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23 October 1997
When I went to France the other day, to visit my parents, the journey started
with a bus ride to London's
Heathrow
Airport. There's a new bus lane on the
spur road from the motorway, which is the kind of mass-transit improvement
that goes down well in Britain. It's a cheap fix. It's a good thing - don't
get me wrong - but it's cheapskate.
Our governments don't really like spending money on transit systems. When
Britain was run by the
Conservatives, a pleasing
ritual occurred at a number of Conservative party conferences. The Minister of
Transport would announce to the assembled party workers that funding had been
agreed for London's CrossRail project (an East-West high-speed underground
railway based on a tunnel from
Liverpool Street
Station to
Paddington
Station).
Loud cheers from stout parties.
A few months later the project would be shelved again. And I suppose this was
because they just couldn't bring themselves to spend the money if the
alternative was a tax cut for the well-off. One of the last mentions of
CrossRail was an
announcement in 1996 by Sir George Young that CrossRail would be "preceded"
by an upgrading of the already existing Thameslink.
Another thing I savoured about those days was how the Minister of Transport
would announce, in the run-up to an election, great plans for shifting freight
from road to rail.
Sounded good.
Of course, after the election the Minister of Transport would be given another
portfolio. Freight stayed on the road.
How unlike France, I thought, as I flew in to
Lyon
via that city's Satolas
Airport, with its dedicated high-speed train station, on which no expense had
been spared. In France they get on and build their new railways - their TGV and their RER.
But how are we going to change things in Britain? Labour doesn't want to spend
money any more than the Conservatives did. Maybe we could get
Camelot to start a third
lottery - Monday might be appropriate. The proceeds could be used for grandiose
transport projects - supertrams, highspeed undergrounds with all mod cons...
Just think. We could get from A to B. We could arrive quickly and not spend so
long travelling hopelessly.
If only.
Fixed on send
10 September 1997
Is it widely known that Aboriginal people from Milingimbi in Australia mourned
Diana? That traditional dancers performed White Cockatoo and an Eagle,
the same dance that a group of Milingimbi women did for Queen Elizabeth in
Toowoomba in 1956? This snippet was something I picked up on the website of
Melbourne's The Age, not from the
British media.
In Britain, the huge popular turnout before, during and after Diana's funeral
has had some impact. The hard-hitting oration of Charles Spencer has had an
impact. The scales (apparently) have fallen from British journalists' eyes.
They realize (apparently) that editors are responsible after all for the
pictures they print. Apparently, the use of paparazzi is not just a natural
consequence of public demand. And I see that Roy Greenslade has performed a
neat 180-degree turn. In The
Guardian this Monday, he wrote that 'it is no
longer good enough to leave decisions about editorial content to the mercies
of the market. That consistent justification trotted out by tabloid editors
(yes, and former editors like me) needs to be rethought.'
I have nothing particular against Roy Greenslade. I simply noticed his
comments. There are plenty of other commentators. Indeed there has been a lot
of pontificating in Britain. Some people have explained that people couldn't
really have felt grief for Diana because they had never met her. Others have
explained that people cared about her because she was a princess (monarchy
good). Others have explained that people clap at funerals in France. Still
others have explained that people applauded Spencer because they wanted to
show their disapproval of the Palace's behaviour (monarchy bad). Various
people have explained that they are doing this or that 'because it's what
Diana would have wanted'. We are told that people who aren't interested must
have hearts of stone. And economists are worried about all these flowers
being airlifted into Britain from goodness knows where.
Funnily enough, I turned on the radio this morning to hear the writer
Salman Rushdie saying
pretty much what Roy Greenslade originally said a week ago. We're all to blame, apparently, because we are all intrigued by revelations about celebrities like Diana. The interviewer tried to pin the blame on readers of the tabloids, but Rushdie made it very clear that in his view we're all in the frame. Each and every one of us.
Pretty sweeping. And presumably Rushdie includes
himself, although he didn't discuss his personal guilt in any detail.
Well, I can only think of two plausible explanations of this line. Either Rushdie sincerely believes that every single person in Britain is to some degree interested in Diana, in which case he is slightly obtuse, or he knows perfectly well that some people just aren't interested, but thinks that people are more likely to accept a share of the blame if it's shared out all round, in which case he's being slightly dishonest and very political. (Of course, there may be another reason for Rushdie's words, but if there is it escapes me at present.)
Anyway his views don't sound very original. The most interesting comment about Diana that I heard came from Robert Runcie (formerly England's Archbishop of Canterbury). He said that when politicians met people who had problems their typical reaction was to explain those people's problems to them. What was different about Diana was that she let people with problems explain their problems to her. Diana listened.
The media and the market
1 September 1997
It's odd how reluctant journalists are to accept that any fault can ever be
laid at the door of the media. After learning about the deaths of Diana, Dodi
and Monsieur Paul in Paris, almost the first thing I heard on the radio was Roy
Greenslade, ex-editor of the Daily Mirror (a popular London tabloid paper),
saying that before blaming the media we should examine our own consciences.
Didn't we all buy magazines with Diana's photos on the cover?
It's the free market, it's supply and demand. And the demand for intrusive pictures comes from us all. Doesn't it?
Well no, actually, it doesn't. As it happens, I don't go out and buy papers and
magazines because they have pictures of Diana. And I'm not unique. Roy
Greenslade may think it's not just newspaper editors who are to blame for
feeding the appetites of the paparazzi. He may be right. But I'm not picking
up the tab for that one. No way.
It's a bit like people who say that cigarette companies shouldn't be sued, because they're just supplying a commercial demand. It's the smokers who are to blame for poisoning themselves. Granted that taking up smoking is pretty uniformly the result of an act of free will. But that doesn't mean that what the cigarette companies are doing is right.
Can you distinguish between right and wrong without interfering with the market? Just a thought.
The BBC seemed to think it was obeying the laws of the market when it closed down most of its radio and TV programming to devote its entire output to Diana. Even the Top 40 was cancelled on Radio 1. You would think, then, that the BBC's news coverage would be complete and accurate. But it wasn't.
For most of Sunday a better way to find out what had happened was to listen to French radio.
For most of Sunday, the BBC ignored the fact that there were four people in
the car when it crashed. There was no mention of the bodyguard. Nothing about
the driver, except that he existed. This wasn't a news service, it was more
like some strange propaganda outfit which had forgotten that there are other
sources of information. But maybe the ratings will show they had the market
sussed. We'll see.
On Monday morning, Roy Greenslade had an article in the Guardian. This time he
refrained from asking us all to examine our consciences. There might be no
significance in this. But then again, perhaps he has realised that there's
just no demand for journalists' insinuations that we're all to blame. And
perhaps he produces what the market wants.
25 July 1997
Letter to the London Evening Standard
Dear Sir May I congratulate Anne Applebaum (E-mail) on her witty parody of English attitudes to devolution (It's
make
your mind up time, 24 July). I particularly savoured the note of blinkered
belligerence in her closing remarks. The Scots should have independence if
they want it, she writes. Otherwise 'they should be subject to the same
laws of the United Kingdom as everybody else'.
Little Englanders may not be aware of the reality of the situation, but as a
perspicaceous observer of political affairs on both sides of the Atlantic,
Ms Applebaum must know full well that Scotland has an entirely different
legal system from England and that different laws apply in Scotland.
This has of course been the case for centuries.
Yours faithfully
Old Sanctimony
24 July 1997
We hear today that a schoolgirl in Mansfield, England, has been expelled
for bringing her school into disrepute. Apparently the local paper had
printed anonymous letters complaining that school students were falling
behind on the government-imposed school syllabus because their teachers
were often absent and were then replaced with temporary 'supply' teachers.
The student's offence was to support these anonymous allegations openly,
and to refuse to apologise.
This, it was deemed, brought the school into disrepute. Not the anonymous
letters in the paper. Nor the expulsion itself. It's a peculiar and extremely
subjective notion, 'bringing into disrepute'. In many cases, it's a sort of
polite, sanctimonious, British pretext for the suppression of free speech.
At a more elevated level, a reek of sanctimoniousness also hangs over the
head of British education minister
David Blunkett. Commenting on his own plan to end maintenance
grants for poorer students and introduce fees for richer ones (a plan which
will, it seems, cost poorer students twice as much as
richer ones), Mr Blunkett said that the people he cared more about
were the cleaners who paid taxes which financed Britain's higher education.
Yeah, right. It reminded me of the last Labour government in Britain, elected in 1974, which promptly set about raising money off the backs of students by abolishing their existing right to claim rent/rate rebates if unemployed during the summer holidays. A similar lack of concern for 'privileged' students was expressed then. Is this a tiny indication that Britain's 'New
Labour' can't quite change old Labour's spots?
(PS The school withdrew the expulsion before the autumn term began,
and the Head subsequently resigned.)
To travel or to arrive?
Steve Savage
