Political Mud Slinging

Sometimes it is best to sit back and watch as news breaks, particularly where atrocities and terrorism are concerned. With the coming of twenty four hour media, there has been a greater tendency to jump to conclusions which later prove to be utterly wrong.

When the news of the dual attacks in Norway broke, the broadcast media, in their usual rush to appear important and ‘discuss’ matters, were quick to suggest the killings were the work of evil Islamists. Time, as we now understand, proved otherwise.

Yet, one thing which rarely changes, once Islamists have been ruled out, is the willingness of the Left to demonise the political Right. I was immediately struck by the similarity of reaction in leftist media to the atrocities performed by Anders Breivik and those carried out by Jared Lee Loughner in Tuscon in January. On both occasions, the Left were particularly quick to label the perpetrators as ‘right-wing extremists’, and thus tarnish millions of people by association.

In the very sad case of the Tuscon shootings, Loughner targeted the Democrat and House of Representatives member, Gabrielle Giffords at a local advice surgery. During the incident she suffered a severe gunshot wound to the head, while a local Judge and five bystanders, who were caught up in the shooting, died of their injuries.

Initial reports suggested that Giffords had been killed in the attack, though these statements were relatively quickly retracted when it became apparent she had survived, albeit in a critical condition. Yet it didn’t take long before the finger was pointed at the Right in the United States, especially the Tea party movement and its followers.

It was mainly brought to the fore by an outburst from the Democrat supporting local Sherriff, Clarence Dupnik, who said in an interview:

When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government. The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous. And, unfortunately, Arizona I think has become sort of the capital. We have become the Mecca for prejudice and bigotry.

Later, Sherriff Dupnik retracted his initial statement, saying that his investigation had not yet found such evidence. But it was all too late – the damage was already done. This spark lit the touchpaper and a predictable Left-wing witch hunt began in earnest.

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Killing With Kindness

In the past couple of days, visitors and readers of ConservativeHome have debated whether the death penalty should be reintroduced in Britain.

Today, in a comment article on ConservativeHome, David T Breaker argued that the death penalty was wrong. In the comments, the Conservative MP for North Warwickshire and Bedworth, Dan Byles, agreed, saying that he believed ‘the power to take the lives of its citizens is too awesome a power to trust to the State’.

This remark on capital punishment is particularly interesting in light of the speech he made back in March, duly recorded by Hansard, in which Mr Byles made the following points:

I believe that the House is broadly united, with the possible exception of Mr Winnick, in believing that in the case of Libya, events had reached a stage where committing our military to enforcing the UN resolution is absolutely the right thing to do.

The spectre of Iraq should not prevent us from doing what we believe is right and is ultimately in our national interests…

It is with some regret that I will be voting for the motion, because committing military forces to action anywhere in the world is regrettable. It will lead to dead soldiers, if not British, then Libyan; we must not forget that whichever side wins, there are casualties on the other side.

What we understand by all this is that Mr Byles is perfectly in favour of the State using the ‘awesome power’ of taking life to kill Libyan soldiers and civilians, which is the logical and real consequence of his support for military action in Libya – but he is against the execution of convicted murderers, tried by a jury of their peers (with unanimous verdicts) under an open legal system, with a right to defence and fair trial.

Dan Byles MP is therefore prepared to protect Libyan civilians by dropping bombs on Gaddafi, but if innocent civilians are killed by mistake (and they have been and will be), it is deemed ‘regrettable’ but, in his eyes, acceptable. But he will not allow the hanging of British murderers for their crimes and to protect us.

The Bankruptcy Of Harm Reduction

Despite all else that is going on in the world, we once again return to the important issue of illegal drugs, with news that Louise Mensch (formerly Bagshawe) had ‘probably’ taken drugs while working for record company EMI – though rather tellingly she just can’t quite remember.

We were also graced with an article, currently behind the pay-wall of yesterday’s Times newspaper, by Anushka Asthana (who she?) claiming:

The bankruptcy of prohibition is becoming ever more apparent as it fails to keep up with the plethora of ‘legal highs’. As one is banned, ten more emerge. There will be no need to go to dark alleys in Brixton soon: the internet will offer people everything they want. Some form of legalisation – in which users are no longer criminalised but the market is regulated – is inevitable for some substances. So we might as well start thinking about how to do it now.

It doesn’t really seem to matter how many times you point out to the likes of Ms Asthana and fellow travellers that Britain has no such manner of prohibition, they just won’t listen. This is because they are attempting to draw comparison between the perfectly winnable battle (if we were to actually fight it) against drugs in Britain with actual prohibition of alcohol in the United States of the 1920s, which was doomed to failure before it even began.

The divide lies between those of us who wish to see the current laws strengthened and enforced, and those who believe users are somehow able to take these drugs more safely. They call it ‘harm reduction’, though it is anything but. Furthermore, Ms Asthana casually repeats that old lie which claims drug users are criminalised by the law, where in fact it is users who criminalise themselves by taking their poison in the first place.

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Private Conversations Among Elites

Writing in the Telegraph, Peter Oborne seeks to develop the argument that, in the wake of the phone hacking scandal, we are moving into a ‘post-Murdoch age’ where British politics may develop genuine substance.

In his article, Oborne suggests that Blair and New Labour reinterpreted the British political tradition as a private conversation among elite groups, of which the most important in Blair’s eyes was Rupert Murdoch’s corporate empire. In that he is not wrong. Yet, says Oborne:

It is this system of government that has been exposed in all of its barbarism and moral horror over the past few weeks. As the Westminster season mercifully draws towards a close, it is extremely important to ponder what comes next – for I am certain that there is a wonderful opportunity here to embark upon a new political era, and a new way of doing things.

Sadly, this fantasy is unlikely to become reality in the foreseeable future. No such real exposure has been given to the ‘private conversations among elite groups’ which Oborne describes in his piece, because the re-emergence of phone hacking was primarily a means by the liberal media to stop News Corp’s BSkyB bid.

While the exposure of Murdoch’s corporate meetings with George Osborne and David Cameron have again exposed Cameron as politically inept (if we needed any further proof), it has not drawn a line under similar meetings occurring in future.

Peter Hitchens used a chapter in his book The Broken Compass (recently re-released as The Cameron Delusion) to describe the relationship between journalist and politician, which is at times very close indeed – and this will always be so. But, as Mr Hitchens more recently described, the relationship between the press and politicians should be identical to that between a dog and a lamp post. The problem arises when, as has recently been more apparent, the press and politicians are of one mind.

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