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Sunday 27 May 2012

This Sceptred Isle

Tuesday, 26th January 2010

Three items in today’s papers have caught my eye as nailing the current state of Britain.

The first is a letter to the Times from a former Metropolitan Police Commander, Keith Hunter. He writes, in the wake of the Edlington child torture case:

I witnessed and experienced the transition from strict enforcement of 1930s child protection legislation, exercised only by the police and NSPCC, to care, counselling and supervision, led by heads of newly formed social service departments. From the 1960s onwards, as a senior police officer, I saw that multi-agency initiatives brought with them as many disadvantages as advantages. The enforced taking of a back seat by police soon led to their infection by theory and ideology-driven approaches, to the extent that many began to share the prevailing distaste for stricter, quicker, authoritative intervention. This was always viewed as precipitate, even when, in reality, justified. Passing the parcel became an unavoidable symptom.

Reconfiguration of modern policing then led to what is perceived as either a timorous or reluctant role in the task of supervising problem families. Local bobbies, who had always been on hand and well in touch with concerned neighbours, disappeared from the streets. They are now reappearing, but still thin on the ground.

Throughout this period came the growth of a middle-class meritocracy, into which large sections of the working class, of which I was an aspiring member, graduated, leaving behind an underclass rump containing out of control, dysfunctional, ASBO-ridden and often brutalised families. The problem seems to be at its worst in this country, where access to our new meritocracy is now more than ever strictly limited.

Finally, out of the profound changes in society and culture during this period, has emerged a somewhat naive and helpless libertarian governing class of all political colours, which, as Eric Hobsbawn noted some years ago, has lost its nerve. Its members dream up idealistic tasks whose successful completion, whether as teachers, social workers or police, depends on an inexhaustible supply of non-existent people of superhuman ability. These need to be redefined and simplified, to counteract the tendency in all bureaucracies to exclude the exercise of authority as well as common sense discretion. Among the victims strewn around the altar of our predominating intellectual sensibilities will be found the folk of Edlington, as well as on the doorstep of Doncaster’s social service department.

The second is another letter, this time to the Daily Telegraph, from a science teacher, Andrew Urwin:

The Government has spent huge sums on a laudable campaign to increase state-school students’ interest in becoming scientists and engineers, while simultaneously distorting the curriculum to make it more ‘relevant’ in ways that make it more difficult to learn enough science to follow it as a career.

Content has been steadily removed in the name of accessibility. That which remains is largely chosen to illustrate wider ‘societal’ themes, without sufficient regard to the theoretical coherence of the science being taught. I am head of science at a comprehensive school and was told at a training day: ‘It’s all about skills now. They [the students] can look up facts on Google.’ Would you want to be treated by a doctor who has spent five years honing evaluation skills instead of mastering tedious old anatomy facts?

The International General Certificate of Secondary Education (IGCSE), which does retain a coherent structure, isn’t offered in state schools as it doesn’t conform to the ‘Science Subject Criteria’ (the very cause of the problem). Calls to offer the IGCSE are denounced as ‘elitist’.

A two-tier system is returning to British education. Are we happy with private-school students learning about electromagnetism, while their peers at comprehensives have to grapple with identifying ‘the use of evidence and creative thinking by scientists in the development of scientific ideas’?

The third is a piece in the Telegraph by Charles Moore. Reflecting on the milestone of 30 years of BBC TV’s Newsnight programme, he writes:

Judging by its choice of clips, Newsnight is proudest of itself whenever it confronts politicians. In its own eyes, it was heroic to question British military statistics during the Falklands war as much as it did Argentine ones. It was pleased to annoy Ken Clarke, Jeffrey Archer and Tony Blair, to make David Cameron blush with weird questions about cocktails with lubricious names, and to ask Michael Howard the same question 14 times.

It is proud of the fact that it is not ‘deferential’. One of its reporters from a mean street in the West Bank spoke of ‘this forgotten corner of the earth’, as if defying Israel and America. Forgotten! One sometimes wonders if the BBC covers anything else. How penetrating and prescient was Newsnight’s coverage of real atrocities, like the Rwandan genocide, or totalitarianism in North Korea, or Saddam Hussein’s exploitation of the oil-for-food programme or the one-child policy in China?

To the extent that a political view was offered, it was exactly the one you would expect – Mrs Thatcher as extreme, the special relationship with the United States being something which politicians ‘babble about’, and Tony Blair being wrong to invade Iraq.

... Above all, how aware is Newsnight that, far from being anti-establishment, it is the establishment?

Precisely.

The picture is 'Britannia Between Scylla and Charibdis' by James Gillray, 1793

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Mark Demmen

January 26th, 2010 11:24am

I wonder if the Tory high command could be persuaded to appoint Mr Hunter as an adviser? Fat chance, as they have also been infected by "theory and ideology-driven approaches".

Miranda Rose Smith

January 26th, 2010 11:28am

What is ASBO?

Rory the Deplorable

January 26th, 2010 11:40am

I would suggest that Mary Riddell's article in today's Telegraph is equally pertinent.

gareth

January 26th, 2010 11:45am

wonderful letters - gives you hope - thanks for publishing them Melanie.

john east

January 26th, 2010 11:49am

Nice one Mel, but what are we to do to return to the good old days? My answer is nothing because the old consensus no longer exists.

As you anecdotes clearly show, society has transformed from top to bottom. There is no going back now, and those of us who would campaign for a return to the old values are tilting at windmills.

The answer is to let the pendulum swing. Eventually common sense will prevail, but only after the current ideological mess implodes.

If I live long enough I look forward to being around to help rebuild a good society, but in the meantime I've learnt that it's better to keep my head down and ignore everything. It's the only way to stay sane.

Rachael

January 26th, 2010 11:53am

An ASBO is an anti-social behaviour order, a largely ineffectual legal tool invented in Britain to calm public opinion about all this anarchy. It soon became and has remained since a national laughing stock because of its ineffectualness.

The Newsnight programme was shocking both for its self-aggrandisement and its celebration of unfair bias.

The BBC has to go. Full stop. Nothing can contain this Marxian behemoth.

Rachael

January 26th, 2010 12:07pm

Mel, you refer to the "the current state of Britain" and use an image of a ship. How apt.

In the current state of Britain, people see exactly what you so often here describe and public opinion has now clearly moved to the right.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/janetdaley/100023698/public-opinion-moves-to-the-right/

To go back to our ship metaphor. Where on earth is the Conservative Party? As people jump ship from New Labour, they want a life boat. Where is it?

This despair is happening right across the political spectrum, from taxi drivers to academics. People are swimming to where they believe the Conservative Party should be... only to find it's not there.

Where the hell is it? Over there. In the same storm ths bad ship Labour is. Help.

The Conservative Party has been told by you and by many others not to abandon key ground.

As Simon Heffer put it recently - if you don't fight you won't win. Or as Mr Dick Cheney put it in this magazine in an interview a while ago, politics has cycles. Solid ideas will always come good, even if fashion has abandoned them.

The abandonment of conservative principles may yet cost the Conservative Party. Worse still, it will cost the rest of us.

W. Smith

January 26th, 2010 12:28pm

Hmmm. Didn't think much of your illustrious ex-Commander. Do people ever check the meaning of words before committing them to print? Mr Hunter refers to this country's "libertarian governing class" --- there are few adjectives less appropriate to describe our increasingly octopus-like government and its statist cheerleaders. Does he think the direction of the modern police force too "libertarian"? Perhaps he should take a look at your blog, sometime. Or ask Mr Seismic Shock...

Miranda Rose Smith

January 26th, 2010 12:57pm

Dear Rachael: Thank you.

Alan Stoddart

January 26th, 2010 2:30pm

Kipling's poem, or eulogy, 'The God's of the Copybook Headings', as brought to us by Fay Weldon today on R4, is surely all that needs to be said about society today and the social progressives slowly strangling us with their health and safety, welfare and equality laws.

R4 excelled in the other direction on the 'Today' programme by having a torrent of anti-Tory comment....the new social attitudes survey(conveniently published before an election)...tells us that people are not bothered about marriage anymore, so one Tory policy bites the dust; next people are more conservative...they also do not care about the poor, re-distributing wealth nor equality...strike 2 against the Tories by association; then Michael Cashman tells us that the Tories were homophobic in the 80's(see clause 28 apparently) and the danger to society is the reality that Tories still are homophobic...so strike 3; then apparently, the Tories have been doing secret deals with the hated (by the BBC) Unionists. I'm sure there was a lot more before I started listening....or were they too busy promoting the IPCC?

Only laugh I had was the excitement in the voices of the BBC newsreaders predicting an end to recession....only for the real world to welcome them aboard with 0.1%.

James Murphy

January 26th, 2010 3:03pm

John East - a lot of sense in what you say. No less a genius than Nietzsche foresaw all this a century ago (I mean the real Nietzsche not the nazified myth bewailed by morons). He predicted a time would come when social breakdown would reach such a pitch that the chaos itself would engender the will to re-organise along more psychologically healthy lines. Meanwhile, helmets on boys and girls! There's a long night ahead...

alan stoddart

January 26th, 2010 6:39pm

Did I forget to mention the BBC's trip to Poland to tell us how right wing and anti-semitic the Polish are....subtle link to Kaminski and the Tories.

On a different but similar tack....Bush....is the cause of the US economic freefall says the BBC...strange that in the UK it is not Brown but the evil bankers.

and how about 'God bless Obama?'...presented by a black, leftwing man of God....Bush(and sometimes Blair) was constantly abused for his Christian views...but he was apparently only supported by Right wing Christians...whereas Obama is supported by nice, cuddly, Democratic Christians who just love abortion. Guess there are bad Christians and good ones but only good Muslims in the BBC world bubble.

Ain't the BBC great....starting to get out of control now there pay cheque looks like it is threatened. Harrabin and Black make ever more outrageous accusations concerning AGW critics....critics abused in their childhood, in the pay of big business, right wing news papers driving the agenda....Tory MPs just don't care about the climate and will be persuaded, not by facts or their own intelligent assessment but by the Sun news paper...'more may be driven that way if right wing newspapers continue chasing stories about the IPCC's failings.'

About time Harrabin and Black started chasing up stories of the IPCC's failings a bit more themselves instead of sitting on them for months at a time as with the CRU emails.

paul culver

January 26th, 2010 6:48pm

were finised here in the uk? the country has had it, litter everywhere, to many agressive people, up to its eyes in debt, a corupt establishment its gone past the tipping point, a once great civilisation ruined by the left wing theorists. o well i am 64yrs now and tired of repeating myself.

Sam Armstrong

January 27th, 2010 3:18am

John East: "but what are we to do to return to the good old days? My answer is nothing because the old consensus no longer exists"

The old consensus no longer exists? How can it not still exist? If it no longer existed, the Spectator, Telegraph, Daily Mail, Standpoint, et al wouldn't ever shift any ad space. They would be photocopied rags printed on a shoestring. As it happens they are glossy publications with high profile advertisers, journalists and readers.

What doesn't exist is a political party prepared to do anything about the Gramsci takeover of our civilisation.

Cassandrina

January 27th, 2010 8:45am

Fully cover the dire state of our nation.
Dick Gross has advised his investment partners to consider Britain a high risk region. He is right to warn them of this.
For the life of me I cannot see any effective leadership in any of the 3 main parties.

Andre

January 27th, 2010 9:30am

Miranda Rose Smith ASBO I thought it stood for
A-physical Substitute for Boxing Of ears

Neil Saunders

January 27th, 2010 3:12pm

More relevant and revealing than Charles Moore's eulogy to Thatcher and apologia for Blair's Iraq adventure is the letter from Mona McNee in today's Daily Mail, where she refers to research done in Minneapolis nearly 40 years ago by Dennis Hogenson. This points up the correlation between illiteracy and violence.

Keith Hunter, however, is spot on about our "somewhat naive and helpless libertarian governing class of all political colours". This smug, self-perpetuating elite is hopelessly out of touch with the social breakdown born of its own complacency and moral cowardice (not to mention its misplaced idealism and destructive utopianism).

John Thomas

January 27th, 2010 4:24pm

Certainly - to take the very final point, Charles Moore's - I have long thought that the media (particularly the Brazenly Biased Corp), and other "opinion formers" and "liberal" chattering-classes in academia and the professions, were the true Establishment; thus the anti-Israel/"anti-war" stance, and that of the Church of Climatology, is all thoroughly Establishment, and culture-compliant.

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Melanie Phillips is a Daily Mail columnist. She also writes for the Jewish Chronicle and is a panellist on BBC Radio Four's Moral Maze. Her most recent book is 'The World Turned Upside Down: The Global Battle over God, Truth and Power', published by Encounter.

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