A High Standard of Debate?

A very brief reflection here on a couple of contributions to Friday's House of Commons debate on Berlin Time, the official record of which can be viewed on the Parliament website.

As I said in my MoS column, the arguments in favour of this pernicious Bill depend very heavily on assuming the truth of various projections about (for example) tourism which are wholly speculative, and on a bizarre and mistaken belief that road deaths fell during the last period of 'Darker Later' tyranny when in fact they rose. Note here the limits of my argument: I don't know why deaths rose, or if they would have risen more or less under different circumstances, or even fallen - though several major changes in road conditions and traffic laws were beginning to be felt around this time. What I do know is that they did in fact rise, and that therefore, whatever the reason for this rise, it is impossible to claim that they fell, or to speculate on why they fell.

The Minister, Ed Davey, made in many ways the best speech of the debate, which acknowledged many of the facts and arguments deployed against the Bill by the Mail on Sunday. I am still unclear if the government will now quietly adopt a version of the idea, which I am absolutely sure has not gone away. I shall be looking into this.

But I would like to record two (Tory) contributions. One is from a Mr Ben Gummer, whom I think I once met while speaking to an undergraduate society in Cambridge (he made a strongly pro-EU point in response to what I said, in summarising my book 'The Abolition of Britain') but have not since encountered. I gather he attained a very good degree and has written a book on the Black Death, so he is obviously not a fool. He is the son of the notable Tory Europhile and social liberal John Gummer, a very clever politician (with an equally clever brother in the shape of Lord Chadlington) let down in this febrile, lookist age by his overgrown schoolboy appearance and by his perfectly reasonable decision to let his daughter eat an unpalatable but risk-free hamburger in front of photographers, in a justified attempt to stem the ludicrous BSE panic.

The other is from Mr Tobias Ellwood, someone for whom I would normally have some time, given his upbringing abroad and his army service - both likely to broaden the mind and strengthen the character - and his personal courage recently demonstrated when he confronted a group of louts in the street (and was quite severely beaten for his pains).

Note that, despite what I am about to reproduce, I have taken the trouble to find out a little about these people, and to stress their abilities and achievements.

Contrast that with what follows, two abstracts from Hansard, the official record of the debate:

Ben Gummer: 'May I put to him an argument that has not been put so far? The unofficial opposition to the Bill appears to have been mobilised by Mr Peter Hitchens. Is that not the clincher in favour of a successful passage for the Bill, or does the Hon. Gentleman wish to find himself in alliance with Mr Hitchens?'

And a little later.

Tobias Ellwood: 'But let us get back to Peter Hitchens. [Laughter.] He is one of the few voices that are against the daylight saving, but I believe that he now acts as a drag anchor against that great British newspaper the Sunday Mail- [Interruption.]-I am sorry; The Mail on Sunday. He is anti-change; he is anti-technology, so the idea of moving the clocks abhors him. That is slightly odd. Because he does not like inventions and technology, one would have thought that using the light bulb less might appeal to him, but he does not put that argument forward. He would rather put forward a wartime rhetoric with references to Berlin time to foster prejudice against the Bill.

' "Why Berlin time?" it has been asked. "Why not Gibraltar time, Madrid time, Paris time or Rome time?" Clearly, those descriptions would not conjure up the same worrying image as the UK crumbling to the mighty powers of Berlin after the sacrifices that we made in two world wars. I say to him, "Peter, you are potty. Clearly, you are a very, very angry man and stuck in the past. You are a cross between Alf Garnett and Victor Meldrew but without the jokes." He is a restless regressive: the King Canute of politics, fighting the tide of change. He will never lose sight of the past because he has chosen to walk backwards into the future. This is nothing to do with Berlin or wartime images.'

I can't say this with certainty of Mr Gummer, since he makes no reference to me other than to jeer. But I am quite sure that Mr Ellwood has not read what I have written about this, or that if he has he has not understood it. If his research on me and my opinions is an indication of the level of his research on the issue of changing the clocks, I think we can safely discount what he says. Meanwhile I challenge him (and Mr Gummer) to a public debate, preferably in front of his Constituency Association, on this subject.

By the way, this morning's 'Guardian' also contains another instance of the automatic assumption in the establishment that 'Right Wing' commentators are axiomatically stupid, wrong and ill-informed. Ms Decca Aitkenhead has interviewed Professor David Nutt. She was not that impressed with him or his case, and some of the druggie posters here will not like what she said about his much-touted report. She wrote: 'Last month Nutt's new foundation published its first major report in the Lancet, which ranked 20 different drugs according to 16 different harms they do, both to users and to wider society. Alcohol came top, higher than heroin, crack and crystal meth, while ecstasy and LSD were ranked among the least damaging. It was, undeniably, the most comprehensive study of their respective risks ever conducted – and as someone who has enjoyed certain recreational drugs far more than I've ever liked alcohol, it would suit me very well to welcome its findings. But its shortcomings seemed pretty glaringly obvious, even to someone as unscientifically minded as me.

'The rankings did not allow for the drugs' current legal status – and therefore availability – and so as Nutt himself has acknowledged: "Overall, alcohol is the most harmful drug because it's so widely used." But by that token, I suggest, one could say that drinking tea is more dangerous than climbing Mount Everest. Just because lots of people have been scalded by a popular drink, this tells us little about the risks of a minority sport such as mountaineering. If we're trying to establish the objective danger of a specific substance, in order to formulate policy, surely we can only calculate its harm in the context of its prevalence?'

But at least she tried to ascertain what the Professor thought and what he knew. Not in my case. No need. I am dismissed thus: 'He [Professor Nutt] is also very good at exposing the confusion of much political thinking on drugs, as well as the baseless alarmism of media commentators like Peter Hitchens, who don't want facts to get in the way of prejudice.'

So that's all right then. All that work I did on the facts of criminal sanctions for cannabis possession, not to mention all Robin Murray's work on cannabis and mental health - on which I base my justified alarm - doesn't exist. Half the problem conservatives have is simply getting anyone to pay attention to what they actually say. And when those who refuse to pay attention include Tory MPs, I think it safe to say that my contention that the Tory Party is part of the liberal establishment is pretty much proven. Though of course 'HM', that steadfast and unshakeable believer in BBC neutrality (even when the organisation's own senior figures own up to it), will presumably continue to insist that I am imagining this treatment, and 'Bert' will presumably argue that none of it has any significance to anyone but me, and that I am merely 'thin-skinned', and unable to cope with personal slights. Good Lord, if that were so, I should have gone home in tears long ago.

As it happens, I rather enjoyed being personally attacked in the Commons, which I fear is as close as I shall ever get to taking part in a debate there - something I once longed to be entitled to do. But I didn't let my pleasure cloud my concern about the argument.

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