Wagner, Tolkien and the ring

Having recently conquered Lord of the Rings, I was interested to see during BBC Radio 3’s Ring Cycle marathon a short discussion entitled When Tolkien stole Wagner’s Ring.

Tolkien constructed his legendarium from pre-existing building-blocks, but it hadn’t occurred to me that he’d stolen it from anyone. And neither of the participants (professor Nick Groom and author Renée Vink) accused him of stealing. As Vink said, both Wagner and Tolkien mined the rich seam of Norse mythos.

Then, of course, there's Hitler, to whom Wagner – who died six years before Hitler’s birth – was attractive because of his atrocious anti-Semitism, unfortunately all too prevalent throughout the West.

But the ring theme predates Norse legend. Perhaps indicative of Europe's ancient Eastern roots, since antiquity the Hindu god Shiva has been depicted dancing within a ring of fire (left), and both our artists associate their respective rings with fire – Wagner’s with his fire encircling Brünnhilde in Die Walküre as she sleeps on the mountaintop, Tolkien’s with the fires of Mount Doom in which Sauron’s Ring of Power must be destroyed.

Tolkien’s work, however, is more rooted in the time of writing than Wagner’s. Written during World War II, the crisis in Middle Earth has come about through its peoples ignoring the rising powers of evil taking hold: a comment on appeasement? Groom recounts a contemporaneous letter referring to "that ruddy little ignoramus Adolf Hitler" misappropriating the traditions that had informed the character of his beloved England.

But although Tolkien, as a Professor of Anglo-Saxon, used his knowledge of northern folklore in writing LOTR, I think it’s significant that the name of the reforged sword (another shared theme) is Andúril, meaning Flame of the West. I hope Western patriots adopt his legendarium, telling of diverse peoples cooperating to fight against evil, as a founding myth.

So when will we see the first LOTR opera?

Gerry Dorrian
300 words

Resources

Twenty Minutes: When Tolkien stole Wagner's Ring BBC Radio 3 Proms - available until 2 August 2013

REad a review of Renée Vink's Wagner and tolkien: Mythmakers at Tolkien Library

The Letters of JRR Tolkien - use table of contents at the front for the hyperlink to Letter 45, which speaks of "that ruddy little ignoramus Adolf Hitler

Shiva in the form of Nataraja (dancing in a ring of fire) - Exotic India

Tolkien and the black riders - 300 words

the BBC's choice

English Defence League Tommy Robinson’s excellent performance on Radio 4’s Today has already been skilfully parsed on Kafir Crusaders.

The only thing I’d add is that interviewer Sarah Montague seemed to be somewhat unprepared. When she asked Tommy about representing the views of white working class people, I genuinely don’t think she was trying to trap him. She seems in thrall to Greg Dyke’s doctrine that the BBC is "hideously white", with the BBC predicating the epithet of society at large. Tommy, of course, replied that the EDL represents "non-Muslim communities in Britain". Anybody on a housing estate can tell you that doesn’t necessarily mean white.

Tommy is of course right to complain "no-one wants to sit around tables with working class people in this country". Our sharp-elbowed political classes, ascending through Society’s ethereal heights, position us on the receiving end of an apartheid with mainstream politics as the meadow we look on but whereupon we may not graze.

But I suspect the BBC is paying far more attention to the EDL now than it ever has because it’s not just blue-collar people who nod earnestly when we talk about two-tier Britain, or how ordinary Muslims are Sharia’s first victims. People from all social strata and ethnicities want to make up their own minds about what we say.

The day before Tommy’s interview, Oxford West MP Nicola Blackwood – a tireless campaigner for justice for child-grooming victims – indicated on Today there is another grooming scandal waiting to break. She spoke of Asian victims who weren’t coming forward "because of fear of retribution from their families and communities".

I can understand their alienation: the BBC wasn’t interested in victims of honour-killings until a white girl was murdered. If it comes to a choice between Jihadis and their co-religionist victims, who will the BBC stand beside?

Gerry Dorrian
300 words

Resources

Today, Radio 4, Monday 10 June 2013 - go to 0:53:40 to hear Nicola Blackwood's interview

Today, Radio 4, Tuesday 11 June - go to 1:35:30 to hear Tommy Robinson's interview

Click for Kafir Crusader's analysis of the above interview, contains the interview on YouTube

Nicola Blackwood MP homepage

MP Blackwood granted child exploitation debate in Parliament - Oxford Post

what is fascism? A surprising BBC debate

In Italy, too many immigrants act as if they were back in their own countries. They make little effort to fit in and, to be fair, we Italians make little effort to integrate them. Our government does little for immigrants, so they simply do things their way. If we’re not careful, in 10 years’ time, Italy could be a Muslim country. I’ve got nothing against Muslims, but I don’t want my Italian culture to disappear.

This extract from Paolo di Canio’s autobiography was read by Jeremy Vine to Dave Hopper (left) of the Durham Miner’s Association in a section of his show dedicated to di Canio and fascism. Hopper replied there was "not a great deal wrong with that", leaving me wondering why exactly di Canio’s appointment as Sunderland manager had caused him to demand the return of the DMA banner from the Stadium of Light.

Mark Robson writes in Italy: Liberalism and Fascism 1870-1945 that the first Fasci ("groups") emerged in Sicily in 1893 when the island’s economy collapsed due to a Franco-Italian tariff war, and had "a vague political programme which was socialist in flavour". Mussolini despised socialism, but elements of his 1919 programme for the Fasci di Combattimento ("combat groups") such as abolition of the monarchy and aristocracy, suppression of banking excesses and setting up workers’ cooperatives would be leftist heaven.

Phoning Vine’s show, political science lecturer Ian Philpott said the Left confused issues by using “fascist” as a blanket term for anything right-wing and conflated fascism with racism. He pointed to non-racist fascist states in South America, and said the only racist fascist states had been Hitler’s Germany and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Fascism’s defining mark was not political orientation but totalitarianism fronted by a "supreme leader".

I’m not a fascist because as a member of the English Defence League I believe in freedom and democracy: which is why EU oppression and the suppression of our free press by all three major parties make me feel sick. But given that "fascism" for too long has been used to describe anything the Left disagrees with it’s good finally to have a definition of fascism given by somebody who knows what they’re talking about. And amazing that the BBC even allowed this discussion to take place.

Gerry Dorrian
300 words (excluding quote)

Resources

Listen again to Jeremy Vine's show on BBC i-player - available until 8 April 2013: topic starts at 1h 40m

Read revies for Paolo di Canio: the Autobiography on Amazon

Read reviews for Italy: Liberalism and Fascism 1870-1945 by Mark Robson on Amazon

Go to the Durham Miners' Association website - Durham Miners Demand Banner Back from Stadium of Light Paolo di Canio, Sunderland and Italian fascism - bbc.co.uk

the n-word: is hate based on race?

I’ve only ever said the word "nigger" once, at home after having heard in primary school. My Mum had lived in the US in the early 1960s, and was probably more aware of the word’s cultural history and emotional import than the person who had used it: her face fell into such a mask of disappointment that I never said it again.

What brought this back was a debate on Jeremy Vine’s Radio 2 talk-show about a white man who has been cleared of using racially aggravated words or behaviour after shouting the n-word at a black man. Christopher Jones, a rap fan with more black friends than white, argued successfully that he could not be racist because the word is part of his everyday vocabulary.

On Vine’s show was Pauline Pearce, a jazz singer and radio personality who famously upbraided rioters in London. She was debating with a hip-hop fan on the acceptability of the word, and both got into a muddle because they use the word as a term of endearment with black friends, but agreed that the term is offensive when used by white people.

Then Vine read out an email from a Yitzhak Hussein, who said sometimes the n-word was acceptable, but the "p-word" never was. Jeremy’s had that debate before with similar conclusions: Pakistanis can call each other Paki – as in "Paki live TV shows" – but from whites the word is an insult.

Could it be that laws banning hate-speech are creating linguistic ghettos on the basis of the sinister and outmoded concept of race, where freedom of speech depends on the amount of melatonin in one’s skin? In that case I’m with Rowan Atkinson on his opposition to hate-speech laws: "feel free to insult me!" Just don’t take offence when I reply in kind.

Gerry Dorrian
300 words

Click to go to the Jeremy Vine Show 5 December 2012

end of the licence fee for post-Savile BBC?

The BBC’s chickens are coming home to roost like never before, with allegations of Jimmy Saville’s abuse of children being followed by indications of decades-long cover-ups of his and others’ activities. So is it entirely coincidental that YouTube has announced its drive to lure TV viewers with 60 new channels right now?

The idea isn’t new: YouTube launched a similar initiative in the US last year, and doubtless the UK additions have been on the drawing board for some time. But surely it would be commercial stupidity not to act just as millions of licence-fee payers wonder whether their money has been used to gag witnesses and even victims of child abuse?

I’ve had big problems with the BBC; for instance, refusing to apologise to Christians for airing Jerry Springer: the Opera despite over 60,000 complaints. And after airing the infamous pre-recorded Ross and Brand show, its first reaction was to smear its own customers by saying we hadn’t reacted until an article by Melanie Phillips alerted us to the fiasco.

Now, however, I see that the BBC itself isn’t the problem. The licence fee is the problem.

Remember Celebrity Big Brother Series 5 on Channel 4 where Jade Goody racially abused Shilpa Shetty? The broadcaster stuck to its guns in not removing Goody: although the controversy raised viewing figures to astronomical levels, Carphone Warehouse withdrew its sponsorship of the programme and anything Goody-related, for example her perfumes and her autobiography, were considered too toxic for high-street shelves. Millions were lost, and C4 lost the series.

Had Channel 4 been funded by licence-fee, it would have carried on regardless, much as the BBC does. The Saville child abuse row, and all the related rows waiting to explode, constitute the BBC’s Big Brother experience. After all this, don’t let "the unique way the BBC is funded" become their get-out-of-jail-free card.

Gerry Dorrian
300 words

Resources

Esther Rantzen: I believe interviewees - This is Gloucestershire

Gloating cruelty, foul vulgarity and a BBC that has lost all sense of shame - Melanie Phillips on the Ross and Brand broadcast

Shipbuilding - was it worth it?

"Every conflict, every war that’s been waged in our time, has had its soundtrack: calls to arms, calls to lay down arms, but nothing like Shipbuilding."

Thus Annie Nightingale (right) introduced Is it worth it? showcasing Robert Wyatt’s Falklands War-era song, written by Elvis Costello. It was named after the first line, and by halfway through the hour-long documentary I'd heard those words sung so often I was asking myself the same thing.

My heart sank from the moment Nightingale mentioned "the controversy over who the Falklands Islands – or Las Malvinas – should belong to". Then followed paeans to music’s ability to express anti-capitalist sentiments as well as Pat Kane of Hue and Cry declaring that to have people building ships for the navy to prosecute war from – the theme of Shipbuilding – was both "dignified and shameful" and an offshoot of "the poisonous need to create contracts" for industries that supply the military.

The second half-hour was balanced by contributions from shipbuilders, veteran Andy Eakins and war-widow Barbara Macauley. But it failed to present the Falklands War as more than a product of Margaret Thatcher doing things that annoy the BBC.

For instance, scriptwriters might have mentioned that while Britain and Spain had often disputed ownership, the Islands never belonged to Argentina. That the Islanders are predominantly of British and American descent. Or, indeed, that Pope Alexander VI prepared the ground for conflict in 1494 by arbitrarily delcaring where the line dividing the future Atlantic territories of Spain and Portugal would lie.

To argue that proximity renders the Falklands Argentinian exemplifies outdated colonialist thinking. This was by no means the most biased documentary the BBC has come up with but, with the prospect of British Armed Forces members going in harm’s way not receding, it needs to reappraise its student-union internationalism and remember why it’s called the British Broadcasting Corporation.

Gerry Dorrian
300 words

RESOURCES

Click to go to the BBC Radio 2 webpage for Is it Worth It

Click to view a Falklands Islands timeline

Click here to see Robert Wyatt's video for Shipbuilding on YouTube or watch it below:

Halal slaughter: lessons to be learnt?

We Brits are famous animal lovers. It’s unsurprising, then, that writer Mary Caldwell, in her Radio 2 Pause for Thought introducing the UN International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, used a distressing story about Victorian chaffinch-keepers blinding their birds so they’d sing louder in competitions. Her lesson was from Francis of Assisi: "If we have men who will exclude any of God’s creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who deal likewise with their fellow men".

Schedule 12 of The Welfare of Animals (Killing and Slaughter) Regulations 1995 exempts Muslims and Jews from Schedule 5, allowing them to slaughter animals that aren’t pre-stunned "without the infliction of unnecessary suffering". However, while Schedule 12 lays down detailed standards for the The Rabbinical Commission for The licensing of Shochetim (Kosher slaughter), there’s no mention of any body overseeing Halal slaughter.

I agree with Marc Lebuis (left), Québécois editor of Point de Bascule [tipping point] Canada when he says that if Muslims feel they need Halal-slaughtered meat then that should be their religious right. But Lebuis identifies the consequences of unregulated business, in that two organisations who took over Halal certification in Canada were stripped of their charitable status for passing funds to Hamas and Al Qaeda.

The potential to inadvertently fund terrorists is huge worldwide, given institutions’ predispositions to buying Halal food not to offend Muslims, probably ignorant of the Koran verse excusing Muslims from eating Halal when not available. (So the RSPCA’s Religious Slaughter Information Sheet disappoints by mentioning only Kosher-slaughtered food entering general circulation.)

The lesson pertaining to human suffering of unregulated Halal slaughter is that when organisations are exempted from controls for ideological reasons, suffering multiplies. Perhaps when the UN understands this, it will then announce International Days in Support of Victims of Forced marriage, Child Grooming, Female Genital Circumcision…the list goes on.

Tony Urquhart
300 words

Resources

Click to go to the webpage for the UN International Day in Support of Victims of Torture

Click to go to the Boycott Halalwebsite (warning: links to disturbing images)

click to see Marc Lebuis interviewed by Giles Coren on Youtube or watch below:

open letter to Fearne Cotton: the BBC's a bully too

Dear Fearne,

I am sad that you have been subjected to personal abuse on social media that you were right to label as bullying. You were undoubtedly under orders to comment on Diamond Jubilee sick bags.

I have to tell you that your employer, the BBC, is also a bully.

It’s not your fault. Many of us have worked for bullies, and some of the nastiest are among your bosses.

Take the misogyny. I hope you enjoy your very good looks for a long time before you start to learn, alongside colleagues like Mariella Frostrup and Anna Ford, that when the lines start you’re no longer required front-of-shop.

And the racism. Race is a chimera, but discrimination on grounds of characteristics once associated with race abounds, with the BBC a major offender. On one hand there’s Greg Dyke’s remark that the BBC is "hideously white", and on the other Lindsay Johns hits home when he attacks the corporation for thinking it’s connecting with black people when Radio 1 Xtra plays rap, and asks "where’s the black Radio 4?"

Last in a selection of the BBC’s many bullying traits is the licence fee. If something upsets me on a commercial channel I switch over and don’t get too bothered; but if the BBC transmits offensive material like Jerry Springer: The Opera or the Ross and Brand débâcle (which was pre-recorded), whether or not I watch it, I am forced to pay for it by being blackmailed with a £1000 fine should I withhold my licence fee in protest.

I hope you take this letter in the spirit it was written, which is one of solicitude for your future well-being. You are a highly talented media personality, and I think your interests would be best-served by ditching the BBC before it ditches you.

Yours

Gerry Dorrian
300 words

Here's FEarne's Bullyproof tips on YouTube:

Eurovision 2012: Graham Norton's BNP remark spoils the show

Many acts in Eurovision 2012 that were probably discreetly told not to win because there was no money to stage the 2013 contest, but I’m sure Engelbert Humperdink wasn’t one of them. So it was disappointing to see him come second last – but nobody can say that he didn’t belt it out like a good’un.

There was more Euro-mediocrity than usual, probably because of the aforementioned fiscal diffidence. But Ukraine’s entry was reassuringly nuts, and I hope the Buranovskiye Babushki – the Russian Grannies – manage to rebuild their village church, destroyed by Stalin. Turkey eschewed its usual belly-dancers for a testosterone-charged piece about piracy in what looked unsettlingly like a declaration of intent.

Sweden’s techno entry didn’t float my boat, but as the only performer who met Azerbainjani human rights activists, perhaps Loreen (right) deserved her victory.

However, Britain’s TV host Graham Norton spoiled this year’s contest for me. Co-host Leyla Alieva had been good enough to go up to speak to Engelbert in the Green room and ask how he was. Then British fans did the same as those of any other country, ie raised the national flag and cheered. Norton’s summary of the report was, "there’s the British contingent – they sound like a BNP rally".

Norton (left) thus revealed himself as a leftist BBC toadie, totally unlike his predecessor, Sir Terry Wogan. In comparing flag-waving patriots to racist extremists, especially as the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee approaches and Union Jacks proliferate, he himself flies the flag of middle-class internationalism so necessary for success in the contemporary BBC.

Concerning Britain’s ranking, radio Eurovision commentator Ken Bruce (right) hit the nail on the head: "as long as voting for each other’s neighbours goes on, can we do much better than [second place]…the UK must question if it wants to be in the UK in the future".

Gerry Dorrian
300 words

Click for BBC1 coverage of Eurovision 2012 - Graham Norton's BNP comment starts at 1.00.00 (exactly 1 hour in)

Click for BBC Complaints

Sierra Leone: Taylor trial betrays euro-racism

67 years ago, Italian fascist Benito Mussolini’s corpse was displayed in Milan’s Piazzale Loreto.

I mention Mussolini because another tyrant has been brought to justice – Charles Taylor of Liberia, who has been convicted of sending thugs into neighbouring Sierra Leone. However, while Mussolini was administered justice by and among the people he misruled, Taylor was tried in The Hague and will be imprisoned in Great Britain – which required a special act of Parliament – because of fears of a West African trial causing renewed instability.

Instability is there in plenty. A message was gotten to Jeremy Vine’s BBC Radio 2 show from a Sierra Leonean whose whole family had been killed by Taylor’s thugs, including child soldiers. She is now living as an outcast in Gambia, where she can only get work as a prostitute. The child soldiers, no less outcasts, remain in Sierra Leone as an army in waiting.

Mussolini’s execution and subsequent display within the country he brutalised surely cooled the heads of other budding little caesars. Wouldn’t a similar display of Taylor’s earthly remains in Sierra Leone likewise provide food for thought?

The only reason I can think of for Taylor’s trial being held in Europe is racism. A bunch of predominantly white liberals decided that West Africans cannot be allowed to hold their own leaders to account for their actions. So they send the UN in like a knight in shining armour, their self-righteousness blinding them to the fact that this is far from a fairy-tale, and the only happily-ever-after will be Taylor’s as his every human right is pandered to in a British jail.

Surely there's still time for common-sense to trump western ethnocentrism? Taylor needs to be sent back home to his own people for sentence, to be done to as he did to them. Then maybe, just maybe, a budding demagogue may think, "perhaps not".

Gerry Dorrian
300 words

Click here for Jeremy Vine's radio show on Friday 27 March - content is harrowing, and starts at 0-49-00.

protest songs: Nearer my God to Thee

Amid the myths most "experts" agree that the Titanic's band (as they say) played on with Nearer my God to Thee.

During a recent interview on Steve Wright’s radio show, Julian Fellowes, creator of the ITV series Titanic, addressed the issue of why we’re so obsessed the centenary of this leviathan’s demise. His reply: just as the "unsinkable" Titanic headed inexorably towards its nemesis with every sector of pre-war society represented, that civilisation, which considered itself unsinkable, had less than ten years.

Fellowes points to the elaborate parade that would be held in Russia the year after the sinking to celebrate the Romanovs’ 300th anniversary on the throne: most of them would die in a hail of Bolshevik bullets in Yekaterinburg 4 short years later.

In truth, just as the iceberg flooded too many compartments for the Titanic to stay afloat, so the slow-burning disaster that Europe was sleepwalking into was too damaging to survive. For example, Eric Hogsbawm points out in Age of Extremes that the trenches, barbed wire and machine-guns that defined 1914-18 were all present in the 1904-5 Russo-Japanese war for anyone who might have cared to take notice. The Ottoman Empire provided a blueprint for industrial-scale massacre in Bulgaria in 1876, and would do so again in Armenia, starting in 1915. Europe’s iceberg, the First World War, was virtually unavoidable after Germany finally forced France to recognise its existence in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles following 1870’s Franco-Prussian War.

Again Europe faces an iceberg, symbolised by the Ottomans’ heirs avariciously eyeing our lands once more. Will our patriotic parties and defence leagues be ready to act as lifeboats when we are too flooded to float? We can only pray, and Nearer my God to Thee is as good a prayer as any.

Gerry Dorrian
300 words

This post is dedicated to the 1,514 victims of the Titanic, the millions left dead following Europe's iceberg, and all the past, present and future victims of the iceberg currently at Europe's hull.

Click to hear Julian Fellowes intervied on Steve Wright's radio show

Click here for the ITV series Titanic

Military Wives: did Simon Cowell scuttle his own single?

I’m not sure why music-buyers were so resentful of Simon Cowell’s hits machine that they let Rage Against the Machine swear their way to the top in Christmas 2009. Cowell’s progenies were certainly manufactured; but so were, say, the Monkees, Cream and the Spice Girls.

The Girls managed to bag the Christmas number one three times consecutively, the same as The Beatles – although after a year’s hiatus they got Christmas back again with Hello Goodbye.

X Factor winners had four consecutive number ones until Rage in the Machine, then winner Matt Cardle scored with When we Collide, powered by the well-oiled media machine that is Cowell’s record label Syco.

So why did this year’s winners’ record, Cannonball by Little Mix, get released just in time to peak a week too early? Did the skilled media manipulator make a mistake?

I don’t think so. He’s had what he wanted: a number one from them. I reckon he scuppered their chances to get this Sunday’s top spot so that the Military Wives Choir have a clear run with their single Wherever you Are, going so far as to "concede" their victory.

As choirmaster Gareth Malone explained to Chris Tarrant on Radio 2, the frequency of repatriations of bodies coupled with the tenth anniversary of our engagement in Afghanistan has concentrated minds upon the plight of serving and former soldiers and their families in a fashion unprecedented in modern times.

If Cowell’s act were seen to be fighting the Wives for Number 1, the national repercussions could shake his shows to their foundation on both sides of the Atlantic, so it seems he’s wisely decided to fight another day.

But there’s still competition out there, and the Military Wives will only succeed if we buy their song – listen to it below, then DOWNLOAD from iTunes or Amazon!

Gerry Dorrian
300 words

BBC "tastemakers" decide what you'll hear next year

It’s not 2012 yet, but the BBC has decided what next year’s pop music radio will sound like. It has decided who 2012’s top artists will be, and produced a playlist picked by 120 "tastemakers", most of whose names left me asking: "who?"

You could say that the BBC’s controlling tendencies are holographically-coded. On one level it decides what those of us who care to listen to its radio will listen to next year. On another Bruce MacGregor (right), presenting BBC Radio Scotland’s flagship folk show Travelling Folk, found himself unable to say the title of one of his tracks, Mairerad Green and Anna Massie’s jig Malteser Madness, in case he might be accused of "product placement".

National DJs willing to unilaterally introduce new music have been systematically distanced from prime-time – for example, "whispering" Bob Harris has been moved to midnight on Sunday morning on BBC2 – and the legendary John Peel’s shoes remain unfilled.

Perhaps closest to Peel is Stuart Maconie on the digital station 6 Music with his twin shows The Freak Zone and The Freakier Zone. What grates about these shows, however, is the frequency with which Maconie reveals his BBC-friendly assumptions by describing an act as "left-field", as song as "coming out of the left wing" or applying his highest accolade to an outfit by cooing it’s "a collective".

Much of what BBC Radio does is world-class, but its decision to hand £1,000,000 of our money to U2 in free publicity summed up its strategy: to decide what people should want then set about "educating" them as to why they wanted it. Privatising the fascist media monolith’s radio services and selling advertising where the interminable trailers now lie would serve a double goal: it would save us money, and let hugely talented individuals get on with being world-class.

Tony Urquhart
300 words

Cambridge News: unevolved coverage of the strikes

If you read only the Cambridge Evening News, you might think that the public-sector strike spread nothing but joy and enlightenment with no inconvenience.

Its first six pages were filled with breathless appreciation of the walkouts that was negligently partisan. Only on page 6 was there any hint of opposition to the strikes in Cambridgeshire, in the “no” section of a debate article, and in a "vox-pop" section of comments on the online forum, with three comments for and three against.

Compare this with coverage on Monday 11 June of the English Defence League march in Cambridge that took place on Saturday 9, much of which has disappeared from the paper’s online archive. There was a similar amount of coverage, with the difference that the editorial article was brought into the fray, stating that the EDL were "not welcome to return", despite the fact that the 200-strong demo was far less disruptive than yesterday’s 4000-strong march and rally.

The prejudice is owed to the paper’s allegiance to the old view of class consciousness, the socialist dogma that workers can only transcend their lot when they become aware of their chains. Demonstrators’ sinister devotion to spreading their view of class consciousness was revealed when, according to the News, "Janette Evely, a teacher at St Philip’s Primary School in Vinery Way, Cambridge, was accompanied by some of her pupils."

Polly Toynbee's recent BBC documentary about class consciousness rued its demise with plummy-voiced obsequies, failing to consider that class consciousness hasn’t faded: Labour’s betrayal of its blue-collar voting base forced its evolution. And my evolved class-conscious analysis of the strikes is this – why should I demand to pay more tax so a bunch of middle-class activists who earn more than I ever will can get a pension I can only dream of?

Joe Daniels
300 words

is diabetes a laughing matter?

Soul singer Linda Jones can be an acquired taste: her allmusic profile describes her oevre as "probably the most gloriously histrionic soul records of all time", while blogger 4thpip states that "you just want to reach through your speakers and hold on to her for her own, dear life".

One of Jones’ songs turned up this week on one of my favourite radio shows, Stuart Maconie’s Freakier Zone. It and its sister show, The Freak Zone, are among the only places where you can find music that just doesn’t get airplay: they’re both on the digital station BBC Radio 6 Music.

The context in which her song, Your Precious Love, appeared was in a presentation by "poet, artist and songwriter" Edward Barton, entitled "Profound Failures". While airing the sort of music Maconie does demands a certain lack of cynicism, Barton was not encumbered by any such impediment. Informing us that Jones "died of diabetes exacerbated by excessive drinking shortly after making this record," he goes on to add that "you can feel God grimace, knowing that this woman is about to land on his doorstep".

I had to listen to that part – starting at 11 minutes into the programme – again. Is diabetes now one of the subjects that self-styled entertainers feel empowered to have a pop at? Given that some subjects are fireproofed by the BBC, it is all the more frustrating to hear others ripped apart.

Stuart Maconie had the good grace to sound uncomfortable during Barton’s tirade, to the point of remarking after the song that "you want to give her a cuddle". Will he now demonstrate the even-handedness that the BBC was once known for, and invite Barton back to explain to an audience of diabetics exactly what is funny of dying from complications of the condition?

Joe Daniels
300 words

Click to listen to the episode of the Freakier Zone discussed until midnight GMT on Friday 9 September.

The Class Ceiling: mobility and angst

I’ve just been listening to Polly Toynbee’s The Class Ceiling on BBC Radio 4. The main thesis of this first half of her presentation is that people from "working-class" backgrounds are being held back from ascending to the middle class by their upbringings.

I can’t profess a liking for the left-wing firebrand, but have to acknowledge her honesty in asking "what if I hadn’t grown up surrounded by books and parents who talked to me?" However, this is not class-based: you can hardly move in some blue-collar workers' houses for books, and many of us have mastered the art of making comprehensible noises in the direction of our children.

Where Toynbee’s programme hit home is when she interviewed an education neuroscientist who said that often when children start school their prospect for social mobility has been stunted by poor parenting skills. So why, then, do left-leaning politicians still champion teenage girls’ rights to their own flats if pregnant?

My daughter is one of the 68% of young people to have left school without five good GCSEs: the school’s guidance system was brilliant, but by the time she got there she’d had several years in a primary that didn’t understand her diabetes and saw her hypogycaemic attacks as an attention-seeking/time-wasting activity. Now liberated, she’s started her first business before she’s twenty. So is she a success or a failure?

Social mobility all too often is really about the mobility of those already in the upper branches to the top, propelled by those below, an exercise undertaken in different ways by Lenin and Blair. With education laid bare as a box-ticking exercise, blue-collar workers are realising that the cadre who broke it are not automatically entitled to their support: and that, I would suggest, is the real cause of Polly Toynbee’s angst.

Joe Daniels
300 words