creation of equality in this life. Second, because it seeks itself to be dominant, through custom, culture and law (the Equalities Act, the Sexual Orientation Regulations, the Civil Partnerships Act, the Divorce Law Reform Act, the Human Rights Act and the European Convention on Human Rights, the Children Act, and many others). Its cultural arm is also very active, notably the institution of sex education in schools and the pursuit by much of the media of a secular, post-Christian attitude towards personal behaviour, reflected in soap operas, TV drama, fiction and general discourse.
This is not the place to argue whether this change is good or bad, though I have no doubt myself that it is bad.
Our case is simply that it is taking place. When it comes into conflict with Christianity, the authorities decide, and the courts rule, against Christianity. Occasionally a media fuss can save an individual. But the message to others is clear. Be careful.
What is more, mere passive refusal to accept the new regime is not enough – as it never is for totalitarian world-reformers. Open obedience is required.
Lillian Ladele, a registrar fired for declining to perform Civil Partnership ceremonies – even though she sought, as hard as she could, to avoid making this an issue, and sought reasonably to be rostered to avoid any conflict, colleagues who supported the new ideology were determined that it should *be* an issue.
And the weekend’s new development, Owen and Eunice Johns, told they can no longer foster - not for what they do, not even for what they say or think, but – and this is really crucial for me – what they will *not* say.
Mrs Johns said: ‘The council said: “Do you know, you would have to tell them that it’s OK to be homosexual?” ’
Did you get that? ‘Have to tell them.’
Have. To. Tell. Them.
A tactful silence wouldn’t be enough. Leaving it to the school, or the BBC (who could be relied upon to pass this message on frequently and thoroughly) wouldn’t be enough. They would actually have to say something they don’t happen to believe.
This is only part of a totalitarian apparatus gradually growing up around us, decorated with pretty names, but nasty all the same, and needing to be stopped.
I’m with Matthew Parris, myself.
The basic case of this motion is an incontrovertible fact. A nasty new tribal groupthink is undermining the faith on which are based the unique ordered liberty of our society, its gentleness, its tolerance, its freedom, its landscape , its literature, art, music and architecture, its great schools, hospitals and universities, its law and language.
They may well succeed, and by doing so, in my view, they will leave the place swept and garnished for the new supremacy of Islam which will not sit gently back as it is abolished.
As Matthew says, Christianity offers something to hold on to, to those anxious to cast off a crushing tribal groupthink. That is why and how it liberates.
Cast off that crushing tribal groupthink. Vote for this motion. Defend the Christian faith against those who like to live with its benefits, but will not pay their dues.Share this article:
03 November 2010 1:57 PM
How Not to Argue (part 94) - the Sad Case of Christopher Hitchens's Hero-worshippers
Why? He is not conceding the existence of God, or announcing that he is off down to the nearest church. He has simply said that there is in fact rather a good answer to a question which he originally thought unanswerable.
There are many possible implications of this. The most obvious is that it cannot really be true - in this case - to maintain that 'religion poisons everything'. The existence of the corollary, that people can do bad things for reasons of faith, does not undermine the truth of the basic premise - held to by me - that there are some good things that can only be done when people truly believe in a good God. Most of these acts involve selfless, indeed self-sacrificial courage. They are the things which most of us wish we could do and hope we will do if tested - but fear we won't.
And if that is so, then there is at least, on the face of it, an argument for the Christian religion. It is not a conclusive one - I don't personally think that the truth of Christianity can be established by facts and logic, as I repeatedly say. But it is a persuasive one, and one which cannot lightly be ignored.
So what do we get in response from the Atheistical Fancy? I have searched almost in vain for a rational, open-minded response to this (as also to the Isfahan quote also linked to the article). Tom Bumstead emerges with credit here, but few others do. And I see only more reason to stick to my explanation of the failure of Washington's finest scribblers (more interested in personality issues) to spot this interesting moment. It didn't fit with their picture of things, so they didn't realise it was important.
We get Mr Wooderson, who says: ‘No doubt there have been many noble actions done by believers, and no doubt some moral actions are more likely to be performed by believers than non-believers. To suggest that this means that believers are somehow more altruistic, though, seems rather absurd.’
No doubt it would be, if anyone had made such a crude statement. But nobody did.
Mr Wooderson also takes me to task for candidly admitting that I would behave more badly without the influences of the Christian religion. Why is this seen as so discreditable? It's true. I would be dishonest to pretend otherwise, and if Mr Wooderson has never in his life been motivated either to do something desirable, or to refrain from doing something undesirable, by fear, I should be very much surprised. The important thing is, what are we afraid of?
And what can be sadder than those who think that a wearisome jeering cliche, entirely unsupported by any explanatory text which entitles the writer to jeer, is an original and witty remark, as in this from 'kristopher': ‘Nice try Peter...but no cigar…!’
Nice try at what? And I don't actually want a cigar. What I want is reasoned, logical argument.
Then there is Mr 'Crosland', who (as so often) spoils an otherwise cogent case by dogmatism and hostility. He alleges that believers are pleased by my brother's grave illness. As a generalisation, this is a shameful falsehood, as Mr 'Crosland' well knows. No serious Christian could understand his faith and take such a view - and very large numbers of Christians have publicly declared that they are praying for him, and urged others to do so. Chided with this, Mr Crosland comes up with the following: ‘Not so long ago, a member of the faithful celebrated Christopher's wholly natural illness thus: “Yay, he's got throat cancer, and it's no surprise that he has it in exactly the place where he has blasphemed so much”.’
Who was this 'member of the faithful'? When and where? Was he or she representative of anyone but himself? Does Mr Crosland really think that this sort of thing is honest argument? If so, he disqualifies himself from any serious debate in future.
Among other irrelevant comments, someone called 'Graeme' says: ‘There is no mention here of the original corollary question Christopher has asked many times. “Can you name any wicked action or evil statement that would be made or performed by a believer, but would not be made or performed by an unbeliever?” ’
Well, actually there is an indirect reference. ‘He went on to try to qualify it by saying that the same reason had been given by others for bad actions, but actually that has no bearing on the matter.’ And readers are plainly directed to the full text of the discussion, where this point is made as it has been many times before. The implication that I have in some way suppressed an important fact is false. The important thing is that on this occasion my brother said something new, which deserved a wider circulation than it has so far received.
Then there's 'Gareth’ , who says: ‘Sorry but this is a non-argument. Many people have achieved great things and very evil ones through faith, either in a god or in themselves. But how many wars etc have been carried out on this basis (remember Dubya said God told him to invade Iraq -scary)? Us atheists have a very good reason to have high principles, we are highly tolerant and don't expect another chance.’
How odd. In what way is it a non-argument? Not least because my brother managed to persuade himself of the need to invade Iraq without any help from the Almighty. Meanwhile, the Bishop of Rome, and many other Christians, strongly opposed the Iraq war on sound doctrinal grounds. Is that 'scary'? If not, why not? People should stick to the simple point under discussion here. Everyone can do bad things and persuade themselves that those things are good. But are there some good things that can only be done by believers? And if so, does that alter the case against religion previously stated by CH?Share this article:
01 November 2010 12:17 PM
Scare or Menace? The latest terror panic
I wish to know more about the latest alleged terrorist event, not clear at the time of writing. How were these devices to be detonated? What conceivable use was the fighter escort given to one of the affected aeroplanes flying in to New York from Dubai, apart from to spread alarm? Why on earth were the devices addressed to synagogues in Chicago, a bizarre cargo destination for anything from Yemen and surely bound to alert the dimmest checker of manifests that something was up?
What, precisely, are these 'hallmarks of Al Qaeda' that we are constantly being told that such things have? How are they distinguished from the hallmarks of all terror organisations?
How powerful would they have been if they had detonated, assuming they could have been? And what on earth do they have to do with the ludicrous persecution of airline passengers, as apparently suggested by former Home Secretary and Defence Secretary and one-time Communist John ‘without a shot being fired’ Reid, who said this was a ‘cautionary tale’ for those who ‘want to reduce essential security measures.’
‘Doctor’ Reid added that these measures might be inconvenient for passengers but were nothing compared with the ‘tragic consequences of loss of life’ caused by a terrorist attack.
While true, this is a classic nonsequitur. ‘Doctor’ Reid has to show how these measures would have prevented such deaths. If he tried to do so, it would quickly emerge that most of them were not in fact essential.
Hasn't the noisy fuss about this event done the work of the terrorists, who for minimal cost have managed to disrupt two major free nations, and win publicity that it would have cost millions to buy?Share this article:
Christopher Hitchens answers his own riddle
One of the things that kept me away from my desk during the second half of October was a visit to Washington, during which I had a conversation with my left-wing atheist brother Christopher, sponsored by a fine body of men and women called the Pew Forum.
I did this on condition that the event was a conversation, not an adversarial debate. And so it proved. In front of some of the US capital's most distinguished journalists, we held a civilised discussion about whether civilisation can exist without God. My contention was that it could, but that a society based upon Christianity was far superior to any other kind.
You can read the whole thing on the Pew Forum's website by clicking here.
What struck me most forcefully about the occasion were some words my brother said. Those of you who have followed the great religion debate will know that he has many times issued a challenge. ‘Can you name any moral action or ethical statement that could be made or performed by a believer but could not be made or performed by an unbeliever?’
He has maintained that it could not be answered.
During this Washington conversation, he answered it. And all those distinguished scribblers and broadcasters, in their accounts of the event, completely missed it.So (and some of you will remember some fascinating earlier remarks by my brother about Isfahan that I publicised here, which had unaccountably not been noticed by anyone else, perhaps because his admirers would rather that he was as inflexibly dogmatic as they are. a common failing of admirers and disciples), I take this opportunity of recording what he said on that day in Washington, in the hope that those who are interested will notice at least that it took place.
‘Here is my attempt to win my own prize. When Lech Walesa was starting his work in the Polish shipyards and the Polish Militia and the outer ring of the Polish Army were closing in on Gdansk, he was interviewed with his then fairly small group, and he was asked: “Aren't you frightened, aren't you afraid? You've taken on a whole powerful state and army - aren't you scared?” And he said: “I'm not frightened of anything but God or anyone but God.”
‘This came back to me, I thought, well, this meets my two criteria. It's certainly a noble thing to have said, a distinguished thing to have said, and I certainly couldn't have said it. So it does meet both my criteria.’
I think this was a remarkably generous concession, as well as an interesting choice. I personally wish that I had come up with this answer to the conundrum. But Christopher came up with it instead. He went on to try to qualify it by saying that the same reason had been given by others for bad actions, but actually that has no bearing on the matter. Nor do the later disappointments in Poland or the failed promise of Walesa himself. At that moment Walesa's faith gave him the courage to face the entire Evil Empire without flinching - a thing I partially witnessed myself on a frozen November day almost exactly 30 years ago and which helped to change my life.Share this article:
30 October 2010 11:29 PM
We’re sheep shuffling towards a permanently yellow Britain
This is Peter Hitchens' Mail On Sunday column
Wizened Keith was right about this simpering groupie
After my attack on Keith Richards last week, a grudging word of praise for the wizened old geezer.
Yet another nail in an unforgivable war...
It is very funny that Afghanistan’s President Karzai cheerfully admits to being given (and accepting) large bags of banknotes (euros, as it happens) as a gift from the Iranian government.
Anyone would think that stags, if not shot by hunters, look forward to a contented old age being wheeled about in bath chairs in Eastbourne. The sentimental fuss about the alleged shooting of the ‘Emperor of Exmoor’ is Britain at its daftest.
At last, a senior figure in the airline business tells the truth about the moronic ‘security’ that makes air travel a humiliating misery for us all. British Airways chairman Martin Broughton deserves our thanks.Share this article:
28 October 2010 11:19 AM
The Death of Principle
Mr Christopher Charles writes, rather patronisingly that I am 'Don Quixote with an intellect'. He then says: ‘This marriage stuff is from another age. That battle has been lost. [Understand, I'm not approving, but accepting].’
But that's the whole point of having proper principles, based on eternal truths. You don't have to change your mind about fundamentals, just because fashion is running against you. On the contrary, if you have principles , you can't do so. I'm amused by the growing trend among English women to take the Islamic veil (I suspect many of these would never dream of entering a Christian church, precisely because it is the religion of their parents and grandparents) because I see in it a sign of a strong unanswered yearning in our society for moral certainty and discipline. In the 18th century, the Wesleys found a similar yearning in a morally chaotic England, and we still feel the benefits of their re-evangelisation of Britain, which reached their peak a century ago and are now in severe decline.
This time round, I fear that it will be Islam, with its simple message, that will fill the gap. Both Mr Charles and I would, I think, be greatly surprised if we could be teleported into the London of 2110. But I suspect Mr Charles would be much more surprised than I would be.
Mr Potter writes: ‘His (Henry VIII) actions contributed significantly to what I consider the Church of England's indifferent attitude towards the sanctity of marriage, or at least its relaxed attitude to ending one's marriage.’
What is Mr Potter talking about? The Church of England did not in any way sanction or countenance divorce for the first three hundred years of its existence. Read the relevant chapter in my 'Abolition of Britain', for a discussion of the changing attitudes of the Bishops, who collapsed on this issue (as did almost everyone else) in the 1960s. There were many causes for this, and I suppose you could argue that the C of E's independence of Rome *permitted* it to commit this treachery against the teaching of Our Lord. But you could hardly say it impelled it. It is perfectly possible that, under different circumstances (particularly had there been no First World War and no invention of the Contraceptive Pill, also discussed at length in 'Abolition of Britain') the C of E would still be standing fast on divorce. Blaming Henry is absurd.
‘Claire H’ writes: ‘The way Hitchens writes suggests it is almost certain that anti-depressants do cause suicides or violent behaviour- when in reality only a fraction of people taking them have such side-effects.’ I am not sure what she means about 'the way I write'. I pointed out that two recent suicides were both recorded as having been on prescribed drugs which ought - if they do what it says on the packet - to have made them less rather than more likely to take this tragic path.
How big a fraction would be enough for Ms 'H' to be concerned? I personally do not know, which is why I seek an inquiry. What I point out is that a growing number of reports suggest a cause for concern. I don't call for the pills to be banned. I do not say they invariably lead to such outcomes. What I say is that there are worrying indications. I also cast doubt on the validity of the science which lies behind these prescriptions. The answer to my criticisms is not to attack me for raising questions, but to answer those questions, scientifically and calmly, in such a way that I and others are reassured. It is, in my view, never wrong to raise concerns - and often an urgent duty to raise concerns which are unpopular or unfashionable.
I still don't understand why what I am paid has anything to do with my right to comment on the size and nature of the welfare state. In many ways, on the contrary. The more I'm paid, the more tax I pay and the more I finance that welfare state, so these critics should want me to be paid more. Of course I'm conscious of my good fortune in doing the job I do and getting the pay I do. But I'm also conscious that nobody would gain anything if I ceased to do so, except the person who took my job.
Mr Harold Stone makes a ridiculous comment in his curiously spiteful posting, with its weird remarks about my difficulties with publishers and booksellers. Am I not allowed to raise any subject without being accused of it being my main preoccupation? He says: ‘Eastern Europeans work willingly and more cheaply than our own in order to send money home, not because they have a better attitude necessarily. The comparatively low cost of living in Poland, Estonia and the like makes this an economically viable proposition. There is nothing new of course in the claim that immigrants “do the jobs natives refuse to.” This has been trotted out repeatedly by our politicians since the 1940’s, after the Windrush docked, a time of austerity when immigration was the last thing we needed, and by which time Attlee (a communist who used to add “workers of the world unite” as a footnote to personal correspondence) was anxious to justify selling out his own people with the British Nationality Act of 1948.’
I think the statement that Clement Attlee was a communist is more than a little absurd. If distinctions have any meaning at all, then it simply isn't true. But more importantly, Mr Stone seems to think that we are the same country we were in 1948. Of course there is something new in the allegation that migrants do the jobs natives refuse to do. It may not have been true in the past. It is demonstrably true now. He seems not to have heard of the collapse of British education, or of the devastating family breakdown that has accompanied it, which makes so many British-raised young people unemployable by anyone who values his business. Nor does he seem aware of the grotesque welfare system, which acts as a disincentive to low-paid work.
Whereas Poles, for the most part raised in Christian homes and benefiting from the rigorous education system of that country, are a much better bargain for anyone who wants to get work done. I add, yet again, that I am against the immigration solution to our problems. But it is absurd to pretend that the superior work ethic of the Poles, and the poor quality, as employees, of many British-raised young men and women (through no fault of their own) has nothing to do with it.Share this article:
27 October 2010 12:47 PM
The Great Depression, and the King's Great Matter
The abuse quotient is high whenever I discuss 'antidepressants'. This is an almost invariable sign that I am on to something. People only get angry with criticisms (and those who voice them) when they suspect that those criticisms are right, and are suppressing their own doubts on the subject. Only grown-ups, genuinely capable of changing their minds, are unafraid of the truth and willing to go where it leads them. They alone can argue properly. And there are very few of them, as we see here all the time.
Let's take some examples. Greg Smith (who seems to think the reference to King David's Biblical faking of madness was made by me - it wasn't, I merely quoted it from someone else's comment ), adopts a lofty and sneering tone. Is he entitled to do so by any special knowledge or logical skill?
Let us see.
First, there's this: ‘Never mind what doctors at the World Health Organisation, Royal College of Psychiatrists and National Health Service have dedicated their lives to - Peter Hitchens (despite no medical training whatsoever) luckily knows more about it.’
On the contrary, I have never claimed to know more about it, or implied that I do. I have simply questioned conventional wisdom, as an informed layman with no vested interest and a platform which I feel obliged to use to raise such concerns when they trouble me.
Far from being dogmatic, I have instead called for an expert inquiry into the matter. But I would add that it is a common fallacy that 'experts' are invariably right, because they are experts. Professional bodies can also form pressure groups, can seek to protect their 'mystery' against attack (I'm not sure how psychiatry has managed to pretend to be scientific for so long, when it appears to me to have no claim to objective scientific foundations at all, but it certainly couldn't have done so without Royal Colleges and professorial chairs). Such groups often end up having self-protection as a primary purpose, and can collectively resist inconvenient discoveries, as history repeatedly shows. We should also not underestimate the lobbying power of the drug manufacturers, and their influence on practitioners and on institutions such as the NHS, which are major customers. These drug companies are really big concerns, and form a huge part of our economy.
Real new discoveries, or inconvenient discoveries, are often resisted and ignored by those who should most welcome them. Thus conventional wisdom changes, rather too slowly. The medical profession once lauded pre-frontal lobotomy, and still employs the grotesque barbarity of ECT, which I am sure will be condemned in future centuries. In my childhood the treatment for burns was to put grease on them, an act now known to be the height of stupidity. But for years nobody dared say so.
I am always amused by the huge variations in conventional wisdom about blood donation which have taken place since I first started doing it 40 years ago, and the grim-jawed certainty with which each different fallacy (or it may not be a fallacy this time, who knows?) is enforced.
I was told I absolutely had to take iron tablets for a week after donation, plus a large breakfast - followed a few years later by 'Iron tablets? What do you mean? Completely useless. What makes you think you need those?' - without any hint on the part of the nurse that they had once insisted on them. These days they make you drink a pint of water instead. They have abolished the once-strict upper age limit and allow much more frequent donation. And you are no longer banned from donating for months after you have returned from Israel, as I once was. Just as long as they don't abolish the tea and biscuits.
Then there's the 'experts are right and beyond criticism' fallacy, which we get here quite a lot when conventional medical wisdom and conventional psychiatric wisdom are questioned. I doubt whether the same people object when lay critics condemn, say, homeopathy. And nor, as it happens, do I. Lay critics can often cast light on such things.
Science qualifies people in specific scientific matters. A scientist must be listened to when his own field of knowledge is under discussion. But one of the problems with 'antidepressants' is that there is so little objective science about them. There is no objective definition of 'depression', for a start (see below). As has been discussed here before, doctors have no real idea how these pills work on the human brain or state of mind, and placebos have been shown to have more or less the same effect. In effect, the mass prescription of these pills is a vast research project. In which case, if the cases which I report are true (and I do not see their truth disputed) qualified persons should be looking into their implications - as a matter of urgency. That is my argument. How this makes me unscientific, I do not know. Nor do I understand in what way.
Then Mr Smith inserts the following: ‘Re side effects - look at cancer/cardiology drugs and note their side effects before highlighting antidepressants. Having a look at the NICE/NCCMH websites (responsible for picking drugs) to see evidence.’ He may well be right. I know nothing about this. But it is wholly irrelevant to the subject under discussion, and has no place in this debate. So why is it there? Because Mr Smith is keen on seeking the truth? Or because he wants to kick dust in our faces?
Finally, we are told by Mr Smith: ‘Lastly – “if it is true that no doctor can prove a patient is not depressed, isn't the corollary that no doctor can prove that a patient *is* depressed?” Yes, it would be. Sadly for your argument this predication is grossly incorrect (surprise surprise). In the same way that a Cardiologist can confidently say that you're not having a heart attack after you've been running up some stairs to increase your heart rate, a Psychiatrist can tell you're not depressed if you just wear some pants on your head and say so.’
This is simply, straightforwardly false. When, three years ago, I had chest pains after the long flight back from North Korea, I went to the NHS hospital in Blackpool and was there wired up to a machine for detailed checks on my heart-rate. I also underwent two detailed blood analyses, 12 hours apart. After these elaborate tests, the doctors told me there was nothing wrong with me. Cardiologists know a thousand times more about the heart and the cardio-vascular system than any psychiatrist knows about the brain (psychiatrists don't even, I think, need to be neurologists) or the mind. And I mean *know*. They know how the heart functions, they known the symptoms of heart failure and of blocked arteries.
There is absolutely no comparison between these objective, genuinely scientific tests and the subjective, pseudo-scientific procedures of psychiatry. And anybody who thinks there is, is displaying not the lofty knowledge implied by Mr Smith's dismissive attitude, but a profound ignorance of scientific method.
We end (from Mr Smith anyway) with this: ‘As far as objective bodily symptoms go by the way - nice straw man argument. Seen many objective tests for insomnia or hey, love? No? Eek, maybe it's a bit more complicated than that. Heaven forfend facts might get in the way of a good rant though.’
I am genuinely not sure what this unwisely patronising passage is intended to convey. 'Insomnia' is a fancy name for 'not being able to get to sleep'. Its 'symptoms' are 'lying awake'. I should have thought the objective test was about as simple as you could get. Who has the facts here? And who is ranting?
A quick digression to deal with Mr Dodd, who says: ‘ “What's the point?” asks Mr Hitchens, referring to my remark on repetition on this blog. Well, comments are invited, apparently, and mine was intended to suggest to Mr Hitchens that he might reflect on who his target audience is; the terminally obtuse, who will not “get it” if he repeats himself a thousand times, the passing butterfly who drops by and moves on, never to be heard from again, or his regular readers who have bought his books and thought about what he has to say.’
I wouldn't refer to my readers in those terms, but has it occurred to Mr Dodd that the answer is ‘all of them, and more besides’. I'm afraid I can't offer him a personal private controversy service.
Back to 'depression', and I'm grateful to those readers who have recounted their own unhappy experiences with this dubious medical fad. Friends and colleagues of mine have also had such experiences. I don't have their permission to recount them, but it was these episodes - one particularly grievous - which ignited my doubts on this score. Until then I too had believed the conventional wisdom about 'depression'.
I need also to deal with the posting by 'Claire H', as follows: ‘The comments Peter Hitchens repeatedly makes about anti-depressants are ignorant, ill-informed and offensive. In focusing on the few cases where people taking the medication commit suicide or violence against others he ignores the millions of people who have taken them to positive effect-hardly a “poison”.’
I would be interested to know what objective evidence there is of this 'good effect'. Is it as objective as the interesting numbers of suicides who turn out to have been taking anti-depressants? Or the remarkable proportion of rampage killers who have been? How can it be shown? Who does the measuring?
‘Has the possibility that such individuals would have hurt themselves or others with or without the medication escaped him?’
No, it has not escaped him. But the fact is that they have taken their lives while ingesting chemicals supposedly designed to raise their spirits. I also think it is recognised by doctors and pharmaceutical companies that some of these drugs can promote suicidal tendencies, particularly in the young. If this is so *at all* shouldn't it give cause for caution in prescription, and trigger an inquiry?
She adds: ‘He and most posters on newspaper articles also suggest that depression doesn't exist, it's just unhappy people thinking they have a right to happiness or going through a period of grief.’
I don't say anything as crude as that. Though my critics, as usual, would rather I did. I personally suspect that there are objective physical influences on the nervous system. I suspect that the lack of exercise, the constant over-stimulation by TV and computer games etc, and the poor diet common in advanced societies bring it about. I also suspect that the use of mind-altering drugs in youth (by stimulating undeserved euphoria) can in some way deplete the body's stock of mental well-being. I know from the experience of colleagues that doctors are all too ready to prescribe mind-altering drugs to deal with objective and reasonable grief and even fear.
She continues: ‘I suffer from depression and believe me it's nothing like ordinary unhappiness, or a normal reaction to adverse circumstances, but a total hell of misery, fear and inability to function. It's worse than any kind of grief because there is no reason for it (although there may be a trigger) and you feel totally powerless against it.’
Perhaps so. It’s not for me to question this, though, knowing nothing about her, I cannot begin to wonder what might have brought it about. How does she propose this complaint can be measured or detected objectively? Does its existence (see above) lead inevitably to the prescription of drugs whose operation is unknown?
She continues ‘It seems a common misconception than doctors hand out anti-depressants left right and centre to anyone who asks but this isn't the case. I waited almost a year after seeing my doctor before taking anti-depressants, during which time I didn't get better, despite my efforts. I've taken three different anti-depressants at different times as until I took the third one they didn't help much. I now take a mood stabiliser too. I can say from experience they all made me feel very different: they're not a placebo. The only thing worse than suffering a depressive illness is dealing with people's reaction to it which is all too often discriminatory and dismissive.’
That is her experiences. Other experiences recounted here (and others known to me) suggest that doctors do prescribe these drugs rather freely. I might also point out that if these things are so carefully prescribed and so tailored to the problem, it is interesting that her first two prescriptions didn't help.
On Henry VIII, I'm amazed that some people wish to state as absolute incontrovertible fact things (like the Pope's attitude towards the annulment) which can only ever remain a matter of opinion. My opinion is that the Pope under different circumstances might well have granted Henry what he sought. I cannot prove this with certainty, but I do slightly object to being told that this cannot possibly be the case - since the person who says this cannot prove his contention either.
But annulment is certainly not the same as divorce, the original point. And Henry's behaviour, whatever you think of it, was motivated by dynastic politics, not promiscuity. He was promiscuous, but he could have been so without seeking to get rid of a wife who could not bear him a male heir. The sad story of the Stuart kings suggests he may have been right to be worried.Share this article:
25 October 2010 4:04 PM
And another thing
A few other points. Mr D. Potter blames Henry VIII for the divorce culture. I am baffled that this basic mistake is made so often, even in history books. Henry was not seeking a divorce from Catherine of Aragon (such things did not exist in his time, and were not permitted by the Church of England then or until very recently). He sought an annulment, which most Popes would have granted him. But the Pope of the moment was locked up by Catherine's own nephew, and so was reluctant to act.
In the end, Thomas Cranmer granted Henry the annulment, as head of the newly independent (but by no means Protestant) Church of England. But Henry, greedy brutal, corrupt, lascivious etc, regarded himself even so as a true son of the Church. The C of E did not become a Protestant church until the reign of Edward VI. And it did not countenance divorce or remarriage until the past few years. (And then only by stealth. Its gold standard marriage service, still in legal force, requires the parties to swear to stay together 'as long as ye both shall live'.)
Whatever you think of the RC Church's view of annulments, they are not the same as divorces. For instance, one effect of the annulment of Henry and Catherine's marriage was that their daughter Mary became retrospectively illegitimate, a particularly nasty and heavy blow.
In reply to S. Brown, who questions the idea that cars have obsolescence built-in, I always thought the MoT test (and its US equivalent state inspections) were a deal between motor manufacturers and the state to ensure that old cars became too costly to keep on the road, thus encouraging sales of new ones. Sure, you can keep a car going for a long time, if you really, really try. But will it last as long as it would have done 30 years ago? Can ordinary people tackle the maintenance of increasingly computerised engines? I agree I have as little experience of cars as I can possibly arrange, and have more or less given up driving them now, but the percentage of old cars on the road seems to me to be much lower than it was when I was younger.
Tony Dodd asks: ‘So, to sum up: The Tories are useless, rock stars are depraved scum, marriage is important, antidepressants are dangerous. Where have I heard all this before?’
What is the point of this comment, except to draw attention to Mr Dodd, who hasn't been getting much such attention lately? Of course I repeat some themes here, on the much-discussed Mandelson principle that it is only when you are sick to death of saying something that most people have begun to grasp what you are driving at. I also find that there are invariably readers , probably new to this column, who think I am a Thatcherite, or support the Iraq war, or whatever it is. But the point is that I repeat them by focusing in new and different instances of then problems. In the case of 'anti-depressants', I have made a conscious decision to highlight every case where it seems to me the argument is made for an inquiry into the prescribing of these things. I also think this is flat ungenerous and inaccurate. The main piece (and by the way, where are the people who keep moaning that I never write about economic policy?) says little about the Tories and a lot about the gullibility of media and public.
Someone calling himself 'Big Al' says: ‘Much as though I enjoy Peter Hitchens's column each week, once again he confuses what he does for a living with work. I have no idea of Mr Hitchens's salary but I'm willing to bet a tenner that he will get more for spending a morning banging out 1200 words than someone working for 40 hours for the minimum wage. If someone works for 40 hours or more a week they deserve to have a living wage.’
I have no idea what words of mine this is supposed to refer to. Can he tell me? And while my ivory tower is indeed very comfortable, I did not ‘berate people who are only three or four wage packets away from the breadline.’ I might add that I do regard what I do for a living as work, though I am daily thankful that I am able to do this sort of work, rather than some of the other types I have sampled (or avoided) in a longish life.
Likewise Mr Simon Fay, who says: ‘For there is work – as the hard-working migrants from Eastern Europe who do so much of it daily prove. It is just not paid at the fantasy wages we seem to think we are entitled to.
‘A glib dismissal of what faces many Brits by someone who doesn't have to compete with anything like as large (and ever-growing) a pool, and someone likely rather better paid than any of those greedy wannabes on the minimum wage. Those most anxious to make Britain part of the Third World are from your echelon, Peter.’
It would be hard to find a more complete misunderstanding of my position. I'm opposed, as I repeatedly say (NB Mr Dodds, now do you see why I need to repeat points?) to mass immigration and do not believe that Poles and other holders of EU passports should be able to travel here to work. I have been known to point out that these migrants would not be so popular with our ruling elite if they were taking the jobs of journalists and politicians. But it is undoubtedly true that these migrants are prepared to do work which British subjects will not do, or are not qualified to do (talk to employers, some time, about why they hire reliable, conscientious Poles, who can read, write and count, even though they are struggling with English, in preference to the products of our comprehensive schools. Cheapness is by no means the only factor). And that is why they are here.
This is an entirely different point from the issue of wage competition. Actually I believe there is very little of this as so many British young people do not wish to work for the wages that Poles accept, and are ill-prepared, by their atrocious schooling, for disciplined hard work anyway. This may not be their fault, but that doesn't make it any less of a fact. Most wage competition takes place when jobs are shifted from this country (and recently Ireland) to Eastern Europe, or China, when established and older workers lose their employment. I am against all this, but it doesn't alter the fact that our society is not producing a new generation of productive workers.
Stephen Hayes writes: ‘On antidepressants and depression, please put yourself in the shoes of a typical British GP. The most common reason for consulting a GP, certainly in the council estate practice where I used to work, was “depression” or some variant of it.
A typical presentation might be “it’s doin' my 'ed in, I can't 'andle it, you've got to give me something!” Telling the patient that there are lots of people worse off than them, to snap out of it, get a hobby or perhaps try church would lead to a complaint. The doctor is hemmed in and has almost no choice but to prescribe fluoxetine (Prozac) or equivalent. Psychological therapies are unaffordable, unavailable, unreliable, and lack the immediacy most patients demand.
‘I am talking about 2 or 3 patients every day coming to see each family doctor complaining - very often in tears - of being unable to cope with life and demanding, expecting and feeling entitled to some medical intervention from the doctor to resolve their emotional pain.
'Obviously, the symptoms of mental ill health (however we define that as, and setting aside the massive question of whether it is normal, even appropriate, to feel depressed in certain circumstances) can be faked deliberately to gain benefit. We read in the Bible that King David feigned madness to escape captivity, so it’s an old trick. A few sobs, pills and a sick note.
'No doctor can prove a patient is not depressed, and to insinuate that they are faking would lead to a complaint. This is a big, big issue - but it’s not just about antidepressants, it’s about our whole modern materialistic and broken way of life.'
I largely agree with him that the issue is fundamentally about our soulless, atomised society, the absence of productive work, family life, genuine networks of friendship and kinship. But the immediate issue is that these worrying pills not only do not deal with these questions, but may have alarming unexplored side-effects.
I think there should be a proper inquiry into this as soon as possible.
In the meantime it is quite wrong for these things to be prescribed.
But he raises another crucial point. If people are unhappy for objective reasons, ie that their lives are unsatisfactory or miserable, it is totalitarian (in a soft, Brave New World way, rather than a hard 1984 way) to dose them into docility and chemical contentment. And therefore it is wrong.
If it is true that no doctor can prove a patient is not depressed, isn't the corollary that no doctor can prove that a patient *is* depressed? Half the problem with this pseudo-science is that the dispensers of these drugs turn out, on examination, to have no real understanding of what they do. And so they give objective physical or chemical doses to people who have no objective bodily symptoms (or had none until they began to take the pills, anyway). The wrongs of society cannot be cured by drugging the individuals who suffer those wrongs. This is not a proper activity for medical doctors.
Sunday, 7 November 2010
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