THOUGHT
FOR THE DAY
The
fact that it is considered "daring" for the BBC
to make a
series of programmes about the problems and
fears of the white working class (i.e., the majority)
tells you all you need to know about the BBC and much of
what you need to know about Britain.
Richard
Klein, the series commissioner, must have
fought hard to get sanction for programmes about the mere
majority.
The
most daring programme so far (in media eyes) has been the
sympathetic picture of Enoch
Powell.
It
conveyed his rage that the populace was never consulted
about the drastic change being made in its composition and
culture without so much as a by your-leave.
Politicians
on both sides, furious about the "river
of blood" speech in 1968, claimed then—and
some still do—that
Powell's speech hindered reform.
It
was so extreme, you see, that it made it difficult for us
moderate men to do something about immigration, which we
obviously had intended to do when the occasion was
suitable, when the time was right, at the appropriate
juncture, etc.
I
promise you as God is my witness that what the two
frontbenches wanted to do was nothing, nil, zero, rien
and nicht. It was this conspiracy of
silence and inertia which enraged Powell and much of the
public.
It is
understandable why he became hated by Labour figures like
Roy Hattersley, interviewed on the programme. For it meant
that he and his fellow socialists had been found out.
For
all their supposed unique contact with the masses, and
their beliefs that the proles would naturally trust Labour
to be told what was right, here was an aroused and angry
public indicating the opposite.
It
undermined the very basis of many a Labour politician's
lifelong belief along with his faith in the universal
brotherhood of man.
Powell
was scarcely less hated by various Tory politicians
because an election was looming and here was this bloody
man turning everything upside down, enraging the
opinion-forming elite and insisting that the party had
jettisoned its responsibilities.
Interestingly
enough, a middle-of-the-road Tory from that elite assured
me the other day that immigration was not a problem,
though he admitted "there are still some difficulties
with the white working class."
It is
a remark worth treasuring. Framing, if not embalming.
Powell
was always an uncomfortable man politically, his impassioned
attack in 1959 on the official hushing-up
of atrocities in Kenya's Hola Camp for Mau Mau terrorists—Denis
Healey describes it as the finest Parliamentary speech he
ever heard—was
a nuisance for the Macmillan Government.
Powell
also deplored our nuclear deterrent: he wanted an end to
our bases East of Suez and an end to posturing as a world
policeman.
He
saw the Soviet threat as greatly exaggerated and the
Anglo-American alliance as a menace. Ted Heath's prices
and incomes policy was "madness."
Enoch
was my oldest friend in politics, and in later years he
would regularly invite me to scrutinise his speeches in
advance. I would sometimes comment that his remarks would
upset many people. His usual reply was that they needed to
be upset.
—Andrew
Alexander
Powell: Mea mihi conscientia pluris est quam omnium
sermo
Kevin
Michael Grace,
7.40 pm, 14 March 2008►
THREE
SHORT REVIEWS
The
Darjeeling Limited
Guest reviewer: GK
Chesterton
According to Mrs
Besant th[e] universal Church is simply the
universal self. It is the doctrine that we are really all
one person; that there are no real walls of individuality
between man and man. If I may put it so, she does not tell
us to love our neighbours; she tells us to be our
neighbours. That is Mrs Besant's thoughtful and suggestive
description of the religion in which all men must find
themselves in agreement. And I never heard of any
suggestion in my life with which I more violently
disagree. I want to love my neighbour not because he is I,
but precisely because he is not I. I want to adore the
world, not as one likes a looking-glass, because it is
one's self, but as one loves a woman, because she is
entirely different. If souls are separate love is
possible. If souls are united love is obviously
impossible. A man may be said loosely to love himself, but
he can hardly fall in love with himself, or, if he does,
it must be a monotonous courtship. If the world is full of
real selves, they can be really unselfish selves. But upon
Mrs Besant's principle the whole cosmos is only one
enormously selfish person.
Grade: C-
The Darjeeling Limited:
The wheels in the brain go round and round
In
Bruges
This is another spiritual
journey, featuring hitmen, two Irish and one English, who
are philosophers as all movie hitmen these days must be,
just as all movie policemen must be head cases. Colin
Farrell's hitman is a head case too, but any competent
moral theologian could have told him that the second
killing he agonizes over was no more evil than the first
which precipitated it. Suggested scriptural reading:
Proverbs
9:10.
And someone should tell
writer-director Martin McDonagh that a superabundance of
swears alone doesn't make you the next Coen Brothers or
David Mamet. Though hiring Carter Burwell to do the music
doesn't hurt. Bonus points: Bruges
itself, the great Brendan Gleeson and the lovely
Clémence
Poésy and Thekla
Reuten, Andreas
Schmidt singing Der
Leiermann and the little boy's
confessional crib sheet, which is the saddest thing I've
ever seen.
Grade: B+
In Bruges: Even
dwarves start small
The
Bank Job
Jason Statham struggles
manfully against inept direction, inapt cinematography and
a witless, distended script, but he cannot save this steak
and kidney plod, despite valiant support from old pros
Peter Bowles, Jason Faulkner and the peerless David Suchet.
And he gets no help from Saffron Burrows, who's a cold
fish to match her trout
pout. Perhaps she simply doesn't like men.
Best bit: the opening
credits, set to T Rex's "Bang
a Gong," which is everything this
movie is not: sexy, swaggering and cocksure.
Grade: C
The Bank Job: Nothing
in their outward
appearance suggested a total lack of chemistry
Kevin
Michael Grace,
1.50 pm, 14 March 2008►
ONE
SHORT REVIEW
Vantage
Point
When did I realize this movie
was risible? About one minute in, when we are introduced
to a top female cable news network correspondent who would
strain credulity as a contestant on America's Next Top
Model. How ridiculous is the plot? Dale Gribble would
scorn it as contrived. When did this movie make me laugh
out loud? About one hour in, when the chief conspirator
says, "We have to tie up all of the loose
ends." To what can sitting through this movie be
compared? Like being trapped in a Tilt-A-Whirl while being
subjected to brief random images and belaboured about the
head with saucepans of various sizes. If there were a
Dennis Quaid School of Acting, what would it teach? 1.
Grimace. 2. Shout. 3. Repeat. Where can I buy one of those
cool PDAs that lets you detonate bombs and perform
assassinations by remote control? Nowhere as yet, but
Steve Jobs promises delivery of the iTerrorist by 4Q 2008.
Grade: D
Vantage Point:
Sigourney Weaver asks,
'Will someone please tell me what I'm doing here?'
Kevin
Michael Grace,
5.20 pm, 1 March 2008►
