“It was, you know, just one of those times” friends often say when they hear somebody say something tooth-rattlingly stupid. As in “just one of those times when I lost it and the National Rifle Association was supremely grateful that I wasn’t holding one of their products at the time that was one of those times”.
I empathise hugely with that emotion, because the problem in the world of 2013 is that I have a few of those times every day. For example, last week I was listening to a discussion on BBC Radio 4 about the demise of Michael Winner. The guests were chewing the fat about Winner’s amazing ability to complain in restaurants, and at the end of the programme this complete pillock opined, “There is absolutely no point in complaining because it won’t make any difference and why not just enjoy the meal, go home afterwards, and keep calm?”
How do you explain to a wafer-thin brain that such thinking is the thin end of the wedge? That if you don’t complain about Blair, you wind up with Cameron?
I don’t know the answer to that one, but here’s another example from yesterday’s Times: the High Court has approved the decision by a Jewish couple to divorce using Beth Din rabbinical Law. In this – the first decision in British secular legal history giving way to the judgement of a minority religious sect – the High Court is effectively clearing the way for utter anarchy in any legal process involving divorce. We can be 100% certain of this because, within minutes of the decision, a Muslim Council spokesman said, “If it leads to the acceptance of Sharia Court divorces, then Muslims will be very encouraged”.
Which part of multiculturalism’s risible track-record do the High Court clowns not get? Which of the blindingly obvious ramifications of this insane decision can they ever, ever rationalise later as having been ‘unforeseen’? Mr Justice Baker cited no less a f**kwit than former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams in reaching his judgement. Since when did the British Constitution allow for the opinion of a happy-clappy cleric to drive the Rule of Law?
The unadulterated über-liberal naivety of the decision puts me in mind of the two famous German historians Manvell and Frankel, who ended their definitive tome on the Weimar era with this classic model of clarity: “The Weimar Republic failed because it allowed an overly-large grant of political freedom to those whose avowed objective was its destruction”.
Back again to the political madness of our age, and the completely unethical acceptance by David Cameron that professional skills are more important, when appointing someone to a key post, than powerful evidence of their criminal leanings. The PPI scandal committee’s main champion, Ombudsperson Natalie Ceeney, told a Parliamentary Enquiry last week that evidence given by the banks was “implausible”. As if to rub it in, she added that “I have never trusted any CEO who says ‘I didn’t know'”.
Quite right too: the bugger is paid a humungous salary to know. But Baron Green of HSBC says he never knew about the long-term, consistently-applied money-laundering that went on in his bank….despite the fact that he had personally been seconded to several of the branches concerned during his career there. All of which had David Cameron salivating to hire him. In precisely the way he hired Andy Coulson….and consorted with Rebekah Brooks. This too is what passes these days for ‘unforeseen consequences’.
While I would very much like to see a more liberal attitude to euthanasia prevail in Britain, there is no way I would bring a law about it forward in our contemporary culture, because it is painfully clear that – within weeks – amoral cadres within the medical profession would be facilitating the murder of aged relatives by children who were desperate for their money. Tessa Jowell applied no such logical thought to her decision to liberalise the licensing laws a few years ago – and A&E hospital departments have been paying for it ever since.
The vast majority of the political class are highly intelligent idiots. Unless this changes, we might just as well let them do WTF they want and take the sensible precaution of emigrating.
Yesterday at The Slog: Time to take more interest in interest rates
The Slog 