A cheap and easy egomania

He gives a shilling to a starving man, not that the man may be fed but that he himself may be a shilling-giver. He cultivates sympathy with the destitute for the sake of being sympathetic. The whole of his virtue and his creed of conduct runs to a cheap and easy egomania in which his blind passion for himself causes him to use external people and things as mere reactions upon his own personality. The immoral little toad swells itself to the bursting point in its desire to be a moral ox.

Stephen Leacock - Essays and Literary Studies (1916)

To my mind this quote encapsulates the modern political scene – a cheap and easy egomania all done with the money of other people. If Brexit hasn’t hammered home this message then we are lost.

Let's see - who is the immoral little toad ?

Incredible Shrinking Europe

Seems harsh

Recently heard over our local garden centre's speaker system.

Kevin to compost - Kevin to compost.

Poor Kevin. I wonder what he'd done?

The timid world of the BBC

It would be comforting to discover that the public arena is becoming less weird and more rational. Sadly it isn't so. A recent example has been this silly issue at the BBC.

Naga Munchetty: BBC not impartial on racism, senior bosses say

On Wednesday, presenter Munchetty was found by the BBC's Editorial Complaints Unit (ECU) to have breached the corporation's guidelines by criticising US President Donald Trump's motives after he said four female politicians should "go back" to "places from which they came".

Part of the BBC response was -

The email from the BBC's Executive Committee - which includes director general Lord Hall and director of news and current affairs Fran Unsworth - tells all staff: "You will have heard a lot of comment over the past few days about the BBC and the reporting of racism.

"The BBC is not impartial on racism. Racism is not an opinion and it is not a matter for debate. Racism is racism."

Suppose we amend that last sentence to something less controversial.

Theft is not an opinion and it is not a matter for debate. Theft is theft.

No that won't do. It may be less controversial but is still too rigid. In many situations theft is certainly a matter for debate. Going back to the original issue, Trump's comment may be seen as nationalist or merely patriotic rather than racist. It doesn't matter, the point is that political labels are almost always debatable. 

Calling Trump's comment racist isn't a fact but an opinion and obviously a matter for debate, but of course that's the point. The BBC chooses not to debate certain debatable issues. Yet again we are confronted by its creepy lack of social and political courage. It really is a useless outfit.  

Harry sticks to the script

The Duke of Sussex says there is "a race against time" to halt global warming, adding that he is "troubled" by climate change deniers.

"I don't believe that there's anybody in this world that can deny science," he said.

He called it "an emergency", adding "the world's children are striking" after teenage activist Greta Thunberg led a worldwide protest on Friday.

Prince Harry is visiting Botswana as part of a tour of southern Africa.

He says it was the place he went to "to get away from it all" after his mother's death.

The duke had visited the country soon after Diana, Princess of Wales, died in August 1997 and had made "some of my closest friends" there.

"Now I feel deeply connected to this place and to Africa," he said during a visit to the Chobe Tree Reserve.

Strange how politically correct it is to display a soft spot for Africa, the spiritual home of kleptocracy.

Sticking to the script

As we know, political life has much in common with acting, but how close is it to a purely thespian career? Prime ministers, ministers, MPs- are they merely actors? Very close to it presumably, because if one assumes they are merely actors then many things become clear. A common enough point of view perhaps, but in our current political turmoil these things are worth repeating. The turmoil isn’t accidental.

Let us devise an imaginary political actor named Creep. Let us assume that Creep doesn’t make much effort to understand his own words when it comes to political discourse. He learns the script but goes no further. Creep has found that there is political safety in the script if he allows for a limited amount of ad-libbing. This is what he does if his script does not fit a particular political scenario – he ad-libs to build bridges back to the script.

We see this all the time in politics where standard scripts seem to have taken over political discourse. The reason is simple enough - standard scripts are the best and easiest way for Creep to navigate through the minefields of political discourse.

Sticking to the script works because it is easy and it is easy because scriptwriters design their scripts to be easily delivered. They know their actors so their scripts require little in the way of mental agility. There is no compelling need for a political actor such as Creep to absorb all the detail behind his scripts.

Maybe this sounds cynical, but for political actors there are advantages to not researching the background to their scripts in too much detail. It keeps the ad-libbing within narrow bounds. Arguments rarely strike home because no great effort is required to deflect them. Creep’s scripts may not fit a particular political argument but he can usually be relied on to ad-lib and deflect awkward arguments back to the script. Creep has no real choice anyway. Creep is an actor.

For Creep, political discourse is easy, no matter how powerful opposing arguments may be. His scripts and acting ability keep things under control. Here we have the dual purpose of the political script - it works well and it makes life easy for political actors. The downside for voters is that many political actors are merely that – actors. Voters cannot vote for or against the scriptwriters.

Kristian Niemietz on political correctness

Not a new angle on political correctness but it may be worth noting how strongly Brexit Remainers have tried to present their position as the higher status position. For many Remainers, the social status of Remain seems to be the only significant issue.