Straight-up Hypocrisy

Straight-up hypocrisy

The Internet changed the way news outlets view profits and distribution. It meant that in order to find out what's happening in the world you no longer needed to wait for the 6 o' clock news or go out and buy a physical newspaper; you could log on and find out the latest happenings within a minute of being curious. But outlets recognised a loophole in this development which allowed them to exploit the nature of Internet advertising - namely, the fact that voyeuristic celebrity stories attract a huge number of hits and are easy to waste time upon. This leads to MailOnline - the website of the Daily Mail - intermittently printing requests for celebrity stories, and taking up about a quarter of their homepage. A serious publication indeed, what with all the deep analyses of Amy Childs' hilarious antics.

But, I mean, whatever. Heat magazine exists. We all know that celebrity gossip columns and the whole circus surrounding them has become an accepted form of pseudo-journalism; there are those of us who view it as a way for people to distract themselves from important issues, and those of us who think it's just a bit of harmless fun. I'm not here to pass judgement on the nature of that type of reporting - not for now, anyway. I'm here to call out publications which do pass such judgement on our "celebrity culture", all whilst contributing to it.

Of course, they never actually pinpoint the source of the problem, which is not the celebrities themselves, but the publications which choose to take notice. And they rarely, if ever, take up arms against the celebrity press, choosing instead to speak in abstract terms. But what they do is use a tone which suggests that they're sat, tutting away, at all these people who dare to be famous. Take this article, for example:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2073889/X-Factor-2011-Amelia-flashes-knickers-Sophies-chest-X-Factor-wrap-party.html

whose first paragraph actually declares that:

It may have been Little Mix who walked away with The X Factor crown, but that's not stopping the other contestants fighting to prolong their 15 minutes of fame.

the implication, of course, being that these people are attention-seeking. This may or may not be the case, but it wouldn't matter if there were no photographers there and if you didn't publish the resulting photographs in your so-called newspaper all while implying that it is these people who are in control of whether they remain famous or not. Of course, you understand this, but being the so-called newspaper that you are you have to take a moralising stance on TODAY'S YOUTH and MODERN CULTURE all whilst you propagate it because it gets people onto your website and you make money from advertising revenue every time someone clicks the god-damn link. You need them more than they need you, but good job pretending.

What About My Human Rights?

The notion of "human rights" should not be a complicated one to understand, but in the priveleged society we find ourselves in, it's easy for people - especially having been fed falsehoods and exaggerations - to fail to understand quite how fundamental and crucial the rules laid out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are.

The rules governing essential human rights do not concern themselves with the things you read about in the newspaper. They advocate, encourage and enforce a system which provides dignity and a basic standard of physical, emotional, mental and societal welfare to the most vulnerable people in society, and to the rest of us as well. Some of these rules are ones that we in our comfortable countries wouldn't even think twice of - article 4, for example, which deals with slavery.

Others are immediately relevant to our culture and the narratives taking place in our country right now. Unfortunately, we don't always get it correct on rights concerning free speech and expression, freedom of religion, and the like: we seem to have forgotten about the former when it suits us (i.e. the woman on the tram you've probably seen by now) and filled in invisible gaps on the latter (i.e. when we support people's rights to wear jewellery just because it's shaped like a crucifix). When we screw up on these things, it's because we've forgotten why human rights exist.

But in our world of plenty (cue Band Aid) some people manage to convince themselves that any injustice they feel should be remedied by their "human rights", totally ignoring the essence of those rules. So no, there isn't a human right which makes your tax money go exactly the way you want it to. You don't have the human right to watch the man who murdered your daughter be lethally injected. These are not human rights. They're wishes. Send them to Jim'll fucking Fix It. Alternatively, your local MP. But stop weakening the backbone of a dignified society by comparing it with your petty fucking first world problems. It makes you look like a dick.

Conflating the Voice

Oh, hey. Been a while..

I'd like to thank the Daily Mail (I know, what?) for giving me an easy ride back into blogging. I stopped writing here a while ago for a variety of reasons but recently I've noticed a lack of incision regarding press dynamics where there used to be sharp teeth in abundance. Thankfully, this story is particularly easy to get your teeth into once you realise what the Mail are trying to achieve.

The story I'm on about is one which appears on the Daily Mail's website as White working class Britons 'don't get a fair deal compared with ethnic minorities'. As soon as I read the headline, I thought to myself: I wonder what their sources are, asserting such a thing! Perhaps there has been a controlled study into the treatment of whites and non-whites. But no. Despite the presentation of the headline as a statement of fact, the Mail's justification for the story is a survey of the public. So it should really read:

White working class Britons 'don't feel like they get a fair deal compared with ethnic minorities'

And that survey? Carried out in Birmingham, Coventry and London, three of the most racially diverse areas of the country.

Heh.

But whilst the article is full of dogwhistle racism like this:

However, the white working classes remain proud of their identity and the values they stand for.

These include working hard, looking after each other and having pride in their community.

the real issue is the device that the Mail are employing here, which serves to perpetuate the opinions they choose to hold and to present those as fact to their (bewilderingly) large readership. I'm not, as ever, interested in the real dynamics of the housing queue; I leave those things to other people, who have the time to do real research into those areas. What this blog cares about is how the media and the press are capable of twisting things, and here, the Daily Mail achieve this by following a certain formula:

1: present and promote the idea that the white working classes are losing out because of ethnic minorities

This is done on a daily basis and is rooted in every piece of subtly racist journalism the newspaper has ever printed. Stories about the housing queue and the continued conflation of "immigrant" and "asylum seeker" contribute greatly, but so do stories about English-speaking doctors and the likes. This narrative plays on people's fears and their insecurities; it gives people a group of people to blame for the things in their lives that might not have gone to plan (your life sucks? immigrants' fault!) and it plays of fear of people different to yourself.

2: ask the people most likely to have absorbed your rhetoric on issue X what they feel about issue X

This is a key point. Granted, the survey in question wasn't carried out by the Daily Mail but it's fitting that the paper chose that survey given the places in the UK upon which it focused.

3: present those people's feelings about issue X in such a way as to return to step 1, thereby contributing even further to the sense of injustice

Most people won't get anywhere close to reading/caring about the true source of the assertion made in the headline, and the Mail know that, so they print a headline and an opening 3 paragraphs to the story that make those things sound like almost-undisputed facts. This adds to the narrative.

This whole thing smacks of a similar phenomenon to the first post I ever wrote here regarding the public's perception of Kate Middleton, which was pretty much solely determined by how she was portrayed in the media. This is similar, in that the Mail advocates a certain angle on a story, finds a survey that's almost bound to agree with them, presents that survey as a study, and presents that study not as a bunch of their mates' opinions, but as truth.

It's the equivalent of telling your mate something 20 times, waiting until they bring it up in their own conversation, and then going to the pub with a different group of friends and using your mate's words to prove your own point.

And it sucks.

'These Are No Protests'

It's a fairly unusual (though increasingly common) situation that we find ourselves in, when anonymous and unknown commentators speak more sense than those we trust with our country, but in the aftermath (or, perhaps, midst) of the London riots it appears as though anybody with a reputation is incapable of expressing an opinion which goes any further than standard rhetoric. 'Justice' and 'mindless criminality' are the buzzwords of the hour, and though it is absolutely crucial that those with the capacity to do so condemn this violence and, indeed, mindless criminality, in the strongest possible terms, they also have a broader and frankly more important responsibility, and right now it is one that they are shirking.

As they career down the path of short-term firmness, they use the ongoing crisis as an excuse to dodge questions about the source of the unrest which has swept through London's streets. It is logical to prioritise safety and order ahead of diagnosis in this case, definitely; we should probably stop our capital city from burning before we start to survey its charred remains. And yet, the ones evading these issues are not doing so in order to liaise with the police; they have the time to take an interview on BBC News, so they should have the time to answer a question about the possible causes of what we're seeing. It's not that these people are leaving the answers until later - I can't count the number of times I've heard the phrase 'there are debates to be had' in the last couple of days - it's that every single last one of them is scared of sticking their neck out.

They're scared because of the state of politics in this country, and the state of media coverage, particularly where politics is concerned. They won't answer this question because they have a reputation to uphold and because they know that as soon as they begin to debate the reasons behind this mayhem they will be quoted and demonised and their opponents will seize the opportunity to claim that they are making excuses for the rioters. It's already happened with Ken Livingstone, and while I don't agree that the riots are a result of the cuts (they're far more deep-seated than a year's worth of economic policy) it is unfair that the media have jumped on his attempt to explore the complex issues which have led to brainless looting and violence and turned him into a sympathiser.

The problem is that on the whole we are incapable of distinguishing between an excuse and a reason, between the individual, selfish, stupid acts of each person in this mob of gang members and opportunists and the simple fact that there is a mob of them. Nothing excuses the way these people have conducted themselves and anybody convicted of theft or arson or criminal damage should be punished to the full extent that the law allows; we have to be seen to uphold our system of law and order, and that is the first priority. But adopting the attitude that these people are outliers is by this point demonstrably wrong: it is so clear that the happenings of the last few days are symptomatic of something dark. It is far more damning that nobody can point to a specific cause (ignoring the shooting of Duggan whose death is an excuse, not a reason) - it suggests a systematic failure.

These people are not outliers, and nor are they mavericks. The simple fact that they don't have banners and slogans does not stop the riots that have hit London from being a display of protest. I do not mean to imply that they are in any way reasonable; I will provide the caveat one last time that the people responsible should be jailed or punished accordingly. But it is very simple. There are two reasons why anybody does anything: firstly, because something caused them to do it (here, it is almost impossible to find such a trigger); and secondly, because nothing stopped them from doing it. It is the second of these criteria which clearly applies strongest to the smashing up of communities we are witnessing right now. Any person who is capable of destroying charity shops and family-owned businesses in the area they themselves live in does quite obviously not feel a connection to that area or its community, and whatever your political position, you cannot possibly believe that's a good thing.

What is happening here is not the random malevolence that many attribute it to: when such an unmotivated, unfounded explosion of in-fighting and released anger occurs, it is only really possible to see one answer to the question why: what we are witnessing is the last step in the collapse of the concept of community, a notion which has long been disintegrating and one which, right now, is more in need of rebirth. I would argue that these attacks are more dangerous to our livelihood than the 7/7 bombings ever were; I think they illustrate something about Britain which is very sinister indeed and, yes, Mr. Cameron... broken.

Charlie Gilmour: Status, Crime & Punishment

There's something very, very wrong with the decision today to sentence Charlie Gilmour (that's Dave Gilmour of Pink Floyd's son, for context) to 16 months imprisonment. It's an intriguing story, I think, because of the obvious undertones of all the things that aren't actually related to the crime, which came to the fore as a result of a media backlash and have remained there. For those who aren't aware, Gilmour was snapped numerous times doing idiotic things during the tuition fees protests (which, subtly, areas of the press have taken to calling the 'tuition fee riots' as if that were the true organised nature of the event).

For example, Charlie Gilmour swung on a Union Flag attached to the Cenotaph, then claimed he didn't know (despite being a History student) what the structure represented. This makes him at best ignorant, at worst an absolute moron, but he didn't face trial for that. Despite this, though, the judge still saw fit to pass comment on his actions in that regard. In and of itself, I don't think that's an awful thing to have happen, although I would argue that Charlie Gilmour has probably realised by now that he was a fucking idiot on that day.

What Gilmour was on trial for, though, was the attack of the royal convoy for Charles and Camilla that spawned all those sensational pictures of them both looking veritably terrified as angry rioters threw things at their car. Charlie Gilmour was found to have launched a litter bin at one of the cars in the convoy, sat on a protection officer's car, and smashed a window. Can I just repeat for you the length of the sentence he was handed? 16 months. SIXTEEN MONTHS.

That alone is pretty fucking atrocious. 16 months - of which he'll serve half - for smashing a window and jumping on a car bonnet? But it's worse - far worse - when you realise why it is that the price is so high. Judge Nicholas Page said that "it would be wrong to ignore who the occupants" of the car were.

Hang on a minute.

Judge Nicholas Page thinks that if Charlie Gilmour smashes your window, and jumps on your car's bonnet, and throws a trash can at your car, it is not as bad or important as if he does it to that of a royal.

There are so many things wrong with this that it's difficult to know where to begin. We could start with the fact that, given Charles and Camilla's obviously extensive protection arrangements, it's probably not as dangerous physically or emotionally to them as it would be to somebody else. But I think this is missing the point entirely, actually, and the point is this: somewhere, someone, at some point, has decided that the royal family is more important than you, and more important than me. I'm not about to argue that it's the inverse; that would be foolish and counter-productive.

Because I searched through articles galore to make sure I wasn't mis-reading the quote from Judge Nicholas Page, because for quite some time I thought that, surely, what he actually said must have been that it would "be right to ignore who the occupants" were. Alas, I find myself dumbfounded. In the rooms where people make decisions which affect people's lives in the long-term, we have men who think it's okay to, with very little disguise at all, assert that it is more of an issue if someone attacks the royal family than if they attack what I can only assume they refer to as the plebs.

Charlie Gilmour is an idiot but he's got a hell of a long way to go before he's as much of a muppet as Judge Nicholas Page.

The Sinister Smiles of CCTV Signs

Most of the criticism I post here is about news outlets, primarily because these are the sources which most explicitly change our perception of the world. But in a way, these things are pretty harmless if you're a little bit aware of the hazards involved in consuming them. Sort of. I didn't just call the Daily Mail harmless. But what I'm getting at is that there are more subtle ways people, and particularly organizations, affect our outlook on certain issues:

I don't know about anybody else, but this sign makes me a million times more nervous and scared than I can ever imagine feeling on seeing a sign that said You are being filmed and recorded for the purposes of security and safety. I don't find the smiley face funny; I find it terrifying as hell. I don't find the laid-back and presumably hilarious tone of the text cute; I find it actually pretty sinister.

There are certain things that don't need joking about. If the point of CCTV is to make the world safer, surely trivialising its use to the extent that you're making faintly Orwellian wisecracks at the expense of actual information is a poor communication decision at best. But maybe it's not. No, maybe it's deliberate. Maybe the companies and organizations that use uncomfortably nonchalant signage like this are just paving the way for a tipping point where people stop noticing that they're on camera. Maybe they know that.

Make no mistake: they do. It's a process of desensitisation, of making people unconsciously numb to a blasé and relaxed approach to the idea of a stranger taking thousands of pictures of them every minute. If this sounds like a conspiracy theory, I'm not saying CCTV is Satan incarnate. I'm saying that there are debated to be had about its impact on freedom and privacy, and that signs like that piece of shit up there^ do no justice to the seriousness that even MAKING a sign so apologetically awkward implies. If you accept people need to be made to feel less uptight about CCTV cameras, the best way to do it is not to make light of their fear in the first place.

It terrifies me that someone somewhere, by way of either stupidity or treachery, thought this a good idea.

A New Dimension of Banal Celebrity Bullshit

On the scale of mindless and unimportant celebrity bullshit there are four key benchmarks for ridiculousness:

1) Something happened. This is the type of article which purports to be about X's new music video or Y's new movie or Z's show in _____land, but usually actually just spends 5 paragraphs recounting in a tedious and dry fashion the last two weeks of X/Y/Z's life. Still, at least it's about the work that they do, i.e. the supposed reason people know who they are in the first place.

2) Really? Wow. This type of story - though about someone you've never met and wouldn't ever think about were they not plastered all over magazines and tabloids - is nevertheless intriguing. It usually concerns fairly major developments in a celeb's life like a divorce or an injury - personal stuff that affects nobody but is still, for whatever reason, interesting.

3) Nothing happened. Kim Kardashian crossed a road. Avril Lavigne was wearing a bikini. James Corden had a takeaway. These stories are the filler, the real gossip, the real dross; they're the completely empty and vacuous tales of absolutely nothing important or with wider consequences or even with small consequences to the celebrity in question. They're like those crisps that don't taste of anything and don't have any calories either; people just eat them because they want to feel like they're eating something at that moment in time.

But wait, because there's something worse than that:

4) Nothing happened. Literally.

Today the Daily Mail is carrying an article whose headline boldly asserts:

Reigniting the flame: Ashley and Cheryl Cole get intimate on a romantic day out

Got that? Ashley Cole and Cheryl Cole are getting intimate. On a romantic day out.

But the Mail don't just tell you so: they include 3 brilliantly clear photographs of the loved-up couple because the cornerstone of celebrity bullshit is photographs. One is the pair in a restaurant, another is of Ashley lifting his ex-wife into the air, the last is of a romantic embrace in the street.

In the second paragraph of the article the Mail's anonymous byline Daily Mail Reporter asserts with the utmost confidence that:

now it appears there is confirmation that the relationship is back on track

Got it?

Cheryl Cole and Ashley are back together?

Understood? All clear, now?

Are you ready for the twist?

It's not them.

It's a pair of lookalikes.

Making Excuses For Homophobia?

Today, the BBC is carrying an article as the lead of its Entertainment section about an opera which was cancelled after a school decided that - to quote them -

it was still deemed as unacceptable for four to 11-year-olds to be exposed to.

Let's get one simple thing out of the way straight off the bat: the opera company can't be blamed for the collapse of this show. It was due to open in 10 days' time, and it was not their disagreement with the script that led the school to pull its 300 pupils from the production. The company, Opera North, has clearly been driven to make the decision by the school's ultimatum regarding a specific line in the script which the writer refused to alter. Therefore, implying in the article's headline that the opera company has any case to answer whatsoever is greatly misleading. But what of the line to which the school took such offence?

"Of course I'm queer/That's why I left here/So if you infer/That I prefer/A lad to a lass/And I'm working class/I'd have to concur."

Wow.

The writer, Lee Hall (who also wrote Billy Elliot) insists that this is the only part of the script on which he and Bay Primary School couldn't reach an agreement. The school asserts that it is not the simple presence of homosexuality that irks them, but instead the tone and language of the work. Quite how they got involved to start with is beyond me, but the BBC article and interview make it abundantly clear that Hall agreed to change everything but that line.

So, basically, the school has pulled out of a production happening in 10 days' time because of the word queer.

Queer.

Queer can mean strange, but it usually doesn't any more, and certainly not in the playground. It's actually quite true that the word is often used by bullies and in homophobic name-calling, and in that context, yes, it's a bad word. But here, the word is not being used in that context. It's being used by a character to describe himself and because it needs to rhyme with here.

It's quite evident from the writer's protests as to the cancellation of the show that he's not the homophobe in this situation, and so you'd have to assume that the use of the word queer here is not derogatory in any sense. And yet this is the school's excuse. And because of all these things, that's what it smacks of: an excuse. They have pulled their 300 pupils from the production of Beached on the grounds that a - frankly - painfully banal line from the script includes a word which sometimes has negative connotations but in this case definitely doesn't.

At the least, it's cowardice; at its worst, it reeks of actual homophobia, of the literal kind: fear of homosexuality.

Muslims did it. Obviously.

There are a lot of cynical methods employed by the hacks of various newspapers in order to present something as truth when it's actually just conjecture, rumour or straight-up nonsense, but none should set the alarm bells ringing quite as loudly as the subtle use of quotes in a headline, like when the Daily Mail today says:

Censored! Bikini advert blacked out with spray paint by 'Muslim extremists who object to women in swimsuits'

Do you see them, those little inverted commas? They could mean anything, couldn't they? They could mean, for example, that those are the words used by police representatives to describe what they know has happened at the scene of this vandalism. But you know what? You'll never guess. They don't. No. Guess who said those words? Nobody. They're not directly quoted in the article. You know who said that it was Muslim extremists? People that work at the Daily Mail. You know why? Because they're not all that fond of Muslims. But it doesn't stop there; it's actually hilarious, the lengths to which the Mail will go to posture as a source of genuine news. In the first paragraph we're presented with the argument that:

this poster, in Birmingham, has been defaced in an act of vandalism blamed on militant Muslims who were offended by her flesh.

which, in case you weren't paying attention, is just the unfounded opinion of some guy, somewhere. But in case that isn't enough to convince you it was really the pesky Muslims that did it, the Mail have more evidence!

The freestanding advertising unit, stands in the Balsall Heath area of Birmingham, which has a large Muslim population.

Across the road from 'Muslim Students House Masjeed', an education centre, the poster is next to a busy main road.

Don't you see? They're taking over. They live in our cities now! It's practically a Muslim ghetto. Also, Muslim kids don't just deface posters for fun, you know! It's religiously motivated. Just take a look at this undeniable slice of anecdotal evidence from a veritable expert on the subject of religious extremism, Robert Tonkins, who in his capacity as a 45-year-old delivery driver is perfectly equipped to provide insightful analysis:

It's a bit worrying, I don't think it's up to other people to decide what can and can't be displayed on our streets, especially because we're a Christian country.

Testing my patience, now, buddy, because we're not a Christian country at all, but we'll let that slide because of your esteemed position as delivery driver and use your rambling bullshit to form the crux of our article and then pretend that it is objective fact. I can't wait to see the day when the Daily Mail just throw three sheets to the wind and go for:

'Muslims Did It'

in which the reporter relies upon the single indisputable testimony of an EDL member.

For all I know, the people that committed this everyday act of vandalism might have been Muslim. It's a shame I don't have the Daily Mail's infallible logic and reason to aid me in finding a more certain, and provocative, conclusion.

Why tomorrow's referendum is more important than any election we will see.

Referendums don't happen in this country, but when they do, they tend to be on suitably enormous subjects. The only other referendum in UK history was in 1975, on membership of the Common Market - what we now know as the EU. The turnout that day was 64% of the electorate - that's higher than turnout for 2 of the last 3 General Elections. But this time, it's not our economic future on the line - it's our political future. The referendum on the Alternative Vote is not just a throwaway poll on a single voting system. It is potentially the releasing of the handbrake on the UK political system. If there's a NO vote tomorrow, the voting system and politics in general are likely to remain the same for the next two generations at least. If there's a YES vote, it opens the dialogue for further and open discussion: how can we get the best out of our democracy?

We often hear that those who don't vote in General Elections don't have the right to complain when things aren't the way they want them to be. By the same token, this is your chance to impact the future of British politics and, with it, British society in general. There are no consituencies in this referendum, no tactical voting involved. You can vote with your heart and hopefully with your informed mind.

As I've said, this opportunity won't come around again. If you're unhappy with British politics, or you care about it at all, you'll vote in the referendum on May 5, even if you don't vote in the elections. Whichever way you vote, remember you're not voting for a party. You're not even really voting on AV or First Past The Post. You're voting for change, or the absence of it. Because whatever the result is tomorrow, that's the sound that will ring out in political discourse for years to come. If it's a NO vote, it sends the message that the British public voted they were happy with the system they had in place. Are you happy with UK politics? Answer that question tomorrow.

Daily Express: EU Wants To Merge UK With France

There are certain discourses within the domain of UK journalism which persist despite there being no actual fuel to maintain them. Sometimes the stories that compile these discourses are exaggerated and rehashed versions of prior outrages, used to remind readers of that one time when that bad thing happened and it was touted as 'the end of free speech as we know it' or some other equally ridiculous assertion. But sometimes, the things newspapers write about are quite simply complete bullshit.

You would think that if the EU wanted to merge the UK with France, more newspapers would have seen fit to raise the issue. I think it would be quite a big deal, actually, if Brussels wanted France and the UK to become the same entity. That's what the headline which titles this article implies, right? That the United Kingdom (that's US, in case you didn't know) and France (THEM) are going to become the same thing. A merge. I would think - and correct me if I'm wrong - that other people might have picked up on a story of this magnitude, lest we all awake one morning to a fanfare of the Marseillaise and find our local bakery has been converted into a boulangerie.

The reason that no other paper seems quite as concerned as the Express is simple: it's bullshit.

Of course it's bullshit. The article doesn't even seem to know what it's saying, so I figure the best way to approach it is to pick it apart sentence by sentence, translating the language of imbecile into plain English (ed- or French or European):

FURY erupted(1) last night after a European Union plot to “carve up Britain”(2) by ­setting up(3) a cross-Channel region was exposed(4).

which actually means:

WE FELT A DISPROPORTIONATE AMOUNT OF ANGER(1) last night after we found out(4) that in 1996 the EU created a transnational network(3) called Arc Manche which has had its own Assembly and President since 2005. This one guy said something "quotable"(2).

Actually, I could go on, but I feel it would largely be a waste of time. Once you've debunked the premise of an article as unequivocally and easily as it is possible to do here, there's not much scope for expansion.

One interesting thing that this story does throw up is the way in which people rely on newspapers to get their information, and therefore by ignoring a story as it is initially relevant or bringing it up at a later date after it's been forgotten, rags like the Express can imply that there's some sort of a cover-up involved. Which there isn't. Ever.

Fuck off, dear.

Saying, "Calm down, dear," is not sexism.

I hate sexism. I hate racism, sexism, homophobia and xenophobia. When I use the word hate, I don't mean dislike. I mean hate. If I find out one of my friends is any of these things, they cease to be my friend. I hate sexism. I also think that quite frequently the right wing parties in this country and the press that represent those parties (looking at you: Daily Mail, Express, red-top tabloids et. al) go out of their way to patronise those represented by equality campaigns; what these people use is rarely anything but a diversion technique, or a movement against equality, which shifts the focus of the discourse from real discrimination to positively inane discussions of the plight of Christians. Please.

But tonight, I find myself in the unusal position of unequivocally agreeing with the right-wing press. I don't know to what extent this makes me disagree with the left-wing press but I would assume there's a substantial degree of discord.

But saying, in Prime Minister's Questions - a notoriously raucous affair - "Calm down dear," is not even remotely sexist. It is arguably not even offensive. It is a very fleeting jibe, one which encapsulates friendly rivalry at the same time as being mildly condescending. There is literally no way that David Cameron intended his comments to be a statement on women's inferiority, and nor is there even the most minute of possibilities that Cameron said what he said as the result of a prejudiced nature which he failed to control or appreciate. I wish it were so. I would adore the chance to nail Cameron as a sexist or a homophobe or a racist or anything else which could explain why the government he leads continues to penalise the most vulnerable members of society instead of the most prosperous.

But this is not the case. Why? Because freedom of speech, you stupid little fuck. It sounds like a Daily Mail argument, but it is infinitely true: if things continue like this, alongside cases like that of the man that joked about blowing up Robin Hood airport due to delays, we will find ourselves in a situation where every person considers the social and potentially offensive consequences of everything they say. This is the masked death of freedom of speech.

Anybody who thinks that what David Cameron said tonight is sexist, is a moron. I make no apologies for the blunt nature of that assertion.

Sexism only happens in domains where the perpetrators of sexism believe they can get away with being sexist.

The Truth About AV

In little over two weeks' time the country (or half of it) (or less than half of it) will head to the ballot box for a vote about voting. It's only the second referendum in the history of UK politics, the first having addressed the question of whether to remain in the EU (then the Common Market) back in 1975. It's unlikely that, should the country vote NO on May 5, there will ever (and certainly in our lifetime) be another chance for real political reform.

But the campaigns about AV and the representation of the choice facing the public have had almost no foundation in facts whatsoever. Both sides of the argument have twisted statistics and rhetoric to suit their particular needs, and at the majority of points those needs have been politically motivated - that is to say that the Tories don't want AV because it would hurt them, and the Lib Dems do want it because it would help them, and Labour don't know whether they want it because it's not clear how it would affect their representation.

The NO campaign have even tried to argue that the BNP would vote YES to AV even though the BNP have declared their support for the NO campaign because they know AV would hurt them. This is the most extreme example of the way that voters have been taken for idiots. So this post exists to throw the masks off the arguments that don't make sense from both sides.

A simple, tried & tested alternative. (YES campaign)

No. The YES campaign tries to use this as a way to make people feel safer about the potential upheaval of political decision-making, when in order to achieve that it should instead concentrate on the positives of such upheaval and the similarities (of which there are many) between FPTP and AV. Just because AV is used in leadership campaigns does not mean it is tried and tested in democratically electing parliaments. It is used in Australia, one good example, but it is hardly the overwhelming choice of Western democracies.

AV is costly. Schools and hospitals, or the Alternative Vote. (NO campaign)

No. Of all the untruths told in these campaigns this one is arguably the most irresponsible. The referendum is already happening so the cost of it is not a reason to vote NO. The electronic voting systems mentioned in the NO campaign's literature are not planned and there are even suggestions of legal action being taken against this claim. This statement also greatly devalues the importance of democracy.

Shutting down extremism. Extremists can get in by the back door under FPTP. (YES campaign)

No. Firstly, the use of the term 'extremism' is a terrible misnomer and reveals the real intention of using this as a fundamental argument: to make people scared that one of these systems makes it easy for the BNP to stroll into power. Neither of them does. Let's call 'extremism' what it really is: non-mainstream opinion. This includes the Greens (who I doubt many would label as 'extremists' in the stereotypical sense) and to some extent even the Lib Dems. Basically, the majority of people now who would vote for these parties but don't because it's a wasted vote in almost all constituencies (in that the party is never going to win a seat due to a core of Lab/Con/Lib supporters) can vote for that party under AV with the knowledge that in the likely scenario that the party doesn't win they can still express their preference between more mainstream parties. It remains to be seen how the introduction of AV in the long-term would affect fringe parties in the UK but it is difficult to argue that the BNP are more likely to win 30% of votes in a specific constituency from nowhere under FPTP.

AV is complex and unfair. (NO campaign)

No. This is the most offensive of all of these lies. AV is not complex. You choose candidates in order of preference until you no longer wish to choose candidates. So, so, so simple. If you don't understand that, you need to go back to school. The NO campaign have made huge waves by saying that under AV 'the loser can win'. What that means is simply smoke and mirrors: it simply means that under AV, the person that would win under FPTP doesn't always win in AV. Which is the whole point of this fucking referendum because there would be no point in choosing between 2 voting systems if the results of an election were the same under both.

Under AV, the only vote that really counts is Nick Clegg's. (NO campaign)

No. Australia uses AV and it doesn't have a coalition government every time it forms a new one. We have a coalition at the moment and it came from FPTP. The only reason this argument is being used is because Nick Clegg has been demonised - rightly or wrongly, who cares - because of his decisions as Deputy Prime Minister and the NO campaign think (perhaps rightly) that they can win a few extra % of the votes by associating him strongly with the YES campaign. Which sucks. Like both campaigns do in general. The end.

Where Are All These Eastern Europeans Coming From?

Today the Daily Mail carries an article I couldn't avoid. I really intend not to solely focus on the output of the Mail, as even though they provide easily enough distorted rhetoric to support three of these blogs, they're by no means the only culprits (even if they are consistently the worst).

The article makes claims to analysing and discussing all the real aspects of immigration but, as always, these questions and more importantly their answers are blurred and tarted up by certain journalists in order to manufacture a worldview which enables readers to displace rage and blame at the same time as pretending that people like Gillian Duffy (the woman at the centre of the bigot 'scandal' during last year's General Election) are legitimately concerned about the economic consequences of immigration despite regularly saying things like "Where are all these eastern Europeans coming from?"

The Mail article begins:

Britain faces a new influx of migrants(1) who could claim benefits of up to £250 a week(2) within weeks(3) of arriving.

which actually means:

We're worried that there might be a slight increase in migrants from eight European countries.(1) They could claim benefits of an absolute maximum of £250 a week(2) within 3 months(3) of arriving.

It's imperative to realise that when newspapers twist facts like these, they don't lie - they're very clever indeed. They can say 'within weeks' when they mean 'within 3 months' because technically, 3 months is about twelve weeks. It isn't an explicit falsehood, so it's seen as fair game. It's also worth noting that the headline is:

Bar on benefits lifted for East European migrants who will be able to claim £250 a week

which isn't true, since it implies directly that all of the included migrants will be entitled to £250 a week (they won't) and indirectly suggests that it's the sudden overturning of a blanket ban on benefits for East European migrants (it isn't.)

As we sink deeper into the article we find this brilliant little rhetorical device:

Critics(1) are concerned about the risk of ‘benefits tourism’ by immigrants from the eight former(2) Communist countries affected.

which in plain English means:

We(1) are concerned about the risk of 'benefits tourism' by immigrants from the eight obviously evil(2) countries affected by the pre-planned abolition of a rule which was always meant to occur and is required by EU law.

This fantastic device enables newspapers with no real sources to suggest that there is vociferous and reasonable opposition to an idea, decision or even a system by using the umbrella term 'critics' which can include any or all of the following categories:

• Journalists at the very same newspaper
• One or two MPs from any political party
• Heads of organizations like MigrationWatch and the TaxPayers' Alliance who exist solely to provide quotes for stories like these.
• On occasion, when desperation sets in, even average members of the public

The Mail's article implies that parties from at least two of these four categories are included under the label of 'critic'.

It also contains the most common and crude of diversion and deception techniques: the last-paragraph game-changer.

The Department for Work and Pensions insisted that the rule changes will not mean people will be able simply to come to the UK and start claiming benefits – because there will be strict tests.

The rules have to be lifted because they conflict with the EU’s freedom of movement laws.

How many people do you reckon read this far down the article? Those are literally the last 2 paragraphs of the main body of text, before the paper starts quoting a YouGov poll in which 'Fifty per cent say benefits are too generous'.

I'm sure that has nothing at all to do with how the Daily Mail reports about them.

'Aggressive Secularism'

It is immediately worth mentioning that this blog is not, and nor will it ever be, anti-religious. It simply aims to dispel some of the institutionalised mythologies and empty rhetoric used to communicate with large audiences. The areas where these discourses are most common aren't hard to fathom: politics, journalism, religion and sport. The ideas expressed on this blog are not intended to criticise or promote particular perspectives in any of those domains, but simply to shift the discussions within them back to a clear and rational position.

Today, Keith O'Brien, the head of the Catholic Church in Scotland gave his Easter sermon in which he bemoaned what he perceives as a marginalisation of the Christian faith in the United Kingdom. Here's what he said:

Perhaps more than ever before(1) there is that aggressive secularism and there are those who would indeed try to destroy(2) our Christian heritage and culture(3) and take God from the public square.

which translated through a machine which removes clever rhetorical devices means:

Why do none of you come to my church any more?!(1) I don't understand (or support) the desire of non-religious people(2) to not have religious ideas imposed upon them. In order to create the illusion that the church is still important, here are two vague aspects of public life which are to some extent linked with Christianity but are in no sense good reasons for the interference of religion in law- or policy-making(3).

He went on to add:

Yes - Christians must work toward that full unity for which Christ prayed(1) - but even at this present time Christians must be united in their common awareness of the enemies(2) of the Christian faith in our country, of the power that they are at present exerting(3), and the need for us to be aware of that right to equality(4) which so many others cry out for(5).

which, in English, says:

Christians must try to make everybody else Christian(1) - but not if it includes fraternising with the gays or the Muslims(2). I feel threatened by the idea that people will stop believing the things I do(3) and no longer want to see or hear those things on a regular basis. We are used to our church having a privileged position(4) and, in order to preserve that, we must align our desire for special treatment alongside the reasonable expectations of heathens(5) to be treated like humans. By equating religious belief with sexual orientation we can blur the line between choices and naturally-occurring phenomena, which helps us both ways.

And he closes by asserting that:

Recently(1), various Christians(2) in our society were marginalised(3) and prevented from acting in accordance with their beliefs(4) because they were not willing to publicly endorse a particular lifestyle.

which it should be quite obvious actually means:

I have read the Daily Mail(1) and been vicariously outraged by the treatment of a few people(2). They were prevented from marginalising various groups(3) and required to tone down their bigotry, which is based in a non-universal system of 'morals' far removed from the equality and liberty we intend to move towards(4).

One of the more interesting things about the sermon of O'Brien is its audience. Who is he actually speaking to? The idea of a sermon is to speak to the followers of your church, but in that case, what is he really persuading them of? A victim complex? On the whole it appears to be far more of a PR stunt than anything else, a list of soundbites for the right pressure groups to re-print and get angry about. Ultimately, though, it's a self-serving piece of rhetoric filled with skewed perceptions of 'fairness' delivered in such a way as to be initially convincing. It's a shame it doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

How Much Do You Know About Kate Middleton?

We are, I think, all aware that a royal wedding is happening next week. At the risk of adding to the already considerable amounts of yawn-inducing anticipation, it interests me because it's a perfect example of news outlets finding stories from absolutely nowhere. In the lead-up to major events like this, the papers need to keep the 'excitement' (which, by and large, they themselves create and procure) ticking over, and so you end up with mundane stories about the type of alcohol that will be served at the reception and tedious procedural bullshit. But more than that, the media also become the voice of the public. It's sort of similar to the Your Views section of news broadcasts but with an interesting twist whereby the opinions of 'commoners' (Harris Interactive actually uses that term in the poll below) become the news rather than just providing a different perspective upon it.

This type of opinion poll is interesting because nobody has a fucking clue. At the end of the day, the only thing any average person knows about Kate Middleton is what they've read in the press. The same goes for Prince William - for the most part we have no idea that he will 'make a good king' (whatever that actually means, anyway). Our perception of these things is skewed by news coverage so far that it leads 77% of the admittedly small sample to think they know whether a total stranger would be a good head of state. The only people with their heads screwed on properly are the 23% who said they weren't sure. It might well be the case that Prince William would make a superb King William. We wouldn't know; all we've seen are pictures of the happy couple posing for engagement photographs and sort-of-endearing stories about him growing up as a young royal.

One of the most interesting questions is the one regarding Camilla and Kate Middleton, because on the whole, and largely as a result of the hysterical grief over the death of Princess Diana, the press (especially from the right) generally don't like Camilla Parker Bowles. So when the Daily Mail asks:

In your opinion who would make the better queen?

the literal translation of that question is:

Of these two women that you don't (and can't possibly) know more about than the clothes they wear and the carefully chosen soundbites we've presented to you over the course of their life in the media spotlight, which one do you personally like more? Is it the old, husband-stealing, horse-faced bitch, or the young, sprightly symbol of optimism and hope with which the whole nation is obsessed?

This sort of coverage is interesting because it basically allows newspapers to gauge how effective they are in persuading the public of a particular notion. If the right-wing press had decided to demonise Middleton and publish stories about a distant and long-dead relative that was a criminal or interviews with bitter ex-classmates of the princess-in-waiting, the results of these polls would be very different indeed.

What it represents more than anything is the need for every person in the news to possess a persona lest the public be confused by the potential ambiguity of a real human being in a real situation. Kate Middleton is elegant, determined and a middle-class underdog, because that's what the newspapers decided she would be. They could have decided she was a scrounging, pandering waste of space, and found 'sources' to support that image too - it would just have been a lot more difficult to sell the 5million-page pullout section next Friday.

A Mission Statement

We live - supposedly - in a world where information is as readily available as it's ever been. A one-second Google search or flick through the innumerable pages of Wikipedia can throw up the most obscure of facts from the most hidden of sources, and once something's recorded, it stays recorded. But increasingly, despite the obvious benefits of such easy access to media and knowledge, we find the airwaves clouded with static. Politics has turned into a platitude, any semblance of a clear or distinct message having drowned amid tepid clichés and apologetic non-sentences. Journalism has become a caricature of itself, catering so transparently to specific audiences that sometimes the same sequence of real-world events is reported (or ignored) in completely different fashions by different publications.

What are facts, and where do we get our information from? In an age where news is accessible at the touch of a button, which buttons do we press, and how do we know that what we read when we get there isn't either made up or distorted? Where does the noise come from which prevents us from distinguishing fact from fiction and spin from substance? And, perhaps most importantly, what are people actually thinking as they speak or write words which have been designed to have a specific effect?

Unquestioned Answers is a blog which, from today, aims to translate the things that public figures and news outlets say into non-bullshit - that is to say, it will attempt to strip away the layers of artifice which have become so accepted in the 'information' we receive on a daily basis, and to present news stories and discourses in a way which actually means something beyond the convenient and trite cages of the people we ordinarily trust to deliver them.

Here's to restoring some form of sense to the things we read and hear.