tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4638619958588096610.post3403501105803312965..comments2023-11-22T09:11:01.567+00:00Comments on George Szirtes: BigotGeorge Shttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08889600788146987089noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4638619958588096610.post-9023874228399346582010-04-29T18:42:34.111+01:002010-04-29T18:42:34.111+01:00Wasn't it Paxman who said that when he interv...Wasn't it Paxman who said that when he interviewed a politician he always asked himself: <i>Why is this lying bastard lying to me?</i><br /><br />The role of the TV / radio interviewer as public inquisitor is interesting. I suppose it is a long sharp reaction to the culture of deference ('I wonder, Prime Minister, if I might ask....?) to which I don't expect to return in the immediate future.<br /><br />As with newspapers, it is a mixture of what we, as viewers / listeners want (the inquisitor must ask the questions he imagines the sternest critic would ask), and what the inquisitor likes to present as a demonstration of his own moral superiority, inviting the public to the same vicarious pleasure ('these filthy lying politicans are so much worse than we are'). <br /><br />This then encourages the interviewee to dig in, and employ whatever mode of defence and prevarication remain - and so it goes on.<br /><br />This time, it seems, Paxman went through the usual performance but got his facts wrong.<br /><br />One dented sneer. But plenty left in the bag.George Shttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08889600788146987089noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4638619958588096610.post-89300003125681709862010-04-29T17:25:59.752+01:002010-04-29T17:25:59.752+01:00Just to show that occasionally, just occasionally,...Just to show that occasionally, just occasionally, the media don't get their evil way...<br /><br />http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYt3YY96reUDafydd Johnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00805522795225835335noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4638619958588096610.post-77304917682606056692010-04-29T08:24:11.616+01:002010-04-29T08:24:11.616+01:00Interesting the way this is going (the next mornin...Interesting the way this is going (the next morning). The woman now is presented as firmly 'not bigoted' simply voicing the concerns of ordinary people - which may well be true, but that is precisely why those views should be properly argued with, and if the arguments are good enough, they may win. <br /><br />Brown should have argued further.<br /><br />Matthew Parris was saying on the radio this morning that you will never talk to a politician as though he/she were just another person. Straight talk is impossible.<br /><br />I don't believe that. Furthermore, straight talk can be respected - and I mean talk, not bellowing. Brown could just, for ten minutes, say to himself: <i>Fuck the Daily Mail, let's talk.</i> How would he have done worse? Is the rest just a matter of being found out?<br /><br />Treat people as though they had some intelligence and they might just respond with intelligence.<br /><br />And the term 'free press' is not an absolute, Coirí. Like everything else, it is relative. It would be possible for it to be a great deal less free. <br /><br />Newspapers try to print the stories that, they think, will interest their readers - they have to or they don't sell. On the other they can try and form their readership by pandering to all kinds of herd instinct.<br /><br />Newspapers are sleazy, vicious, coercive, thoroughly hypocritical, and heavily focused on the short-term. We know that: they know that. But we still want them precisely because of their relative freedom . Part of our freedom is to ignore them.George Shttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08889600788146987089noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4638619958588096610.post-6590853891031949212010-04-29T03:00:21.203+01:002010-04-29T03:00:21.203+01:00I happened to turn on the telly just at the point ...I happened to turn on the telly just at the point Brown came out of Gillian Duffy's home, and a winning boyish smile on his face, and I thought, go on Gordon!<br /><br />I imagined to myself that he was seeing through the charade of all the Murdoch mouthpieces spouting rot: 'oh the poor pensioner, he called her a bigot.'<br /><br />They know nothing of this woman, everything about Brown, and yet are prepared to accept this woman, just coz she's 65, is the victim here.<br /><br />I heard what he said and he sounded very normal. How many of us don't act exactly like he does? Say things out of earshot about people when we move off?<br /><br />The hypocrisy of Kay Burly and the moral piranhas in Spin Alley, as if they actually give two hoots about this woman. A full day of it, because of what Brown said out of earshot. She said, I heard it, 'all these Eastern Europeans' who are there legally. She is a bigot if she thinks they don't have a legal right to be there.<br /><br />It's like watching Fox news 2008 all over again, the faux concern about people, as if they, the tv spindroids on hundreds of grand a year, are somehow the voice of your average Briton, hoping Brown gets voted out, not because of their own beliefs, but because their boss, one man, wants it. They are bought and paid for and people can see right through it.<br /><br />The TV hacks and media luvvies are worse than the politicians. All moaning. Well, if they are that concerned, how come they aren't running for office themselves.<br /><br />This was a defining moment, one that showed the baying press pack up for what they are. Stone mad and full of their own importance.<br /><br />They just can't handle the change.<br /><br />I had a post, a satirical one, up on Robert McCrumbs latest Globish thread, in which, rather than disagreeing with him as everyone else, I agree and satirically show him up. It was up for 3 days, got 15 recommendations and was took down an hour ago.<br /><br />The free press, there's no such thing.Coirí Filíochtahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15137576329670368944noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4638619958588096610.post-7874234814570700962010-04-28T23:58:17.853+01:002010-04-28T23:58:17.853+01:00"If this world were just one degree better th..."If this world were just one degree better than it is, Gordon Brown might have stopped and tried to persuade the woman, in the best and nicest way he knew, that she was wrong."<br /><br />GB could have tried harder George, but he actually DID attempt to reason with her. He made the simple point that, if there were many 'Eastern European' people in Britain, there were also many British people in 'Europe', and the woman did seem to, just possibly, take this in. <br /><br />Agree with your point about Larkin; nicely put. Lines from his 'The Mower' come to mind:<br /><br />'We should be careful // Of each other, we should be kind / While there is still time.'Mark Granierhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09899629187771913398noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4638619958588096610.post-89804530108004932922010-04-28T23:22:12.409+01:002010-04-28T23:22:12.409+01:00Brown couldn't contemplate that argument in p...Brown couldn't contemplate that argument in public, George.<br /><br />Brown: Immigrants do good.<br /><br />Woman: What about local people? <br /><br />Daily Mail: Brown puts illegals ahead of YOU. Dave is great.Stephen Fhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02120321834330558493noreply@blogger.com