There’s more to it than lads’ mags

Lance Diatessaron

Watching him on C4 News last night, I thought Mr Gove used the engineered controversy very well to manoeuvre the discussion onto more substantive grounds.

There was more than a hint of the shifty adolescent about his 'opponent' Piers Hernu (anag?) on C4. As a leading architect of what Charlie Brooker has described as the lads-mag "axis of wanking", I expected him to have a laundry list of libertarian talking points to lambast Mr Gove, but he seemed genuinely taken aback when Mr Guru Murthi suggested Gove might have a point. He ummed and erred and could do little better than a simple denial of responsibility and an assertion that 'we are all to blame'.

Mr Hernu looked like a bit of a state as well: a midlife crisis made flesh, with man-jewellery, leisure clothes and a hair 'style'. The gap between the sort of tawdry aspiration that Nuts et al peddle and the embarrassing middle-aged reality of the 'arbiters' was, to my eyes, cruelly exposed.

David Lindsay

Gove is right, even if those of us increasingly feeling our age are almost heartened to learn that something so utterly of the Nineties is still part of popular culture at all.

But Gove and others need to face the fact that both those publications and the lifestyle that they encourage are simply the operation of their own beloved "free" market, which cannot be in goods and services generally but not in alcohol, gambling, drugs, prostitution and pornography.

The commercialisation of sexuality in general and of women's bodies in particular is a vast social and cultural problem.

In this fortieth anniversary year of Humanae Vitae, the only really good thing that Pope Paul VI ever did, we need to acknowledge that the root of this problem is the poisoning of women in order to make them permanently available for the sexual gratification of men.

We might also consider that even the World Health Organisation, hardly a Vatican puppet, describes Natural Family Planning as 99.8% effective (how could it not be?).

But, of course, it can only be done by a faithful married couple acting as such. So it is out of the question. Isn't it?

Lawrence

The Conservatives have many good policy proposals and are on the right side of the debate in terms of education, home affairs and health. However they appear to keep shooting themselves in the foot by engaging in moral debates which they have no right to be commenting on.
When David Cameron talks about where children should be consuming alcohol and Gove talks about what young men should be reading I can't help but think it’s completely unnecessary.
The Conservatives do not need to keep stressing the breakdown of society due to lack of morals, they are framing Britain negatively which is dangerous territory. They risk easy attack from Labour and turning off the electorate.

jim DC

Careful larwence. There is no suggestion from anyone we are on the right side of the debate on health. We are the anti-reform party of the NHS and are roundly trounced for it.

Richard Nabavi

Yes indeed. Forget the idiotic headlines which focus on a couple of sentences in a long, thoughtful and interesting speech - sentences which, in context, are sensible enough.

To those who still keep saying the Conservatives have no policies and no vision, the answer is: read the articles and the speeches like this one. There's a lot of good stuff in there.

TGF UKIP

So after the Heir to the Vicar of St Albion preached on obesity etc in Glasgow, we now have the young Reverend Gove bidding to be his curate.

I would recommend Coffee Housers to go to Guido order-order.com to see young Mikey get the slamming he deserves.

We've had quite enough preaching from New Labour over the past eleven years, we don't need still more from Blue Labour.

Meanwhile, much more importantly, a welcome back to David Lindsay - your contributions have been much missed and The Coffee House has been the poorer without you over these past weeks. Not an absence due to ill health, I trust.

Juan Kerr

"However they appear to keep shooting themselves in the foot by engaging in moral debates which they have no right to be commenting on."

Well someone needs to comment on the situation. If not politicians, who then has the right?

mart

Why shouldn't Mr Gove take a pop at something rather vulgar?

One can believe in freedom without also accepting that all freedoms must be exercised all the time, everywhere.

To those criticising him, are you pleased to see such stuff available everywhere, and within easy reach of children in supermarkets etc.?

I am glad I am not growing up today - the adult world has lost almost all decorum and self-control, and doesn't attempt to show an example of good behaviour to the young.

How will our teenagers ever have self-respect if they notice that adults seem to have none?

David Lindsay

"Meanwhile, much more importantly, a welcome back to David Lindsay - your contributions have been much missed and The Coffee House has been the poorer without you over these past weeks. Not an absence due to ill health, I trust."

Very many thanks, TGF UKIP. But I'm afraid so. I've spent two of the last four weeks in hospital. I'm on the mend now, though.