Third Avenue

Common sense in the Commons

One of the more pleasing aspects of the reduced Blair majority in the British House of Commons is the apparent resurgence of assertive parliamentary democracy in Britain.

Today, the Commons voted down the government's attempt to outlaw religious hatred by a majority of 10. That this bill was opposed by people from all parts of the political spectrum should have made the government think twice. Outlawing the criticism, however odious, of people's opinions, however pious, was never a good idea - indeed, it goes against the fundamental principles of our democracy (notwithstanding the fact that other fundamental principles, like habeas corpus, have been whittled away with hardly a peek of protest).

There are, after all, reasons to be cheerful about the state of British politics.

Traditions, ancient and modern

Nothing gets the British so passionate as an assault on their most cherished traditions. And the younger those traditions are, the more recently they were added to the national canon, the more ardently they must be defended. For the British seemingly could not care tuppence-ha'penny about more venerable aspects of the national landscape, such as the charmingly idiosyncratic hodge-podge of our high streets, now brutally homogenised into chain stores and deflowered by out-of-town shopping centres. The British do not really care two hoots about quaint past notions such as the presumption of innocence. The Magna Carta can happily rot.

But raise so much as one finger against a bland intertwining of vaguely uninteresting tunes broadcast on Radio 4 at a time when hardly anyone is listening, and it is as if the hordes of hell itself had been let loose to trample on the national soul. One blogger even calls for the assistance of the dark arts. Outraged MPs raise the issue in the Commons. 

Yes, the BBC is thinking of scrapping the UK theme. Along with other millennia-old traditions, such as the Routemaster bus and red phone boxes, the UK theme is suddenly found to be the repository of all things British. The fact that it is in truth significantly younger than the Beatles, and that it is as much of a British tradition as, say, our membership of the European Union, seemingly counts for little.

Personally, I am a bit of a fan of the UK theme. On the relatively rare occasions when I am conscious at 5.30am (or 12.30am here), it provides a jaunty start (or end) to the day. Were I to have to listen to its insistent cheerfulness seven days a week, however, I might well consider throwing my radio out of the window.

But the UK theme as a great British institution under threat? Pull the other one. What a wonderfully, fabulously peculiar bunch the British are.

Our love of government

We never stop being told, and we never stop telling one another, that we live in an age when politicians have never been so despised. Every move they make is seen as self-serving, every statement is presumed dishonest, every policy called a sham

And yet, and yet. Was there ever a time when we screamed so much at our politicians to take more and more responsibility to themselves? When we were willing to let them look into and control aspects of our lives in ways that previous generations would have found either ridiculous of downright abhorrent?

In the UK, the government happily spits at such quaint notions as habeas corpus and trial by jury. But the public cheers Charles Clarke on.

In the US, even more astonishingly, the administration has been caught red-handed spying on its own citizens in apparent blatant disregard of both laws passed by Congress and the clear instructions of the fourth amendment of the constitution. Yet 51 per cent of the US public support the government's actions, considerably more than support the Bush presidency itself.

The New York Times has a choice quote from Benjamin Franklin, the 300th anniversary of whose birth is being celebrated this week:

Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety

Quaking under the jackboot of political correctness. Or not

Terror stalks Britain. Terror stalks much of the Western world. According to journalist Anthony Browne, whose pamphlet 'The Retreat of Reason' has been making considerable waves over the past couple of weeks, this terror is political correctness. A scourge of modern life that has poisoned public debate. Worse, since 1997 Britain has been run 'by a government largely controlled by politically-correct ideology'. Scary. What does this ideology entail? Well:

people who transgress politically correct beliefs are seen not just as wrong, to be debated with, but evil, to be condemned, silenced and spurned.

Let's put Browne's frightening vision to the test. Here as some of the tenets of political correctness, as posited by Browne:

America, as the world’s most powerful country, can never do any good, even though it is the world’s most powerful liberal democracy, the largest donor of overseas aid, and it defeated both Nazism and Communism.

Golly. So, what happens to people who don't share this view? They are indeed horribly marginalised in modern Britain. Deprived of any real power, they must content themselves with such menial posts as Prime Minister, Secretary of State for Defence, Leader of the Opposition. Prevented by the PC commissars from taking any meaningful part in public life, they are reduced to taking such decisions as sending British troops to war alongside our American allies and their miserable social lives include such low-key events as hosting international leaders and being lauded by the US president for their contribution to the Anglo-American alliance. The iron fist of the PC dictatorship is strong indeed.

What other views are compulsory under the new terror?

The West, as the world’s most powerful cultural and economic group, can safely be blamed for all the world’s ills, even though it is largely responsible for the worldwide spread of prosperity, democracy and scientific advance.

And the people who don't agree with this? The Frederick Forsyths, the Melanie Phillipses, the Boris Johnsons? These poor benighted souls are reduced to publishing bestselling novels and hiding their despised views in weekly columns in mass-circulation newspapers, where no-one apart from the entire population can read them. Horrible it must be to be so excluded from public debate.

But it gets worse. Not just politics are affected.

Multinational corporations are condemned as the oppressors of the world’s poor, rather than seen as engines of global economic growth with vast job-creating investments in the world’s poorest countries, pushing up wages and transferring knowledge.

Again, misery awaits those who disagree with this fundamental PC truth. They can aspire to little more than being some of the most affluent and powerful people in the country, in charge of the economy, pushing global trade to levels unseen before in human history and making Britain and the rest of the West rich beyond any precedent. Pity them, pity them indeed.

Browne's view is chilling in the extreme. If only it were true.

Back on base

After a few weeks spent touring the old continent, I'm back in the great American metropolis. Good to see that Britain is still there, and is still a rather amazing country.

Posting over the next few weeks may be more intermittent than usual due to other projects on the go, but I'll try to keep the site updated fairly regularly. It's good to be back.