There is a trend in the media, in politics, even in the population as a
whole, to down-talk Britain's position in the world. With the latest round of
the EU debacle coming to the fore, with Israel once again bringing the middle
east to the brink of general war, with the US making noises about withdrawning
from the European theatre to focus on the East, there has been plenty of
opportunity for the nay-sayers to remind everyone, at volume, that Britain is
no longer a world player.
They're wrong.
-
Tempted as I am to stop there, I'm never-the-less going to go on to give a
defense of Britain. We should be proud to be British, and we should be proud of
British power in the world. While we may not be a match for the United States
or China anymore we are still a titan amongst the nation's of the world. At our
command is the power to end in the world in nuclear fire, to end world hunger
and poverty, to reach the distant stars. That we make poor use of that power is
an undeniable fact, but its time we took a stand against the rot that is making
people doubt that we ever had it.
As a bit of context there are 206 sovereign states in the world.
So compared to these 205 competitors, where does Britain stand?
Economics
Britain is/has;
The seventh largest economy in the world by nominal GDP.
The eight-largest by purchasing power parity (i.e. accounting for costs)
A member of the G7, G8 and G20 (all three of the 'big economy' clubs).
London is the (joint) centre of the global finance industry, and the city
with the largest GDP in Europe.
Britain contributes the third highest number of scientific papers of any
country in the world.
Four of the world's top 10 universities.
Politics
Britain is;
One of only five permanent members of the UN Security Council, and has been
since it's inception in 1946.
Arguably 'first amongst equals' of the British Commonwealth, which includes
54 countries.
A member of the Council of Europe and the Council of the European Union (in
which we have the joint largest number of votes).
Has a seat on the WTO (left vacant now due to the EU minister taking all
decisions for Europe)
Military
Britain is/has
The fourth largest defense budget in the world
Second biggest contributor to NATO (in £s)
One of only nine nuclear armed states
A slightly suspect rating of the "5th" highest firepower in the
world from the firmly tongue-in-cheek Global Firepower . com
I could probably drag this list on ad infinitum, but I think the point has
been made. On the whole Britain is not a two bit player with an over-inflated
ego, we are consistently in the top 5% of nation's in the world using just
about any measure you want.
Is also bears point out that the two super-powers of today are
conglomerates. Both the US and China's gigantic economics and militaries are
based of them being a collection of what, in Europe, would be separate
nations. The relationship between the US and Europe comes far more into
focus if you consider Europe as a whole, or individual states against
individual European countries.
(Just to put that in perspective the European economy is 13% larger then the
US economy, despite the current crippling economic problems).
There may come a time when Britain's role in the world has faded, there may
be a time when the Old World finally is forgotten by the New and the Developing
one. But it's not here yet. and its time people start remembering that.
/Z
Tuesday 4 December 2012
Saturday 1 December 2012
The Truth Will Make Thee Fret
So the Leveson enquiry has finally come to an end; after millions of
pounds, thousands of hours, and probably a small forest's worth of reports,
drafts, re-writes and commentaries, the Right Honourable Lord Justice Leveson
has delivered a two thousand page report in four volumes, which, if a glance of
the executive summary is to be believed, ultimately boils down to "the
press shouldn't do bad things."
..
I feel I should start this by actually offering a (rare) defence of the Leveson Inquiry. It was probably an impossible task to deliver a report that would achieve anything noteworthy. The problems with British press practices are so systemic, so widespread, so completely beyond the reasonable mandate of a government that has to pretend to be democratic, that there was unlikely anything Leveson could do except make the recommendations he did, and then smudge the whole thing over with fifteen hundred pages of waffle and committee minutiae.
The tradition of the Free Press is long and (in parts) even heroic. Since 1695 the British press has been free to print more or less what it wanted without government interference. The idea was at heart a simple one - if the great and mighty did stupid things that risked the welfare of the nation, the Press would find out, print stories about it, and the masses would rise up in rebellion against the incompetent overlords threatening the country.
Unfortunately the people of today don't really want information about the political and economic events of the present time, they want to know about celebrity gossip, TV shows, and who various pop stars are doing drugs with. The Leveson Inquiry was set up because a murdered teenager's phone was hacked. At root there was only one reason that happened - it sold papers. The blame for that lies solely at the feet of every single person who ever bought a copy of a newspaper that touts sensationalist or 'shock' news. Just as every country gets the government it deserves, so to does every country get the press it deserves. Ours hacks phones and prints topless pictures of our future queen. The logical inference about our population is not difficult.
Even if we do accept that the blame for this issue lies with the public, not with the Press, what about the recommendations themselves?
Politicians, the press themselves, various lobbying groups, have more or less split into two camps. One group is standing by the idea of a Free Press. They want to see a new, independent, regulatory body to oversee the industry, possibly backed up by statute in a similar way to the FSA. The main argument is that while the Press has done some bad things, other investigations, like those in to MPs expenses and the Hillsborough disaster, have brought to light cover ups and abuses which would otherwise have remained hidden.
The opposing group claim that anything short of full scale legal regulation is bowing to the pressure of the press barons, and a heartless abandonment of the victims of phone hacking or other press intrusion.
Those backing the second option, of full on state legislation, seem to be living in fairy-cuckoo land (or probably more precisely are riding the wave of interest in this subject for personal and politic gain). Here are a few points to consider;
1.) Legislation is supposedly meant to transfer some of the decision making power in the media from the journalists to politicians - however, a recent poll has shown that politicians are jointly the most dis-trusted group of people in the country - the other? Journalists. Transferring power to government only makes sense if you think the government is trustworthy. People don't.
2.) Many of the actions that have been deplored in recent months (phone hacking, intercepting emails etc.) are already illegal. Punishing those responsible is now a matter for the court system. If victims, or lobby groups feel let down they should be chasing the legal system not the press.
3.) What does state regulation even mean? Is there some suggestion that a newspaper would have to run its stories through some kind of government watchdog before publication? Is that not the definition of censorship? How can this be expected to achieve anything except a media completely controlled by the government?
4.) If a more 'softly softly' approach is taken, with regulation defining what can, or can't, be published, how will this be administered? Again who is to determine what a valid news story is and what is just gossip? If people want to buy gossip what right has an elected government got to ban that?
5.) The Leveson Inquiry more or less blanks the issue of the internet. UK legislation would only have the force to cover articles published in the UK. With an increasing share of news reporting taking place online what good would regulation do anyway?
6.) The expansion of regulation has seen Health and Safety become a by-word for bureaucratic meddling, has seen hundreds of thousands of speed cameras sprout across the countryside, without an obvious benefit, has led to drug safety administration that takes over a decade to sanction new medicines. Why, exactly, do people thing more regulation is going to solve things in the media?
..
Anyone still unconvinced by the whole issue, I suggest they read to the Discworld novel "The Truth." After setting up the city's first newspaper, aspiring editor William de Worde finds himself being out-sold by a rival publication that leads with the headline "Man stolen by Dog."
Also, next time you meet someone calling for the Leveson recommendations to be implemented in full, ask them what recommendation 51 (b) is.
On the off chance they know the answer (That sections 44 to 46 of the Data Protection Act 1998, with special application to journalism is repealed), ask them what section 44 of the Data Protection Act actually means.
/Z
..
I feel I should start this by actually offering a (rare) defence of the Leveson Inquiry. It was probably an impossible task to deliver a report that would achieve anything noteworthy. The problems with British press practices are so systemic, so widespread, so completely beyond the reasonable mandate of a government that has to pretend to be democratic, that there was unlikely anything Leveson could do except make the recommendations he did, and then smudge the whole thing over with fifteen hundred pages of waffle and committee minutiae.
The tradition of the Free Press is long and (in parts) even heroic. Since 1695 the British press has been free to print more or less what it wanted without government interference. The idea was at heart a simple one - if the great and mighty did stupid things that risked the welfare of the nation, the Press would find out, print stories about it, and the masses would rise up in rebellion against the incompetent overlords threatening the country.
Unfortunately the people of today don't really want information about the political and economic events of the present time, they want to know about celebrity gossip, TV shows, and who various pop stars are doing drugs with. The Leveson Inquiry was set up because a murdered teenager's phone was hacked. At root there was only one reason that happened - it sold papers. The blame for that lies solely at the feet of every single person who ever bought a copy of a newspaper that touts sensationalist or 'shock' news. Just as every country gets the government it deserves, so to does every country get the press it deserves. Ours hacks phones and prints topless pictures of our future queen. The logical inference about our population is not difficult.
Even if we do accept that the blame for this issue lies with the public, not with the Press, what about the recommendations themselves?
Politicians, the press themselves, various lobbying groups, have more or less split into two camps. One group is standing by the idea of a Free Press. They want to see a new, independent, regulatory body to oversee the industry, possibly backed up by statute in a similar way to the FSA. The main argument is that while the Press has done some bad things, other investigations, like those in to MPs expenses and the Hillsborough disaster, have brought to light cover ups and abuses which would otherwise have remained hidden.
The opposing group claim that anything short of full scale legal regulation is bowing to the pressure of the press barons, and a heartless abandonment of the victims of phone hacking or other press intrusion.
Those backing the second option, of full on state legislation, seem to be living in fairy-cuckoo land (or probably more precisely are riding the wave of interest in this subject for personal and politic gain). Here are a few points to consider;
1.) Legislation is supposedly meant to transfer some of the decision making power in the media from the journalists to politicians - however, a recent poll has shown that politicians are jointly the most dis-trusted group of people in the country - the other? Journalists. Transferring power to government only makes sense if you think the government is trustworthy. People don't.
2.) Many of the actions that have been deplored in recent months (phone hacking, intercepting emails etc.) are already illegal. Punishing those responsible is now a matter for the court system. If victims, or lobby groups feel let down they should be chasing the legal system not the press.
3.) What does state regulation even mean? Is there some suggestion that a newspaper would have to run its stories through some kind of government watchdog before publication? Is that not the definition of censorship? How can this be expected to achieve anything except a media completely controlled by the government?
4.) If a more 'softly softly' approach is taken, with regulation defining what can, or can't, be published, how will this be administered? Again who is to determine what a valid news story is and what is just gossip? If people want to buy gossip what right has an elected government got to ban that?
5.) The Leveson Inquiry more or less blanks the issue of the internet. UK legislation would only have the force to cover articles published in the UK. With an increasing share of news reporting taking place online what good would regulation do anyway?
6.) The expansion of regulation has seen Health and Safety become a by-word for bureaucratic meddling, has seen hundreds of thousands of speed cameras sprout across the countryside, without an obvious benefit, has led to drug safety administration that takes over a decade to sanction new medicines. Why, exactly, do people thing more regulation is going to solve things in the media?
..
Anyone still unconvinced by the whole issue, I suggest they read to the Discworld novel "The Truth." After setting up the city's first newspaper, aspiring editor William de Worde finds himself being out-sold by a rival publication that leads with the headline "Man stolen by Dog."
Also, next time you meet someone calling for the Leveson recommendations to be implemented in full, ask them what recommendation 51 (b) is.
On the off chance they know the answer (That sections 44 to 46 of the Data Protection Act 1998, with special application to journalism is repealed), ask them what section 44 of the Data Protection Act actually means.
/Z
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