“Do You Take This woman…?”

“I’m sorry, it’s my fault.” Yes, these mumbled words emerge automatically from any man in a serious relationship with a woman. Often from behind a newspaper, but occasionally they are even true.

There are now 5 months, 2 weeks and 4 days to run on the contract with Bt broadband into which I am locked. For more than a fortnight there have been intermittent faults on my broadband connection. Thus, to my frustration, my posts have been more irregular than usual.

Rupert Murdoch is an Australian of Scottish descent who has resided in the UK and is now an American citizen. From Free Presbyterian ancestry he now claims to be a Roman Catholic. This promoter of a media so free that they think they can hack into telephones at will and distribute the computer codes of rival media groups thus driving them out of business is also in bed with the totalitarian gangsters who run China with absolute control and total censorship of the media. This is clearly a man who would happily sell his first born to the highest bidder. Sky now look attractive.

Richard Branson is a leading contender for title of ‘The most irritating man in the United Kingdom.’ The other front runners being Ricky Gervaise and Alan Carr. Branson’s constant smirk, the half grown beard, the sixty one year old’s teenage megalomaniac desire to be involved in every money making enterprise on the face of the globe. They all cry out that this is a guy who shouldn’t be allowed to be a babysitter. Virgin now looks attractive.

Yet I am now stuck with erratic Bt broadband for the next 5 months, 2 week and 4 days. “I’m sorry, it’s my fault.”

So much has been happening whilst I have been incommunicado. None more worthy of comment than the case of Caroline Monet.

This lady is the twenty one year old Frenchwoman received permission last Saturday get married to Abel Chennouf a twenty five year old French soldier. The groom won’t turn up at the ceremony and will be represented by an empty chair. This will not be because he has got cold feet or had a really bad hangover from his stag night. He won’t have been handcuffed to a lamppost by his drunk friends. Neither will he be having second thoughts or have forgotten that there was a home match that afternoon. It won’t even be because his present wife didn’t think that it was a good idea.

Abel Chennouf. Gone But Not Forgotten

Nope. None of the above. The groom won’t be present at the ceremony because he is dead. He has been dead for some weeks. Dead and buried. To paraphrase John Cleese, “This paratrooper is extinct.” Nevertheless last Saturday he received permission to get married. And all this with the approval of the President of France.

Now your interest prick ups. “French, that explains it,” you think. No. Whilst being French is an excuse, it is not an explanation. A nation who eat snails and think that Johnny Hallyday is a rock singer are capable of anything. That’s a given. Who else would have Charles Aznavour as a national icon? However, in this case it’s not just that they are French. This is coming our way, it’s just that the French have been the first to surrender, as usual.

If it were merely a matter of getting a cut in the will and a widow’s pension most could understand if not condone. In fact if that were the case we would only wonder why she didn’t just stand as an MP. This unfortunately is more serious than mere greed and venal corruption. It is a case of rampant sentimentality.

Abel Chennouf, a Muslim, was murdered by a Muslim terrorist and in a flood of mawkish sentimentality his bidie in (co-habiting partner for non-Scots) decides that now is the time to marry him. The president of France, a Hungarian midget masquerading as a statesman and facing a difficult re-election, tests the polls and gives the green light. Game on. Pity about the groom.

We live in a world where sentimentality crowns everything. Especially here in the UK. Princes Di was not a manipulative adulteress, she got killed in a car crash and so she became a Home Counties Mother Teresa. The French being French have to raise the stakes. Never mind the consequences, think of the emotion.

Never mind blokes marrying blokes or girls getting hitched to each other. That’s so last year. In France you can take your pick of the dead.

My master plan to achieve mastery of all I survey has had to be adjusted owing to this new strategic avenue. I have a grandson Jacob who is eight years old. Unfortunately, of his grandparents only one is Scottish. Nevertheless, this makes him a dyed in the wool, indisputable Scot.

Every fair minded person would agree that the Scots are as good as the English, at least. Given that there are ten times as many English as Scots this indicates that Scots are at least ten times better than the English in order to achieve parity. With three English grandparents and one Scots grandparent the odds are clearly on our side. Jacob is Scottish. (I know the logic may need a tweak here and there but the principle has to be conceded.)

My cunning plan is that in eight years time my grandson gets married to Elizabeth Tudor, daughter of Henry VIII and Ann Boleyn and onetime queen of England, and dead these four hundred years.

There are two great advantages to this plan. Firstly it means that the despicable Stuarts will be cut from succession if the Virgin Queen marries my grandson. Better a Campbell than a Stuart. Better a retarded hedgehog than a Stuart. Secondly I would become King Grandfather. If Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon could swan around as Queen Mother for decades I can have a shot at King Grandfather.

I realise that I have yet to consult with Elizabeth Tudor or my grandson on the matter. But the priest, magistrate or president of France didn’t ask Abel Channouf his opinion of the deal. So that’s okay, and I have eight years to persuade Jacob.

“I’m sorry, it’s my fault,” but the whole idea of marrying the dead is so ridiculously off the wall that, dangerous as it is, the only way to treat it is to laugh at it.

Abandon Christian principles in favour of the malleable morality of a sentimental age and anything becomes possible. We do mean anything. Living, or dead.

My Favourite Puritan Laments

It changes constantly. Every time I sit down to write about the biggest story in the UK today something new occurs. Rebekah Brooks is arrested, Ed Milliband fulminates; Sir Paul Stephenson resigns, Keith Vaz tries to look statesmanlike but smirks anyway; John Yates resigns, MPs queue up to be interviewed; David Cameron scuttles back from Africa, the entire chattering class rejoices.

Meanwhile the BBC and its house organ the Guardian rub their hands in glee and give us wall to wall coverage of the severe wounding of their idological opponent. Politicians who ony a few weeks ago thought themselves privileged to genuflect in the presence of Rupert Murdoch are suddenly valiant defenders of truth and all that is decent. That they are also relishing the opportunity to put the boot in to a press which had savaged them over their corruption is, I am sure, co-incidental.

What could be the most serious consequence of this stushie is rarely mentioned. It is not the dismantling of News Corporation, it is not the weakening of the Metropolitan Police, it is not the  threat to an increasing isolated Prime Minister. If you peer beyond the headline fulminations there appears a growing acceptance of one of the greatest threats to a free and healthy society, a state licensed press.

John Milton “Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties”.

Hugh Grant, super snob, requester of super-injunctions and sometime actor, was perhaps first when he ruminated on Question Time “I’m not for regulating the proper press, the broadsheet press. But it is insane that the tabloid press is left unregulated.” Yasmin Alihbai Brown, Independent columnist, thinks press licensing by government is “a good idea.” Even Alan Rushbridger, editor of the Guardian whilst admitting the prospect made him feel “anxious” was ”interested to hear other views.”

A newspaper editor even willing to consider press licensing by the state is a greater danger to the nation than all Rupert Murdoch’s influence. We can’t expect sense from actors, but when a leading progressive columnist and the editor of the Britain’s standard bearing progressive newspaper both argue for or are open to a state controlled press we are in trouble.

Who exposed the activities of News International? Not the Metropolitan Police who junked the investigation years ago because there was no evidence whilst sitting on bin bags full of unread emails. Not the politicians who were eager to pay court to the powerful who might point a few votes their way. The wrongdoing was brought to light by a free press who were willing to expose corruption in police and Parliament. You may think the press should be tamed but there are enough laws on the statute book already, and we can see them operating today as powerful figures in the media are arrested.

Our favourite puritan John Milton got it right when, in the midst of the English Civil War he took on state control of the press. In the Areopagitica he argued against the Licensing Order of 1643 which required all newspapers to be licensed by the state. In doing so he risked a great deal more than an interview with the Met.

Prohibiting a publication merely because it is unlicensed, because it does not fit in with prevailing morality, “kills reason itself, kills the image of God, as it were in the eye.” Milton argued for the power of truth.“Let Truth and Falsehood grapple; who
ever knew Truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter?” Milton prevailed and the licensing of the press was eventually abolished.

Blind John was able to see what Hugh, Yasmin, Alan and all the politicians resentful of having their own misdeeds exposed cannot see, the importance of freedom of expression. Milton saw how fundamental this is, “Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties”.

I never purchased a copy of the News of the World but I regret it’s passing. Perhaps the greatest offence of Rupert Murdoch is that he brought about the destruction of a newspaper prepared to muckrake and expose the offences, trivial as well as serious, of the powerful. I believe John Milton would have lamented the passing of the News of the Screws as well.

The Media Matters

Sorry about the hiatus in posts over the last week but the realities of life will intrude upon the fantasy life of cyberspace. Over the intervening period we in the UK have been inundated with incessant recounting of the iniquities of News International, its owner, executives and minions. There are two aspects to this affair, both elicit the same reaction, disgust.

The great British public were unmoved by revelations that John Prescott’s ‘phone was hacked. The general reaction was that he is a greedy, blustering, adulterous bully, it serves him right. Various ‘celebrities’ had their ‘phones hacked? Live by the sword die by the sword.

However, when it came to the reality of Millie Dowler’s ‘phone being hacked and messages deleted whilst the search for her was still going on and false hope was given by activity on her mobile then disgust and anger were appropriate responses. When the possibility of the bereaved relatives of soldiers killed on active service being victims we felt nauseated and wondered how low could these people get.

But the nausea was not confined to the activities of the News of the World. The parade of the great and the good clambering over each other to reach the moral high ground has been nauseating.

Ed Milliband rightly criticised David Cameron’s appointment of Andy Coulson, former editor of the News of the World, to a post in 10 Downing Street. Unfortunately he also forgot the way in which the government of which he was a member fawned on Rupert Murdoch. Tony Blair listened oh so carefully to Rupert Murdoch’s views on Europe. Whilst Prime Minister, Blair even flew all the way to Australia to give a speech for NI. Where was the indignant Milliband then?

Alistair Campbell criticising the ethics of those who work in the media? This is beyond parody.

Our MPs are so bemired by their own corruption that they are eager to leap and point the finger at someone else. Noting the close connections between News International and the police, and the failed investigation into the initial complaints the Home Affairs Committee of the Commons has written to Assistant Commissioner John Yates asking him to give evidence to the Committee. The Chairman of the Committee? None other than Keith Vaz, a politician so slippery that his colleagues in Parliament have nicknamed him Vaseline.

Sanctimonious celebrities who have been exposed by the media in the past have not been slow to react. Sexually incontinent drugs abuser Steve Coogan accuses News of the World executives of being ‘morally bankrupt, and ‘peddling tittle tattle.’ Kerb crawling Hugh Grant assumes the moral high ground. Max Mosley, he of the soda-masochist orgies, quietly funds cases against the News of the World. Do we not hear the sound of scores being settled?

The BBC have given us wall to wall coverage of the difficulties of one of their major competitors. The Guardian and Independent have deplored the activities of their ideological opponents, whilst forgetting that they lauded the courage of Julian Assange whose activities endangered lives.

Most dangerous of all is David Cameron using this as an opening to impose controls on the press, or being pressured into such action. A tame press brought to heel is too attractive a proposition to be resisted by many amongst those who have been exposed in the past or could be exposed in the future. If pressure is brought to bear for press restrictions David Cameron, with his poor decisions regarding News International will have difficulty resisting it.

In any healthy democracy it is vital that the press be free to expose the failings and even the foibles of those who rule or influence the nation. This affair has given the rich and powerful an opportunity to impose press regulations which will keep the public in the dark. If politicians are allowed to muzzle the press we will all be the poorer. Far greater corruption will go unchecked if parliament is allowed to restrict the press.

 The best defence against the type of criminal activity encouraged by News International is a free press which can expose the powerful be they politicians, celebrities or the press itself.