Big Sticks and Small Carrots

I don’t often write about my own life here but the most extraordinary thing happened to me yesterday afternoon and I want to share it with you. It was a lovely crisp sunny day, the sort of day which reminds you that spring is on the way, so I went for a stroll around town. With the light twinkling off the granite buildings, Aberdeen city centre looks good in the sunlight.

Passing by HMV, I decided to pop in and pick up some Blackadder DVDs. I’d been meaning to get the full set for a while now so I was pleased to see that they were all available. They also had the Planet Earth DVD box set so I got that too. All things considered, it was turning out to be a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon. (It’s the small things in life…)

Unfortunately, my good mood wasn’t to last long. As I attempted to leave HMV, I appeared to trigger their security alarms. As the  beeping and flashing continued, two rather burly security guards hurried over and blocked my path. With forced politeness, one asked whether I’d paid for the DVDs I was carrying. “Yes, of course” I replied, “now if you don’t mind…”

That didn’t satisfy the security guards though; they demanded that I produce a receipt for the DVDs. A receipt? Why on earth would I have a receipt? Are the BBC going to charge us twice for watching their programmes now? First the license fee and then again for the DVD?

When I told the security guards that I didn’t have a receipt but could go home and then return with my TV licence if it was absolutely necessary, they laughed in my face. When I argued that Iain Dale said I shouldn’t have to pay again for something I’d already paid for, they said they didn’t know who Iain Dale was and didn’t care either. They accused me of shoplifting and called the police. I was arrested. Arrested! All because I didn’t want to pay for the same thing twice. I can think of nothing more outrageous!

If there was ever any doubt that the BBC is run by Stalinists, Leninists and Trots, this travesty of justice surely proves the point! These leftists are destroying our way of life and must be resisted at every turn. Next thing you know, there’ll be a tax on totally spurious blog posts. I remember when this country used to be great, you know…

PS, Iain really was caught stealing from the BBC. Maybe if he understood that bandwidth costs money, he’d be on his way to answering the question in his update*. He might even spare himself further embarrassment instead of causing even more.

* A I understand it, there are other reasons why iPlayer programmes are only available for seven days. As well as bandwith costs, there are storage costs to consider. Without the limit, what would soon become an essentially infinite archive would have to be stored in a format which would allow for streaming; the costs would soon mount up.

There is also the issue of licensing and repeat fees (or rather the avoidance of repeat fees). Similar fees are certainly an issue when the BBC sells permanent copies of programmes. When content is made available to download from the interwebs, the introduction of a small charge might help to cover these costs…

One of the criticisms levelled against the “biased” BBC is that they tend to approach problems with the implicit assumption that there needs to be more state spending.

This always makes me laugh.

An article in the Times about Tory spending plans illustrates the problem:

[M]ost criticisms by Tory spokesmen about the Government’s record on defence and law and order carry the implicit message that higher spending is required on the armed services, the police and prisons.

Leftists!!!!

… What I think he said is an OUTRAGE!!!

If you felt a slight tremor sometime yesterday afternoon, it’ll have been caused by an enormous number of knees all jerking at the same time. Just the mention of the word Sharia is enough to cause many people to disengage their critical faculties and become subsumed by righteous indignation.

The BBC’s Have Your Say has been inundated with outraged comments (over 11,000 comments since yesterday afternoon, most still in moderation) and demands for the Archbishop’s resignation. There, and on blogs, a common theme is “I can’t believe he said that”. Unfortunately, this thought does not seem to have provoked any great desire to find out exactly what he did say. How many of those 11,000 people actually listened to the Archbishop’s 10 minute interview or read his speech? (Both available from the BBC article above.) How many bloggers offered their opinion based on nothing more than a badly written news summary of Williams’ views and their own deeply felt misunderstanding of the concept Sharia law? Too many to count.

But it wasn’t just Joe Bloggs. Here’s a quick analysis of some of the responses detailed in this morning’s BBC report.

The prime minister’s spokesman said Sharia law could never be used to justify a breach of English law.

Indeed. Williams never suggested otherwise.

Home Office Minister Tony McNulty said: “To ask us to fundamentally change the rule of law and to adopt Sharia law, I think, is fundamentally wrong.”

He didn’t say that either. Nice double use of fundamental there though.

For the Conservatives, shadow community cohesion minister Baroness Warsi said the archbishop’s comments were “unhelpful”.

She told BBC News 24: “Dr Williams seems to be suggesting that there should be two systems of law, running alongside each other, almost parallel, and for people to be offered the choice of opting into one or the other. That is unacceptable.”

Slightly different problem here. This already happens to some extent as the Baroness would have know if she’d read Williams’ speech. Is it Conservative policy that Jewish Beth Din courts are unacceptable and should be closed down?

Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg said he had “an enormous amount of respect” for Dr Williams, but could not agree with him on this issue. He said: “Equality before the law is part of the glue that binds our society together. We cannot have a situation where there is one law for one person and different laws for another.

“There is a huge difference between respecting people’s right to follow their own beliefs and allowing them to excuse themselves from the rule of law.”

Williams did not suggest that anyone should be allowed to excuse themselves from the rule of law. In fact, he made a point of saying, in his customarily confusing way, that this shouldn’t be allowed to happen.

All in all, not an edifying sight. And I’ve not even touched on the idiotic “they’ll be trying to behead you next” stuff.

In reality, as the Global Dashboard rightly notes, the Archbishop’s view is “thoughtful, considered and nuanced” (via another good post over at The Wardman Wire). The same certainly cannot be said for the majority of reactions to his comments.

An update is likely later this afternoon.

See here for details.

There’s an obvious parallel here. In the United States, there is a large section of the political right which has managed to detach itself completely from reality. Michael Ledeen is a case in point. This group employs a number of techniques to spread their fatuous propaganda and have had considerable success. Deliberate attempts to muddy the waters of accepted facts are not uncommon.

Most notably, they ferociously attack the “liberal media” whenever it dares to challenge their “facts” or any part of their fantastic belief systems. Blogging has become one of the key tools used to mobilise their credulous base to apply pressure when necessary. This is blogging not as an enabler of two-way communication but as a platform for propaganda. Any attempts to challenge or even discuss the “holy orthodoxies” in the comment sections of these blogs will either be ignored or met with a horde of mockery and abuse. In this way, they are generally able to avoid having to acknowledge or correct factual errors and evade participating in any serious discussion about their beliefs.

By using these techniques, this group have moved the goalposts to such an extent that much of the media in the US now feels in must provide “balance” by reporting their bizarre beliefs as if they were credible.

In the UK, Dale, Staines and Biased BBC are attempting to adopt a similar model and the BBC is their primary target. Unity explains why here:

The reason that the political right have such an issue with the BBC is not that the BBC is markedly biased against them so much as, in defining the middle ground in news journalism - not what is neutral but what is reasonable - it provides a clear benchmark against which the biases of other news outlets can be readily assessed and evaluated by the general public.

The existence of the BBC as a respected news source means that people like Michael Ledeen have no credibility in this country when they claim that Iraqn was responsible for the September 11th terrorist attacks.

For most people, that can only be a good thing.

Update

Bush Announces American Withdrawal From Reality. Heh!

Here’s a little riddle.

I believe that Rupert Murdoch, an Australian with US citizenship, has far too much influence over politics in this country and that he uses his media outlets to push his political agenda at every opportunity.

It is accepted by all but the most confused individuals that the output of News Corp is habitually politically biased. It is also undeniable that British politicians feel they must court him in order to ensure that he doesn’t set his attack dogs on them and that he has had considerable influence over the policies of New Labour. Lance Price famously described him as the 24th member of Blair’s cabinet and he has access to the Prime Minister the likes of which ordinary members of the public could only dream of.

This is not good.

Whenever I try to draw attention to this, there will always be someone who broadly shares Murdoch’s political views ready to tell me I’m a patronising git. “That’s so typical of a condescending bruschetta munching Guardianista. You assume that the great unwashed are stupid mindless drones being helplessly brainwashed by this bias. People are smarter that that, you know. You leftists just can’t come to terms with the fact that people can think for themselves…”

That sort of thing.

Here’s the riddle.

Murdoch’s newspapers, and others who would benefit from the removal of a reasonably neutral news service, constantly harp on about the damaging affects of the alleged bias of the BBC.

So, can the media shape public opinion or not?

And can I have my cake and eat it a the same time?

(I’ve left all the rest of the stuff about alleged BBC bias out because I really just want to focus on this one question. You probably won’t be surprised to learn that I do already know that the license fee is compulsory for anyone who receives or records television programmes in this country.)