bush on brown: I know what I like and I like what I see - me

While it's nice to pretend that a new Prime Minister means some kind of fresh start in Anglo-American relations, there's no detectable change in position on either side. If anything, Brown's meeting with Bush suggests Brown's awareness of his domestic image:

A relaxed Mr Bush went out of his way to lavish praise on Mr Blair's successor, applauding his fortitude in the face of personal tragedy and hailing him as a "problem solver." [...]

However, Mr Brown failed to reciprocate. While he spoke warmly of the privilege of visiting Camp David so early in his premiership, the Prime Minister avoided praising his host personally, preferring instead to talk about the strong relationship between the two countries.

In other words, Brown doesn't want to get stuck with the Blair "poodle" label. The effect was that Bush seemed to be left projecting how he likes to be seen onto Brown:

"He's a problem solver. He's a glass-half-full man, not a glass-half-empty guy, you know. Some of these world leaders say, 'Oh, the problems are so significant, let us retreat, let us not take them on, they're too tough'.

"That's not Gordon Brown. His attitude is, 'I see a problem, let's work together to solve it'."

It's hard to imagine anything closer to Bush's own "decider" self-image - complete with non-existent straw-men leaders who want to "retreat" for contrast. It's an account of Gordon Brown that has almost nothing to do with Brown - he's merely a cipher for Bush's own imagined international standing. This would be what we call the "special relationship."

Meanwhile, continued fall-out from the Blair era as covered in the Media Guardian (registration required):

An attempt to prevent the press from repeating British concerns about US military tactics in Iraq, including the killing of civilians in Falluja and President Bush's alleged suggestion that the offices of the Arabic satellite TV station al-Jazeera should be bombed, was quashed by the appeal court yesterday. [...]

The court heard that April 2004 was a particularly delicate period in Iraq. It is known, and was widely reported, that British officials and military commanders were expressing concern about US tactics. The British were concerned in particular about the US assault on Falluja, including the use of white phosphorus.

You might think that the latter would be a slightly bigger story.

co-habitation rights versus private lives

A rare good argument from the Telegraph leader on the extention of "cohabiting rights" to unmarried couples:

But there is a counter-intuitive argument against them as a threat to personal liberty. If the Commission's advice is adopted, it will no longer be possible for a man and a woman to decide to live together on completely private terms which involve no licence, or interference from the state.

The option of a completely free (but enduring) association between two adults which deliberately abjures any of the trappings or encumbrances of marriage will now effectively cease to exist.

While it's more or less a rhetorical flourish, it's worth remembering that there are no "completely private terms" in any adult relationship - all relationships are culturally (and legally) moderated. If The Telegraph is coming out for absolute liberty in personal relationships between consenting adults then we need to talk about incest, for example.

That said, it is problematic that such a speculative, free-living couple should actively have to "opt-out" of the "trappings or encumbrances of marriage" (and that's a great sales-pitch for marriage, btw). Yet the extent to which that couple actually exists is actually relevant: do we shape laws on the basis of potential human relationships, or on the basis of the way that the majority live their life?

That, incidentally, is the argument frequently made for the primacy of marriage as a cultural institution, which in turn suggests the true motivation for some of the objections to cohabitation rights from "conservative sources." Cohabitation rights offer the "trappings or encumbrances" - or rather, rights and protections of marriage without marriage taking place - and if anything is going to be accused of undermining the institution of marriage," it's that.

note to sub-editors: try reading the story before writing the headline

Let's watch the slip from headline to story:

Left-handers more at risk of mental illness

Wow. That sounds definitive. The story?

Left-handed people may have an increased risk of developing schizophrenia, scientists have found.

An international group of scientists, led by a team at Oxford University, have identified a gene that seems to increase the chance of being left-handed. The researchers said that the same gene - called LRRTM1 - may slightly increase the risk of developing the brain disorder.

Rather less definitive.. in fact..

The leader of the study, Dr Clyde Francks of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, said: " People really should not be concerned by this result. There are many factors which make individuals more likely to develop schizophrenia and the vast majority of left-handers will never develop a problem. We don't yet know the precise role of this gene."

Which rather contradicts the headline. Hurrah for sub-editors!

the rhetoric of "spare-part" babies

One of the older propaganda techniques is to create a catchy and misleading name for whatever it is that you're trying to demonise. Exhibit A, the Mail's creation of "spare-part" babies:

The creation of "spare part babies" could become more widespread following a report from MPs.

Their recommendations could lead to a rise in screening of test tube embryos to identify suitable donors for desperately sick brothers or sisters.

The technique involves fertilising half a dozen egg cells in a test tube and scanning the resulting embryos to find the most suitable tissue match for the sibling. Once that baby is born, blood from the umbilical cord is used to treat the other child.

And that baby then grows up normally: the cord blood is a useful by-product of its birth. The baby is not giving up any "part" of its own body, nor is it disposed of when its usefulness has passed.

No harm comes to the child who is donating their unneeded cord blood, and there's a chance that a seriously sick sibling can recover their health.

Of course, in order to make this story controversial you have to ignore all of the above:

Josephine Quintavalle, of Comment on Reproductive Ethics, says it is wrong to conceive babies in order to treat another family member. "This is putting one human life at the disposal of another," she said.

It's hard to follow Quintavalle's logic (reported without challenge or rebuttal) as no child born to aid another is being "disposed of."

Her disapproval might stem from the fact that the process requires for several embryos to be tested to find the most suitable tissue match: only the closest match is used.

In other words, Quintavalle's discomfort stems from the unspoken (fringe) belief that undeveloped embryos in a test-tube (the kind the human body regularly rejects instead of allowing to mature) are the equivalent of born children. The rhetorical interchangeability of embryos, babies and human life may well be the hallmark of "pro-life" activism.

It's also the dancing on the head of a pin over the term "conceive" as the point where "life" starts for which CREW are famous: it's a strict moral stance that's shared by very few members of the general public, who have demonstrated a surprisingly sophisticated series of opinions about the use of embryos.

However, in order for the narrative of "spare-part" babies - harvested for their usefulness - to take hold, we can only hear the most conservative and reactionary view-point.

dark arts defensive

A slightly puzzling moment, where we discover that only snobs criticise Harry Potter for not being very good - unless you happen to be writing a column about snobs who criticise Harry Potter.

Yes, it's the traditional hall of mirrors that can only be Melanie Phillips, thus the scolding of Will Self for having the opinion that adults "should not be concerning themselves with language that is so banal and basic" is followed shortly after by this:

Of course this is not Great Literature; George Eliot or Tolstoy she isn't, and her characters don't have the depth that one finds in even averagely good adult fiction (although in the sheer exuberance of her inventiveness, Charles Dickens often comes to mind).

Self's commentary was, of course, the wrong kind of slightly patronising dismissiveness.

Please make way for another 1000 collected pundits who want to explain their discomfort in enjoying children's literature by writing columns about how they don't feel uncomfortable at all.

your friday straw man

Via DK, the latest in a long line of things that "the left" hates:

The left violently disapproves of Harry Potter because the books' popularity represents the resurgence of everything they hate and have struggled for decades to suppress.

And there was me thinking it was the religious right who had mounted the most widespread and most disproportionate protests on the grounds that it glorified witchcraft, evil and the splitting of your soul into seven handily portable items.

BTW, the list of things "the left" hates also includes sunshine, puppies, hugs and rainbows.

the hidden allure of foster care, part 1034

Rupert Everett, who is gay and some kind of celebrity and thus, like Matthew Parris, a reliable figurehead for gay people:

Ampleforth-educated Everett, who is single and admits to taking an "old-fashioned" line on some gay issues, says: "Oh God, I could never do that to a child.

"Can you imagine what it would be like, having your two dads coming to school speech days? And hearing those awful queeny rows while you are trying to get to sleep?"

I believe the requisite response is supposed to be ZOMG, a gay man doesn't think gay parents are a good idea and HE SHOULD KNOW!!

I think I'll let Dan Savage handle this one:

Gay parents: they get into rows, they're embarrassing. Straight parents: never fight, never embarrassing. So, gay men, please refrain from adopting or fostering children. Better they should languish in the paradise that is foster care for their entire childhoods.

And we're done.

quickly: form a parallelogram to foil the terrorists

The warning that airport queues could be a terror target sounds like a set-up for security theatre : if true, lengthy queues at cinemas, supermarket check-outs and teen-wizard book launches are equally likely to be terror targets. In fact, the locations without a police presence and tight security measures are going to be more vulnerable.

Airports have always been targets because they are a) of strategic value and b) tend to have large numbers of people in a relatively small space. The fact that the people are standing in a line is irrelevant, surely?

matthew parris: post-homosexual f*ckwit

I suppose if you're a financially secure, middle-class newspaper columnist it's easy to proclaim yourself a "post-homosexual" - for anyone else, whose life might continue to be affected by discrimination, intolerance and religious bigotry, it might sound like smug, out-of-touch punditry.

In fact, to make the call for "fellow queers" to "stop moaning"  you'd have to be pretty blind to the reality of most young gay people (teen suicide still high, homophobic bullying in schools higher than ever) and entirely uninterested in the plight of gay people outside of the UK (or even gay people outside of the greater London area. Any idea what it's like to be gay in the north west of Scotland, Matthew?). Yes, it would be nice to live life without reference to sexuality in a non-judgmental liberal paradise, but it doesn't seem very likely anytime soon.

Also swept under his comfortably capacious rug is the religious community - who up until recently were trying to bar gay people from receiving the same freedoms from discrimination that they'd just received:

Our main persecutors now are religions – the "faith community": Islam, Catholicism, Anglicanism, evangelicals, Judaism, Hinduism – but most of our fellow Britons don't seriously subscribe to any of these superstitions, so why take it out on them?

The separation between churches and the faithful can be real enough - and I've made that argument before - but such a gap does little to diminish the size of the pulpit from which religious leaders shout, or the acreage of newspaper coverage that newspapers give to their proclamations (even when it's declaring that floods are divine punishment for gay rights).

There's a sizeable proportion of congregations who might be embarrassed when their leaders let rip with the homophobia - but aren't actually uncomfortable enough to do anything about it. Let's also not dismiss so quickly the strength of religious objections: the Anglicans perpetually on the verge of schism over gay priests and the Catholic Church barely going weeks without declaring the homo to be a form of social evil.

And to glibly dismiss people who point all of that out as mere Guardian columnists is a cheap bit of ad hominem. Fuck you, Matthew Parris, really, fuck you.

delusional logic

It's been a sub-editor's dream that a man who left his fortune to the Conservative party has been challenged in court as "insane," but the actual arguments of the case deserve a little attention.

For one thing, neither side of the case dispute that Branislav Kostic - who disinherited his son and gave £10 million to the Tories - had been "delusionary insane" since 1985.

The Guardian's account of yesterday's evidence from a consultant psychiatrist suggests the argument that Kostic's decision to leave his money to the Tories was internally consistent - in that it was entirely logical from the point of view of his delusion that an:

international conspiracy of more than 100 people masterminded by sexually perverted pharmaceutical company executives [was plotting] to destroy "freedom, democracy and human purity".

As such, the Tories - warriors of morality and light - were the ideal choice to fight such a conspiracy.

Under cross-examination, the psychiatrist accepted:

that one interpretation could be that his father's correspondence offering money to the Tories came from his delusions about "satanic monsters" rather than support for Tory values and philosophy.

which seems to be a problem with the Tory legal team's claim that the money was left out of love of country and Thatcher than a contradiction of the idea that mentally ill people can act logically - even when that logical action is based on delusional precepts.

You might even end up arguing it's as consistent as leaving all of your money to a religious organisation in order to save your immortal soul, or help save the souls of others: the key is that some delusions are more socially acceptable than others, or not considered delusions at all.

68 million reasons to fake panic

The gentle face of xenophobia:

Islam and the EU

Gordon Brown has welcomed the reelection of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose Islamist-inspired AK party is committed to joining the EU. He said: "I hope this will bring Europe and Turkey closer."

Just one question. With the EU's rules on free movement, is this really a good moment to give Turkey's 68 million Muslims unrestricted access to Britain? Don't we have enough problems as it is?

ZOMG! 68 MILLIONS MUSLIMS!!!! AND THEY'RE ALL IN UR BASE!

It hardly needs to be said that only a tiny, tiny percentage have passports, would want to travel to the UK instead of elsewhere in Europe, could fund travel, would want to travel at all etc. etc.

But what a scary number, eh? And they're all coming here, apparently, to Muslim the place up and cause trouble while we're dealing with the floods. How WILL we cope?

naturally stupid: organic cosmetics and deadly, deadly chemicals

Media "health" stories can be a perpetual noise machine, as today's announcement that face creams are "in the clear over danger chemicals" illustrates. As ever, the Daily Mail:

[R]eports that the daily ritual leaves the average woman absorbing 5lb of chemicals through her skin every year were enough to make some hardened make-up fans go barefaced.

That you hadn't heard about this trend at all - and that there's no evidence for it - should probably be ignored, or else you'll just have to stop trusting anything the Mail prints. Oh, wait..

They have been reassured that face creams still do their skin a favour. Harley Street dermatologist Dr Nick Lowe discounted the "urban myth" that lotions and potions harm the skin, claiming they could protect against pollution and ultraviolet rays.

Dr Lowe, a spokesman for the British Skin Foundation, said there was simply no evidence that chemicals could seep through the skin. He spoke out after a study last month claimed man-made compounds in skin products were linked to cancer, while others could irritate the skin or cause it to age prematurely.

The "study" which triggered the original story wasn't a study at all - it was a speech given to an industry conference, followed up an article in a trade-magazine. The man behind both is Richard Bence, who runs an "organic" cosmetics company and was trying to whip up trade by arguing that regular cosmetics were filled with dangerous chemicals. As opposed to organic chemicals which are.. uhmm.. made from unicorn tears. However, there's no mention of his commercial interests in today's story in the Mail - presumably the editors thought the earlier free publicity was enough.

In short, the Mail's follow up story is an admission that there's no evidence for any of the claims they happily reported in their original story: they're responding to "reports" which the Mail took seriously without a seconds thought in the first place. As did the The Telegraph, the Express, the Sun etc. etc, leading everyone in a conga-line of correcting claims which should never have been printed without challenge in the first place. The meta-headline reads: Thing We Should Have Fact-Checked Was Wrong.

For some actual journalism on organic cosmetics, Bence's claims and the products he's selling, see Peta Bee in the Times:

Furthermore, the kind of organic cosmetics that Bence endorses on his website are not necessarily less laden with chemicals than other varieties. " All substances used as ingredients, whether natural or man-made, are chemicals," says Debbie Hunter, a CTPA spokeswoman.

" A chemical is not the opposite of something natural." Professor Antony Young, head of experimental photobiology at King's College London, says: "There is a lot of rubbish out there about the absorption of chemical ingredients into the skin, but to date no evidence that anything in approved products does any harm."

More via Tim Worstall with advice for anyone wanting to get a few pages of free advertising in the national press through the simple knowledge that some journalists will print absolutely anything.

drugs are bad, m'kay?

Come on now, Melanie, you're not even trying:

Although some official figures seem to show that cannabis use is falling for certain age groups, others tell a very different story. The number of people who have ever used it is increasing; Britain has one of the highest rates of cannabis use in the world; and it is being used by younger and younger children - who don't even appear in the official statistics - and leading young people on to other drugs such as cocaine, whose use is exploding.

Assertions passing as fact, much? What other research? Do you have evidence that it's being used by younger and younger children, or did you pull that "fact" straight from your pundit-hole?

Phillips also accuses the Advisory Committee on the Misuse of Drugs of "ignoring the evidence of the harm cannabis does to the brain" - it's presumably a different group with an identical name which warned that cannabis use may worsen the symptoms of schizophrenia and lead to a relapse in some patients. It's a parallel universe Advisory Committee on the Misuse of Drugs, from a world where Melanie Phillips is both accurate and honest.

The main problem Phillips has with the ACMD is that it is "riddled with 'harm reduction' advocates who will die in the last ditch before admitting the harm that cannabis does." Except, of course, that they do admit such a thing - just not in sufficiently apocalyptic and terrifying terms as they're stuck with reporting actual research instead of Phillips' opinions which do not have to maintain a bothersome link to evidence. Such research suggests, "at worst, that using cannabis increases the lifetime risk of developing schizophrenia by 1 per cent."

It's true that the debate is ongoing, with different studies producing different results, a lack of evidence for direct causation and disagreement over whether cannabis use amongst people with mental health problems is a symptom of self-medication rather than a cause. But those kinds of details would interfere with Phillips' black and white reading of the research - subtlety is for people who are trying to enslave children into a lifetime of addiction.

The one-sided reading helps disguise the fact that Phillips' authoritarian streak is inconsistent. Though railing against "all drug use [as] totally beyond the pale because no society can tolerate the harm it does," she has nothing to say about alcohol, a drug which has a long association with violent crime and poor health. By pretending that there's no dispute over the relative risks involved, Phillips can declare "drugs" to be an absolute danger to life, limb and our culture as a whole.

Consequently, the possibility that a drug might be used in moderation - where those using it accept the risk to their health, as in smoking and drinking - doesn't appear in Phillips' rhetoric because that would be a sign of weakness, an admission that a person can happily smoke cannabis in their teens and go on to join the Cabinet without losing their mind and destroying their lives.

crisis (due to) management

Work is pretty dire at the moment, so posts likely to be scarce this week. Would really appreciate links to anything worth reading - send to the usual place: bookdrunk [at] gmail [dot] com, or via my delicious network.

faith vs. evidence

There are number of large holes in Geoffrey Rowell's argument that "science is nothing without faith," not least of which is his interpretation of Polanyi :

It was Michael Polanyi, the philosopher of science, who recognised that for a scientist to test a new hypothesis they had to have faith in that hypothesis. Faith seeking understanding was as true of science as of religion, though a faith that was indeed a reasonable faith shaped by compelling evidence.

There's a huge difference between accepting a hypothesis for the sake of testing, and blind faith in that hypothesis. In fact, the scientific kind of "faith" is the reverse of the traditional religious kind, in that scientific hypotheses can be expected to be tested, and changed when further evidence comes to light - or abandoned when there's no evidence in support.

There's also a difference between having faith in the acceptance of a table, for example, for the basis of a table-based study and declaring "oh, table, without you we are nothing but tea-cups on the floor" once a week in a specially built temple.

double plus irony: the daily mail caught "peddling a pack of lies"

Hey, what's this? It's some well-timed outrage:

Every national newspaper - including the Mail - accepted the accuracy of a BBC promotional film apparently showing the Queen - in full Garter regalia - storming angrily out of a photographic sitting because she was asked to remove her tiara.

Now we know it was faked. The pictures were taken as she entered the photoshoot, then edited to make it appear she had thrown a tantrum.

Yet even after the Palace reacted with understandable fury to this dishonesty, it took hours for the BBC to issue the grovelling apology its offence merited.

But matters can't end there. Our most influential broadcasting organisation has been caught out peddling a pack of lies.

Then, today, 23rd July:

On May 14 we published an article about the making of a BBC documentary on Cherie Blair's time in Downing Street.

We indicated that Mrs Blair had behaved in a 'regal fashion' and that she was mocked by the TV crew. We accept now that this was not true and apologise to Mrs Blair for any distress and embarrassment caused.

We have paid damages and legal costs as a result of our error.

Woops. So that means when the Mail wrote:

Insiders say Mrs Blair has lived up to her nickname of 'Cherie Antoinette' during filming, with crew members mocking her 'regal' behaviour behind her back. One told the Mail: "At times Mrs Blair was absolutely intolerable.

During meetings with African presidents and ministers she was treating them as equals, as if she was a Prime Minister herself."

they were, uhm, "peddling a pack of lies." And then it took two months for them to apologise. Tut tut.

the sex education message

While it's the social conservatives strategy of choice to argue that the government should be promoting abstinence instead of "encouraging" sex, actual knowledge of advice being given tends to reveal that argument to be full of crap.

Here's an excerpt from the male-targeted half of the UK government's "RU Thinking About It?" campaign, aimed at reducing peer pressure and delaying the onset of sexual activity:

Having sex purely to impress your pals isn't cool - you'll probably end up feeling foolish because you didn't make your own decision. Plus, you're more likely to forget about contraception if you're stressing out and under pressure.

The last thing you need is to get someone pregnant or pick up a Sexually transmitted Infection (STI), so discuss contraception with your girlfriend before things go too far.

Pushing your girlfriend into sex could also spoil your relationship with her. The best sex happens when both people like each other and are ready to do it. Most lads regret persuading their girlfriend to have sex unless she's 100% up for it.

Remember that having sex before you're 16 (17 in Northern Ireland) is against the law – but that doesn't mean you have to rush out on your birthday and try to lose your virginity, whatever your mates say.

If this isn't the kind of advice we should be giving, what is?

devout denial?

A judge's comments from an uncomfortable UK case where a religious couple refused treatment for their terminally ill baby:

A bone marrow transplant offers the baby a 50 per cent chance of a normal life. Equally, however, the operation may not work. It could kill her or leave her disabled.

The treatment "will be lengthy, painful and distressing, and could be very painful indeed," the judge said. He added that the parents "believe that she should enjoy the quality of such life as remains to her and not undergo the treatment".

He said the parents were a happily married, well-educated professional couple with a good understanding of scientific matters. [...]

He added: "The mother said in her oral evidence that she does not accept as a medical or scientific fact that if there is no transplant A will die and die relatively soon.

"She said, 'I am a Christian and both me and my husband have faith and hope that God can heal our daughter and our conviction is that He will heal her. Our belief in a miracle gives us the ability to make decisions for her quality of life, even if short term'."

There's a key difference, I think, between refusing treatment which has only a 50% chance of success in order to spare your child further months of suffering - and refusing treatment on the grounds that god will step in with his magic wand. It's a difference that sounds quite a lot like (understandable) denial.

The judge's ruling?

Even though the judge said he respected the mother and father's religious beliefs, he felt that he "must leave entirely out of account any possibility of a miraculous cure".

That said, the Times piece confusingly opens with the idea that treatment may be given against the parents wishes, before concluding "the judge said the parents still had the final control over whether A had the treatment or not." Hmm.

it's not rudeness, fat-head

Quentin Letts misses the point, despite dedicating most of his column to dismissing criticisms of sexism (mainly by the stunning effort of not being sexist about the new Solicitor General). Letts writes:

It is claimed that we sketchwriters are ruder to women than men.

(Funny, is it not, how cartoonists are never accused of such crimes, even though they are far worse culprits? And few cartoonists are crueller than those of the Left-wing newspapers.)

We are told, in short, that it is all jolly unfair and that the male-run media is conspiring to "put women in their place".

Leaving aside the Royal "we," the obligatory stab at the fabled International Conspiracy of Evil Feminist Leftists and the arbitrary decision that left-wing newspaper cartoonists are crueller - the issue isn't rudeness, even though rudeness tends to be a stand-in for actual content.

The issue is that Letts talks about female politicians in a way that he'd never talk about male politicians - by focussing on their hair, make-up, dress, cleavage etc. etc. There are plenty of sketch writers who manage to talk about Harriet Harman or any other female politicians performance without ever mentioning how they look.

And describing the people who point that out of being "boilersuited sisters" falls neatly under the category of ad hominem attack. It might also technically be rudeness, but it's mainly weak-ass.

jane austen around the clock

This must be the formal beginning of the silly season. In no particular order:

1. Given the state of the contemporary publishing industry, no, Jane Austen would probably not be published today. This is not a commment on the quality of her writing, this is a comment on what publishers are willing to risk money on in the current market. Get back to blaming Harry Potter.

2. Maybe the reason that the man who set up the Jane Austen stunt couldn't get published was because his novel was just plain crappy. Simply writing a novel doesn't earn you the right to have it published - and it wouldn't hurt for one single solitary journalist to point this out.

abortion and northern ireland

Christopher Howse, writing on the Telegraph blog, draws attention to possible indirect consequences of The Human Tissue and Embryos Bill - namely the legalisation of abortion in Northern Ireland.

Howse describes such a move as an "imposition," arguing "both Unionist and Republican leaders in Northern Ireland have not wanted this law to extend to the people they represent, the majority of whom oppose it."

The word "imposition" is a strange way to describe choice: those who are oppose abortion are not having abortion imposed upon them - they are perfectly free to continue refusing to use such a service. For that majority, nothing would change. There's a difference here between opposing abortion for yourself, and extending that belief to apply to all those around you.

The primary consequence of a ban in Northern Ireland has been - as in the Republic of Ireland - to drive women to England to seek abortion. In their assessment of a variety of case studies, the Family Planning Association concluded:

It is evident that abortion practice in Northern Ireland is confused, inconsistent and determined by moral views or an unwillingness to risk testing the law. The absence of clear, unambiguous legislation means that many Northern Ireland women have to travel to England to obtain a private abortion. [Women from NI are not eligible for an NHS abortion in England.]

Securing an abortion in England costs around £500 (if the woman is under 14 weeks pregnant) rising to around £1,200 if the pregnancy is further advanced. This includes medical fees and travel expenses. Women unable to afford abortions in England either continue the pregnancy or may risk unsafe amateur abortions.

Perhaps unsuprisingly, a 2000/2001 survey of women from NI attending British abortion clinics carried out by Marie Stopes International found that 95% would have preferred to have had their abortion in Northern Ireland - with an equal percentage supporting the extension of the 1967 Abortion Act to the region.

Finally, it's revealing to recognise that attitudes towards abortion are strongly marked by a generational divide, and across the region. Polling in Northern Ireland during the 90s appeared to show a slow trend in favour of legalising abortion - from 25% in 1992 to 30% in 1994.

A poll published by the Irish Examiner in late 2005 found that - in the deeply Catholic Republic of Ireland - "Irish voters aged under 35 are overwhelmingly in favour of legalising abortion," suggesting that "pro-choice appears to be the wave of the future, with those under 35 strongly in favour." More recent polling - covered in some detail here - appears to confirm that trend.

While I agree reforms to abortion law - or indeed,  any law - are best dealt with openly and directly, the inconsistency of law between Northern Ireland and the mainland UK is an anachronism that needs to be addressed. If abortion is legal in the UK, it should be legal across the UK - and certainly not dependent on the ability of individual women to fund travel and private medical care.

leaving jane austen

The rush to jump up and down on the publishing industry for failing to recognise Jane Austen seems a little strained - not least because the "gotcha" isn't entirely spectacular. Given the volume of unsolicited manuscripts received by publishers, I'd be surprised if any more than a minority received any response at all - even if only a generic rejection letter. It's possible that some publishers thought the man who submitted Austen as his own work was taking the piss, and simply ignored him.

But it's also slightly weird that all publishers should be expected to have a detailed knowledge of Jane Austen. While it serves our romantic image of literary agents to think that they must all know and love the "classics," many simply don't specialise in that kind of fiction - or pay any attention to those kinds of manuscripts because they don't think there's much of a market for them. In a funny way, it's a market that's already been cornered - by reprints of Jane Austen.

That Jane Austen might be a "classic" to which we are romantically attached doesn't actually mean it would get published today: tastes change, and reputations are built over generations instead of over night. The resurgence of Austen's popularity in the 90s has had as much to do with sexy TV and film adaptations as the accessibility of her prose: embarrassing, possibly, but also true.

The idea that "great literature" can be recognised on sight is also slightly ridiculous - Austen's writing was far from universally well-received when first in print. As Mark Twain argued, "Jane Austen? Why, I go so far as to say that any library is a good library that does not contain a volume by Jane Austen. Even if it contains no other book."

The status of Austen as a "great" writer has taken decades to establish, not only through public popularity but an industry of literary festivals and academia. It also helps to look back romantically on the adventures of the landed gentry and their servants if you're not actually a servant.

While the stunt is supposed to have revealed "flaws in the publishing process," where manuscripts are rejected out of hand, this sounds more like the work of a unpublished author who is annoyed that Austen isn't being taken seriously enough - an unpublished author who also happens to be the director of the Jane Austen Festival in Bath.

In other words, a neat little publicity stunt, happily fostered by journalists who have referred to David Lassman as an "Austen fan" rather than someone who makes part of his livelihood from Austen.

truly miraculous legal advice

Lifted from Mediawatchwatch, a ruling by the Advertising Standards Agency on an advert placed in The Times during the debate over the Sexual Orientation Regulations.

In short, it's a prime example of the total fucking lies of the religious right - or in the more polite words of the ruling, "the ad exaggerated the effect of the proposed regulations and was likely to mislead readers of The Times." Mediawatchwatch summarises:

Here is a sample of their claims about the effect of the SORs. Under the heading “So what do the Government’s newly proposed SEXUAL ORIENTATION REGULATIONS do?”, was this list of questions:

- Force all schools to actively promote homosexual Civil Partnerships to children (from primary school age) to the same degree that they teach the importance of marriage?
- Force a printing shop run by a Christian to print flyers promoting gay sex?
- Force a family-run B&B to let out a double room to a transsexual couple, even if the family think it is in the best interests of their children to refuse to allow such a situation in their own home?
- Make it illegal for a heterosexual policeman, fireman or member of the Armed Forces, to refuse to join a Gay Pride event promoting the homosexual way of life?

Each question was followed by a box with a tick in it. None of the claims were true.

And this was on the basis of advice from the Lawyers Christian Fellowship, whose weak-ass legal advice has appeared here before - where we discovered the claim that Christian printers would be forced to produce gay sex fliers was supported by a footnote reading "this example presumes the vicar would support the printing of leaflets promoting heterosexual sex within marriage."

It's ironic that this should be the case - given that the ASA makes this exact argument in demonstrating the advert to be misleading:

We noted the Regulations would make it unlawful for a printing shop to refuse to print flyers promoting gay sex only if the refusal was discriminatory, i.e. because the printer was willing to print flyers that promoted heterosexual sex.

If only they'd listened to their own advice.

It's also nice to remember that this is technically a kicking while the Christian right is already down, given that they lost and the regulations passed into law. Ah hah.

a game of self-loathing for the whole family

The Daily Mail's revamped "Happy Families," which tells you everything you need to know about their world view.

It would be funny if the "comic" archetypes weren't identical to the way the Mail actually talks about Britain: you'll notice, for example, that the children of immigrants are depicted as either involved in organised crime or prostitution.

anatomy of MMR journalism, continued

Having been away from my desk over the weekend, I also missed the Observer's contribution to the MMR dog-pile - which Ben Goldacre crushes to a fine powder here.

In addition to the gross inaccuracies that Goldacre covers, you'll notice that The Observer's story follow the all-too familiar format: repeating the line that "questions have been raised," regardless of the validity of those questions.

It's also more than a little self-fulfilling: questions about safety have been raised in the newspapers, giving newspapers the cover to write about how questions of safety have been raised - ad infinitum.

Having given prominence to ill-supported speculation, the pretence of balance is then achieved by reluctantly concluding - in the very last lines - that "no published study has ever shown a link between autism and the MMR vaccine." Quite why you'd give prominence to a supposed link, then, is unclear.

Gordon Brown wants to be champion of gay rights, Iain Dale throws a few stones and Unity lobs them right back.

As Unity argues, Dale's suggestion that Brown has "carefully absented himself" from votes specifically relating to gay rights is paper thin, given that Brown's voting attendance for all legislation (homo and non-homo alike) has been low since he took office as Chancellor. If you want to find a Labourite whose absences on gay rights votes were a little more worrying, there's always Ruth Kelly.

Still, it's slightly hilarious to have defenders of the Conservative party jostling to protect the Tory high-ground on gay rights.

Oh, and the Daily Mail illustrates the story of a push for greater human rights and end to discrimination like this:


In other words, ZOMG, look at the transvestites. While gay people do indeed come in a variety of shapes and sizes, it's less than surprising that gay-baiting newspapers always focus on those who are most likely to offend conservative sensibilities.

However, it's finally the moment when someone in the press points out that Cameron's pro-marriage policies also apply to gay couples in civil partnerships - something previously closeted away in a largely ignored foot-note.

MMR spin continues

Following yesterday's analysis of the media propagation of MMR panic, the puff-piece for Richard Halvorsen's new book was accompanied by a major feature in the Mail asking " are vaccines a waste of time?" Here's an unintentionally ironic passage:

Are the scares over vaccines the work of hysterical parents, anti-vaccine fanatics and a sensationalist media? Or is the Government wilfully ignoring very real dangers and promoting vaccines that we don't need?

Seven years ago, I was a regular London GP with no particular opinion about vaccines . I gave them to my patients and my own children, secure in the knowledge that they were safe.

That all changed in 2000 when a newspaper asked me to write about the MMR vaccine .

Cue a list of studies - stripped of any identifying details, or indication of sample size - which all question the safety and efficacy of vaccines.  To make any kind of rational judgment about the argument Halvorsen makes - well, you'll just have to buy his book.

While I have sympathy for anyone whose work ends up being "excerpted" by a Mail hack, here's a particularly dishonest juxtaposition:

The Government's defence of the MMR vaccine - that no clear link had been proven between the MMR and autism - turned out to be extremely misleading.

When evidence emerged that there could be a problem, they consistently rejected or ignored it.

But a clear link had not been proven, so the government's defence was entirely accurate. The government was right - there was no clear link, and the evidence that suggested that there could be a problem was based on small, limited studies which have since been followed by larger, long-term studies which show no evidence of a link.

Yet somehow, the government's decision to adhere to the best advice at the time - that there was no link - instead of immediately circulating any and all inconclusive evidence to the contrary is seen as a sign of irresponsibility and deception.

the press and MMR

The greatest omission from the media's coverage of the investigation into alleged misconduct over MMR research by Dr Andrew Wakefield is, of course, the media's own role in giving prominence to a scare-story based on slim or non-existent research.

While it served the Times' high-ground of impartiality to publish comment yesterday that the MMR outrage is "now a whimper as jab is back in favour," it safely ignored the role that both broadsheets and tabloids played in driving the vaccine out of favour in the first place.

The "overwhelming tide of evidence" was apparently not quite so overwhelming back in October 2002, for example, at a time when the Times saw fit to repeatedly describe the issue as inconclusive and speculate on the worst possible links between autism and MMR:

LAST WEEK, researchers at the University of California opened a Pandora's box that British officials have been trying to keep the lid on for years. The team claims that the dramatic increase in the number of children with autism in the state — the numbers have tripled in the past 15 years — is a genuine increase that is caused by some unknown factor, not by greater awareness of the disease.

If this is true, it is dynamite.

The scare itself proved to be dynamite, with immunisation rates falling dramatically to a low of 80% in 2003/04.

Needless to say, the possibility that there was no link between autism and MMR was not given such breathlessly speculative coverage, for such a thing would have contradicted the constructed narrative of a deliberately secretive, "strangely reluctant" government whose health officials refused to take autism seriously.

The declaration that "health officials generally seem more interested in discrediting scientists than in investigating whether health is really at risk" further distorted any chance of legitimate criticism of Wakefield and others as being taken seriously. Apparently, only those voices arguing for a link between MMR and autism could be trusted. "Government exercises caution through wish not to destroy immunisation programme" just wouldn't qualify as dynamite.

The Times' past misdemeanours pale into insignificance when compared to the work of the tabloid press during that period, work that continues up to this day. Up until yesterday, in fact, when the Mail gave puff-coverage to a book claiming to tell "The truth about MMR," arguing both that "there is no evidence of harm, but neither is there evidence of safety" while speculating that live viruses in vaccinations "may attack the brain."

Missing in action is the study, published earlier this month, of 27,749 children born over a period 11 years ( flagged by Dr Crippen) that found no connection between MMR and autism. The hearing of Dr Wakefield continues.

modern britain: magic to protect pagan symbol of scientific interest

Is it a problem because Homer kept his pants on?

Pagans have pledged to perform "rain magic" to wash away Homer Simpson, the cartoon character, who was painted next to their famous fertility symbol, the Cerne Abbas giant, yesterday. [...]

Ann Bryn-Evans, the joint Wessex district manager for The Pagan Federation, said: "It's very disrespectful and not at all aesthetically pleasing. We were hoping for some dry weather but we'll be doing some rain magic to bring the rain and wash it away.

"I'm amazed they got permission to do something so ridiculous. It's an area of scientific interest."

The cognitive dissonance in this story is just wonderful.

the absence of blame

Not really gloating territory, but it's curious to see that the Mail's account of how modern life is destroying families doesn't mention gay marriage once.

a bigger deity told me to do it

A few details from the news that the "purity ring" case has been lost. First, there's the persistent claim that limited restrictions on a fringe evangelical practice are an attack on Christianity as a whole:

Ms Playfoot said that she would consider an appeal and that she was "very disappointed". It was a matter of deep regret that she could not "persuade the court to consider upholding the religious liberty of Christian people in the United Kingdom", she said.

Well, it's a matter of regret that the entire Christian faith has been reduced to an absurdist focus on chastity, but I'll live: at the very least, it's a change from having homo-hatred as the rock on which the church is built.

However, it's more than a little entertaining that her lawyer made the following argument during the case:

Mr Diamond told the court that the case raised several issues relating to the teenager's right to "manifest her religion". One was that secular authorities lacked "capacity to rule on the correct manifestation of religious belief".

This presumably excludes Ms Playfoot who - being a self-appointed religious authority - has no such trouble in deciding for herself what amounts to the correct manifestation of belief.

"Despite the fact that Muslim girls at our school wear headscarves, and Sikhs wear Kara bangles, the school refused to allow me to manifest my belief through the wearing of a ring."

As has been discussed in great detail elsewhere by Unity, the comparison of mainstream Muslim and Sikh observances with the wearing of chastity rings is dishonest. If you're looking to compare the legal treatment of minority practices, turn to the recent decisions against the right to wear a full-face veil or the jilbab in school.

That neither the Telegraph or The Times mention these cases - while repeating Playfoot's line that Christians have been singled out - is worrying; that the Daily Mail alone manages to point out those cases in the interest of balance is quite bizarre.

Finally, the idea that secular courts lack the "capacity" to rule on religious practice is interesting strategy, not least because it raises the question of who exactly is qualified. Is this part of an argument for religious courts, who adjudicate on correct manifestations of belief?

Or is this a less theocratic (but ultimately more stupid) argument that only individuals of faith can decide, individually, when and where their personal definition of faith allows them to opt out of the rule of law?

Either way, the Playfoot family - and by fairly close association the UK branch of the Silver Ring Thing - owes £12,000 in costs. We can only hope that payment doesn't also turn out to be against god's will.

in motion

FYI, I'm travelling all day Monday for an interview, so no posts. Please feel free to enjoy the capacious archives.

from the goodness of the music industry's heart

Paul Quirk (of the Entertainment Retailer's Association) has turned up in the comments - and, if it's really him, it's not impressive:

I work in a record store and have for nearly 35 years - I have helped many new artists by stocking and promoting their first albums.

I just want to make one point and that is if every established artist gave their new album to a newspaper for free circulation how will newer and less succesful artists make enough money to continue with their career.

Uhmm.. they'd sell their music to an audience which then had more disposable income to risk on new bands?

I think we might be suffering from a dose of underpants gnomes style logic: there are at least a few missing steps here. Quirk has once more conveniently forgotten to mention that shops stock and promote music in order to make a profit from that music. However interested in new music a business might be, it won't stay open for very long unless it takes a cut of the proceeds of sale.

In fact, it would be quite bizarre if a music shop neither stocked or promoted music: that's the very definition of the music retail business - emphasis on "retail" and "business". This isn't about the special and esoteric acts of music enthusiasts, but the basic and pragmatic qualities of profit-making.

Prince can do whatever he wants with his music but in my opiniom he and every other top artist has some responsibility to help newer artists have the same opportunity they had at the start of their careers.

That the same "responsibility" also happens to sustain the dominance of the existing business model is apparently incidental, of course. That any alternative model that might be better for emergining musicians (but lead to more precarious profit margins due to an end of bulk sales driven by large publishers) is also to be ignored.

zombie churchill speaks

Repeating Friday's distortions, the Daily Mail today decides to channel the undead spirit of Winston Churchill - who miraculously confirms how much he totally agrees with the Daily Mail.

No, really.

history banned.. not banned... uhm

It must be fish-in-barrel day. The crack-addled hacks of the Mail screech "Schools told to dump Churchill and Hitler from history lessons," followed shortly by the news that "the two World Wars and the Holocaust remain statutory topics."

The story closes with this quote:

However Schools Minister Lord Adonis said that even if Churchill was no longer named in the curriculum, his contribution to British life would still be covered.

"Nobody with any sense could believe that we could teach the Second World War - a statutory requirement - without covering Winston Churchill and Hitler," he added.

Ladies and gentleman, the Daily Mail.

For extra fun, enjoy the heaving comment section who nearly all seem to have swallowed the Mail's faux-outrage.

don't look now

Just in case you don't often dip into the comments, there's this from yesterday's post on the feeble attempt by the Mail to whip up fear of terror attacks:

And disease slides? The vast majority of slides which I can imagine (an organism on a glass slide to look at under the microscope) are made by first 'fixing' the organism/sample....i.e. rendering it inert. What then....scaring us all to death with big blown up images of Vibrio cholera???

Truly, the terrorists will stop at no measure of graphic design to destroy our way of life.

the telegraph: white house stenographers

The Telegraph opens wide and suppresses its gag reflex to swallow the interim report on progress in Iraq - before scolding US Democrats for not giving the surge enough time:

The initial assessment is split down the middle: the White House concludes that, on eight of the 18 benchmarks set by Congress, progress has been satisfactory; on another eight, it has not; and on the remaining two, the result is mixed.

This is spectacularly shabby, even by the standards of The Telegraph's usual fervour for the Anglo-American "special relationship." At the absolute minimum, you'd hope that a real newspaper employing real journalists would make their own assessment of the facts rather than cutting and pasting the White House line.

Even a meagre attempt at research would have revealed evidence that the benchmarks on which "satisfactory" progress has been claimed have actually seen mixed or weak results: attempts to protect minorities are hampered by a Sunni boycott of the parliament, public services committees have had little impact on Baghdad’s population which still lacks access to many basic services like water and electricity - and sectarian violence remains constant.

The Telegraph also entirely fails to mention the nature of the benchmarks which have not been met. That list includes:

- the distribution of oil revenues
- the disarming of militias
- an independent electoral commission
- an increase number of Iraqi security forces capable of operating independently
- ensuring that political authorities are not undermining security forces
- the allocation of $10bn in Iraqi reconstruction

The slavish reporting of government spin is the work of propanganda, not journalism.

david thomas: I'm a sexist arse

It's not often you find such nakedly aggressive sexism in the print media - there's normally at least a thin veil of "traditional" values. Today's study is a couple of thousand words in the Daily Mail dedicated to claiming that newsreader Natasha Kaplinsky (a graduate of Oxford University) is a vacuous bint:

Critics have accused the Corporation of dumbing down - but how can they suggest such a thing if an intellectual heavyweight like Miss Kaplinsky - famous for her twirls in Strictly Come Dancing - is involved.

Here, DAVID THOMAS imagines a number of trial one-minute bulletins in which Miss Kaplinsky records some of the most famous news events in history.

And the imaginary version of Kaplinsky is not only obsessed with celebrity and fashion (because, you know, she's a woman who dared to go on TV and dance) but she thinks that they're more important than the deaths of hundreds of innocent people:

The world's first atomic bomb attack took place when a U.S. Air Force B-29 Superfortress, piloted Colonel Paul Tibbets, dropped a bomb - nicknamed "Little Boy" - on the Japanese city of Hiroshima.

And now the whole world is asking itself, what does this cataclysmic event mean?

Should we all be rushing out to buy top-quality designer sunglasses to protect ourselves from the glare if another A-bomb goes off?

and

Now, one brief piece of foreign news. Two planes have crashed into some really, really tall buildings in New York. The buildings fell down. But Becks was thousands of miles away and his hair was undisturbed. So, don't worry!

How convenient that nuclear warfare and 9/11 were available to service this fetid exercise in hate-mongering. How very clever and funny of David Thomas to make use of some of histories greatest disasters to mock a woman whose main error is being attractive on television - because we all know attractive women must also be idiots.

Daivd Thomas: a sexist boor of a hack.

unnamed source says: be afraid of the terrorists

It takes exactly one unnamed source to kick-start a "news" story:

Lax security in Britain's hospitals could give terrorists working in the NHS easy access to deadly viruses and dangerous chemicals, an expert has warned today.

But who is this expert? And why should we trust him? And is there evidence of lax security? And do hospitals regularly stock "deadly viruses" that can be easily weaponised? Anyone? Bueller?

The unnamed security expert said thefts of lethal substances could go unnoticed for days. He told the journal: "Most hospitals give staff cards that let them into certain areas, but it's easy to lend someone your pass.

"That could give them access to x-ray machines, isotopes, chemicals and disease slides. It could be days before anyone realised a virus was missing."

To cut to the chase, the whole story is this: things not stored securely could be stolen, because most forms of security are fallible. And that's an expert opinion. The action-adventure concern that a "virus is missing" seems to assume that your average NHS hospital is only ever one open window away from infecting the public with zombie-pox: it's an imaginary scenario with little grip on reality.

The story also offers precisely zero evidence of any real risk - where, for example, dangerous chemicals and biological agents are routinely being stored insecurely. There's also no mention of the fact that dangerous materials are a) more likely to stored in secure areas and b) more likely to be subject to stringent inventory controls.

There's also no real reason offered as to why we should think of this as a terror-specific problem - beyond the wanton speculation that "Terrorists 'may have access to deadly viruses in NHS hospitals'" (to which the rejoinder is, "but probably not.") Hospitals have always had to cope with idiots of various motivation trying to acquire expensive, dangerous or rare materials for use or sale on the black market.

But recognising that makes it hard to write all-terror all-the-time stories.

the times: don't judge female politicians on appearance (summer westminster fashion spread pages 7-42)

Ah, irony, my oldest friend. Here's Sarah Vine in The Times on Jacqui Smith:

On Monday she addressed the House of Commons: it was a solid performance from a serious politician. Which is why, presumably, the blogosphere is alive with talk . . . of her cleavage.

Yes, that's right: her cleavage. This is a woman who is trying to cope with one of the biggest terrorist threats that Britain has ever faced – and all people care about is her bosom.

It was hardly a blogospheric problem: the "professional" pundits weren't doing too much better either.

It really is pathetic that female politicians in this day and age should be judged so much by their appearance.

Very true. Such a shame that Vine's column is immediately followed on the same page by these "political" tips from Alice Olins:

What to wear in the Commons

- Black is too drab and won't get you noticed, so choose warm colours that flatter the complexion. Petrol blue or deep claret will brighten the skin.

- Instead of clashing bold colours, think tonally. A warm raspberry can be the perfect accompaniment to red, and sky blue complements navy.

- Well-endowed women should look for structure. Invest in a tailored suit to provide enough support, but don't go down the boxy 1980s route; instead look for something slim that creates a flattering silhouette . A crisp shirt adds gravitas.

- Kitten heels may feel comfortable but are too informal for an MP. Take a leaf out of Condoleezza Rice's style notes and buy a pair of stilettos .

- If the temperature lifts, invest in a shift dress. Accessorise with a silk scarf and bold necklace.

Yes, the nation - and prospective terrorists - will only take you seriously if your choice of shoes and necklace is sufficiently bold and stateswoman like. Comfortable shoes are a sign of weakness.

Glad to see that everyone on the Times editorial team is reading from the same page.

tory support for civil partnerships: footnote 94, page 110

Buried in the foot-notes for the appendix on page 110 of the first part of the Conservative's report on social justice:

In this document, references to marriage are to be taken as including civil partnerships.

So, even though we sat through months of debate about how it would be terrible - just AWFUL - to allow long-term relationships between gay people to be called "marriages," it's the term of choice for the Tory party's social policy group. But given that this word-play is hidden in a foot-note, it's probably not a sign of the belief that civil partnerships are equivalent to marriage.

In fact, it gives the impression that they're faintly embarassed about showing support for civil partnerships. You might even think that hiding this reference in the appendix helps avoid the claim from social conservatives that Cameron's Huggable Tories are insufficiently pure in their support of hetero marriage (given the prior argument from both older generation Tories and the right-wing press that the mere existence of gay marriage undermines straight marriage.)

Fortunately, no-one in the press - no-one at all that I can find - seems to have noticed this. So that's all right.

pope is catholic, shock

What's the surprise here?

The Guardian:

Protestant churches yesterday reacted with dismay to a new declaration approved by Pope Benedict XVI insisting they were mere "ecclesial communities" and their ministers effectively phonies with no right to give communion.

The Times:

The Vatican has described the Protestant and Orthodox faiths as "not proper Churches" in a document issued with the full authority of the Pope. [...]

The document said that the Orthodox church suffered from a "wound" because it did not recognise the primacy of the Pope. The wound was "still more profound" in Protestant denominations, it added.

It was "difficult to see how the title of 'Church' could possibly be attributed to them", said the statement from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Roman Catholicism was "the one true Church of Christ".

While it served to fill a few thousand words to describe the new Pope as surprisingly moderate shortly after his appointment - an accolade seemingly received for having not cut straight to witch-burning but merely attacking queers and women's reproductive rights - you'd really have to be kidding yourself to think of Pope Benedict XVI as a man interested in a broad church.

While the word "catholic" might claim to mean "universal" or "comprehensive," don't make the mistake of thinking that this also means "inclusive." From very early on, Pope Benedict has shown an interest in turning back the clock in the way in which the church conducts its business - there's a pretty direct line between early objections to the use of non-traditional music in services and the return of the Latin mass, complete with admonishment to the Jews. Neither of those moves are about embracing a wider congregation, but instead dictate the narrow(ing) forms of worship which are acceptable.

It really doesn't matter to the Pope that Anglicans are Christians: they're the wrong kind of Christian, and therefore not properly Christian at all - which is exactly the conclusion you'd expect the leader of a dogmatic, hierarchical and centralising religion to reach. So, to repeat myself, what's the surprise?

the home office: does she look fat in that?

Quentin Letts, on the new Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith.

3rd July:

She's perfect, this one. Straight off an episode of The Bill. All you'd have to do is kit her out – grrrr! – in a WPC's uniform, give her a ballpoint pen and she'd make an excellent desk sergeant in The Bill.

9th July:

First to Miss Smith, whose initial outing as Home Secretary last week earned reviews hailing her as something between Margaret Thatcher and Diana Dors.

On the Diana Dors front - if front is the word - let me simply report, if only to upset 'Arriet 'Arman, that Miss Smith yesterday wore a white, zip-up top which was more demure than last week's penny-in-the-slot attire.

She had applied a fair amount of eyeliner. Her dyed blondeish fringe flopped in a comely manner over her left eye.

Presumably we can look forward to future columns of "political" commentary which confirm whether - as befitting the highest ranking female politician in the UK government - Jacqui Smith is keeping up with the summer fashions, is showing the appropriate amount for cleavage, is fit for inclusion in sexual fantasy etc. etc.

However, if you want to know what David Davis, her Tory counterpart, was wearing on both of the occasions described above then you'll have to go without, as Letts seems to have forgotten to write about that.

Hmm.

policy gap

There's a fairly sturdy contradiction at the centre of David Cameron's rhetoric:

Mr Cameron said the Conservatives' "ideal of social responsibility" was "bottom-up, long-term and trusts in local action," as opposed to Labour's "top-down, short-term and centralising" approach.

His comments come as Prime Minister Tony Blair was holding a summit on gun crime at Downing St, with police, council leaders and community workers, following a spate of fatal shootings in London.

Mr Cameron has argued that a lack of role models was fuelling gang culture and called for fathers to be compelled to take a greater role in bringing up their children.

Hmm. Technically, it's a lack of the "right" kind of role models which helps fuel gang culture; as it happens, communities where influence and status rests with gang membership sends very clear signals. It's just not the "strong male influence" that Cameron is looking for.

If Cameron is in favour of hands-off government which "trusts in local action" (whatever that turns out to mean), exactly what kind of compulsion is he thinking about? Merely saying that it's "a combination of government action and culture change that will make the difference" explains nothing.

some social engineers are more equal than others

The Conservative's proposals to create financial incentives for marriage seems to want to do several things at once: encourage married couples to stay together, and encourage co-habiting couples to marry. There's also the nebulous suggestion that "government support" for marriage in principle will strengthen the institution. The BBC reports that the proposed transferable tax allowance

worth around £20-a-week, would be open to all married couples - aimed at making it easier for one parent to remain at home to look after children or elderly relatives.

The sales-pitch for one of the other proposals sounds more like an attempt to remove the supposed incentive for single parenthood. From The Scotsman :

Also among the 200 proposals, estimated to be worth up to £3,000 a year to some families, are higher benefits of £32 a week for married parents to bring them in line with single parents.

Even as the details of this stack of proposals slowly become more specific and the Tories decide which they will adopt, it's clear that the proposals are a form of social engineering which has the whole-hearted support of the centre and right-of-centre press, despite shrill accusations made against similar social policies in the past.

(Long-term readers will know that the claim of social-engineering has always sounded pretty selective and spurious to me, given that education to the age of 16, the NHS and the legal system are all forms of social engineering that are overwhelmingly embraced).

The traditional Tory argument that is conspicuous by absence is that raising children or taking care of elderly parents might just be hard work which involves going without: that both the decision to have children or the obligation to care for your dependents are responsbilities which are your own, not the state's.

In fact, if you're going down the path of the traditional critique of the welfare state, you might end up arguing that such financial incentives lessen the will of individuals and families to take responsibility for their own lives. There is no such thing as society, remember?

how to invent a social trend

While it might sound as though some journalists are merely making cunning use of the plural to describe social trends for which there is little or no evidence , it's actually more complicated.

Actually, no. It isn't.

That method in full:

1.Use one or two interviews to describe something.
2. Claim - without evidence - that there are thousands more cases like it and that it's a backlash against something you (or your editor) do not like.

TOP TIP: Make sure your new trend supports the other new trends you've invented (e.g. working women are total bitches, men aren't manly any more, flee from the home before your penis drops right off.)

money well spent

A superlative example of Daily Mail brand total pap - a few thousand rambling words on.. the virtue of the neck-tie:

Yet I detest the new open-necked look which Paxman and Snow show signs of adopting. By this, of course, I don't mean weekend or holiday clothes, an area in which every Briton has the God-given right to look as hideous as he chooses. [...]

Granted, I'm preaching one law for them, another for myself.

Well, where would we be without a little hypocrisy?

But there is a world of difference, surely, between a writer whose eccentricities rebound on no one but himself, and professionals in whom large numbers of people place their trust, and who receive large salaries for maintaining a certain dignity.

Yes - without the magic dignity of the neck-tie, the news will be rendered untrustworthy and journalists will be unable to do their jobs.

And someone was paid money to write that.

thanks

There was a nice flurry of traffic over the weekend after turning up as one of The Guardian's "Best of the Web" picks on Friday afternoon - all the more pleasing given how relatively small the regular readership of this blog is.

Thanks for your continuing support and, more than ever, to the regular (and irregular) commenters.

children's minister calls for action on homophobic bullying in schools

Here's a speech to read carefully:

In a speech to the gay rights organisation Stonewall, Kevin Brennan, the new Children's Minister, will say that schools have a clear and urgent obligation to end the widespread use of homophobic language as supposedly "harmless banter".

His comments follow recent research by the Schools Health Education Unit suggesting that half of teachers fail to respond to homophobic language when they hear it. He will make clear that such language should be viewed in the same way as racist abuse and punished accordingly.

The research also found that only a very small number of schools had a plan in place to address homophobic bullying, with a similarly small number actually recording incidents. It'll be interesting to hear if Brennan goes beyond merely calling for change and proposes measures which will force schools (and religious schools in particular) to address a problem that has been tolerated or ignored for decades.

While Brenna might feel that schools have an obligation to end homophobic bullying, it's not an obligation that seems to be widely recognised by schools themselves: it's unclear whether merely pointing out such a responsibility will change entrenched attitudes, and foster a willingness to get involved. Still, good to hear a government minister standing up on this issue.

sexual health services in schools: more distortion

It's a simple bit of sophistry when the Telegraph proclaims that school children as young as 11 can get access to the morning-after pill in a number of secondary schools - because it leads directly into the "traditionalists" arguments that access to contraception encourages promiscuity and undermines age of consent laws. The headline simplifies - and misleads - further: "Schools give morning after pill to 11-year-olds."

That only students who need those pills and have spoken to a nurse or health care worker to request them fails to get a mention - leaving the impression that morning-after pills are handed out with little regard for context or consequence.

That secondary schools are making the morning-after pill available to a range of ages is also ignored, and focus instead falls on the youngest (and therefore most "shocking") end of the scale. News that 15 year-olds are receiving the morning-after pill presumably wouldn't have the same effect.

Similarly, the news that 226 secondary schools are offering the morning after pill is delivered without context - at, least without context that isn't misleading. Instead, you get this:

In some areas, half of schools now offer some form of sexual health advice.

In North Staffordshire, 18 secondary schools use mobile sexual health services. In North Tyneside, five out of 11 high schools have nurses and youth workers and in Thurrock, Essex, drop-in centres are provided at seven schools.

Yet these areas are far from typical - in fact, the examples given are of unusually high levels of access to sexual health services, situated in areas where specific programmes have been introduced to address region-specific rises in teen pregnancy rates. There's also a significant difference between the schools which offer some form of sexual health service, and those which offer the morning-after pill - and those schools which share a roaming service rather than employ a full-time health worker.

As ever, be suspicious of numbers without context:

Data obtained through the Freedom of Information Act this year identified 226 schools that administered the morning after pill.

226 schools is a shade over 5% of the total number of secondary schools in the UK. You'd be forgiven for thinking it was more, no?

teaching and (wo)men's work

Shorter Sir Bob Balchin: women are better suited to teaching than men because they are door-mats.

The slightly longer argument is that there are more women then men in education because men refuse to put up with the bureaucratic and/or behavioural crappiness of teaching; if we want more men to teach, we have to make the job more appealing. That this theory is based exclusively on a straw poll of graduates Sir Bob met over lunch may also worry you.

Having repeated - without question - the conventional wisdom that discipline "might come more easily to men than to women," Sir Bob asks:

Why is it, therefore, that more men than women have left teaching?

The answer probably lies in the fact that many men loathe the loss of face that is part of today's classroom confrontations.

If a boy puts two fingers up to a male teacher, part of him probably longs to administer a clip round the ear. He never does so because such an action would be both unprofessional and illegal; he simply opts out instead.

The reason that men have left teaching is that they are no longer allowed to hit their students? I'm not sure if Sir Bob is longing for the good old days where you were allowed to clip your charges around the ear, or bemoaning the kind of men whose egos are apparently too fragile to withstand teenagers who not bovvered.

However, the one thing that is clear is that we Must Have More Men In Teaching, because:

Role models are very important for children and teenagers; large numbers of families are now brought up by a lone mother and thus many young people leave school having never encountered a man in some position of caring authority. This cannot be good, particularly for boys; it seems to me desperately sad if the only males they have to emulate are those behaving badly in televised football matches or on the stages of pop concerts.

"Particularly for boys," why? It's also unclear why "role model" should automatically mean "role model with a penis," particularly if we're equating penis-bearing with a short temper.

Then, having prevously argued that the starting salary for a teacher of £23,000 is "not bad at age 22," Sir Bob argues for more money for teachers salaries on the grounds that "more men might be recruited." Apparently, he meant "not bad for a 22 year old woman" - it seems that a different standard applies to the recruitment of young men.

That there might be a larger cultural picture - where women are generically seen as carers, nurturers and teachers, and the men who do take those roles are therefore somehow atypical and even abnormal - doesn't seem to feature.

men and women talk roughly the same amount, shock

It's time for your bi-annual "how much do women natter on?" feature. This edition, surprise that tired old stereotypes are not entirely reliable:

The idea that women have much more to say is a myth, scientists argue. They have found both sexes speak an average of 16,000 words in a typical day.

In the first experiment of its kind, a portable 'speech analyser' was used to measure exactly who said what and when. However, while the scientists believe the results destroy the stereotype of the chatterbox woman, others remain unconvinced.

There's very good reason to be sceptical - mainly because stereotypes have a minimal acquaintance with fact, and the Daily Mail keeps repeating them anyway. For example:

For more than a decade, psychologists have claimed that women use far more words every day than men.

The belief was fuelled by the psychiatrist Louann Brizendine, whose book The Female Brain, reported: "A woman uses about 20,000 words per day, while a man uses about 7,000."

Would that be the same Louann Brizendine who copied that claim from a book written by a "relationship expert," who made up those figures without doing any research?

Would that be the same Louann Bizendine who, when challenged about the accuracy of those figures in The Guardian, admitted they were misleading and said that they would be cut from future editions of her book, The Female Brain?

Would that be the same Louann Brizendine, whose entirely discredited "facts" about male and female speech are used to prop up hackneyed features in the Daily Mail, for days and months after they have been debunked?

Yes, it would.

man in hat says "no"

Cardinal O'Brien makes another attempt to reduce the week-limit on abortions - with an "exclusive" statement lavishly printed by the Scotsman. It would be nice if the Scotsman would give equally generous column footage to the BMA or the British Pregnancy Advisory Service - instead of burying their support for the current law in two sentences at the bottom of the page:

The British Medical Association would like to see the current level of 24 weeks retained on the grounds that almost 75 per cent of all foetuses at this stage or under are unable to survive, despite the latest developments in pre-natal care.

They are supported by the British Pregnancy Advisory Service who argue a change in the law would affect only the most vulnerable of women, such as teenagers, who might not recognise the signs of pregnancy until very late.

Similarly undiscussed (but at least mentioned) is this:

If the Catholic Church, which believes that life begins at conception, was to hold sway then abortion would be banned entirely .

Britain would revert to the years before 1967 when those who wished to have a termination had to endure back-street abortions or, if they were sufficiently affluent, find a private doctor willing to break the law. [...]

There is very little public support for a total ban on abortion. Even polls among Catholics find support for the current provisions.

You may be surprised - shocked, even - that the Cardinal has once more forgotten to mention the role of contraception in reducing unwanted pregnancies. Or perhaps not.

tips for recognising a liberal democracy

Religious man seeks to convert others to his faith, non-violently, shock. From Melanie Phillips, scraping the outrage barrel:

Those who eagerly follow the sayings of Inayat Bunglawala, the media secretary of the Muslim Council of Britain whose claimed ‘moderation’ has been repeatedly exposed as an aspiration that has yet to be realised (see here, here and here might be interested to hear him on last night’s Moral Maze declaring that he is committed to the Islamisation of Britain. Non-violently. So that’s all right.

Yes, that is all right, just as it's fine for the head of the Catholic church to be devoted to converting as many people as possible to Catholicism and the Catholic way of life.

And so long as it's non-violent, he and any other member of our society is free to try and bring about any social change - just as I or any other member of society is free to critique, resist and reject that change.

linkage

Found while scanning the UK political blogs feed, a short and sharp post on journalistic short-hand .

Discovered via the Uncylopedia, a Daily Mail Maker.

Obligatory YouTube link: The Humans Are Dead, from Flight of the Concords who turned up at the Edinburgh Fringe a few years back. And now they have a TV show.

Bizarrely, I may have a TV show of my very own to link to in the Autumn - well, not me personally, but a comedy I produce for the theatre which might be ending up on the BBC. Sweeeeet.

natural remedies hate you

I take it (nearly) all back. I was (nearly) wrong when I mocked alternative therapies for having no effect whatsoever:

A year-long study of 818 women found that those who turned to complementary therapies such as herbal medicines, reflexology and acupuncture while having IVF treatment were at least 30% less likely to become pregnant than women who did not. [...]

Dr Boivin said it was unclear what was to blame for the apparent drop in pregnancy rates, but said the effect may be due to herbal medicines interacting with and disrupting drugs and hormones used in fertility treatment.

Not so good.

While it's apparently polite to refer to many complementary therapies as "benign" rather than merely useless, there's a point at which we should point fingers and shout "fraud."

direct democracy begins at home

Plans to put control over local spending in the hands of local communities - to the tune of millions of pounds - sound encouraging:

In a potentially dramatic extension of direct democracy, councils will have to hold ballots before deciding where money should be targeted. It would mean that, for the first time, people could direct cash to areas that concern them most, such as parks, curbing antisocial behaviour, targeting drug trouble spots or cleaning up litter. [...]

[Communities Minister Hazel Blears] told the Guardian that communities will be asked to take control of council budgets through local debates, neighbourhood votes and public town meetings. [...]

She admitted there is careful politics in that "councillors must not feel their democratic mandate is bypassed, and instead recognise that it will strengthen their relationship with their local community"

Why not? If we can find a method where communities can make their own decisions without the filter of local party politics, why not bypass that particular mandate? If I extend a mandate to a local representative, I can take it back again: they act for as long as the community that elected them wants them to act.

The scheme will trial in 10 towns and cities across the UK, with "Church Action on Poverty to act as a facilitator to help communities hold discussions on their priorities before a vote." I'd be very interested to hear what kind of methods are being used here - particularly how these community meetings are judged to be fairly representative of a local area's priorities.

Finally, a few words that might be a little..uh.. surprising coming from a Blairite government minister:

Ms Blears insisted: "My overriding belief is that people are capable of making quite complex difficult decisions, setting priorities, doing trade-offs if they are given the opportunity to do it. I have never believed in a paternalistic society that tells people what is good for them."

Hmm. Nice to hear, but not sure that sentiment passes the dismissive snort or sardonic laughter tests in any pub I've ever drunk in. Still, if she (and the government) actually does something to prove that faith, then we're getting somewhere.

david cameron: I know almost nothing about copyright issues

If we're offering impossible, unworkable gestures up as policies, I have a list:

David Cameron yesterday offered the music industry a unique deal – cut the glorification of materialism, misogyny and guns in hits and the next Conservative government would back an extension of the copyright on sound recordings from the current 50-year period to 70 years.

And how, exactly, will that be policed (if such a thing wasn't a repellent idea)? Will that involve denying recording contracts to artists whose material doesn't fit government policy of the day? And would a future Tory government actively oppose the extension to copyright if the music industry doesn't sign up to more "socially responsible" music?

It's an entirely empty policy given that any decision on copyright would be taken at a European level, and that any "assurances" given by the music industry would be entirely unenforceable.

I particularly enjoy The Times' inadvertent juxtaposition:

Addressing the British Phonographic Industry annual meeting, Mr Cameron said: "Most people think these are all multimillionaires living in some penthouse flat. The reality is that many of these are low-earning session musicians who will be losing a vital pension." [...]

Sir Cliff Richard, The Who and Sir Paul McCartney backed the campaign to extend the 50-year term, as the first rock'n'roll era recordings begin to fall out of copyright.

Low-earning session musicians, indeed.

sonia poulton: women are to blame, part 1004

It's an action-packed game today if you're playing hack bingo, as Sonia Poulton declares "Mothers are raising a generation of wimps ." Let's go down the list.

Single anecdote used to claim existence of global phenomena?

Enjoying a glass of early evening wine at a friend's house the other day, we were rudely interrupted by the wailing tones of her 12-year-old son..

Check.

Vague and entirely fact-free reference to research?

According to the academics, boys are the "new endangered and victimised group"..

Check, even though I'm technically one of "the academics" and no-one asked me.

Reference to obscure source based on most retrogressive and outdated attitudes to sex, used as if it's prophetic?

This crisis was foreseen as long ago as the 19th century, by littleknown author William Byron Forbush. He warned of "the boy problem", envisaging male generations that would lack "necessary civilising influences, discipline, and character".

Check. For anyone taking the coursework component of this blog, please complete the sentence: "The reference to a C19th fear of a "boy crisis" is a misleading anachronism because.."

Speaking of which, reference to writer's undergraduate course-work?

Four years ago, as part of a psychology degree, I studied independence in primary school children..

Check.

And, finally, the unequivocal blaming of women for everything?

So who is responsible for this unenviable state of affairs? For more than 30 years, and heightened in intensity over the past decade, the women of Britain - as primary carers either with a husband or partner, or as a single parent - have systematically mollycoddled their sons to within an inch of their lives.

Checkedy, check check.

So that's all women in all of Britain raising all of their children in exactly the same way to exactly the same outcome - which, if it were true, would be a cultural phenomenon actually worth writing about it.

But as it's complete bullshit, probably not.

Note the Standardised Abdication of Male Parental Responsibility, common to nearly all woman-blaming Mail journalism, and the generic assumption that We Don't Make Men Like We Used To - coupled to the insulting assumption that all young men lack "gumption and backbone." Still, it's nice to see the word "gumption" being used - it's rarely been heard since people stopped writing inter-war period guides to scouting.

Oops. I almost forgot one: apocalyptic exaggeration of the threat posed by the thing you've just made up?

[U]ltimately civilisation will crumble if boys continue to progress along the hopeless, whinging course they have been set on.

CHECK! Hurray! DING DING DING! We're all winners!

the PCC on lies in the tabloids: "an isolated incident"

A pleasing - if too rare - moment where lies and misrepresentations in the tabloid press get the attention they deserve. From the Media Guardian ( behind registration wall):

The Daily Express has been forced to publish a second apology for an inaccurate story after burying its original apology. [...]

The controversial story, headlined: "Council axes Christian prayers after 600 years. You guessed it... in case it offends other faiths", appeared on page five of the paper on January 11. It prompted a complaint by the mayor of Totnes, Pruw Boswell-Harper.

The article alleged that council prayers had been "scrapped to allay fears they may offend other religions" and that Mrs Boswell-Harper ordered the prayers to be replaced.

A PCC [Press Complaints Commission] investigation concluded that the decision to change the format of prayers had not been taken because of fears of offending other faiths. It also found that the council, and not the mayor alone, took the decision.

The PCC then slapped down the Express for printing the original "apology" without notice on page 33.

While it's encouraging to see the Express being pulled to the front of the class, the punishment is little more than ten minutes on the naughty step. Similarly, the PCC's hope that the Express's misrepresentations "will prove to be an isolated incident" is either deliberately misleading or touchingly naive: distortions of the kind in the Express' story can be found on a weekly basis across the British (primarily tabloid) press.

While we might have a tradition in the UK of exemplary journalists who are talented researchers and writers, we also have a rather less glorious tradition of screaming headlines which have only the thinnest relationship to the truth. If you're looking for an example, start with the recurring story about the "ban" on "Baa, Baa Black Sheep" in nursery schools and continue from there.

That only the most egregious cases (oftentimes where those complaining are already in a position of authority) ever generate any substantial apology is nearer to a cause for concern than for elation: by declaring the Express' story an "isolated incident," the PCC undercuts any impetus for change in behaviour that is commonplace rather than rare.

all the queen's newspaper men

The Telegraph's leader comment - criticising Brown for "missing two injustices" in his zeal for reform - demonstrates its own selective amnesia. The Times points out what had been dropped from the planned reforms:

[I]n series of sweeping constitutional changes announced today, the Prime Minister made it clear that the Government remained committed to the establishment of the Church of England with the monarch as Supreme Governor.

The Roman Catholic Church voiced its deep disappointment that the constitutional changes did not include repeal of the 1701 Act of Settlement, which excludes Roman Catholics, Muslims and other non-Protestants from the royal succession.

How strange that the Anglican, Royalist Telegraph should forget to mention that.

anglican fudge

I'm pretty sure that you can't just be a "little bit bishop" - either you're in the post, or not. As such, the kind of compromise where you reduce someone to a powerless figurehead without any powers isn't a compromise at all:

The gay American bishop Gene Robinson, whose consecration in 2003 brought the worldwide Church to the brink of schism, is to be invited to the Lambeth Conference of the Anglican Church next summer, The Times has learnt. [...]

The Times understands that Bishop Gene will be able to attend meetings as an official guest but will not have the right to vote on motions at the conference - the meeting of leaders of the world wide Anglican communion which takes place every 10 years.

The letter suggesting this compromise - reproduced by Ruth Gledhill on the Times' faith blog - spells out this fudge, declaring both "it is recognised that Bishop Robinson was duly elected and consecrated according to the canons of The Episcopal Church" and that:

both the representatives of many Anglican Provinces and the Instruments of Communion made it clear that full recognition by the Communion could not be given to a bishop whose chosen lifestyle would, in most Provinces of the Communion, give rise to canonical impediment to his consecration as a bishop.

In non-ecumenical-ese, we don't recognise that he's been recognised or - clearer still - the Bishop of Nigera doesn't recognise Robinson's legitimacy, which we've decided to call "canonical impediment."

What's the truism? A compromise is a deal that leaves no-one happy?

what have you failed to condemn today?

The Times discovers a fresh supply of straw-men to demand "the Left must condemn a fanaticism that is misogynist and homophobic." Well, speaking as your local, notional representative of the global collective of leftism, I was sort of presuming that the condemnation of violent and oppressive cultures was a given. In fact, I'm not sure it even has anything to with being "left" or "right."

The Times' tired attempt to use Ken Livingstone as the spokesman for anyone to the left of Margaret Thatcher also ends up drawing a convenient veil over the the failings of the socially convservative:

To excuse or even tolerate the intolerant is a denial of all the values that the Left purports to embrace.

It would have been nice to hear such strong words when religious figures of various denominations were campaigning for the right to enshrine their own intolerance in law when it comes to gay people.

In fact, The Times and other right-of-centre papers gave considerable space to excusing and denying the intolerant - without once demanding that "the right" must condemn a Christian fanaticism that is also misogynist and homophobic. Presumably, the support of "the right" for that kind of fanaticism is fine because "they" never "purported" to embrace values to the contrary.

Oh, before we hit the claim that to compare Islamic terror and Catholic queer-bashing is a false equivalence, you should note that's not what I'm comparing - rather that the expectations for condemnation that Times holds for the mirage of the homogenous "Left" have never been mirrored in their expectations for the "Right."

Insert boilerplate about meaninglessness of "right" versus "left" right about here, I think.

my own personal prejudices

There's an interesting job that I'm thinking of applying for - but there's a little catch.

It's a university that identifies as a Catholic institution, with particular interest in training Catholic teachers and protecting the (Catholic) ethos of the institution's history. It's by no means a seminary or faith school (they have the "all faiths and none" boilerplate and there's no reason to doubt their support of that) but it's up front in their mission statement.

While I have an abiding belief in the existence of moderate Catholics of the world, the interview and application process are looking for some kind of commitment to that ethic - and my research profile is kind of.. well.. queer.

Am I letting my own prejudices get the better of me if I don't waste time applying? Or would it just be pragmatism, given that if I got the job I'd continually be on the verge of making trouble or biting my lip?

paul quirk, Entertainment Retailers Association: I'm taking your ball and going home

Apparently, composing, recording and publishing an album doesn't give you the right to do whatever the hell you want with it:

U.S. rock star Prince is to give away his new album for free with a UK tabloid newspaper, weeks before its official launch, in a move that has caused dismay among music retailers. [...] Paul Quirk, co-chairman of the Entertainment Retailers Association, said Prince's decision "beggars belief".

"The Artist formerly known as Prince should know that with behaviour like this he will soon be the Artist Formerly Available in Record Stores," he said, referring to a period in the 1990s when the funk star, born Prince Rogers Nelson, famously stopped using his name.

That's a novel approach: further undercut your relevance by threatening not to sell popular music.

"It is an insult to all those record stores who have supported Prince throughout his career. It is yet another example of the damaging covermount culture which is destroying any perception of value around recorded music," Quirk told a music conference in London on Thursday.

What petulant, whining nonsense. That "support" was nothing more than a business relationship: they sold his music because it was financially rewarding, not because they were his Number One Fan - and they'll continue to sell his album for as long it'll make any profit at all. If Prince wants to risk undermining his sales by giving away copies for free, then that's his decision.

Control over the terms and conditions of the reproduction of a work of art is what you might call copyright - I'd heard that the record industry was very fond of the idea. Apparently it only extends as far as forms of reproduction that match HMV and Virgin's quarterly business plan.

good.. news?

Amid tantalising details of constitutional reform, there's this bit of potentially good news:

The "one-sided" extradition law between Britain and the United States is to be reviewed by Gordon Brown, it was disclosed yesterday. [...] Under the 2003 Act, the US authorities need to outline the alleged offence, and provide "evidence or information that would justify the issue of a warrant for arrest in the UK".

Britain must provide the US with evidence of "probable cause" if it wishes to extradite someone. "Probable cause", a phrase used in the US Constitution, has been defined as "information sufficient to warrant a prudent person's belief that the wanted individual had committed a crime".

While reform of this incredibly one-sided agreement would be great, my spider-sense wonders if this issue might be used as a bargaining chip for something else. Here's hoping my cynicism is unfounded.

floods fail to materialise: god sends mixed messages?

One of those expert opinion moments:

Although scientists say it is impossible to blame a single weather incident on global warming, the church leaders said the floods were almost certainly the result of man-made climate change.

Yes, let's abandon the scientific, evidence-based point of view and go with the wrath of god proponents. That sounds reasonable - or possibly the other thing, you know, the reverse of reason.

As discussed yesterday, the theology is a little more complicated: the floods are the product of man-made climate change, which is directly caused by lack of respect "for each other, for the planet and for God." Given that the church seems to have proof of "direct cause" denied to everyone else, is this the start of a long-term involvement in weather and climate prediction? Or is this just a one-time opportunity to scold those naughty queer-lovin' liberals?

It's deeply curious that the Mail forgets to add that specific example given by the bishops as a sign of that lack of respect - namely showing respect for gay people. Presumably it's an attempt to make the church leaders sound more rational and less bigoted as they try to yoke together environmental damage and "moral degradation" as the cause of divine judgment, a link made on the basis of "we said so."

Still, if the weather is god's polling machine, then what do we make of this?

Last week's floods affected 27,000 homes. Despite heavy showers over the weekend, the feared return of the floods failed to materialise.

Hmm.

god hates tennis (also, homos cause floods)

The Anglican Church breaks open a box of cereal and reaches for the super-secret god decoder ring:

The floods that have devastated swathes of the country are God's judgment on the immorality and greed of modern society, according to senior Church of England bishops.

One diocesan bishop has even claimed that laws that have undermined marriage, including the introduction of pro-gay legislation, have provoked God to act by sending the storms that have left thousands of people homeless.

While those who have been affected by the storms are innocent victims, the bishops argue controversially that the flooding is a result of Western civilisation's decision to ignore biblical teaching.

Let me be the first to say: Worst. Deity. Everrrr.

Not only does this god apparently punish the innocent for the crimes of the supposedly guilty (which is a great salespitch for faith, btw) but he entirely fails to live up to his reputation. Rain of water - pah. Where's the rain of fire?

Frankly, if we're looking for a message in this rain, I'd look at the timing: what, exactly, does god have against Wimbledon? Is it the decadence of the strawberries AND cream? If I were in the business of interpreting the weather as a comment on marriage, I'd want to know why the floods have entirely missed the major homo-dwelling urban areas.

But apparently it's also the sheer indiscriminate and wholly unmotivated quality of bad weather that.. uh.. makes it the specific manifestation of the water-based judgement of the lord:

He expressed his sympathy for those who have been hit by the weather, but said that the problem with "environmental judgment is that it is indiscriminate".

Yes, god exists but he's crap at his job - and the problem with bigoted old men in robes is that they think they can use other people's suffering to score points against the deadly, deadly homos.

"People no longer see natural disasters as an act of God," said the Rt Rev James Jones.

That would be because they're not supernatural disasters. The clue is in the name.

"However, we are now reaping what we have sown. If we live in a profligate way then there are going to be consequences," said the bishop, who has previously been seen as a future Archbishop of Canterbury or York.

But not any more, not since the top of his head opened up and tiny cuckoos came out on springs. To quote Unity:

No, it's a bit of unseasonably shitty weather, you complete cunt, and all we’re reaping is the consequences of building shitloads of houses on fucking fucking flood plains and not putting enough cash in flood defences and upgrading sewers, so unless god is a fucking major shareholder in a few water companies then this has got fuck all to do with your celestial skyfairy.

I'm particularly enjoying how the modern Church has had to reach for the Celtic / pagan worship of natural elements in order to stir the faithful: forget Jesus, check out the thundergod.

What bigoted, arrogant and manipulative arseholes.