Britannia Radio

04 December 2010 11:11 PM

The eternal Coalition: Perfect for politicians, lousy for the rest of us

This is Peter Hitchen's Mail on Sunday column

The monstrous birth of a new Liberal Conser¬vative Party is now certain. One of its midwives is Sir John Major of Maastricht and Black Friday.

A few weeks ago I drew attention to the amazing remarks of Francis Maude, a close ally of David Cameron, who said he would prefer a coalition to a Tory majority after the next Election. I am sure Mr Cameron agrees with this. Now, Sir John – another close Cameron ally – has called for a permanent alliance of two of our three parties against the people of Britain.

Not that he put it quite like that. In a little-noticed but important speech in Cambridge, he said that he liked the Coalition and hoped some way could be found ‘to prolong co-operation beyond this Parliament’. This, he said, could lead to a realignment of British politics.

He recalled that the Tories had an informal pact with the Liberals in 1951, which probably saved that party from oblivion. He didn’t say – but most Liberals know – that they will need something similar to save them from massacre at the next Election.

This is revolutionary stuff. And I am grateful to Mr Major, whose strange, mealy, roundabout way of speaking often reveals more than he means it to. Because he also explained the attraction of coalitions – to politicians: ‘Two parties are more likely to enjoy a tolerant electorate for policies that are painful.’

Or, in other words, that a coalition can ram through unpopular policies (Mr Major is an expert on those) more easily than one-party governments.

This is, of course, even more the case when the third party actually agrees with the Coalition about almost everything, and is still trying to work out how to pretend to be the Opposition, when it doesn’t really want to oppose.

What a perfect outcome for the political class – two liberal parties in permanent power, pro-EU, pro-crime, anti-education, anti-marriage, warmist. And an Opposition that doesn’t oppose. A pity about the rest of us.

Taken for another ride by the warmists

Aaaaah! Look at this lovely picture of a polar bear cub riding on its mother’s back. It appeared in a number of papers this week with stories – inspired by the lobbying group WWF – suggesting that this was a new development, caused by global warming.

This is propaganda garbage, just like the piffle talked about another famous picture of polar bears perched on a melting ice floe. That was taken in August, when ice in Alaska always melts. Land was close by. Polar bears can swim for hundreds of miles if they want to.

The piggyback picture is just as misleading. It isn’t remotely new. I have established that it was taken by the charming Mrs Angela Plumb on a holiday in Spitsbergen more than four years ago, on July 21, 2006.

It then formed the basis of a scientific paper written by the equally charming Jon Aars, a Norwegian polar bear expert. I have read this paper. It speculates that the cubs may ride on their mothers’ backs to avoid the cold water, as they don’t have the thick layer of blubber that allows adult bears to swim in icy temperatures for hours.

But there’s no proof of this, as polar bears can’t speak English or Norwegian so cannot tell us why they do what they do. The paper accepts that bear cubs may always have done this.

Jon Aars himself said to me that polar bear cubs have ridden on their mothers’ backs for ages. ‘What we do not know is whether or not it is happening more frequently than it used to,’ he says.

So we don’t know. Once again the almost invariable rule applies. If any picture is produced to support the warmist panic, it will turn out to be suspect. Oh, and by the way, how much use have all those stupid windmills been during the cold snap?

Jail – there to help the poor old crooks

I went to prison again on Monday, for a debate sponsored by BBC2’s Newsnight about crime and punishment.

It was unintentionally revealing. Our Left-wing Establishment believes crime is a sickness to be treated, rather than a deliberate act that needs to be punished.

Prisoners are even given heroin substitutes at our expense, because of the myth – swallowed by the Injustice Secretary, Ken Clarke – that immediate withdrawal from heroin is dangerous. It is generally just unpleasant – and so it ought to be. Nobody needs to poke this filth into his body.

In a kind of reverse Stockholm syndrome, prison governors and Ministers begin to identify with their captives. They entirely forget that those captives are in prison because they have done serious damage to innocent people.

Listen to this astonishing statement from the governor of High Down Prison, Peter Dawson: ‘The thing I want to say first about sending someone to prison is that it always does harm to the person in prison. My job is to mitigate the harm done to the person who is sent to prison and those that care for them on the outside.’

And this is where your taxes are going. It is sometimes hard to decide who commits the greater crime – the thief and the lout, or the politicians and civil servants who fail to punish and deter them.

Metric snow, and its pathetic result

The intensifying campaign to force the foreign, unwieldy metric system on the British people continues apace.

Broadcasters and newspapers have virtually abolished the yard (still lawfully used on thousands of road signs) and the foot. But their most determined campaign is against the inch.

Why do the weather people insist on telling us that 10cm of snow have fallen? Partly, they do it because they are fanatics. Partly because it sounds much worse than 4in. A country halted by 4in of snow sounds – and is – rather pathetic.

While reading John Major’s Cambridge oration, I discovered an amazing fact about him. He writes poems, which he promises eventually to give to the Churchill College archive which houses the rest of his papers. I can’t wait. If only we had known this when he was in Downing Street. Still, he’s lucky. Quite a lot of things rhyme with ‘Edwina’ and with ‘Currie’, and also with ‘Redwood’ – though ‘Bastards’, ‘Portillo’ and ‘Maastricht’ are tougher.

Time myths tick on

Watching the Commons debate on the Berlin Time Bill – in which my name was frequently taken in vain – I was struck by two things.

One was the way in which this plan’s advocates present guesswork as fact – and ignore actual fact.

And the other is the way they largely get away with it, as few non-Scottish MPs bothered to do any serious research into the matter. The scheme is a potential disaster. Let us hope it is now quietly strangled.

A message to Matthew Parris, the Left-wing Cameron supporter and anti-Christian who recently spread a gravely inaccurate version of what I had said in a radio debate: I’ll stop telling the truth about him if he apologises for misrepresenting me. And I recommend he pauses for thought on this matter.

01 December 2010 12:39 PM

In Prison Again

I spent Monday afternoon in one of Her Majesty's Prisons, and Monday evening at Eton College, travelling between these two institutions in the front seat of a Bentley (provided by the BBC as an emergency back-up after the Ford minicab they'd booked failed to turn up. I feel for the Corporation executive who got the minicab instead when he was expecting the Bentley). Thus I experienced yet again the wonderful truth that a journalist's life is the most interesting and varied that anyone can possibly hope for. Normally, by the way, I don't use BBC cars, but High Down Prison to Eton is not possible by public transport unless you have most of the day to do it.

It was the BBC who put me in prison - specifically the Newsnight programme, which wanted to hold a discussion on crime and punishment inside a gaol. This event was transmitted on Tuesday evening and can be found on the BBC i-player here.

I played, in the end, a rather minor role in the discussion, which was dominated by the self-serving reflections of convicted prisoners (who have never done anyone any harm, in their view) and a jolly interview (by Jeremy Paxman) with the Justice Secretary, Ken Clarke, in which he made it plain that he hasn't a clue what to do about our justice system, and is resorting as usual to gimmicks and to ways of keeping more and more serious and violent convicted criminals out of prison. Mr Clarke also revealed that he has swallowed whole the 'French Connection' myth about the supposed physical dangers of ceasing to take heroin.

As is so often the case, I had to push my way into the discussion, and my contribution therefore has a completely different character from that of the conventional contributors who were politely invited in. I began by assuming that I would be invited to take part myself, since the BBC had gone to some lengths to persuade me to be there at all (I voiced doubts about whether it would be worth my while). But it seemed increasingly clear that this was unlikely to happen unless I seized my chance, as I did. No doubt some contributors here will chide me for my 'aggressive' approach. I have, however, discussed this problem in previous posts and mention this episode as more evidence of the problem that unconventional and non-mainstream opinions have with the BBC.

By the way, the think tank Policy Exchange has recently published a devastating report on the supposed 'alternative' to prison, community sentences (reachable here), which anyone interested in this subject should read. Did you know that many convicted criminals end up paying their debt to society by working in charity shops?

That'll show them.

In fact it will show them what many have already begun to suspect much earlier in their career of crime - that the state does not disapprove of what they have done and is not prepared to take any resolute action against them.

Let us take two statements made by persons in the 'Newsnight' discussion, both of which are particularly striking.

‘I stole from a shop, which I find is the only crime I can achieve money that I need without affecting anybody in the community.’ The same prisoner (now being given methadone at your expense during his short stay in prison) complained that after a previous sentence he had been unable to get his methadone supply outside on release because of bureaucratic delay, and he had been advised (by whom was not clear) to go out and buy some heroin while he waited.

Is this person being punished or in any way deterred from the drug-taking that makes him more likely to be a criminal, or from the criminal behaviour which he thinks is justified whenever he needs money?

Well, it would seem not by the prison governor, Peter Dawson (with whom I later had a slight off-air disagreement). Mr Dawson took this opportunity to make the following extraordinary statement: ‘The thing I want to say first about sending someone to prison is that it always does harm to the person in prison. My job is to mitigate the harm done to the person who is sent to prison and those that care for them on the outside.’

One other thing in the debate that the uninitiated might be confused by is the statement by the female governor of next door Down View prison that all her prisoners work. What is not clear from this intervention (though it is the case) is that Down View is a prison solely for women, who are generally in prison because their lives are hopelessly broken (often by drugs) rather than because they are violent and dangerous to others. It is of course much easier to find work in outside establishments for women prisoners.

But - to avoid going into too deep a discussion of a subject already discussed here when I republished my article on Wormwood Scrubs, one point which emerges from all this is that professionals in the prison system develop a sort of reverse Stockholm syndrome, identifying with their captives, and allowing their misdeeds to recede into a fog of amnesia. I think this is one of the causes of the system's grave failure.

It is startling that the prison system is the one state institution whose senior employees seem free to make strong public criticisms of that system, and a permanent flow of condemnatory reports from Her Majesty's Inspectors, none of which ever addresses the possibility that prisons are full and nasty because they are not punitive or under the full control of the authorities.

Oh, as for Eton, I talked to a small but interested and thoughtful group of people about the Churchill myth and its effects on British foreign policy from the 'Finest Hour' to the 'Dodgy Dossier'.

Going to prisons always lowers my spirits, because of the triumphant evil that emanates from them, and the horrid thought that any innocent and harmless person may be alone and friendless in such a pit. The warders, by contrast with the bureaucrats and the politicians, are generally men and women of sound common sense, but severely limited in what they can do.

Visiting the great public schools always fills me with frustration, because of the way in which we have ensured that a really good education is now a privilege of the rich. Try as these places may, they cannot through bursaries or scholarships replace the lost grammar schools or the destroyed direct grant system.

But nobody would gain, and the country would lose, if these great schools were abolished or brought low, as many on the left would like to happen.

29 November 2010 1:55 PM

In passing...

... as I have rather too many obligations today to do the sort of posting I'd like to, a few comments on various arguments going on on several threads.

Some dogged oppositionists here seem to disagree with me whatever I say. I suspect that one of these is Harold Stone, who jeers at me for allegedly having 'been on holiday in Scotland' as a child. Actually, I lived in Scotland as a child, to be precise in Somerville Road, Rosyth, then (and possibly still now) Royal Navy married quarters. As I have often said, many of my earliest memories are of Scottish landscape and of Scottish voices, I still remember how sad I was to leave, and I have never been able to share or particularly understand the silly hostility that some English people have for Scotland and the Scots.

Likewise, every time I have visited either part of Ireland I have felt myself among friends and among a people who have done much to make our culture and civilisation as great as they are. Our language would, especially, be much poorer without the Irish (and Welsh) contributions to literature. Our Christianity would not be anything like so deep-rooted without the Irish contribution to it. Of course we are all different. But a great deal unites us, and I am tired of all those petty nationalisms which would Balkanise us ready for dissolution into the EU soup. I've seen shamefully little of Wales, but think that's a failing in someone who is generally well-travelled both in this country and elsewhere. I intend to put it right when I've time.

Various people, prominent among them the person who pretentiously posts under a long Greek name, wilfully misunderstand my dispute with Matthew Parris, imagining that I am distressed because Mr Parris has said something rude about me. They say I have a 'thin skin', as if this were personal and to do with abuse or name-calling. Mr Parris did in fact make a cheap jibe against me, as I recorded, but I haven't asked him to retract that or apologise for it. It is of no importance, though I suspect Mr Parris is faintly ashamed of it anyway.

I believe that he has, on the other hand, offended against the truth by giving a deeply misleading account of what I said to him, to a large audience - and failing to make any gesture of retraction or repentance despite many chances to do so and an open invitation to come here and explain himself.

Before the mists of time close over this episode, let me set out…

What I said...

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.

What Mr Parris said I said

‘Among his [Peter Hitchens's] 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.’

The full details of this are still available in a posting placed on this site on 4th November.

But when I posted those, I left it to readers to conclude that the difference between the two versions was serious and disturbing.

I now feel compelled to explain why, since it has obviously gone past at least some of them, and maybe Mr Parris himself.

First of all, I was arguing about marriage versus non-marriage, not about homosexuality. Mr Parris wished to argue about homosexuality and so, as far as I could see, did the BBC presenter involved. As to why this might have been, readers are welcome to speculate. I regard this as a side issue and a dead end in this discussion, and resolved some time ago not to be lured into it any further, unless it was absolutely necessary.

Note that I do not refer directly to homosexuals in the discussion at all. I refer to the status of lifelong heterosexual marriage. Nor do I say anything about 'inferiority'. I speak of society's endorsement. And I say that a rational argument can be had about whether society should give this endorsement only to lifelong heterosexual marriage.

If there are implications of 'inferiority', then they are primarily directed at heterosexuals who either don't get married or choose to dissolve their marriages in divorce or by desertion. These are immensely more numerous, and important in their effect, than homosexuals.

Now, to 'discriminate' against people on the grounds that they did not engage in lifelong marriage is actually *not* to discriminate between them and homosexual couples. It is to place all non-lifelong, non-monogamous arrangements in the same bracket, whether homosexual or heterosexual.

It is also to 'discriminate' on the grounds of behaviour and action in public, not on grounds of inner nature, fixed or otherwise (though Mr Parris has written interestingly about this tricky subject, as is mentioned in my book 'The Cameron Delusion'). In fact it is to offer privileges to one group, and not to the others, whether homosexual, celibate or heterosexually inconstant.

Thus, to portray this careful (if perforce unfinished) statement as my saying ‘discriminating against “gays” is OK’ because ‘it is an objective fact that “gay” relationships are inferior’ is not merely a crude caricature of my argument. It is actually so misleading as to be false. No such words passed my lips. No such thought crossed my mind. I am utterly opposed to the persecution of individual homosexuals, either in law or in our culture, as I have many times said. To be opposed to homosexual equality is not to be in favour of such things, and it is time this was clearly understood.

I do not in fact use the phrase 'objective fact'. However, I would have argued, had I been given time, that the objective facts do show that the outcomes for children are far better in a society where lifelong heterosexual marriage is the accepted norm than in one where it is not. That is why I think reason and facts have a part in this discussion. As is so often the case, Christianity is the force which argues most strongly for the position which also turns out - in the long term - to be reasonable and fact-based, but I will leave others to wonder why that might be. But a wholly secular reasoned case can be made in favour of lifelong marriage.

The sexual liberation movement is in fact overwhelmingly heterosexual, but has learned to use people such as Mr Parris so as to portray its opponents as bigots rather than moralists, precisely through this sort of distortion. If it can persuade a fickle mob to think that Christian moralists are anxious to persecute homosexual individuals, and comparable in nature to the South African apartheid state (which incidentally found many of its toughest and most uncompromising opponents in the Anglican Church) then that mob will not listen to anything else that is said. QED.

The matter is explored at greater length in my book 'The Cameron Delusion', if anyone is interested in debate rather than in name-calling.