The liberal urbanists are a majority in London

Interesting blog post by Paul Mason about the council elections:  http://blogs.channel4.com/paul-mason-blog/culture-war-crisis-mainstream-politics/831

However he is wrong to assume "the educated, liberal urbanists... are probably a majority; their cultural values rule".

I was myself for several years one of the educated "liberal" urbanists he talks about, but my liberalism was entirely a nine-to-five convenience to comply with the censorship of political correctness.

And I would guess that goes for virtually everyone I worked with and came into contact with.

The liberal urbanists are a majority in London in the same way that communist supporters were a majority in Erich Honecker's East Berlin.

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold you know.

he educated, liberal urbanists are no longer – as in the 1930s – confined to an intellectual elite. They are probably a majority; their cultural values rule - See more at: http://blogs.channel4.com/paul-mason-blog/culture-war-crisis-mainstream-politics/831#sthash.jvGKcSPZ.dpuf

he educated, liberal urbanists are no longer – as in the 1930s – confined to an intellectual elite. They are probably a majority; their cultural values rule - See more at: http://blogs.channel4.com/paul-mason-blog/culture-war-crisis-mainstream-politics/831#sthash.jvGKcSPZ.dpuf

he educated, liberal urbanists are no longer – as in the 1930s – confined to an intellectual elite. They are probably a majority; their cultural values rule - See more at: http://blogs.channel4.com/paul-mason-blog/culture-war-crisis-mainstream-politics/831#sthash.jvGKcSPZ.dpuf

A culture war waged by lefty teachers

Today is, as you must be aware by now, St George's Day.

Above:  here we see the village school in one of my favourite rural settlements (on the high moor, but in the midst of woods).  There is no mistaking the St George theme, with the gable above the main entrance decorated with red roses and shields of the English three lions and the flag of St George.  Pevsner says the building was designed by HG Gamble and put up in 1913 (the school closed in 2006).

Children attending this school would have been enjoined to live up to the patriotic ideals of St George.  There would have been no doubt over their "identity".  Englishness would have meant everything to them.

Above:  nearby is the village hall, designed by Thomas Dixon in a Tudor style and put up in 1910.  A few years later, during the First World War, patriotic plaques and slogans were added, including Britannia and St George.  The hall is still used by the local community.

Yesterday Newsnight broadcast a devastating expose of left-wing infiltration into the National Union of Teachers.  This has been going on for decades.  This is why St George's Day has been suppressed since the 1950s - it has in part been targeted in a culture war waged by lefty teachers (not all teachers are lefties, but a very significant proportion are).

Thank you Michael Gove for taking these people on.

"Listed" architects

On the Building Design website is an article on post-war listed buildings by Elizabeth Hopkirk illustrated by a photograph that shows twenty-four of the country's living "listed" architects (the buildings are listed, not the architects).  Only one of the architects is a woman.

Which makes me wonder if brutalist architecture would have taken such a hold in the United Kingdom if the architectural profession had been more gender balanced.

The article quotes Terry Farrell saying:  "“There was a lot of rubbish built in the 1950s. I worked for the LCC and there were far more mistakes made then because people were reinventing without testing. There were an awful lot of flaws — technical as well as social".

http://www.bdonline.co.uk/news/brutalism-was-a-freak-says-architecture-tsar/5061193.article

Marina Warner in this week's Times Literary Supplement

Review by Marina Warner in this week's Times Literary Supplement of Edith Hall's new book on the cultural history of Iphegenia in Tauris.

Like everything by Marina Warner, it is worth reading several times.

Richard J Evans in today's Guardian

Interesting (but wrong) argument by Richard J Evans in today's Guardian about reform of the History syllabus of the National Curriculum.

The reason History in schools is of such fundamental importance is because it defines everything else about the United Kingdom.

In many ways History is the memory of a nation.

In cases of Alzheimer's disease an individual's memory perishes and although that person is still alive and functioning they have essentially died.

The same holds true for nations - without an awareness of its national history narrative a nation is dead as a unique culture and civilisation.

That is why the History syllabus is too important to be decided by trendy leftie teachers.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/jul/13/michael-gove-teaching-history-wars

Dr Michael Scott's three-part series

Very impressed by Dr Michael Scott's three-part series Jesus the Rise to Power on National Geographic channel earlier today.

His style is very accessible, and he can explain complex concepts without dumbing down.

He also does not labour points, which creates multiple levels of narration (you might recognise St George's monastery in the Wadi Kelt, but if you do not it does not detract from the narration).

http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/classics/staff/scott/

http://natgeotv.com.au/tv/jesus-rise-to-power/

Back to 1942 directed by Feng Xiaogang

I was at home this morning and saw on CCTV a discussion about the new film Back to 1942 directed by Feng Xiaogang.  The discussion involved political opinions by Victor Gao (about how much Chang Kai Shek knew about the famine), aesthetic comments by Raymond Zhou from China Daily ("he has stripped the movie of all commercial and entertainment elements... this is a movie that makes you think...") and an assessment from film-maker Emily Liu ("there are hopes for the overseas market").  I will look out for this film when it comes to London.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Zwc-rfdC8c

What morality in public life means "in practice"

Owen Jones asks Philip Blond what morality in public life means "in practice".

Assuming the question is sincere, it suggests he does not know the difference between moral and immoral behaviour.

One cannot condemn him for this.

As someone who has had an atheist upbringing, and who stridently asserts his atheist beliefs (if that is not a contradiction) there is no reason to expect him to subscribe to Western standards of Christian morality (do not kill, do not steal, do not tell lies etc).

But it is an indication of how far society has fallen, and why the Establishment has become corrupt.

https://twitter.com/OwenJones84
https://twitter.com/Phillip_Blond

Tim Soutphommasane's vision of a more "patriotic" Labour Party

(https://twitter.com/RachelReevesMP )


Shadow Treasury Minister Rachel Reeves appears to be endorsing Tim Soutphommasane's vision of a more "patriotic" Labour Party - reported in a New Statesman article by George Eaton http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/politics/2012/08/ns-profile-tim-soutphommasane

The article points to the Olympic Opening Ceremony as providing a catalyst for a new nationalist interpretation of the Labour Party in the United Kingdom.

In many ways the adoption of a more "patriotic" policy would solve several problems for the Labour leadership.  An emphasis upon "Britishness" would outmanoeuvre the nationalist parties in Scotland and Wales (probably essential if the Labour Party is to have a long-term future).  It would also marginalise the hard-line socialist members of the Labour Party who oppose the party's metamorphosis into a more social democratic model.

However Australian society is not the same as British society, and what worked in the antipodes is unlikely to work here.  For instance, there appears to be no meaningful class structure in Australia to intrude into definitions of "patriotism".  Also, Australians have a myth of everyone, rich or poor, being equal immigrants into an "empty land" (myopically ignoring the genocidal extermination and repression of the original inhabitants).

In the United Kingdom there are already well-established myths that will not be easily overturned.

But Rachel Reeve's endorsement indicates the proposals are probably also endorsed by Ed Miliband and Ed Balls.

PS I know the supposed difference between patriotism and nationalism, but I regard the differentiation as false - when most people say "patriotism" today they mean nationalism.

Olympian poem by Carol Ann Duffy

It is a matter of course that a poem written by the official Poet Laureate immediately enters the canon of twenty-first century English literature.

Therefore the Olympian poem by Carol Ann Duffy, appearing on the front page of today's Guardian, deserves serious study (you might need to click on the image to enlarge it).

The last line quotes the Chancellor George Osborne. 

The poem needs to be read several times before the meanings become apparent - and they will not be the immediate conclusions that this is about government spending.

Nick Cohen on his Twitter site is indulging in sniggering:

Friday night was an ecstatic triumphalist moment

The writer of the Olympic Opening Ceremony, Frank Cotterill Boyce, appeared on Newsnight yesterday, interviewed by Emily Maitlis: 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01ll3cc/Newsnight_30_07_2012/

When asked whether there was a political message encoded in the ceremony he smirked and waved his hands and talked about the volunteers.  Unusually Emily Maitlis did not make him reply to the question.  I have tried to capture his smirking in the above screen print, but this has proved impossible - although he smirked frequently, he did it so quickly that by the time my finger had been depressed on the SysRq button he had closed his eyes.

The idea that the production was just a chaotic unstructured mish-mash thrown together in a few brain-storming sessions and that in any case the "volunteers" made all the running on deciding content is, to my view, highly expert dissembling.

Perhaps I am being over-suspicious in all this?

Perhaps I am, in the sweeping words of the Prime Minister, being "idiotic" in identifying a covert subliminal layer of messages when everyone (almost everyone) is saying how wonderful the ceremony was, how there was no political agenda, and that we should all just chill out and enjoy the rest of the show.

And there is, of course, a risk of appearing obsessed in revisiting an event most people have already begun to forget with their conscious minds.  Of becoming just another on-line nutter chuntering on about things that are completely unimportant.  Of not being able to let things go.

But the reason I am fascinated (as well as appalled) by what happened on Friday night is because it was, on a technical level, so good (and I realise now my first shocked reaction of "it's bad" seems ridiculous in retrospect - it was not bad at all, but in its own terms very very good, although in my judgement also profoundly disturbing, perhaps even evil).

For a few hours on Friday evening Danny Boyle and Frank Cotterill Boyce convinced almost the entire population of the United Kingdom of several key concepts:

• That multi-culturalism is an established and accepted national policy.
• That mass immigration is a popular, uncontroversial and on-going national benefit.
• That society means socialism.

Of course many people sincerely hold these views, and to them Friday night was an ecstatic triumphalist moment.

True socialists believe that capitalist society cannot be reformed, it has to be destroyed and rebuilt again (destroyed by bloody revolution or destroyed by gentle imperceptible degrees, but ultimately destroyed).

In the United Kingdom in the post-war period one of the main agencies of this destruction is multi-culturalism.

Multi-culturalism has become a policy that is impossible to oppose without being pilloried as a "racist" (as Aidan Burley can no doubt assure you).

So you see the genius of what was done on Friday evening.

A great advance for socialism has been made. 

And even the two main leaders of the Conservative Party are on message. 

The 2012 Olympic Closing Ceremony

After the (strenuously denied) left-wing imagery of the Olympic Opening Ceremony one wonders what the 2012 Olympic Closing Ceremony is going to be like.

The director is Kim Gavin, and he has already said that he wants it to be as "inclusive" as possible.

As perhaps you have already realised, use of the word "inclusive" is an Orwellian code.  Everyone will be included who matches the criteria.  No-one will be included who doesn't.

And as a sop to the stupid they will play the Eton Boating Song.