Peter Hitchens's Blog, page 283

Stella or Hezza - Who's Paying More Attention?

Appearing on Question Time is a little like family life. You meet people you would never otherwise have encountered. This thought struck me after two events last week, one the much discussed Heseltine smear incident, which I suspect is not quite over yet; the other my curious encounter with Ms Stella Creasy, MP for Walthamstow. Both concern the fascinating way in which the ever-growing number of my foes imagine that I think things I don’t think. You expect this, and almost excuse it, in ill-informed Internet raiders and comment warriors. But in a former Deputy Premier and a future Labour cabinet Minister, it is more worrying and more interesting.

 

I met Ms Creasy for the first time when we were on Question time last year in Bristol. I knew of her because of her admirable campaign to protect people from horrible pay day loans, but I long ago dropped out of the Westminster lunch circuit, where politics and journalism meet,  and er , do not conspire, oh no, that would be a  ‘conspiracy theory’. They would do that. But they do have private, deniable conversations about shared objectives which result in the timed and co-ordinated appearance of newspaper stories which suit both of them. So I had no personal knowledge of her. I noticed during the programme, during the same-sex marriage discussion, that she seemed to have prepared a jibe against me on the assumption that I would follow the classic ‘right-wing’ line on the subject. Even when I made it plain that I thought the issue a trivial diversion, she stuck to her original plan, though it was largely lost in the hurly burly of the debate.  This was silly. I had prominently set out my actual views in my column and also in the ‘Spectator’ Magazine, where anyone remotely interested could have discovered them.

 

Now I freely state (why shouldn’t I? What sort of fool would I be if I didn’t do this?) that before joining in public debate with someone I do some basic research on them. It’s only polite, really. It’s silly to argue with them as if they hold views they don’t hold, or to assume they don’t have knowledge and experience which they do have. Once, this was only really possible for journalists who had access to those wonderful treasure-houses of inconvenient facts, newspaper libraries. Now, the Internet makes about 80% of such material available to anyone at all. I concede that it is a journalist’s response – I was trained from very early on to head straight to the cuttings library before writing about anything, advice which was and is absolutely right. Whenever, for any reason, I haven’t followed it, I have wished I had.

 

Apart from being useful, it’s often rather enjoyable. I love archives and there is a great joy in turning up a fact you never previously suspected, or seeing the past as news, as your father might have seen it.  But I should point out here that, unlike modern politicians, I have to do it myself if I want it done at all. I always smile when readers assume ( as many rather sweetly do) that I have batteries of assistants working full-time for me. Those days, if ever they existed, have long gone.

 

You’re waiting for the point. Here goes. During our QT encounter, Ms Creasy invited me to her Walthamstow constituency, an outer-London borough on the borders of Essex. I sarcastically thanked her, saying I was free to go there anyway. And I wasn’t really sure what she expected to demonstrate to me. She had, I think deliberately, become preoccupied with the least important part of something I’d  said.  I’d described the Labour elite as ‘fat Bourgeois Bohemians who despise the people whose votes they seek’ . We know this is true thanks partly to Gordon Brown’s encounter with Mrs Gillian Duffy during the 2010 election.  Mrs Duffy had legitimate worries about mass immigration. Mr Brown called her a ‘bigoted woman’, when he thought nobody was listening. Then of course there is the New Labour apparatchik Andrew Neather (look him up),who famously admitted that Labour’s immigration policies were intended to change the national culture.

 

 An ocean of apologies and a mountain of cunningly-written policy papers expressing ‘understanding’ for people such as Mrs Duffy won’t alter the fact that the true face of metropolitan Labour was exposed by these incidents. The Gillian Duffy episode also showed that, somehow or other, Labour’s traditional voters were still prepared to vote for a party that openly despised them (sound familiar? See my writings on the Tory Party).

The enduring unpopularity of the Tories, and the implosion of the Liberal Democrats, will probably ensure that Labour gets away with it again in 2015.

 

That was the fact. Ms Creasy seemed to think I was accusing her personally of being too fat, which I wasn’t (I repeat, she isn’t), or that I just needed to see multiculti Britain in action to swoon into the arms of the modern age. If you like multiculturalism, you’ll go on liking it. If you don’t, you won’t change your mind because you meet some nice multiculturalists. Even so, I got in touch with her afterwards, and fixed a date. I thought that  any opportunity to make my views known to a rising politician had to be worth taking.

 

The day came, I took the Tube up to Walthamstow and found myself in the midst of a sort of church fete. Ms Creasy had been posting teasing remarks on Twitter for some days, asking for volunteers to come and meet me and generally camping the occasion up. I had mainly hoped to speak to her, but could barely speak to anyone for most of the time because of the very loud music in the hall, which seems to be compulsory at all public events these days. Amusingly, I found myself sitting next to one of Walthamstow’s more established residents, a rather sharp gentleman who didn’t make much effort to conceal that he wasn’t wild about the changes to his borough. I only hope he wasn’t spotted talking to me. I know that my conversations were being closely monitored, because when I mildly wondered why there didn’t seem to be any Poles at the gathering, I was rapidly visited by people insisting that the Poles had all settled in very nicely, nothing to worry about etc etc.

 

I had a number of conversations with Ms Creasy, in one of which she insisted , with glowing sincerity , that she does not hunt for votes. Well, maybe not. Her seat is pretty safe and she could lose quite a few before it was in any way threatened. But a politician who says she doesn’t care about votes? I think comment is superfluous.

 

I tried to bring up a couple of topics with her, because of her own past and present. She attended a single-sex grammar school, of the kind that Labour has banned in most of the country. I suspect that if she hadn’t she wouldn’t be so high up the greasy pole of politics, and quite possibly would never have been heard of at all.   I sought to find out if this in any way opened her to the idea that such schools ought to be restored, the only political campaign I’ve ever waged which actually seems to me to be getting somewhere. She changed the subject, saying she favoured streaming( a separate point) and then plunging into a discussion on special education, which has nothing to do with grammar schools. There was some stuff about the 11-plus,which |I scotched by explaining I preferred the German system of selection by assessment and mutual consent. The legal ban on selection by ability in state schools (a law which, soberly examined, is more or less insane) is so central to Labour dogma that quite intelligent people simply shut their minds rather than discuss it. They are hardly going to say that they cling to revolutionary egalitarianism, that is, equality of *outcome* even if it leads to mass ignorance and national decline – even though they do. Because (and in this they are like the atheists who deny thy have made a choice) they very much wish to conceal their utopian objectives.

 

I raised the topic of marriage, too ( she made a joke about this on Twitter, pretending to think I had proposed to her). Did she think it should be encouraged and strengthened?  I got a bland answer, which didn’t sound to me like an strong endorsement of the married state as the best one for  children. I will only say here that Ms Creasy is not married, as far as I can tell from standard works of reference.  I know nothing of her personal arrangements, and wouldn’t dream of asking. But I do know that in certain parts of metropolitan Labour, marriage is looked on with active disfavour, or with indifference. I have always been very struck by the fact that the ultimate new Labour power couple, Alastair Campbell and Fiona Millar, remain unmarried despite many years of being together and raising children. I think we can safely assume that in the case of these two strong-minded people, this is a deliberate, conscious choice.

 

I think I’d have left it at that if she hadn’t soon afterwards tweeted to the effect that I didn’t believe in research. Something snapped at that point. I’d actually mentioned to her that I ‘d written a chapter about grammar schools in ‘the Cameron Delusion’ which she might benefit from reading. Well, I’m used to having these recommendations ignored. But is it possible to write books without research?  Not for me, it isn’t. I concluded that, all through our exchanges, Ms Creasy had had her communications equipment switched to ‘transmit’ , never to ‘receive’.

 

Like so many of my Internet critics, who express alarm when they agree with me, and never wonder whether this might upset their theories about me, she just isn’t interested. You’d have thought a ‘right-wing’ columnist who opposes wars, supports railway nationalisation, was willing to spend a chilly afternoon in Walthamstow with a Labour MP for no visible gain, and opposes the sale of council houses might at least ring a bell on an intelligent person’s anomaly detector. Hang on a moment. Perhaps the world isn’t quite as I imagined. Maybe I need to *think* about this. Nope. Just a casual, cast-off remark about how I (the author of five books) didn’t believe in research.

 

By comparison, Tarzan’s open hostility and blatant attempt to smear me on national TV is almost refreshing in its frankness. How amusing that – when most of my enemies actually think I *am* a Tory -  the Tories think I’m an enemy worth smearing. They may not fully understand why I dislike them so much, but they can see that it’s interesting and worth reacting to.  I’m grateful for the compliment, and will keep it in a safe place.

 

 

 

The Irreversible, Profound Risks of Damage from Cannabis -an Expert Speaks

Here’s a fascinating extract from an article in today’s  (23rd February 2013) ‘Times’ magazine, an article about Kuesnacht, a rehabilitation clinic for the super-rich in Zurich, by that interesting writer Robert Crampton. Much of its work involves helping people to stop taking ‘antidepressants’. Interesting, but not the point that leaps from the page.

 

The clinic’s founder, a Canadian doctor called Lowell Monkhouse, is quoted on the subject of cannabis. Alas, Dr Monkhouse uses the  expression ‘addiction’ to refer to habitual use, but let that pass. Most people do, because it is generally accepted and unconsidered in a society which more or less denies the possibility of self-discipline.  

 

One patient is said to be likely to spend the rest of his life in a secure psychiatric hospital. '"He had cannabis psychosis’" says Monkhouse, "We couldn’t help him’".

 

‘The hardest addiction to break, he adds,  is to cannabis. Cannabis - certain strains at least – is also the drug that can cause the most profound and the least reversible neurological damage, often quickly, often in very young and otherwise healthy adults. The drug many people think of as harmless can send you mad, swiftly and permanently’.

 

Note the words ‘most profound’, ‘least reversible’ , ‘swiftly’ and ‘permanently’.  And this from a man whose lifelong trade has been treating drug abusers.

 

And still, a coalition of dupes and cynics campaigns for this drug to be on legal sale.

 

 

 

 

Only Left-wingers could think killing and maiming is a giggle

What is wrong with Left-wing people? Why are so many of them so filled with violent hatred of anyone who disagrees with them?

Why has so little attention been paid to the cruel, bloodstained words of John O’Farrell, the official Labour candidate in the Eastleigh by-election?

Mr O'Farrell, an alleged comedian, has not as far as I know repudiated or regretted a passage in a book he wrote at the age of 36, saying he wished Margaret Thatcher had died in the Brighton Bomb.

He said: ‘In October 1984 when the Brighton bomb went off, I felt a surge of excitement at the nearness of her demise and yet disappointment that such a chance had been missed.’

In case anyone had missed his point, he added later. ‘I just hated her so very, very much.’

I am not, as it happens, a great admirer of Lady Thatcher myself. And I’m not above a bit of invective and mockery against the politicians I actively despise.

But it is the hate-filled violence of this passage that strikes me. What kind of person can write this, and then not cross it out in embarrassment?

This is not the only example of this sort of thing last week. The BBC has for many years tolerated a radio programme called ‘The News Quiz’ on which sniggering fun-revolutionaries (at your expense) are paid to amuse a sniggering Left-wing studio audience with babyish jests, under the guidance of a self-satisfied chairwoman who thinks she is cleverer than she is.

On a recent edition, a purported comedian referred to the Education Secretary, Michael Gove, as 'a foetus in a jar'.

This was the cue for an exchange in which Mr Gove was (very falsely) described as being friendless (I count him as a friend, though I disagree with him strongly, and so do many others in politics and journalism), and then as having ‘a  face that makes even the  most pacifist of people reach for the shovel in  anticipation of reshaping it’.

A sole Tory panellist, serving as a figleaf for the programme’s blatant bias, was swiftly brushed aside when he tried to defend Mr Gove. The BBC’s attempt to defend this malicious tripe is so wretched that I will do them a favour and not reproduce it.

In my experience, nasty, bullying people often attempt to disguise their true feelings as ‘jokes’. So there it is, the modern Left displayed – a parliamentary candidate who publicly wished for the hideous, violent death of a woman, and is not ashamed, and a BBC programme that publicly discusses smashing a man’s face with a shovel.

Both of these are supposedly jokes. But they are not. They are a symptom of a raging sickness of the soul that has the modern Left in its grip. They are so sure that they are right that they no longer think their opponents are human.

That way lie the torture cellar, the re-education camp and the firing squad, as the Left proves every time it gets enough power to show what it is really like. It’s not funny.

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Now our Army is dictated to by tyrants

It seems that all it takes to get a building at Sandhurst named after you is £3 million. King Hamad of Bahrain, a tyranny which employs torture, has achieved this distinction. A building that used to commemorate the Battle of Mons will now instead advertise the fact that Britain is for sale. Lucky for us that Colonel Gaddafi didn’t donate to Sandhurst when he was still in our good books.

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I’m not sure I buy the excuses made for Hilary Mantel, a once-fine novelist (her book about Saudi Arabia is superb), who has achieved fame and fortune by switching to supersized historical romances.

Ms Mantel is said to have been attacking the wicked popular media when she offered her scornful descriptions of the Duchess of Cambridge.

Really? She wasn’t quoting anyone but herself as she sprayed the sneers around. And her entire article in the ‘London Review of Pretentiousness’ is drenched in disdain for the Monarchy.

Self-importantly, she recounts one of the occasions when the Queen was lucky enough to meet her.

‘I felt that such was the force of my devouring curiosity that the party had dematerialised and the walls melted and there were only two of us in the vast room, and such was the hard power of my stare that Her Majesty turned and looked round at me as if she had been jabbed in the shoulder; and for a split second her face expressed not anger but hurt bewilderment.’ Crikey.

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Replying to Tarzan's rather low swing

I must respond here to an attempt to smear me, during BBC Question Time, by Lord Heseltine. Tarzan’s a bit creaky in wind and limb now, but he’s still an expert demagogue.

My guess is that he was trying to do a favour for his great friend Mr Slippery, like him a dripping wet Europhile. He falsely claimed that I had said young men who enlisted to fight, kill and die were ‘stupid’, a word I never used and wouldn’t use.

What I said – and believe – is that young men do these things because they are unwise. Who, looking at the heartbreaking cemeteries full of young volunteers for old men’s wars, at Gallipoli or along the Somme, could really argue?

In case you want to argue, here’s what a good friend, who happens to be a serving infantry officer with recent combat experience, said to me. ‘Young men are unwise, almost by definition. I don’t see how anyone who has actually served with young infantry soldiers could believe the majority are wise. Brave, loyal, aggressive – but very rarely wise.’

Has Lord Heseltine served with young soldiers in combat? I’m not sure. Despite his taste for camouflage jackets and brigade ties, he had a rather brief military career. Though born in 1933, he missed Korea, Malaya, Kenya and Suez, and wasn’t called up for National Service till 1959. He was almost immediately allowed out again.

It seems he was urgently needed to fight (and lose) a hopeless seat for the Tories in the General Election that year. Wise beyond his years, perhaps.

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Try solving some real problems, Archbishop

Who rules our streets? As I walked on a sunny afternoon through the pleasant heart of Canterbury, I watched as passers-by humiliatingly made way for a pair of lager-swilling youths with weapon dogs, who cackled as they went. No police were to be seen. And I saw a pleasant park wrecked by drifts of litter. Perhaps the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, might turn his mind to these things, instead of homosexuality, women bishops or overseas aid.

Michael Heseltine, Marlene Dietrich and Me, Life and Times of a Minor Hate Figure

The life of a minor hate figure has its joys and sorrows. Being invited to be on the Question Time panel contains some of each. I am glad of any chance to put across my views. I enjoy the clash, and I am stimulated by the ability to speak where many listen.  I know there will be a festival of loathing on Twitter, in which it will be stated ( as if axiomatic) that I am a **** and a **** and also a ******  ( and quite possibly a ************). Then there will be the usual screeches from the ghastly coven of the Christopher Hitchens Fan Club that it is impossible that I can be related to their hero, that I am not his brother but his afterbirth, that the wrong one died, etc.  All these things have actually been said in public places by human beings who (I have no doubt) think well of themselves, buy the Big Issue and are kind to animals. The hostility will not vary whatever I say. Over the years, on QT, I have opposed the Iraq and Afghan wars, supported railway nationalisation, attacked the sale of council housing, opposed identity cards and detention without trial, but none of this matters. I am ‘Right Wing’ and therefore evil. If any of these people finds himself or herself agreeing with me, it never leads to any thought or reconsideration.  

 

I can no longer be bothered to read these electronic grunts, yelps and snarls as, though there is the occasional intelligent comment trapped in their midst, there are too many dull and unoriginal  playground jibes. It is a useful spiritual exercise, up to a point, to be exposed to this sort of mob dislike. Anyone who wants any part in public life should learn to cope with it. But there is a danger of wallowing, and even coming to enjoy it.

 

Actually the invitation took me (for the third time in a week) outside my normal routine, in several good ways. I had already had an enjoyable debate on World War Two at the King’s School Canterbury, which left me hoarse but pleased that I had got my point across and made a number of people actually think. This gave me the chance to spend the night in the Cathedral close in a room which actually looked on to the floodlit church, a privilege most people will never have. And Canterbury on a clear winter’s day has many beauties.   The next day I went to Walthamstow, a part of London I’d never previously visited, at the invitation of Stella Creasy MP, who had challenged me to come there after we clashed on ‘Question Time’ a few months ago. I wasn’t sure what she was hoping to communicate to me, as I pride myself on being a frequent visitor to my own country and wasn’t exactly surprised by what I found.  But I met some pleasant and intelligent people and , once the music had stopped, had some interesting conversations. Stella has (perhaps deliberately) misunderstood my characterisation of the Labour elite as ‘Fat Bourgeois Bohemians’ as an attack on her own waistline, which seems enviably unfat to me. Actually the point is that Labour's metropolitan elite despise the very people whose votes they need. I am also amused by her difficulties over the fact that she went to a grammar school, and supports a party which has made new grammar schools illegal. It's always funny watching the gymnastic contortions of Grammar-School-Educated Labour politicians. Where wil they end up putting their heads?

 

From our subsequent exchanges on Twitter (yes, I really am ClarkeMicah) I have gained one interesting fact. She says she does not think Gillian Duffy, the famous voter to whom Gordon Brown showed one face before revealing another to the cameras,  is a bigot (though her former party leader definitely did). I think we may be able to build on this, especially after we have all found out how many Romanians and Bulgarians choose to come here when the EU gives them the freedom to do so.  I suspect there will be many accusations of ‘bigotry’ winging about by then.

 

Anyway, in preparation for Question Time yesterday, I returned to the part of London where I took my first steps in national journalism. One of the glories of Fleet Street was( and remains) the sight of St Paul’s Cathedral (in those days half-obscured by the railway bridge which ran above Ludgate Hill), a building so powerful that (like many structures which possess a drum and a dome) it seems almost to vibrate when you are close to it, or inside it, like a gigantic musical instrument that has just been struck by a celestial musician.

 

I slipped into the cathedral for Evensong, the most moving of Anglican services even when stripped (as it almost always is) of the General Confession and Absolution, the Prayer for the Queen’s Majesty or the Prayer of St Chrysostom, and accompanied by loudspeakered ‘readings’ from a poetry-free version of the Bible.  On Thursday night the Psalms (137 and 138) were sung with particular beauty, though the grisly final verses of the 137th were (as so often) tactfully omitted . The Thomas Tallis anthem was extraordinarily poignant and took full advantage of a building that was almost unimaginable at the time Tallis wrote his music. After filing out into the dusk  I crossed the formerly wobbly bridge and took a long walk by the Thames in the freezing wind, trying to think about what I might say on the programme.

 

I was more or less sure that Jury Trial would come up, and was happy about that as I know quite a bit about since writing my book on crime. I assumed that the case of the woman with 11 children would be discussed, plus the looming energy crisis, perhaps David Cameron’s regrets for Amritsar or Theresa May’s blustering about deportation. Maybe the renaming of a building at Sandhurst in return or a donation, or John O’ Farrell’s anti-Thatcher outburst.  How wrong can you be? I was baffled when the ancient subject of the London census came up, and not thrilled when the political parties were given another chance to blame each other for the ruin of the national economy, when there were better subjects to discuss. But as I understand it, the  questions must be selected from those the audience submits, and it seems to me that QT audiences (especially London ones) are predominantly readers of unpopular papers with a liberal, policy-wonkish slant.     

 

Here I must just set down a few thoughts on Lord Heseltine’s strange attack on me, and his claim that I had defamed the armed forces and called soldiers ‘stupid’. Anyone who watched the programme on the i-player can see that both allegations are plainly untrue. I come, I might add,  from a  family with strong connections to the armed services.

 

I think the whole thing was opportunist , probably done by Lord Heseltine on behalf of his friend David Cameron (the two are politically very close indeed), in an deliberate effort to damage me with conservative-minded viewers. In fact it makes no sense any other way. The discussion was about jury trial, not war. Lord Heseltine had trundled out the ancient cliché (usually employed by the left) about how if people were old enough to fight they were old enough to vote etc. I have always thought this rather suspect and thought it was time someone said it was, and why.  I did not attack the armed forces. I did not call young men stupid. I simply said a truthful thing about young men’s unwise willingness to go to war, risk their lives and be ready to kill.

 

You might as well impeach Marlene Dietrich for singing ‘Where have all the Flowers Gone?’ (which as I recall concludes with the melancholy reflection that all the young men have gone to graveyards, every one, because of their readiness to go to war).  As for the war poets, with their anthems for doomed youth and their cold reflections on the horrors of mutilation compared with the glory of the splendid uniforms,  who knows what Tarzan might have said about them?

 

 

For those interested, a rough preliminary transcript of the exchange is below, leaving out various ragged bits when the interruption makes the words incomplete or too messy to be much use. Please do check it against the programme. The word ‘stupid’ was emphatically not used by me in  this context, as any user of the I player can confirm.

 

‘One thing I might say to Michael Heseltine is that the very reason we send young men out as soldiers, often wrongly, is because they are young and unwise and are prepared to kill and risk terrible danger in a way that wise people wouldn't  -  (interruptions prevent me from finishing the point. The word ‘stupid’ is certainly not used)

 

Lord Heseltine then claimed this was a’ Scandalous reflection on Britain's Armed Forces’

 

I tried to continue my point, which actually concerned Jury trial, by saying:

 

‘and secondly you might be aware there are strong moves now to lower the voting age to 16  and how many of you would want your future decided by 16 year olds?’

 

Lord Heseltine, however, continued his attack on me, saying:

 

‘I have to say that as a former Secretary of State for Defence to describe the British Armed Forces in the language you did is disgraceful’

 

Realising by now that he was determined to smear me,

 

I replied:

 

‘You always were a very effective demagogue, Lord Heseltine.  But I think I haven't described the British Armed Forces in any sense at all I've simply told the truth, young men are unwise’

 

Lord Heseltine replied :

 

‘You've described the soldiers in language which is viciously unfair to them’

 

I replied :’ Young men are unwise.   You were unwise when you were young and  so was I.     Don't try to deny it or to silence me with silly rhetoric of the kind you usually use’

 

Lord Heseltine retorted:

‘You were certainly unwise because you used to work for the Socialist Workers Party’

 

The exchange continues:

 

Hitchens:

I've said nothing uncomplimentary about the Armed Forces and you know that perfectly well

 

Heseltine:

You wait till you see the transcript

 

Hitchens:

How dare you say that I have?

 

Dimbleby:    Just to clarify, what you say you said , just say once more what you said about 18 year olds?

 

Hitchens:

That cynical politicians send young men out to kill and be killed

 

Heseltine:

No that's not what you said, You said they were stupid

 

Hitchens:

I said no such thing. Check the recording.

 

(As you will see, he was indeed wrong to claim I had said they were stupid).  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cannabis Revisited

Some of you might enjoy this from the 'American Spectator' . Some of you might not.

 

http://spectator.org/archives/2013/02/22/the-rights-reefer-madness

Responding to Mr Jacubs

I am most grateful to those of you who have rebutted the mistaken attacks made on me here by Mr Jacubs, who accuses me of abusing the Bomber Command aircrew and of wishing that Britain had been defeated in the two great European wars, both mistaken accusations without basis in fact. I had thought of doing it myself, but I am now confident that other readers here (even those who do not agree with me) can explain to this person that he is badly in the wrong.

 

I have no time for a long response. I'd say a couple of other things: one,  I hope Mr Jacubs learns a little about debate from this, makes his apologies and returns to make some more accurate and level-headed contributions; second that I understand much modern historical scholarship rejects the idea that the alternative to the Hiroshima bomb was a bloody invasion of Japan. I think it is now generally accepted that Truman's military chiefs were against use of the bomb, and that Japan was militarily and economically prostrate.

 

I'd welcome intelligent and informed debate about this. Many decent people, confronted with the horrors of Hiroshima and even less excusable horrors of Nagasaki, have welcomed the old argument of necessity, the the alternative was much worse. George Macdonald Fraser does so in his fine book about the Burma war 'Quartered Safe out Here' . I don't blame them. I just don't think it's true.

 

 

 

 

Bishop Bell speaks against the Bombing of German Civilians - February 1944

 

I have recently been directed by a colleague to the text of Bishop George Bell’s great speech against the British bombing of German civilians, delivered in the House of Lords on 9Th February 1944.

For those who want the full context, it can be now be found online (thanks to the great achievement of the Hansard record-keepers, of placing so much of Parliament’s past deliberation on line) here;

http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/lords/1944/feb/09/bombing-policy

 

I think it remains the clearest and most coherent and measured statement ever made on the subject. I also think that it wears far better than most of the oratory of the period, and has been shown over time to have been correct. The courage involved in making it must have been considerable. It should not be forgotten. It is also a complete rebuttal of the oft-made riposte to critciism of the bombing 'You were not there at the time'. George Bell was there at the time, was in fact living in Brighton when it was being bombed, and once personally persuaded a shocked and terrified group of people to leave a house in which unexploded bombs lay, and were likely to go off at any minute.

 

THE LORD BISHOP OF CHICHESTER had the following Notice on the Paper: To ask His Majesty's Government, whether, without detriment to the public interest, they can make a statement as to their policy regarding the bombing of towns in enemy countries, with special reference to the effect of such bombing on civilians as well as objects of non-military and non-Industrial significance in the area attacked; and to move for Papers.

 

§ The right reverend Prelate said: My Lords, the question which I have to ask is beset with difficulties. It deals with an issue which must have it own anxieties for the Government, and certainly causes great searchings of heart amongst large numbers of people who are as resolute champions of the Allied cause as any member of your Lordships' House. If long-sustained and public opposition to Hitler and the Nazis since 1933 is any credential, I would humbly claim to be one of the most convinced and consistent Anti-Nazis in Great Britain. But I desire to challenge the Government on the policy which directs the bombing of enemy towns on the present scale, especially with reference to civilians, non-combatants, and non-military and non-industrial objectives. I also desire to make it plain that, in anything I say on this issue of policy, no criticism is intended of the pilots, the gunners, and the air crews who, in circumstances of tremendous danger, with supreme courage and skill, carry out the simple duty of obeying their superiors' orders.

 

 

§ Few will deny that there is a distinction in principle between attacks on military and industrial objectives and attacks on objectives which do not possess that character. At the outbreak of the war, in response to an appeal by President Roosevelt, the Governments of the United Kingdom and France issued a joint declaration of their intention to conduct hostilities with a firm desire to spare the civilian population and to preserve in every way possible those monuments of human achievement which are treasured in all civilized countries. At the same time explicit instructions were issued to the Commanders of the Armed Forces prohibiting the bombardment, whether from the air or from the sea or by artillery on land, of any except strictly military objectives in the narrowest sense of the word. Both sides accepted this agreement. It is true that the Government added that, ‘In the event of the enemy not observing any of the restrictions which the Governments of the United Kingdom and France have thus imposed on the operation of their Armed Forces, these Governments reserve the right to take all such action as they may consider appropriate.’ It is true that on May 10, 1940, the Government publicly proclaimed their intention to exercise this right in the event of bombing by the enemy of civilian populations. But the point which I wish to establish at this moment is that in entering the war there was no doubt in the Government's mind that the distinction between military and non-military objectives was real.

 

§ Further, that this distinction is based on fundamental principles accepted by civilized nations is clear from the authorities in International Law. I give one instance the weight of which will hardly be denied. The Washington Conference on Limitation of Armaments in 1922 appointed a Commission of Jurists to draw up a code of rules about aerial warfare. It did not become an international convention, yet great weight should be attached to that code on account of its authors. Article 22 reads: ‘Aerial bombardment for the purpose of terrorizing the civilian population, of destroying or damaging private property not of military character, or of injuring non-combatants is prohibited.’ Article 24 says: ‘Aerial bombardment is legitimate only when directed at a military objective—that 739 is to say, an objective of which the destruction or injury would constitute a distinct military advantage to the belligerent.’ Professor A. L. Goodhart, of Oxford, states: ‘Both these Articles are based on the fundamental assumption that direct attack on non-combatants is an unjustifiable act of war.’

 

§ The noble Viscount, Lord Halifax, at the beginning of this war, in reference to this very thing, described war as bloody and brutal. It is idle to suppose that it can be carried on without fearful injury and violence from which non-combatants as well as combatants suffer. It is still true, nevertheless, that there are recognized limits to what is permissible. The Hague Regulations of 1907 are explicit. "The right of belligerents to adopt means of injuring the enemy is not unlimited." M. Bonfils, a famous French jurist, says: ‘If it is permissible to drive inhabitants to desire peace by making them suffer, why not admit pillage, burning, torture, murder, violation? ’I have recalled the joint declaration and these pronouncements because it is so easy in the process of a long and exhausting war to forget what they were once held without question to imply, and because it is a common experience in the history of warfare that not only war but actions taken in war as military necessities are often supported at the time by a class of arguments which, after the war is over, people find are arguments to which they never should have listened.

 

§ I turn to the situation in February, 1944, and the terrific devastation by Bomber Command of German towns. I do not forget the Luftwaffe, or its tremendous bombing of Belgrade, Warsaw, Rotterdam, London, Portsmouth, Coventry, Canterbury and many other places of military, industrial and cultural importance. Hitler is a barbarian. There is no decent person on the Allied side who is likely to suggest that we should make him our pattern or attempt to be competitors in that market. It is clear enough that large-scale bombing of enemy towns was begun by the Nazis. I am not arguing that point at all. The question with which I am concerned is this. Do the Government understand the full force of what area bombardment is doing and is destroying now? Are they alive not only to the vastness of the material damage, much of which is irreparable, but also to 740 the harvest they are laying up for the future relationships of the peoples of Europe as well as to its moral implications? The aim of Allied bombing from the air, said the Secretary of State for Air at Plymouth on January 22, is to paralyze German war industry and transport. I recognize the legitimacy of concentrated attack on industrial and military objectives, on airfields and air bases, in view especially of the coming of the Second Front. I fully realize that in attacks on centres of war industry and transport the killing of civilians when it is the result of bona-fide military activity is inevitable. But there must be a fair balance between the means employed and the purpose achieved. To obliterate a whole town because certain portions contain military and industrial establishments is to reject the balance.

 

§ Let me take two crucial instances, Hamburg and Berlin. Hamburg has a population of between one and two million people. It contains targets of immense military and industrial importance. It also happens to be the most democratic town in Germany where the Anti-Nazi opposition was strongest. Injuries to civilians resulting from bona-fide attacks on particular objectives are legitimate according to International Law. But owing to the methods used the whole town is now a ruin. Unutterable destruction and devastation were wrought last autumn. On a very conservative estimate, according to the early German statistics, 28,000 persons were killed. Never before in the history of air warfare was an attack of such weight and persistence carried out against a single industrial concentration. Practically all the buildings, cultural, military, residential, industrial, religious—including the famous University Library with its 800,000 volumes, of which three-quarters have perished—were razed to the ground.

 

§ Berlin, the capital of the Reich, is four times the size of Hamburg. The offices of the Government, the military, industrial, war-making establishments in Berlin are a fair target. Injuries to civilians are inevitable. But up to date half Berlin has been destroyed, area by area, the residential and the industrial portions alike. Through the dropping of thousands of tons of bombs, including fire-phosphorus bombs, of extraordinary power, men and women have been lost, overwhelmed in the colossal tornado of smoke, blast and 741 flame. It is said that 74,000 persons have been killed and that 3,000,000 are already homeless. The policy is obliteration, openly acknowledged. That is not a justifiable act of war. Again, Berlin is one of the great centres of art collections in the world. It has a large collection of Oriental and classical sculpture. It has one of the best picture galleries in Europe, comparable to the National Gallery. It has a gallery of modern art better than the Tate, a museum of ethnology without parallel in this country, one of the biggest and best organized libraries—State and university, containing two and a half million books—in the world. Almost all these non-industrial, non-military buildings are grouped together near the old Palace and in the Street of the Linden. The whole of that street, which has been constantly mentioned in the accounts of the raids, has been demolished. It is possible to replace flat houses by mass production. It is not possible so quickly to rebuild libraries or galleries or churches or museums. It is not very easy to rehouse those works of art which have been spared. Those works of art and those libraries will be wanted for the re-education of the Germans after the war. I wonder whether your Lordships realize the loss involved in that.

 

§ How is it, then, that this wholesale destruction has come about? The answer is that it is the method used, the method of area bombing. The first outstanding raid of area bombing was, I believe, in the spring of 1942, directed against Lubeck, then against Rostock, followed by the thousand-bomber raid against Cologne at the end of May, 1942. The point I want to bring home, because I doubt whether it is sufficiently realized, is that it is no longer definite military and industrial objectives which are the aim of the bombers, but the whole town, area by area, is plotted carefully out. This area is singled out and plastered on one night; that area is singled out and plastered on another night; a third, a fourth, a fifth area is similarly singled out and plastered night after night, till, to use the language of the Chief of Bomber Command with regard to Berlin, the heart of Nazi Germany ceases to beat. How can there be discrimination in such matters when civilians, monuments, military objectives and industrial objectives all together form the target? How can the bombers aim at anything more than 742 a great space when they see nothing and the bombing is blind?

 

§ When the Nazis bombed France and Britain in 1940 it was denounced as "indiscriminate bombing." I recall this passage from a leader in The Times after the bombing of Paris on June 4, 1940: ‘No doubt in the case of raids on large cities the targets are always avowedly military or industrial establishments; but, when delivered from the great height which the raiders seem to have been forced to keep by the anti-aircraft defences, the bombing in fact is bound to be indiscriminate.’ And I recall two other more recent articles in The Times on our own policy. On January 10, 1944, the following was published: ‘It is the proclaimed intention of Bomber Command to proceed with the systematic obliteration one by one of the centres of German war production until the enemy's capacity to continue the fight is broken down.’ On January 31 the Aeronautical Correspondent wrote: ‘Some of the most successful attacks of recent times have been made when every inch of the target area was obscured by unbroken cloud, thousands of feet thick, and when the crews have hardly seen the ground from which they took off until they were back at their bases again.’ If your Lordships will weigh the implication, and observe not only the destruction of the war-production factories but the obliteration of the places in which they are and the complete invisibility of the target area, it must surely be admitted that the bombing is comprehensive and what would ordinarily be called indiscriminate.

 

§ The Government have announced their determination to continue this policy city by city. I give quotations. The Prime Minister, after the thousand-bomber raid on Cologne in 1942, said: ‘Proof of the growing power of the British bomber force is also the herald of what Germany will receive city by city from now on.’ Air Marshal Sir Arthur Harris, on July 28, 1942, said: ‘We are going to scourge the Third Reich from end to end. We are bombing Germany city by city and ever more terribly in order to make it impossible for her to go on with the war. That is our object; we shall pursue it relentlessly.’ A few days ago, as reported in the Sunday Express of January 23, an Air Marshal said: "One by one we shall pull out every town in Germany like teeth."

 

  

§ I shall offer reasons for questioning this policy as a whole, but what I wish immediately to urge is this. There are old German towns, away from the great centres, which may be subjected—which almost certainly will be subjected—to the raids of Bomber Command. Almost certainly they are on the long list. Dresden, Augsburg, Munich are among the larger towns, Regensburg, Hildesheim and Marburg are a few among the smaller beautiful cities. In all these towns the old centres, the historic and beautiful things, are well preserved, and the industrial establishments are on the outskirts. After the destruction of the ancient town centres of Cologne, with its unique Romanesque churches, and Lubeck, with its brick cathedral, and Mainz, with one of the most famous German cathedrals, and of the old Gothic towns, the inner towns, Nuremberg, Hamburg and others, it would seem to be indicated that an effort, a great effort should be made to try to save the remaining inner towns. In the fifth year of the war it must surely be apparent to any but the most complacent and reckless how far the destruction of European culture has already gone. We ought to think once, twice, and three times before destroying the rest. Something can still be saved if it is realized by the authorities that the industrial centres, generally speaking, lie outside the old inner parts where are the historical monuments.

 

§ I would especially stress the danger—outside Germany—to Rome. The principle is the same, but the destruction of the main Roman monuments would create such hatred that the misery would survive when all the military and political advantages that may have accrued may have long worn off. The history of Rome is our own history. Rome taught us, through the example of Christ, to abolish human sacrifice and taught us the Christian faith. The destruction would rankle in the memory of every good European as Rome's destruction by the Goths or the sack of Rome rankled. The blame simply must not fall on those who are professing to create a better world. The resentment which would, inevitably, follow would be too deep-seated to be forgotten. It would be the sort of crime which one day, even in the political field, would turn against the perpetrators.

 

  

§ I wish to offer a few concluding remarks on the policy as a whole. It will be said that this area bombing—for it is this area bombing which is the issue to-day—is definitely designed to diminish the sacrifice of British lives and to shorten the war. We all wish with all our hearts that these two objects could be achieved, but to justify methods inhumane in themselves by arguments of expediency smacks of the Nazi philosophy that Might is Right. In any case the idea that it will reduce the sacrifice is speculation. The Prime Minister, as far back as August, 1940, before either Russia or America entered the war, justified the continued bombardment of German industries and communications as one of the surest, if not the shortest, of all the roads to victory. We are still fighting. It is generally admitted that German aircraft and military production, though it has slowed down, is going forward; and your Lordships may have noticed signs in certain military quarters of a tendency to question the value of this area bombing policy on military grounds. The cost in sacrifice of human life when the Second Front begins has never been disguised either from the American or from the British public by our leaders.

 

§ It is also urged that area bombing will break down morale and the will to fight. On November 5, in a speech at Cheltenham, the Secretary of State for Air said that bombing in this way would continue until we had paralysed German war industries, disrupted their transport system and broken their will to war. Again leaving the ethical issue aside, it is pure speculation. Up to now the evidence received from neutral countries is to the opposite effect. It is said that the Berliners are taking it well. Let me quote from two Swedish papers. On November 30 last, the Svenska Dagbladet—this was during the first stage of our raids on Berlin—said: ‘Through their gigantic air raids the British have achieved what Hitler failed to achieve by means of decrees and regulations; they have put the majority of the German people on a war footing.’ On January 9 of this year, the Sydsvenska Dagbladet said: ‘The relative German strength on the home front is undoubtedly based on desperation, which increases and gets worse the longer the mass bombing lasts. It is understandable that the fewer the survivors and the more they 745 lose the more the idea spreads 'We have everything to gain and nothing to lose, and we can only regain what is ours if Germany wins the final victory, so let us do everything in our power.'’ If there is one thing absolutely sure, it is that a combination of the policy of obliteration with a policy of complete negation as to the future of a Germany which has got free from Hitler is bound to prolong the war and make the period after the war more miserable.

 

§ I am not extenuating the crimes of the Nazis or the responsibility of Germany as a whole in tolerating them for so long, but I should like to add this. I do not believe that His Majesty's Government desire the annihilation of Germany. They have accepted the distinction between Germany and the Hitlerite State.

 

SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS : ‘NO!’

 

THE LORD BISHOP OF CHICHESTER On March 10 of last year the Lord Chancellor, speaking officially for the Government, accepted that distinction quite clearly and precisely. Is it a matter for wonder that Anti-Nazis who long for help to overthrow Hitler are driven to despair? I have here a telegram, which I have communicated to the Foreign Office, sent to me on December 27 last by a well-known Anti-Nazi Christian leader who had to flee from Germany for his life long before the war. It was sent from Zurich, and puts what millions inside Germany must feel. He says: ‘Is it understood that present situation gives us no sincere opportunity for appeal to people because one cannot but suspect effect of promising words on practically powerless population convinced by bombs and phosphor that their annihilation is resolved?’ If we wish to shorten the war, as we must, then let the Government speak a word of hope and encouragement both to the tortured millions of Europe and to those enemies of Hitler to whom in 1939 Mr. Churchill referred as ''millions who stand aloof from the seething mass of criminality and corruption constituted by the Nazi Party machine."

 

Why is there this blindness to the psychological side? Why is there this inability to reckon with the moral and spiritual facts? Why is there this forgetfulness of the ideals by which our cause is inspired? How can the War Cabinet fail to see that this progressive devastation of cities is threatening the roots of civilization? How can they be blind to the harvest of even fiercer warring and desolation, even in this country, to which the present destruction will inevitably lead when the members of the War Cabinet have long passed to their rest? How can they fail to realize that this is not the way to curb military aggression and end war? This is an extraordinarily solemn moment. What we do in war—which, after all, lasts a comparatively short time—affects the whole character of peace, which covers a much longer period. The sufferings of Europe, brought about by the demoniac cruelty of Hitler and his Nazis, and hardly imaginable to those in this country who for the last five years have not been out of this island or had intimate association with Hitler's victims, are not to be healed by the use of power only, power exclusive and unlimited. The Allies stand for something greater than power. The chief name inscribed on our banner is "Law." It is of supreme importance that we who, with our Allies, are the liberators of Europe should so use power that it is always under the control of law. It is because the bombing of enemy towns—this area bombing—raises this issue of power unlimited and exclusive that such immense importance is bound to attach to the policy and action of His Majesty's Government. I beg to move.

 

 

 

Mr Bunker, Evolution, War Crimes, the Resurrection, the Left's bitter hatred, and Nick Griffin's right to free speech

Before I move on to my examination of John Steinbeck (coming soon) I’ll try to draw a temporary line under a number of discussions and questions. First, I am asked if I believe in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Yes, of course I do, and in everything else in the creed I say out loud weekly in Church. I believe, but I do not *know* , and I also understand that others choose not to believe, and respect their decisions.

 

I do not, however, respect Mr ‘Bunker’, who cannot debate in a straightforward fashion, not because he is trying to deceive me (he isn’t, and he won’t, because I long ago worked out what he was up to),  or even to deceive anyone else,  but because he is busy fooling himself. People who could see through the cleverest confidence trickster and the most devious politician can always be diddled by themselves.

 

So, alas, Old Concrete won’t learn anything from what I say next. He has barred the doors of his understanding. But others might. Look at how he does it  (and , by the way, he’d make his comments a lot easier to find if he abandoned his current silly, prolix pseudonym and called himself , say ‘Concrete Bunker’ – a good metaphor for the fortress he has built round his own understanding) .  Here’s an example. In this (as others have done over ‘addiction’ etc.) , he tries to seize on something that I have said with a broad meaning, and then to claim that the words used also possess a narrow meaning, which contradicts what I have said elsewhere. Fundamentally, it involves deliberately misunderstanding what I am saying. It is irritating, clever clogs trickery designed to show the user as brilliant rather than to make a serious point,  but (just as some people fooled by conjuring tricks have to have it explained that their eyes were cunningly diverted, lest they are too impressed and draw false conclusions)  it has to be explained, lest anyone is taken in. 

 

He says I ‘cannot accept evolution as a fact’.  I say that, in its basic, non-circular form, it isn’t proven, so can’t be accepted by *anyone* as a *fact*. The inability is not mysteriously specific to me, as Mr Bunker’s belief in the non-existence of God is.  It is a consequence of the known facts. It is also clearly influenced by my view on Theism.

But it is based purely upon facts and reason.

 

Earlier on, for instance, even Mr ‘Bunker says ‘I don't believe evolution is proven.’ I’ll bet he isn’t bombarded, as a result,  by rude comments deriding him as a stupid Bible literalist.

 

My point about not believing in evolution because there is insufficient data to form such a belief, was( as I should have thought clear) to do with its presentation by many (not last many who comment here) as a proven *fact* which it is compulsory for any informed person to accept. (I have repeatedly said that I am prepared to accept that the theory *might* be true).

 

It was a separate point from my contrasting agnostic attitude towards it as a *faith*, and as the creation myth of atheism(which I believe it to be). On this, as an open-minded person who has to be willing to change his mind in the light of evidence, I choose reluctantly to be agnostic. I could equally well choose to say it was flatly false, though I think that would be unreasonable.  What I couldn’t do, *because of my belief in God*, is to say I believed in it. Why couldn’t I do so? Because of the reason for my decision to believe in God, discussed elsewhere (put simply, if I wish for justice and order, then I must make myself subject to justice and order, and I am convinced that these can only come from an unchanging, eternal God). These are the reasons for my *belief*. I do not say I *cannot* *believe* in evolution as a *faith*. I say I *cannot* *believe* in it as a proven scientific fact. I *could* believe in it as a *faith* , if I changed my mind about the sort of universe I desired.

 

The common belief that evolution is a fact is not comparable with belief in God. It is comparable to the pre-modern belief in Bible literalism, which cannot survive modern scientific knowledge.

 

Then Mr Bunker gets his tank back on the old road where he is most happy. He begins, as so often, with the appearance of sweet reasonableness. He says : ‘I wish he would be gracious enough to accept that - as I see it - there is not enough evidence for the existence of any God or gods.’ .

 

Does he really think I don’t? Of course I accept that, assuming he means that there is not enough evidence to *prove* the existence of God.(I don’t quite know what other use the word ‘enough’ could have, in this context)  I always have. This side of the grave, I always will. The other side, I hope to know for certain.

 

But then he goes and spoils it all by saying something stupid: ‘on the contrary, I see so much evidence (which is beyond my control) that goes against their existence that I can do no other than to have no belief in them at all. And, what's more, to believe that do not exist at all.’

 

How can I get it across to him that the evidence he sees (by its nature a tiny, tiny part of the universe, in a tiny space of time, mediated by a tiny amount of knowledge – the fate of all of us) is not by any means beyond his control. He chooses what to regard *as* evidence. He chooses what weight to give it. He does so on the basis of a view he already holds. Just as I will give a higher value to the evidence for God, he will give a higher value to the evidence against. He has chosen, as have I. Why?  It is not ‘beyond his control’. On the contrary, it is wholly controlled by him.  He has decided. All I want to know is why.

 

Faith is not arrived at by ’sufficient data’. Scientific truth is.  For it concerns matters where there never will be sufficient date to make a definite choice. It is arrived at by moral choice. I’ve told him the reasons for mine. What are the reasons for his?

 

I don’t know what’s ‘left wing’ about supporting Cait Reilly. I do not think a free person should be ordered to work for a private company without being paid for that work. Ms Reilly, who is currently working in a supermarket, has never disdained work. She just thinks she should be paid for it by the people she's working for, especially if they are a large and profitable commercial organisation, , and I agree with her. I don’t think Mr O’Neill grasps this simple point, and I am not sure what Mr Jacubs is driving at either. I wrote this paragraph because I wished I had said so earlier, but decided that it wasn’t too late to say it now. I am glad if it surprises people. I dislike being misunderstood by my supporters, just as much as I dislike being misunderstood by those who loathe me. I am a Christian patriot, not a Tory PR man.

 

I am not, as an anonymous contributor crudely claims ‘an admirer of A.C.Grayling's theory that Arthur Harris and Bomber Command were a bunch of war criminals.’ Firstly I don’t think I have applied the dubious term ‘war criminal’ to anyone involved.  I won’t say I have never, ever, used this term ( I think I have so described Ariel Sharon) but I am chary of it, and suspect the whole Nuremberg process of being fishy.

 

Secondly I entirely exempt the brave, cruelly squandered aircrews of Bomber Command from blame for a policy which was as wasteful of their own lives as it was careless of those of German civilians, and which was not their responsibility or choice, and which I doubt they fully understood.

 

I also doubt very much whether a person in the modern Ukay working in the public sector faces any great risk of persecution for expressing an opinion, unless he or she actually identifies himself or herself as (for example) ‘chief condom outreach worker for Stretchford Metropolitan Council’ or whatever it is. Firstly, the risk for most people is in challenging ‘Equality and Diversity’ *at work*, where it is imposed. Secondly, most British people’s names ( mine is an exception) are common enough for positive identification to be extremely difficult.

 

I’m grateful for all the pledges of support if I’m ever marched off to the cells. I hope I don’t have to redeem them.

 

The problem for people such as me, minor celebrities with some access to public platforms, is different from that of individual public service workers. 

 

In the short term, I can be bolder in what I say than most people. In the long term,  I feel a cold, unfriendly eye on me, one which would be glad to see me humiliated and despatched to obscurity. The personalised hatred I experience on, say, ‘Twitter’ or in ‘Guardian’ comment threads is not confined to the uneducated or stupid.

 

And it is very fervent. The Left really does hate its opponents.  Look at John O’Farrell’s extraordinary musings on Lady Thatcher (NB I reproduce here the version of his words produced *in his defence* by a left-wing website which claims he is being smeared). Mr O’Farrell is not just the author of some unfunny books. He is the officially approved Labour candidate in the Eastleigh by-election.  I have emphasised some passages from the extract from his book.

 

‘Set against the generosity of the miners’ supporters, the inspiring acts of self-sacrifice, the social education, the new friendships and the incredible courage, there was heart-wrenching suffering. I was moved and angered by every story I read. A miner crushed to death by a lorry crossing the picket line. Families torn apart by debt and the fear of losing their homes. Miners weeping and apologising as they crossed the picket line because they had no financial choice. Miners sent to prison for assault who had simply been plucked on! of the crowd. And all this suffering was precipitated by a prime minister hell bent on avenging the miners’ defeat of the Conservatives in 1972 and 1974. A government whose policies were not based on economics or the national interest but on their own party political and class interest, to bring the British trade union movement to heel by crushing the most militant and symbolic union of all – the National Union of Mineworkers. I hated Mrs Thatcher more and more with the passing of each day. I hated her more than was healthy. I hated her so much I wanted her to die.

 

‘I would invent all sorts of elaborate scenarios whereby she would cease to be prime minister of Britain. Some involved a sombre deputation from the 1922 Committee and others involved me popping up with a machine-gun during her standing ovation at the Conservative Party conference. And so in October 1984 when the Brighton bomb went off, I felt a surge of excitement at the nearness of her demise and yet disappointment that such a chance had been missed. This was me – the pacifist, anti-capital punishment, anti-IRA liberal – wishing that they bad got her. Why did she have to leave the bathroom two minutes earlier? I asked myself over and over again. I just hated her so very, very much.

 

‘But with some justification, it has to be said. And though some might argue that I should not have been prepared to countenance undemocratic means to get rid of her, she was not being particularly democratic in the way she exercised and extended her power. Apart from the outrages of the Miners’ Strike, all sorts of sinister and draconian things were happening. CND leaders were picking up their phones and hearing their last conversations being played back, trade unionists were receiving their post in resealed envelopes, Clive Ponting, a civil servant at the Ministry of Defence, was arrested under the Official Secrets Act for leaking the truth about the sinking of the Belgrano, and elections for the GLC were to be cancelled and an unelected Conservative body to be put in the authority’s place until abolition. The miners had to win or nothing would stop her.’

 

In case you think that’s in the past, and so doesn't count,  I would add Janice Turner’s account in ‘The Times’ last Saturday of a recent edition of that impartial Radio 4 BBC ‘Comedy’ programme, ‘The News Quiz’ . It runs : ‘‘Although I love Radio 4's News Quiz, last week I leapt across the kitchen to switch it off. A comedian had begun her remarks about the Education Secretary's U-turn on the English Baccalaureate with "that foetus in a jar, Michael Gove". Yes, added the chairman, Sandi Toksvig, he obviously has no friends and "a face that makes even the most pacifist of people reach for the shovel". Cue wild laughter and applause.’

I’m still trying to get the context of that.

 

I am not a political ally of Lady Thatcher or Michael Gove. And I have been known to be a bit rude about some of my opponents in this country, But this level of loathing is so serious that I do not think Dr Freud needs to be called in to explain why I worry that, one day, my critics might take their revenge.

 

By the way, a small footnote to Mr O’Farrells’s hymn of praise to the miners’ strike called (without a ballot) by Arthur Scargill and bravely defied by many miners who didn’t want to be Mr Scargill’s battering ram, and his talk of ‘heart-wrenching suffering’ . I think we should also remember the death of David Wilkie, a father of four, who died after a concrete pillar was thrown on to the roof of his taxi by two striking miners.  Mr Wilkie was driving two working miners to a colliery in mid-Glamorgan. More details of this case (including of a campaign for the early release of the culprits) to are to be found in this interesting Guardian’ story http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2004/jan/26/uk.tradeunions

 

By the way, some BNP bores have accused me of not defending Nick Griffin’s right to speak freely, however disgusting his thoughts may be(well, they didn’t put it like that):

 

This is flatly untrue. On 19th December 2004 I wrote : ‘WE NOW live in a country where the leader of a political party can be arrested Put out of your mind the fact that the arrested man is the repulsive Nick Griffin, leader of the despicable British National Party.

 

Of course the enemies of liberty have picked such a person for their first major exercise.

 

It is precisely because Mr Griffin's thoughts and speeches are ugly and poisonous that he has been chosen. The hope is that no decent citizen will come to his aid.

If hardly anybody protests, then the concrete-headed people who are fast supplanting decent coppers in our police forces will be emboldened to do it again.

And who will be the next to be roused from his bed in the dark and summoned for questioning about his opinions?

We all know the old saying about Nazi Germany, where they came for the Communists and the Jews first, and everyone else did nothing because they were neither of these things. And then there was nobody left to protest.

In Britain, it is the other way round. It is the Nazis who are the first to be arrested for their opinions.

But it is all of us who will have to watch what we think or say if we do not resist this. '

And on 13th July 2009 I put in another plea for Mr Griffin to be given a platform: ‘YES, the BNP leader Nick Griffin should be on Question Time. A few suggestions: The first question should be about his attitude to the Holocaust. The second should be about why his party's constitution is bigoted. And the third should be about his interesting appearance next to a one-time stalwart of the Ku Klux Klan. After that, I'd love to see him asked for the details of his economic policy and given all the time in the world to explain it. Oh, and please make sure he is not on a panel with identikit liberal elite politicians from the New and Blue Labour Parties.

 

‘It is their silence and evasion over mass immigration, disorder and the EU that have made the BNP as strong as it is. The best way to head off the BNP is for the BBC to give more of a voice to legitimate, civilised people who don't share the Left-liberal consensus.’

Oh, and a small note on Jury trial. Anyone really interested in my views on this, and on the recent history of the issue,  is asked to read the chapter 'Twelve Angry Persons', in 'The Abolition of Liberty' .

The casual way in which we got rid of the property qualification is startling. The even more casual and poorly-debated introduction of majority verdicts is even worse. I would be quite happy to accept some sort of minimum age plus education barrier instead of the old property qualification, but none was ever devised or proposed.

 

Majority verdicts are simply a device to undermine jury trial altogether, as several distinguished judges noted at the time. Jury trial, based on unanimous verdicts,  is the single greatest guarantee of liberty in our entire constitution. If it leads to the occasional acquittal of a guilty person, that does not begin to counterbalance its value.   

 

'Professional juries' would either become part of the state or become case-hardened and inclined to convict. What we need is a group of wise, mature people who come fresh to the evidence, and who cannot be hurried or pushed around into over-riding their doubts.  

 

 

PS. No, I have never been invited on to 'Desert Island Discs', which seems to be mainly devoted to showbiz and Groucho Club metropolitan trendy types these days ,  though some readers will remember my appearance on a faintly similar programme 'The House I Grew Up In' a couple of years ago.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

West of Eden

My late brother Christopher liked to ask me deadpan questions designed to search out my opinions or knowledge on whatever subject he was being forceful about at the time.  In one of our final conversations, he suddenly said to me (and I cannot remember how it arose, except that we must have been discussing what politicians read) : ‘Barack Obama says a book by John Steinbeck influenced him strongly. Which book do you think it is?’ .

 

Had I read the New York Times a few months before, I would have known, because they had produced a list. But I hadn’t.  Even so, I disappointed Christopher by getting the answer dead right, and immediately. I knew, from the specially toneless way in which the question was asked, that it wouldn’t be the obvious Steinbeck book,  the  mighty classic, ‘The Grapes of Wrath’.  I suspected it wouldn’t be a front-rank book at all.  So, partly, because I have always thought that Mr Obama was a good deal closer to America’s old, hard Left, and partly because of the foregoing,  I said ‘In Dubious Battle’.  I got a silent, slightly disappointed look , and then I think the phone rang, blast it.

 

Later I hit back by talking about a Kingsley Amis short story he’d never read (and the very existence of which he therefore doubted) and a novel by Elizabeth Taylor (not her, the other one) which he was also unaware of. ‘Who? Who?’ he asked, like the Duke of Wellington listening to the names of a lot of dud Cabinet ministers.  We used to play these fraternal, not-wholly-fair games. Now we can’t.

 

I hadn’t read ‘In Dubious Battle’ a  not-very-good account of Communist agitators stirring up a fruit-pickers’ strike in Roosevelt-era California for years and years and years (I’ve re-read it since, and it doesn’t get any better, though the author obviously wasn’t eating well while he wrote it, as it goes on and on about food). I suspect the New York Times reporter who compiled the President’s book choices hadn’t read it either, or he or she might have been more interested  in a President who selected that of all things. I had read it at school, aged 15, along with almost everything Steinbeck ever wrote (I have always drawn the line at finishing ‘The Short Reign of Pippin IV’, and, since it became a compulsory school classic, I’ve been unable to face ‘Of Mice and Men’ again, though I suppose I will have to eventually. That damned mouse). I’ve even read ‘To a God Unknown’ and ‘The Moon is Down’, though ‘Cup of Gold’ has passed me by and my recollections of Cannery Row are dim. I shouldn’t think I understood more than about a quarter of it, when I was 15. I didn’t much like ‘Winter of our Discontent’, which had a feeling of having been written to justify winning the Nobel Prize, a hard burden for any living, active author to bear, when his best work is done.

 

I won’t write here about ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ because I can think of nothing new to say about it. Parts of it are lodged permanently in the minds of all those who have read it, and it is always interesting to find out which parts have lodged most strongly. Perhaps we’ll discuss that later.

 

The ones I really value, and have read more times than I can count,  are ‘East of Eden’ and ‘Travels with Charley’. I tediously recommend both of them to anyone who will stop and listen. Why? Well, ‘Travels with Charley’ explodes into the imagination if you haven’t seen America, but does so five times more so if you have. It also describes the end of an older America, when freeways were still new and TV hadn’t completely obliterated local characteristics. Its description of Steinbeck’s journey to the landscape of his childhood (very brief indeed) is extraordinarily poignant, made more so by the knowledge I now have that he thought he was probably dying when he set out on his journey.

 

I believe it’s now said that he spent a lot more time in comfortable hotels than in his purpose-built camper truck than he lets on in the book. Good for him. I don’t care. The journey, in any case, provides him with a  way of describing one of the most haunting, haunted and ( as it happens) melancholy landscapes.  There’s also a brief moment, in which he muses on a friend’s recollection of the hunting down and the destruction of the Nez Perce Indians, which should move any decent person to tears on sight, and cause him or her to ponder on who really has title to the land he lives in, and how it was come by (always useful before lecturing Israelis or Ulster Protestants on the subject, I think).

 

 The presence of the dog Charley gives it a necessary escape into occasional humour, very badly needed when he visits the Deep South and sees the demonic passion of racial hatred at its very worst . Leaving aside its descriptions, it’s also powerfully good about the loneliness of travel, and the irresistible urge to hurry home at all costs which seizes every long-distance voyager at some desperate point. Whenever I read it, and see him sitting by the truck with a lonely cup of coffee and his ageing, eccentric dog snuffling and whimpering, I see it as that moment when the light starts to thicken and the world becomes an exciting but disturbing place of solitude and mystery.  There’s a passage in Macbeth (spoken I think by a murderer) which beautifully evokes it ‘ The west yet glimmers with some streaks of day; now spurs the lated traveller apace to gain the timely inn’ . Not long before, Macbeth himself has remarked : ‘Light thickens, and the crow makes wing to the rooky wood. Good things of day begin to droop and drowse; whiles night’s black agents to their preys do rouse”.

 

The funny thing is that, the more I like the book, the less I like its author.

 

The same is true of his masterpiece, ‘East of Eden’. I won’t spoil the plot for those who haven’t read it,  which everyone should.  I would urge nobody to see the film version, which barely begins to do justice to the enormous  story it tries to summarise in a few hours of celluloid. I hope never to see it again, though I hope to read the book at least twice again before I die.  Like most good books, it reveals more and more of itself each time.

 

It is a  tragedy in which there is some redemption, but only some. Its central theme is that we are not forced by our parentage or by fate to continue the sins, feuds and follies of our forebears, but are ultimately free to choose our own fates. But there is much, much more in it than that, not least a real understanding of what Americans are like, and why.

 

It is built ( as Biblical scholars will immediately see from the title) around the theme of Cain and Abel.   Like so much of the best American fiction (I think here of the strange semi-detached middle of  Robert Penn Warren’s sublime novel ‘All the King’s Men’), it has some unexpected roots in the Civil War. It contains one of the most unrelentingly evil characters ever conceived in fiction, and one of the most loveable.  From time to time it is a bit overwritten,  as Steinbeck tries too hard to be literary in a style that was over and done with even when he aimed at it.  But for the most part it is very spare, as spare as the Salinas Valley in which it comes to its ferocious conclusion.

 

It is strange that the clunky propagandist of ‘ Dubious Battle’ could also have written such a work .  ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ might be said to be a mature, greatly expanded and hugely improved attempt to make the same point to many more people, by widening it from Communism to a more generalised support for the Roosevelt New Deal . But ‘East of Eden’ is something else entirely. As with ‘Grapes of Wrath’ I have parts of it stuck irremovably in my memory. But I also find myself (when I reread it) realising that various thoughts that I have long imagined were my own have in fact come from its pages.  

 

 

 

  

Don't muzzle our 'cruel' lawyers - I'll need one to keep me out of jail

This is Peter Hitchens's Mail on Sunday Column

 

I genuinely fear that I will go to prison before I die, for writing or saying something that is no longer allowed. I have met quite a lot of people who hate me and my views so much that they would very much like this to happen.

Our society is already a hundred times more intolerant than it was when I was born. In recent years, police officers have actually questioned prominent people because of opinions they have expressed, a thing unthinkable even 30 years ago.

Of course the main threat to free speech is not prison but the loss of your job, as anyone in the public sector knows very well.

But the limits on what can be said shrink all the time, and the powers of the police and prosecutors grow.

At some point these two curves may meet, and I may find myself on the receiving end of one of those nasty, well-publicised dawn raids that the police like so much.

My only hope, if this happens, will be in the courtroom. That is one reason why I urge you not be seduced by calls to limit the freedom of defence lawyers.

Witnesses do lie and make things up. Juries are often pretty feeble and too easily led. Since they abolished the property qualification and brought the age limit down to 18 (it may soon be 16), the chances of having your case heard by educated or experienced people have shrivelled.

And since the disgraceful introduction of majority verdicts, one or two wise jurors cannot hold out for long against a lazy, bored majority who think there’s no smoke without fire, and want to go home.
[columnistModule]

So unless defence lawyers have full freedom to question prosecution witnesses, the defendant in a modern British trial might as well go straight to jail and get on with his sentence.

Like any civilised person, I grieve at the death of Frances Andrade, who killed herself after giving evidence against Michael Brewer, during which she was vigorously cross-examined.

May she rest in peace. But I object strongly to the way in which many people have used this event to argue for limits on the freedom to cross-examine.

We do not really know why she took her life, though I would point out that, like a frightening number of suicides, she was taking so-called ‘antidepressant’ drugs, which are known in some cases to promote suicidal feelings in those who take them.

Think of this another way. A trial is not just an argument after which everyone goes home. If the accused is found guilty, he goes to prison and – if he has until then been a respectable person, who will suffer greatly in jail – his life is more or less at an end. Some people deserve this. But their guilt must be proved first. If trials become mere formalities, in which we go through the motions of justice while forgetting its principles, we will be a tyranny.
Your starter for ten... how many questions would Paxo get right?

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Your starter for ten... how many questions would Paxo get right?

Jeremy Paxman was exceptionally rude to University Challenge contestant Tom Tyszczuk Smith when he got an answer badly wrong.

And he knew it, which was why, when the student soon afterwards got a difficult answer right, Mr Paxman beamed a 2,000-watt ingratiating simper at him. Mr Paxman does have a more conciliatory side, as he revealed when he once hand-delivered a letter of apology to Peter Mandelson.

The thing is, Mr Paxman already knew that Tom T-S was an unusually gentle, diffident and polite young man. They’d met before – last October, in a previous heat.

Near the start of that programme, Tom T-S pressed his buzzer and then realised (I’ve done the same thing) that he had completely forgotten what he meant to say. After a ghastly silence, he whispered, very touchingly: ‘I’m terribly sorry, it’s gone.’ Even my stony heart went out to him. For some time afterwards, the poor youth hung his head in what appeared to be hopeless embarrassment.
He obviously knows a lot, and has the courage to risk mockery and scorn by going on the programme, but he is not confident. So it seems odd that his particular stumble should attract such scorn.

Mr Paxman really should not act so superior. I suspect his historical knowledge is quite patchy. I’m sure he’s as baffled by the science questions he asks as almost everyone else is, even though he maintains  a stern demeanour.

His pronunciation of German words is comically bad. Despite this, he always refers to the Chinese author Jung Chang as if she were German, wrongly calling her ‘Yoong Chang’. And the other day he mixed up the 21st and the 121st Psalms, which a Cambridge English graduate shouldn’t do.
Corruption wasn't policewoman April Casburn's real crime
Policewoman April Casburn is in prison for supposed corruption, but the only evidence against her was from a newspaper reporter

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Corruption wasn't policewoman April Casburn's real crime

There really ought to be a huge fuss about the conviction, on the feeblest grounds, of policewoman April Casburn.

She is in prison for supposed corruption, but the only evidence against her was from a newspaper reporter who said ‘she must have asked for money’, because that was what he put in an email to colleagues after talking to her. ‘Must have’. Hardly a ringing declaration, is it?

Against her repeated denials and years of good character (she didn’t need money and was an experienced and well-regarded officer of some distinction) this does not seem to me to be beyond reasonable doubt.

I suspect her offence was that she talked to a newspaper.

Well, if that’s so, should this conviction and sentence be allowed to stand?

Now consider this. A youth, now 17, admits that he struck Anthony Owen, 68, in the face. Dr Owen, a distinguished cancer specialist, is thought to have then fallen and hit his head on the ground. He died. The youth, who was with friends at the time of the incident, cannot be named for legal reasons.

He says he acted in self-defence, and was scared of the 68-year-old doctor. The Crown Prosecution Service has decided not to charge him.

Do you want to live in a country where these sorts of things can happen?

Now we see clearly that the promise of the NHS, of treatment ‘free at the point of use’, is a sham. In return for great piles of taxes, they’ll hand out pills and bandages when you’re still reasonably young and fit. But as soon as you really need to be looked after, they starve you to death, or turf you out and make you sell your house to pay for ‘care’. Just like the insurance companies, they slip away when the going gets tough.
 
I find myself rather admiring the spirit of Cait Reilly, the young woman who objected to being ordered to work unpaid at Poundland. She acted as a free British person ought to act. I didn’t join in the jeers against her when her action first came to light, and I’m very glad.