10 January 2015 Cleaning
Mary a little better though she could manage to get up for breakfast. Clear out cupboards in kitchen annex.
Obituary:
Lance Percival – obituary
Lance Percival was an actor and revue performer known for his ‘instant calypso’ on TW3 and appearances in British comic films
6:26PM GMT 09 Jan 2015
Lance Percival, the comedian and singer who has died aged 81, was a regular cast member of Britain’s first topical satire show, That Was The Week That Was, and a stalwart over many years of British comedy caper movies.
TW3’s deviser Ned Sherrin plucked Percival from playing guitar at the Blue Angel Club in Mayfair, and during the show’s brief but hugely successful outing on the BBC in 1962-63, Percival featured in political sketches and performed a regular “instant calypso” inspired by the week’s events — in the manner of the West Indian singer Cy Grant.
Gangly, with an expressive, snaggle-toothed face and a good line in funny voices, Percival was the Tory leader Sir Alec Douglas-Home to Willy Rushton’s Harold Macmillan. He was also memorable as a civil servant detecting sexual innuendoes in bureaucratese in a 1963 sketch spoofing the controversy over the junior minister Tam Galbraith beginning a letter to the mandarin John Vassall (whose homosexuality had been used to blackmail him into spying for the Soviet Union) with the words “My Dear Vassall”.
In his calypso slot Percival would ask audience members to suggest possible subjects and would then launch into improvised topical calypsos, of which one, Shame and Scandal in the Family, an updated version of a calypso standard, reached No 37 in the charts in 1965.
Percival recorded several other novelty songs with George Martin at Parlophone, including The Beetroot Song (“If you like beetroot I’ll be true to you”, 1963) and The Maharajah of Brum (1967).
After TW3’s demise, two of the show’s writers, Peter Tinniswood and David Nobbs, created an unsuccessful television sitcom for Percival, Lance at Large (1964). More successfully, The Lance Percival Show, a sketch-variety format, ran for two series on BBC One (1965-66).
But Percival mainly became known as a jobbing actor on television and in film comedies such as Carry On Cruising (1962), into which he was drafted at the last moment to play a bilious ship’s cook by its penny-pinching producer, Peter Rogers, after Carry On regular Charles Hawtrey had the temerity to ask for a pay rise. Later Percival appeared in the Frankie Howerd vehicles Up Pompeii! (1971), Up the Chastity Belt (1971) and Up the Front (1972).
Lance Percival (second from right) and other members of the TW3 line-up in 1963 (GETTY/HULTON ARCHIVE)
John Lancelot Blades Percival was born at Sevenoaks, Kent, on July 26 1933. His parents sent him to Sherborne, where he became interested in music. He entered show business with a calypso group, and by the 1950s was performing in London clubs and on television shows. In 1960 he starred with Kenneth Williams and Sheila Hancock in Peter Cook’s stage revue One Over the Eight (for which he was understudied by Ken Loach).
He had made his (uncredited) screen debut in Three Men in a Boat in 1956, and went on to appear in more than 30 films. He had cameo roles in The V.I.P.s in 1963 and The Yellow Rolls-Royce (1964). In 1970 he appeared alongside Julie Andrews in the musical film Darling Lili and in There’s a Girl in My Soup, starring Peter Sellers and Goldie Hawn.
Lance Percival (left) with Kenneth Williams and Kenneth Connor in Carry On Cruising (REX)
He provided the voice of both Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr in the 1965 television cartoon series The Beatles, and that of the character “Old Fred” in the Beatles’ animated film Yellow Submarine (1968).
In late 1970, however, Percival was involved in a bad car accident in which he nearly lost his sight in one eye. Despite this, he appeared in several more films, including the Up Pompeii! series and similar British comedies of the period, among them Our Miss Fred (1972) with Danny La Rue, and Confessions from a Holiday Camp (1977).
He made a variety of television appearances both as an actor and personality, including in the series Up the Workers (1974-76); The Kenneth Williams Show (1976); and Noel’s House Party in the 1990s. On Radio 4 he was a regular panellist on Ian Messiter’s Many a Slip in the 1960s, and on Just a Minute in the 1980s. He also published two books of verse, Well-Versed Dogs (1985) Well-Versed Cats (1986).
Throughout his career, Percival also worked as a scriptwriter, contributing more than 100 episodes to the 1970s Thames Television game show Whodunnit.
Lance Percival (right) and Lord Montagu of Beaulieu (centre) on the London to Brighton Car Run, 1969 (REX)
In later life he launched a new career as an after-dinner speaker and a writer of humorous speeches for executives. “They always come back for more,” he told a friend. “They have to maintain their reputation as wits.”
Lance Percival was married but divorced, and is survived by a son.
Lance Percival, born July 26 1933, died January 6 2015
Guardian:
You report (Cameron defends NHS in worst week for A&E, 7 January) the current intense difficulties in the NHS and the statement from the King’s Fund chief executive that “the NHS is fundamentally broken”. Earlier, Rowena Mason (Report, 1 January) highlighted the impact of the smaller political parties (Ukip, SNP, Greens) on the outcome of this May’s general election. She did not mention the National Health Action party (NHA), which is a national response to the long-term political failures that have inflicted this chaos and damage on the NHS.
We and many others vigorously back this newcomer to electoral politics, which brings these failures into focus: the waste, mismanagement and dishonesty of the major political parties. The NHS tops the political agenda in the minds of many voters. In order to attract votes, the big parties pay lip-service to its importance while simultaneously allowing it to be crushed by privatisation, ruinous private finance initiatives, harmful marketisation and dangerous fragmentation. The Tories and Lib Dems are clearly disingenuous in their claims to treasure the NHS, having effectively abolished it with the Health and Social Care Act. While the Labour party is focusing its campaign on the NHS, their track record is not reassuring.
The NHA is not just about the NHS in isolation. To pay for our medical care we need a strong, balanced and stable economy. Our health depends on social justice and a healthy environment and lifestyle. The NHS is badly served by the current big party system. It would flourish better in a healthier democracy, with proportional representation and more parties with focused agendas, among which the NHA has a vital role to play.
In Oxford West and Abingdon (Conservative majority: 176) there is a winnable seat and an excellent NHA candidate, who joins 11 NHA party candidates standing in other constituencies. These provide a unique opportunity to secure the presence of one or more MPs in parliament whose election would be symbolic of the public’s desire for a better political system and the need to truly protect the NHS, as a priceless national asset, from careless politicians and corporate predators. This is part of the current wider developments in new and alternative forms of progressive political expression. For the first time in decades, we and others can vote for a party that really matters to everyone.
Prof Chris Redman Emeritus professor of obstetric medicine, Iain Chalmers Health services researcher, Prof Klim Mcpherson Emeritus professor of epidemiology, Prof John S Yudkin Emeritus professor of medicine, Dr Oliver Ormerod Consultant cardiologist, Dr Peggy Frith Retired consultant opthalmologist, Dr David McCoy Senior lecturer in primary care and public health
• As is shown by the coincidence of the moving account of 24 hours in an A&E doctor’s life, with the withdrawal of Circle from its contract to manage Hinchingbrooke hospital (the guardian.com, 9 January), the NHS is too vital an institution to be left either to the binary war-rhetoric of politicians, or to the profit-driven private sector. Dr Clive Peedell, co-leader of the National Health Action party, flagged as long ago as 2013 that Circle would be likely to walk away from Hinchingbrooke once it had put £5m of its own money in. Once again, he predicted, the NHS would pick up the pieces, and local people would suffer.
Pen Keyte
Oxford
• NHS staff are working flat out to cope with unprecedented demands for care. More staff and A&E facilities in the NHS are not the only solution. Improving the “flow” of people into and out of A&E can potentially provide a more sustainable long-term solution, at no extra cost. All too often A&E has been looked at in isolation rather than exploring the root causes of A&E delays. By “flow” we are referring to approaches used widely by other sectors – such as airports – that manage high customer throughputs and have to coordinate multiple processes to get people to the right destination.
The Health Foundation has supported a programme at both South Warwickshire NHS Foundation Trust and Sheffield Teaching Hospital NHS Trust, examining flow and resulting in steps being taken to address the inefficiencies preventing patients from getting care promptly. This work has helped to keep waits for patients down, improve quality of care and reduce length of stay in hospital. Yet these “flow” techniques are not used widely across the NHS – in A&E or in general practices that are also experiencing high demands. They should now be. One way forward is simple training for frontline staff in “flow” techniques, and support from management to implement them.
Dr Jennifer Dixon
Chief executive, The Health Foundation
• You fail to mention the shortage of hospital beds in England (Editorial, 8 January). EU figures for hospital beds per 1,000 population for all specialities are: Germany 8.2, France 6.6, EU average 4.9 and the UK 3.3. Within the UK England has 2.7, which is only 55% of the EU average. No wonder hospitals are bursting at the seams. Beds may be a four-letter word, but it needs to be shouted out aloud.
Morris Bernadt
London
• As Richard Adams piece shows (Report, 9 January), there is a great demand from students wishing to study medicine and a shortage of suitably qualified British doctors, due in part to emigration. So we import doctors for A&E from Spain while exporting them to Australia. Demoralised doctors seeing increasing pressures put on them do not apply for A&E jobs or for partnerships in general practice, where bureaucracy prevents them from concentrating on patients. In addition, newly qualified doctors will shortly be faced with student debts of £45,000 for tuition and a similar amount for maintenance during their five-year course.
I hear on the grapevine that some students are planning to emigrate in the hope of avoiding repayments, since it is difficult to trace those who have no UK income. This could be avoided if there were to be an incentive scheme, rescinding part of the debt for, say, each of the first five years that a newly qualified doctor works for the NHS. The army have run this type of scheme for many years with great success.
Dr Margaret Safranek
London
• Professor Willett, NHS England’s current director of acute care, is quoted as saying that “We now have a ‘right now’ society; a population that expects to have immediate or very rapid solutions to their queries” (A&E crisis: experts diagnose the cause, 7 January). The point the professor is either missing or ignoring is that things used to be just that; if you felt ill a generation ago you could visit the GP, during surgery hours, wait a while, then be seen. Now, you have to call for an appointment – the end of next week if you’re lucky, or a couple of days if it’s urgent. That’s one of the main reasons for the current problems in A&E; yet if a top bureaucrat is unable to see that, there’s little hope of a solution anytime soon.
Charles Sawyer
London
Your editorial (5 January) shows a complete misunderstanding of the issues surrounding powering the country. In 2010, we inherited a legacy of underinvestment in the energy sector, with a number of power stations due to close by 2020 and ageing network infrastructure, a legacy that put our energy security at risk. To safeguard our energy supplies, we are implementing a long-term plan, though you appear to be totally unaware of this. Our radical reforms have stimulated more than £45bn of investment, mostly in renewable electricity.
You dismiss our capacity market, yet this has been extremely successful in securing electricity supply at the lowest cost for consumers, as fierce competition in our auction drove costs significantly below predicted levels. As well as unlocking new investment in flexible plants, we are getting the best out of our existing power stations, which provide reliable and cost-effective capacity, as always planned. We are also determined to make homes warmer and more energy-efficient. Average electricity consumption per person is down 10% from five years ago, largely down to schemes like the Green Deal and other regulations making household devices more energy-efficient. Bizarrely, your editorial ends by calling for more state intervention. You clearly do not understand that our reforms of electricity markets, both for clean energy and for securing supply, are significant state interventions in the free market.
Ed Davey MP
Energy and climate change secretary
• Re your article on the fall in oil prices (7 January), one possibility is the opportunity to painlessly raise extra revenue to reduce the deficit or provide additional funding to the health service etc. For the last few years the chancellor has frozen planned rises in fuel tax but now that we are paying 25p less per litre of petrol than we were six months ago, surely no one will notice or mind a 3p rise if the money raised is used effectively.
Brian Westcott
Chester
As a producer who has often taken part in “Classic Album Sundays” (on Nick Drake, Fairport Convention LPs etc), I was pleased to read John Harris’s excellent piece (Vinyl is enjoying an unexpected renaissance, 7 January). I have been boring friends for decades with rants about how analogue sound is so much better than digital, so it is gratifying to witness the surge in appreciation of the black stuff. One problem which Harris addresses only obliquely is that most disc-mastering is now from digital sources. Not only are many master tapes either lost or deteriorated, but most cutting lathes pass the sound through a digital device for adjusting the pitch of the spiral before the signal reaches the stylus. The enthusiasm of the recently converted masks the fact that current LPs – of both new recordings and back catalogue – effectively emit a digital signal, albeit often one of higher quality than that of a CD and certainly far higher than most downloads.
It is tragic that major labels failed to keep metal parts along with master tapes. If anyone found a treasure trove of matrices for classic albums and pressed vinyl from those, that really would be something to celebrate – and to pay those outrageous prices for.
Joe Boyd
Producer, and author, White Bicycles: making music in the 1960s
• To the revival of vinyl LPs, along with other so-called out-dated technologies (In a virtual world we cling to what’s real, 31 December 2014), one could add the high-end valve amplifiers that hi-fi buffs so revere, also the valve guitar amps that many guitarists from all genres now use. The overall sound and tone of analogue sound reproduction is so much preferable to that of solid-state amps and the somewhat clinical results of digital processing.
Paul Freeman
Braintree, Essex
Timothy Garton Ash (5 January) asks: “What is Britain”? Any answer should take account of the US postal service, which has just returned to sender in California a parcel inscribed “England – no such country. Please specify a country”. Parcels to Scotland did not suffer this fate.
Roderick Floud
Haddenham, Buckinghamshire
• You report (Puppy Love, 8 January) that ITV’s debut of The Wonder of Britain had been viewed by 1.7m eyeballs. Could you clarify this? Was the programme watched by 850,00 people using both eyes or by 1.7 million people using just one eye?
Francis McCahill
Fraserburgh, Aberdeenshire
• When we have the new Magna Carta that Graham Allen MP calls for (Letters, 8 January) will there be a referendum?
Don Selway
Portsmouth
Independent:
Times:
Sir, Has Peter Franklin visited Grosvenor Farms’ dairy (“Cows that never see light”, Thunderer, Jan 5), or any other dairy farm? Unlike hens, cows do not fall into categories such as free-range, barn or caged. Some farmers keep cows outside, some inside, and in between a spectrum of dairy farming is guided by weather, soil, farm layout and the market for milk.
Is outside optimum? Not always. Cows don’t like wind, wet feet or flies; they go hungry if it’s raining hard as they won’t eat, and at temperatures over 20C they can suffer heat stress. Is inside wrong? Not necessarily. Given the option in trials, many cows choose to be inside and prefer eating from a “canteen”. Virtually no cows have fresh grass year-round and modern housing is open to light, air and sun. The main reason supermarkets don’t label by production system is because there are no defined systems.
Amy Jackson
Nuffield scholar, Can We Learn to Love the Megadairy?, Witney, Oxon
Sir, Peter Franklin is right to highlight the welfare issues associated with factory farming, but it is also important to talk about broader impacts, including the damage caused by the massive concentration of nutrients in a small area and the waste of good vegetable protein that could be consumed by humans.
Natalie Bennett
Leader, Green Party of England and Wales
Sir, In a few months most dairy farmers will let their cows back on the fields after five months indoors. That on this first release these “old girls” run, jump and kick their back legs in the air speaks volumes.
Iain Davidson
Cumnock, Ayrshire
Sir, The time has come for the media to stop presenting atrocities (reports, Jan 8 & 9) with blurred pictures of wounded victims being shot; and failing to show the beheadings and aftermath of bombings, the bodies and body parts, the blood and the maimed. All of this should be seen in its horrible awfulness, uncensored.
By all means provide warnings, but until the public are exposed to the hellish horrors they will regard these as they did the images of the Boston marathon bombing last year — nothing more than a run interrupted by a bang and cloud of smoke.
Alongside this must be the uncensored images of the dead in the rubble of collateral bombing rather than just ruined buildings.
Only when the whole horror is presented in its graphic raw truth will there be an informed public to insist that governments and leaders bring these horrors to an end, now.
Douglas Martyn
Sandilands, Lanarkshire
Sir, David Aaronovitch’s assertion (Opinion, Jan 8) that “for the first time since the defeat of fascism a group of citizens were massacred because of what they had drawn, said or published” betrays a selective memory. On April 23, 1999, Nato — on our behalf — bombed the Belgrade HQ of RTS, Serbian State Broadcasting, killing 13 members of the media.
This attack was condemned by journalists’ organisations but the prime minister, Tony Blair, and Nato described RTS as an “entirely legitimate target”. It is never right to attack journalists, even if you disagree with the editorial position of their media outlet. We should uphold this defence of freedom, not apply it selectively.
Dr David Lowry
Stoneleigh, Surrey
Sir, David Aaronovitch said that those who don’t like the “deal for living together” should “go somewhere else”. Such a view, aside from being incendiary in tone, is proliferating the murderous ignorance that we are all trying to fight. Defending free speech means defending the rights of even those who say that such a freedom should not exist. Suggesting that people who think differently should effectively be exiled is an illogical intellectual tyranny.
Nabil Hanafi
London N1
Sir, In the wake of the Paris murders, David Cameron stated that Britain must stand up “against this threat to our values — free speech, the rule of law, democracy”.
Stirring words, but there is more than a whiff of hypocrisy when, less than two months ago, his home secretary, Theresa May, banned Julien Blanc, the so-called pick-up artist, from entering Britain on the grounds that it would not be “conducive to the public good.”
Britain is a mature democracy, with a deep-rooted tradition of satire. Surely we are robust enough to handle the scarcely threatening Julien Blanc and others who say things we don’t like. Mr Blanc’s exclusion is one of many examples of UK governments ducking the awkward question on free speech.
John Hesketh
Sheffield
Sir, Those politicians now blithely championing the “right to offend” may care to look at the Public Order Act 1986 which makes it a crime to use “insulting” words to alarm or distress someone, and the Offensive Behaviour at Football Matches Act 2012 which makes it a crime to be offensive at football matches in Scotland.
An apposite response to the Charlie Hebdo attack would be to repeal these antediluvian measures and restore free speech and the right to offend.
Roger Harris
Barrister, London EC4
Sir, Haras Rafiq of Quilliam (Opinion, Jan 9) states the case very clearly for theological reform within Islam. But such difficult processes demand extraordinary courage, and they often require external leadership. Voltaire was prepared to take that role for European Christianity. When will somebody of equivalent stature emerge to help deliver Islam from the dark ages?
Tom Foulkes
Fleet, Hants
Sir, Surely the decisions by BBC Newsnight and Channel 4 News not to air the Charlie Hebdo cartoon is a reflection of acting with responsibility rather than being cowardly. Should we not be more proud that as a nation we try to avoid flaming the sparks of discontent?
Simon Milton
London SW12
Sir, Elements of our press, exalting in their democratic freedoms, treat immigrants by our own standards and publish smug cartoons insulting all they have, which is what they believe in. I do not take sides but we asked for trouble and we are getting it. If Jesus was portrayed in the way of these cartoons I would hate it but I can take it. They can’t.
Lord Temple-Morris
House of Lords
Sir, Hardly a day goes by without my feelings being deeply hurt, but that’s the price I’m willing to pay for freedom of speech. There can be no serious discussion on any subject if we must restrain ourselves from offending anybody. The media could do a lot to restore sanity.
stephen vizinczey
London SW5
Sir, Had these terrorists been caught alive, they ought to have been jailed and allowed no books except Hobbes and Pascal. They might just have learnt something.
William Sibree
Chart Sutton, Kent
Sir, The Rev Christopher Green (letter, Jan 9) might call for cartoons that mock atheism, but we atheists will just laugh along with him. That is the difference.
Jim McAllister
Dubai
Sir, Islam teaches us to obey the law of the land. The Muslim cleric Anjem Choudary and others like him should be kicked out of Britain as they are destroying our beautiful religion. But at the same time we should realise that these jihadists have been created by America’s actions. We in the West should stop interfering in Islamic countries.
Dr Junaid Rafi
Ipswich
Sir, As a Parachute Regiment student at Fort Benning in the US in the Sixties, I wore British jungle greens, my beret and silver cap badge. As a colour sergeant I was surprised to be continually saluted (letters, Jan 7 & 9). Apparently, from 20 paces my cap badge resembled the US rank badge of “bird colonel”. I always returned the salutes.
Colin J Butcher
Llanfaes, Powys
Sir, I notice that Wallander is back on BBC4 (Viewing guide, Jan 3), with its white subtitles, a problem that it shares with Inspector Montalbano. Older viewers — and there are more of them these days, many with failing sight — much prefer subtitles in black print on a white or yellow background.
Emrys Rees
Luton
Sir, Like Sir Winston Churchill, in 1944, aged 2, I also had a siren suit (“Winnie and the birth of the onesie”, Jan 8). Mine was made by my mother from material unpicked from cast-off clothing in line with the wartime slogan of Make Do and Mend.
Lyn Baily
Bognor Regis
Sir, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that copies of Churchill’s siren suit might be called the Winsie, or even the Win Winsie.
Michael Warshaw
Lond
Sir, Has Peter Franklin visited Grosvenor Farms’ dairy (“Cows that never see light”, Thunderer, Jan 5), or any other dairy farm? Unlike hens, cows do not fall into categories such as free-range, barn or caged. Some farmers keep cows outside, some inside, and in between a spectrum of dairy farming is guided by weather, soil, farm layout and the market for milk.
Is outside optimum? Not always. Cows don’t like wind, wet feet or flies; they go hungry if it’s raining hard as they won’t eat, and at temperatures over 20C they can suffer heat stress. Is inside wrong? Not necessarily. Given the option in trials, many cows choose to be inside and prefer eating from a “canteen”. Virtually no cows have fresh grass year-round and modern housing is open to light, air and sun. The main reason supermarkets don’t label by production system is because there are no defined systems.
Amy Jackson
Nuffield scholar, Can We Learn to Love the Megadairy?, Witney, Oxon
Sir, Peter Franklin is right to highlight the welfare issues associated with factory farming, but it is also important to talk about broader impacts, including the damage caused by the massive concentration of nutrients in a small area and the waste of good vegetable protein that could be consumed by humans.
Natalie Bennett
Leader, Green Party of England and Wales
Sir, In a few months most dairy farmers will let their cows back on the fields after five months indoors. That on this first release these “old girls” run, jump and kick their back legs in the air speaks volumes.
Iain Davidson
Cumnock, Ayrshire
on NW8
Telegraph:
7:00AM GMT 09 Jan 2015
SIR – Not only was the carnage in Paris a brutal attack on freedom of expression in France, it was also an attack against our fundamental democratic values in Britain. Indeed, we are all Parisians today in standing firm and steadfast.
The military-like precision, weaponry deployed and the targeting of pre-selected victims (with the terrorists apparently knowing of the editorial meeting at Charlie Hebdo) are alarmingly ominous.
This makes it necessary for us in Britain to adopt a far more assertively structured stance against militant Islamism here. The Home Secretary’s recent courageous measures to counter British “jihadists” need to be applauded and espoused as the national minimum in our legal armoury.
For their part, British Islamic institutions are still woefully complacent, offering at best no more than rhetoric and well-rehearsed bouts of condemnation. They need to do much better in countering the pernicious ideology of radical Islamism, by reinforcing to young impressionable Muslim minds that the security of this country is paramount and equally by instilling unmitigated pride in British values and national institutions.
Dr Lu’ayy Minwer Al Rimawi
Peterborough
SIR – The latest atrocity by “Islamist” terrorists, this time in Paris, invites us to look at the concept of jihad. It means struggle, fighting. Argument goes on about its two applications – whether within the mind of the believer against sin, or, far more usually in the history of Islam, as armed struggle against the “unbelievers”, which in turn means those refusing “submission or surrender” (Islam) to Allah, the Muslim concept of God.
Jihad, however defined, is a duty of Muslims. Since Western secular democracy is “submission” to the will of the people, it should be obvious that the two views cannot be reconciled, since such secular democratic ideals can only be seen by Islam as blasphemous.
Only when both sides wake up to this can there be any way forward, which, also on both sides, entails overcoming political correctness. Jihad means that a believer cannot be “moderate”. It demands all.
Roger Payne
London NW3
SIR – The attack on Charlie Hebdo could never have happened in Britain. The editors would long ago have been prosecuted under Section 5 of the 1986 Public Order Act on the grounds of publishing material that was likely to cause distress to others.
Professor Martyn Rady
Ramsgate, Kent
SIR – Bestial as the attack on Charlie Hebdo was, the response of the “international community” bears the hallmarks of both public and media selectivity.
How much can the French really value the editorial independence of a weekly magazine that sells fewer than 50,000 copies an issue?
Why weren’t Huw Edwards or James Naughtie despatched by the BBC to Amsterdam when the Dutch film director Theo van Gogh was murdered by a home-grown Muslim extremist?
With Germany’s chancellor and our own Prime Minister telling us that Islamic terrorism has nothing to do with Islam, we shouldn’t be surprised at anything.
Tony Stone
Oxted, Surrey
SIR – Freedom of expression, respect for the rule of law and religious tolerance are cornerstones of a free society, requiring vigilant defence against the perils of totalitarianism, censorship and terrorism.
The publication of material that insults groups or individuals of any faith or none must remain permissible in a free society. That does not, however, mean that such gratuitous behaviour should not be condemned as wholly disrespectful, offensive and provocative.
If such satire is designed to be humorous, I readily confess that I comprehensively fail to understand how.
Philip Duly
Haslemere, Surrey
SIR – The killing in cold blood of 12 people is a heinous crime; and clearly freedom of speech is an important part of democratic life in western Europe. But, as you indicate (Leading article, January 8), some of us avoid publishing things that would cause unnecessary offence to those who have firmly held religious beliefs.
We seem to be living in a society where destructive attacks, often disguised as humour, on anything that hitherto held society together and was the foundation of so much that is good, are becoming more and more prevalent.
But free speech is not just a right; it is a responsibility. Terrorism aims to destroy society from the outside, but, provided we are bold, we can have every hope it will not succeed. However, if we do not regard free speech as a responsibility, we may see our society destroyed from within.
Michael Sparrow
Marple, Cheshire
SIR – They say that the crime was an attack on free speech, but what is free speech?
The Oxford Dictionary says it is: “The right to express any opinions without censorship or restraint.”
English law allows free speech provided it’s not threatening, abusive or insulting, likely to cause harassment, alarm, distress, anxiety or a breach of the peace. That it isn’t racist, indecent, grossly offensive or defamatory. That it doesn’t incite racial, sexual or religious hatred, or glorify or incite terrorism. That it doesn’t contain obscenity, corrupt public morals, outrage public decency or break court restrictions.
We don’t have free speech. We never have done.
David Welch
Margate, Kent
SIR – At what point does freedom of speech become “Islamophobia”?
John Fisher
Cheadle Hulme, Cheshire
SIR – I do not condone what happened in Paris. I wholly support the concept of free speech. But surely it should be tempered by consideration of the consequences and common sense.
Cador Roberts
Woodford Halse, Northamptonshire
SIR – Tomorrow, journalists who dare not re-publish the Charlie Hebdo cartoons will be lecturing Israel on trusting Hamas.
Martin Sewell
Gravesend, Kent
SIR – The start to my day is always made brighter by Matt, but I did wonder how he would address the atrocity in Paris. I was not disappointed. His cartoon yesterday was not only amusing but clearly demonstrated how to stand up to terrorist extremists without fear or favour, as others of his profession around the world have done.
Frazer Walker
Tern Hill, Shropshire
SIR – Expressions of support for freedom of speech by our main political parties are resoundingly hollow. Public discourse in Britain is now entirely governed by what is deemed “acceptable” or “unacceptable” by the liberal-Left mainstream.
Miles Wynn Cato
Ludlow, Shropshire
SIR – David Cameron condemned the Charlie Hebdo murders as an attack on free speech. Is this the same David Cameron, who, a few months ago, advocated bridling the British press?
Nicholas T Oakden
Norwich
Paying for milk
SIR – As Tom Hind, director of agriculture at Tesco (“A fair supermarket deal for British dairy farmers”, Letters, January 7), is well aware, his employer’s promise to pay farmers “a fair price for their milk that is guaranteed to cover the cost of production” only applies to fresh milk sold in Tesco.
On many occasions Mr Hind himself, while working for the National Farmers’ Union, tried to persuade Tesco that this should also apply to milk for all dairy products, for example butter and cheese.
Until all the supermarkets stop driving down the price of milk with own-label imported products, the British dairy industry will struggle.
Derek Lomax
Kendal, Cumbria
Granny’s lore
SIR – My wife’s mother told our daughters: “If you run round the orchard too many times, you will end up with a crab apple.”
Richard Walford
Knowle, Devon
Too Silent Witness
Olivia Colman and David Tennant star in Broadchurch Photo: ITV
SIR – It is not only Broadchurch that I find impossible to follow (report, January 7). This week I watched an episode of Silent Witness and although I turned up the volume, I still could not hear distinctly. Next I watched Lucy Worsley’s history programme Fit to Rule and, although it was on a much lower volume, I didn’t miss a single word uttered by her or her interviewees.
I no longer blame my hearing for not being able to enjoy modern television drama.
David Statham
Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire
Wild oats
SIR – The cereal aisle in my local Sainsbury’s has a subsection flagged “Adult Cereals”. Does this mean that we discover what that Scotsman wears under his kilt or is it that bran and oats (jumbo or otherwise) come in fairly plain packaging?
Eleanor Saunders
Chessington, Surrey
The public treatment of Ched Evans
SIR – The footballer Ched Evans was found guilty of rape, sentenced and served his time in prison (Sport, January 6).
Now he seeks to return to his gainful employment but his team has been bullied into declining his services.
Are we as a society saying that no convicted criminal can ever work again? Or is it just footballers, or perhaps just rapists?
Once a judge has handed down a sentence, that is the end of it: we cannot continue to persecute past offenders.
R T Britnell
Canterbury, Kent
SIR – Ched Evans and Geoffrey Boycott have both been tried, convicted and punished for the abuse of women, although both maintain their innocence.
One remains universally vilified and unable to ply his trade, while the other is feted by many, with demands that he be knighted.
The two crimes have many similarities but the gulf in public attitude towards them is considerable.
Roger Page
Peterborough
The high cost of sending criminals to court
SIR – I read with interest that Richard Monkhouse, chairman of the Magistrates’ Association, was concerned that police were giving too many offenders a “slap on the wrist” instead of sending them to court (report, January 7).
Since courts are now so reluctant to imprison people, especially for first offences, he evidently thinks it is the court’s duty to administer the slap on the wrist. But this incurs all the associated court costs and legal fees paid from the public purse solely for the benefit of those employed in the closed shop of our judicial system.
The result for the offender is likely to be the same, but at hundreds of times the cost to the taxpayer.
Andrew Vaughan
Ventnor, Isle of Wight
Globe and Mail:
John Allemang
Satire is often nasty, harmful and grotesquely abusive
The Globe and Mail
Published Friday, Jan. 09 2015, 5:51 PM EST
“Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own,” said Jonathan Swift, the gifted 18th-century lasher of human hypocrisy. “Which is the chief reason for that kind reception it meets with in the world, and that so very few are offended with it.”
If Swift’s observation is a satirist’s rule for survival, then Charlie Hebdo broke with the code. It meant to give serious and obvious offence (for instance, by publishing naked images of Mohammed in mocking sexual poses), gloried in its ability to provoke anger, and never backed down when it became clear that the hurt it kept causing among Muslims was profound and widespread, bordering on the universal. Its refusal to target the bad guys with a focused precision that was more defensible and less stereotypical left it open to animosity and attack.
“I’d rather die standing than live on my knees,” the newspaper’s editor, Stéphane Charbonnier, proclaimed in 2012, a year after the paper’s offices were firebombed. And now, the headlong, high-minded death wish of Charlie Hebdo has been fulfilled by the Kalashnikov-wielding enemies of satire, and turned into a postmortem justification of artistic integrity.
But as the freedom-of-speech protesters fight back against the forces of suppression and silence, satire’s power and its purpose and its methods are being distorted to serve a broader political cause. Satire is intrinsically dangerous and glories in that fact: As its history shows, its provocations have to be handled with care as well as cleverness, and claim no right to absolute truth or goodness.
“Hebdo doesn’t fit the tradition of satire in its highest form,” says Feisal Mohamed, a Canadian-born professor of 17th-century English literature at the University of Illinois. “Satire at the top of the hierarchy strives to be art with all the associated complexity and intellectual ambition. This is satire of the nose-thumbing variety, a kind of sensationalist journalism intended to stir up a hornet’s nest. They knew they were winding up a situation in Paris, let alone the world at large, that was already very tense. Ultimately the perpetrators of violence are responsible for the violence. But this does remind us that free speech is always a balancing act, and one should take the likely consequences into consideration.”
Balance doesn’t come naturally to satire. It is an exaggeration for effect, a caricature that purports to be a heightened, clarified reality but may just as easily be a narrow-minded distortion. If there is a kind of precarious balance, it is often of the Swiftian kind – most people don’t see themselves as the targets, either because the satire is specific to a ludicrous, contemptible individual (often veiled with see-through anonymity in 18th-century satirical poetry), abstracted into a generalized vice (gluttony, say – and none of us could be a glutton) or separated off into mockery of an outside group (Catholics in Anglican England, the French during the Napoleonic wars, clerics in secularizing, post-Enlightenment France, jihadi Muslims today). Or, simply, because humans by nature are disinclined to see themselves as complicit in the misdeeds of others.
Bigots deploy satire just as readily as frustrated idealists. Look at the history of caricature and you will see many racial stereotypes that appall modernists but worked fine in the quick-to-identify, ready-made xenophobia of previous eras – the grasping hook-nosed Jew, the buck-toothed coolie Chinaman, the wide-eyed, simple-minded, naturally rhythmic Negro. If we can summon up disgust for these failures of pre-enlightened satire, it shouldn’t be hard to empathize with those who see the same forces at work in contemporary caricatures of Muslims.
Satire, more than many genres in literature and devices in politics, thrives on its lack of boring and reasonable moderation. But far from being an undeniably good thing, satire is often nasty, harmful and grotesquely abusive, an acquired taste that’s not for one and all.
“Satire is negative,” says John Mullan, professor of English at University College London. “And that’s the point. … Great satire wouldn’t get written if there wasn’t something wrong to write about. In his first satire, the great Roman poet Juvenal claims he’s not going to write satirically, but then he goes out into the streets of the city and bubbles over with disgust and fury.”
Anyone who studies the long and bracing history of satire knows that it’s as rife with hate, snobbery and injustice as it is with the finer, higher virtues of hypocrisy-bashing. In fact the two components often go together, which makes satire a challenge to defend.
The satirical English caricaturists of the late 18th and early 19th century, James Gillray and George Cruikshank, are often celebrated for their fearless courage in mocking the high and mighty – Gillray depicts the Prince of Wales as a bloated out-of-it voluptuary, Cruikshank shows him casually farting in the face of earnest petitioners to the Crown. And yet, notes Prof. Mullan, “to the modern sensibility, they were incredibly un-PC. They satirized aristocrats, but they were also particularly nasty toward women. They weren’t political radicals at all – they’d go after lefties as much as the idle rich. Revolu- tionaries got a terrible going-over.”
In fact, the less-than-noble case can be made that they simply were targeting the well known, the celebrity culture of their era. The features of the famous would be easily recognized even in the grotesque exaggeration of a caricature, meaning their targets didn’t have to be identified – a handy defence in the event a wounded celebrity wanted to sue. In any case, says Vic Gatrell, fellow of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, and author of City of Laughter, Sex and Satire in Eighteenth-Century London, “in jury-tried law, it’s very difficult to prosecute a joke.”
Going too far in journalism may seem like a great thing to champion in the days after a horrible massacre, particularly for those, like Swift’s beholders, who never see themselves in the satirist’s distorting mirror. But (understandably, given the level of offensiveness being deployed) observing certain boundaries has always been a key to satire’s idea of allowable transgression, and thus to its survival: It’s not about you, it’s about him, or them, or no one in particular.
For much of its history, satire has been anonymous – the risk of exposure was too great, the consequences from repressive regimes too life-extinguishing. And yet the need for repressed peoples to find a public outlet that would give voice to their frustrations and honour their basic humanity remained powerful. Hence the famous “talking statues” in Rome, the ancient street-corner sculptures on which disenchanted citizens would leave satirical poetry critical of the Church and its leadership.
In totalitarian Soviet regimes, the elements of satire were appropriated by the state to serve its needs – communists continued to portray themselves as satirical avengers against capitalist fat cats, even as they seized power and metamorphosed from outsiders to oppressors.
“These were countries with absolute censorship, where satire turned into an instrument of propaganda, and you got these crude Daddy Warbucks images of American capitalism,” says Paul Wilson, the translator of Vaclav Havel who lived in Czechoslovakia in the 1960s and 1970s. “It was all designed to make you think in a certain way – the style of the Hebdo cartoons is much like the socialist realist cartoons in that they’re so very obvious. The purpose is not to create social change but to prevent it.”
True satire in the Soviet bloc, Mr. Wilson says, “became verbal. People shared jokes as a way of venting, to get a private laugh.” So when you met a friend and reflexively asked “How are you?” the wry, life-affirming response became: “According to the papers, I am fine.”
Satire needs independence to thrive. But it also needs an audience that is primed to understand. And that’s where satirical cartoons about Muslims and the Prophet run into a historical and devastating problem with their call and response.
The modern form of Western satire that developed through the late 18th-century, Mr. Gatrell says, depends on “a sense of relativity in all things, a refusal to bow down before anything.” It is based on installing individual and individualist sensibilities at the centre of political thought.
Absolute systems don’t respond well to satire, whether it’s a repressive ruler looking out for subversives, an all-knowing church torturing dissenters or a hardline Islamist tracking down the insults of infidels. We’re not going to persuade them that we’re just teasing.
Visionary patriot or hateful embarrassment? The John A. Macdonald debate
On Sunday, Canada will mark the 200th anniversary of the birth of Sir John A. Macdonald. And never before have Canadians been so divided over his legacy and merits.
The Debate
On Sunday, Jan. 11, Canada will mark the 200th anniversary of the birth of Sir John A. Macdonald, its first prime minister and father of Confederation. And never before have Canadians been so divided over his legacy and merits. For many, he is a political visionary who turned the disparate colonies of Canada into a federal, centralized country and put it on the path to earning a degree of independence from Britain. For others, he is a zealous colonizer who trampled the interests of indigenous peoples, ethnic minorities and dissidents, often with deadly effects. Here, we have brought together four disparate perspectives on the first prime minister, by a range of Canadians with expertise in this complex man.
The Debaters
The Discussion
John Boyko : January 11 is Sir John A. Macdonald’s 200th birthday. There will be cakes, songs, and speeches. Some, however, will not celebrate but castigate. The conflicted commemoration of our first prime minister is as it should be, for there are at least seven ways to see Sir John.
Creator: In the 1860s, Americans were butchering each other over whether to enslave each other and threatening an invasion over their northern border. The bitty colonial Brits with their dysfunctional governments and a mother country more interested in abandoning than embracing them, needed to save themselves by creating themselves. Canada’s birth had many midwives, but the conferences and debates that brought it into the world would have failed without Sir John’s charm and political acumen. The Constitution creating the state to house the nation, and which is still fundamentally in force, was written largely in his hand.
Saviour: The United States demanded astronomical reparations from Britain for its role in prolonging the Civil War. The Americans offered to trade the cash for Canada. As part of the British delegation in Washington to negotiate what was called the Alabama claims, Macdonald deftly controlled the agenda. He refused to be bribed by the Brits or bullied by the Americans. He left with generous concessions and the swap swept from the table.
Visionary: Macdonald knew Canada must grow or be gone and the only way was west on rails. The idea was ludicrous. It would be the world’s longest railway through the world’s most inhospitable land. The rocks and impenetrable forests of the Precambrian shield would be hard, the muskeg that could swallow men and machines would be harder, and the snow-peaked Rockies would be impossible. Macdonald told British Columbians they’d have the steel line in 10 years and the money flowed and hammers rang. His will and conniving saw the impossible done and Canada linked from sea to sea.
Centralist: Macdonald put power in parliament. He saw the prime minister as the servant of the House and provinces like municipalities. Parliament could overturn provincial laws deemed to contradict the national interest and he disallowed many. He interpreted parliament’s purchase of what is now most of the west as its ownership of the land and resources. When premiers met to complain, he refused to attend.
Charlatan: He was not above political chicanery to get or keep power. Globe editor and Reform Party leader George Brown learned the hard way when Macdonald tricked him into office and then two days later tricked him right back out again. He used patronage jobs to openly and unapologetically reward friends and punish enemies. He was once scandalized out of power when caught linking political donations to railway contracts.
Rogue: No one knew more stories and jokes than Sir John. No one remembered more names or slapped more backs. He never met a voter with whom he disagreed or an opponent he did not try to woo. He once entered his occupation in a hotel ledger as “cabinet maker”. A hard drinker, he once threw up during a campaign speech but then won the election. He told another audience that Canadians preferred him drunk to George Brown sober – he was right. He was a scoundrel but he was their scoundrel.
Racist: He imported Chinese workers for the worst and most dangerous railway construction jobs. With the task done, Macdonald acted to have them kicked out and the door barred. He did not want Canadians to become what he called a “mongrel race”. Native nations were in the way. Macdonald swept the plains by exploiting the death of the buffalo to empty bellies while filling residential schools in a slow-motioned cultural genocide.
It is fitting and proper that we commemorate Sir John. Without him there would be no Canada. Perhaps we honour him best by acknowledging that he was as complex a man as the country he left in our care.
Hayden King : Amid the current celebration and accompanying debate of John A. Macdonald’s 200th birthday, a realization emerged about the very nature of Canada: this place doesn’t really exist. Certainly the idea of the country pervades the imaginations of millions of Canadians and there are internationally recognized borders, currency, and so on. But it is increasingly difficult to accept that Canada possesses a cohesive and honest narrative of itself. Can a nation persist in the present without a shared understanding of its past?
The debates about John A. Macdonald’s role in Canadian history are polarizing. The boosters proclaim the first Prime Minister as father of confederation, framer of Canada’s original constitution, founder of the RCMP, and visionary of a country from sea-to-sea. The detractors see him as a villain, starving Nêhiyawak and Dakota in order to take their land, hanging Louis Riel for asserting Métis Nationhood (charged under the British Treason Act), launching residential schools as the solution to the stubborn Indian Problem, promoting a mostly Whites-only Canada.
Yet even this so-called revisionist reading is rationalized. Macdonald was merely a “product of his time” they say. Alternatively the polite Canadian refrain “nobody is perfect” attempts to retrieve him, as if recognizing his faults somehow sanitizes the nationalist urge to toast a ridiculous, arbitrary birthday of a malevolent, racist thief. Strong language, I know. But in his desire to build Canada the man attempted to “clear the plains” (to use historian James Daschuk’s phrase). So what do you expect?
Still the debate goes on and Macdonald is ever the durable figure. I think part of the apparently necessary festivity pivots on the inseparable relationship between the representation of the first prime Minster and the narrative Canadians tell themselves about their origins generally. The accepted story begins with the ancient colonization of Canada, followed by some very bad things, disease and death, etc. But now we enjoy this beautiful, prosperous, and diverse nation, so it was all worth it.
Lumbee legal scholar Robert A. Williams might describe this as a “discourse of conquest” – a tale designed and promulgated to support the rightness of colonization and in the service of human progress. We see it applied to Christopher Columbus, French Jesuits and explorers, American pilgrims, even somewhat playfully with cowboys and Indians. Acutely we see it anew with Macdonald. Implicitly the discourse is about victory of the civilized over the savage and transplanting the legal norms and values of one society over others because it is simply natural.
All of this sanctions the preservation and celebration of the so-called Founding Father despite his horrific deeds. Genuinely questioning Macdonald’s actions might threaten other deeply committed to truths about Canada, like the nature of “discovery”, exploration, treaty-making, land tenure, multiculturalism and justice. Sincerely challenging Macdonald’s legacy might open the door to fundamentally re-examining any shared notion of Canadian progress, Canadian values, and Canadian institutions.
While many are unwilling to cross that uncomfortable threshold, Indigenous writers and activists are forcing the issue, defending their humanity and challenging Macdonald’s. Indeed an irony in the resistance to this discourse of conquest is that some of the descendants of the very people the father of Confederation tried to starve out of the way are now unravelling foundational Canadian narratives, and with it, unravelling any collective sense of belonging.
Or more accurately, they are exposing the truth about Canada: it is a myth.
Roy MacSkimming : It’s become intellectually fashionable to denounce Sir John A. Macdonald. This is a peculiarly Canadian irony: John A.’s rebranding in some quarters as racist and colonialist, not to mention alcoholic, coincides with the 200th anniversary of his birth on Jan. 11.
Any other nationality would be celebrating the bicentennial of its founding genius, whatever his personal or political flaws. When Abraham Lincoln turned 200 in 2009, the Americans built a spectacular Lincoln museum in his birthplace of Springfield, Ill., a virtual shrine complete with stations of the cross in the form of giant dioramas. Not so Canada. No great leaders for us, please.
True, Sir John’s drinking could be excessive. He admitted as much himself. But it interfered with the conduct of his duties only occasionally, and almost never during his later years. The fact that Macdonald died at 76, still in office after 19 robust years as prime minister, belies the notion that he was a chronic, broken-down drunk. The record reveals him as a binge drinker who largely cleaned up his act after marriage to his second wife, Agnes Bernard, in 1867.
It’s also true that Macdonald’s policy toward Aboriginal people on the prairies, documented by James Daschuk in his recent book Clearing the Plains, was callous and inhumane. Sadly, it reflected a general Canadian prejudice at the time, which failed to comprehend or respect Aboriginal societies and was indifferent to the point of cruelty.
Macdonald refused to pardon Louis Riel after a jury in Regina found him guilty of treason and sentenced him to hang. A recent article in Canada’s History magazine claims Macdonald’s refusal “created national disunity” by defying opinion in French Canada. Yet Riel was already a cause of national disunity: English
Canadians considered him a traitor who had rebelled against the state with lethal force. If Macdonald had pardoned Riel, he would have alienated an even greater body of public opinion.
But before we dismiss Sir John A. as nothing but a racist (an article in the current Walrus absurdly links him to Nazism), we must set these issues within a political career lasting half a century. Macdonald staked that career on persuading the largest groups in 19th-century Canada – French and English, Catholic and Protestant – to accept each other and live together as equals within a single state. Given their bitter mutual antagonism, this required statesmanship of the highest order.
Macdonald’s Canada wasn’t culturally diverse in the sense we understand today. But in the context of his times, he was laying the foundations for a society based on tolerance.
The most ludicrous charge being levelled at Macdonald is that he was a colonialist: that instead of establishing Canada as an independent republic like the United States, he and the other Fathers of Confederation created a vassal state of Great Britain. This criticism entirely overlooks the reality that the great majority of Canadians, including George Étienne Cartier and his Quebec followers, wanted to keep the British connection. They knew that remaining within the
most powerful empire in the world was Canada’s strongest guarantee against absorption by an aggressively expansionist United States.
In these circumstances, Macdonald negotiated the maximum independence possible. It was a literally exceptional achievement, making Canada the world’s first exemplar of moving from colony to nation by non-violent, evolutionary means. It established Canada as a peace-loving constitutional democracy.
John Ralston Saul’s writings have shown how Sir John A.’s predecessors, Robert Baldwin and Louis-Hippolyte LaFontaine, pioneered this paradigm by negotiating democratic self-government without a fratricidal revolution. Macdonald’s vision of a self-governing country within the Empire was consistent with that paradigm and would eventually lead to full independence. Equally important, it was what Canadians wanted at the time.
Which brings us to the ultimate measure of Macdonald’s greatness as a leader: with his exceptional gifts of communication and empathy for the people, he understood the Canadians of his day, and they understood him. This mutual appreciation explains why he and his governments were elected and re-elected time and again, a record that today’s political leaders can only dream about.
Arthur Milnes : In Sir John A. Macdonald Canadians were fortunate in our early days to have a leader of his skill and ability at the helm. His greatest opponent, Wilfrid Laurier, put it best.
The Liberal leader spoke to a hushed House of Commons in aftermath of Macdonald’s death in June of 1891. “I think it can be asserted that for the supreme art of governing men, Sir John Macdonald was gifted as few men in any land or in any age were gifted: gifted with the most high of all qualities, qualities which would have made him famous wherever exercised and which would have shone all the more conspicuously the larger the theatre,” Laurier said. “The fact that he could congregate together elements the most heterogeneous and blend them into one compact party, and to the end of his life keep them steadily under his hand, is perhaps altogether unprecedented.”
Another contemporary of Macdonald’s, Benjamin Disraeli of the United Kingdom, had this to say in a letter after dining privately with Macdonald in England in 1879.”He is gentlemanlike, agreeable and very intelligent: a considerable man.” But as we mark Macdonald’s bicentennial it is also appropriate that we pause and also pay tribute to the other 21 prime ministers who have held Canada’s top job, as Sir John A. did. And in doing so Canadians will realize just how well served we have been.
Laurier is a case in point. Within five years of Macdonald’s death Laurier, a proud French Canadian, was in office. He dazzled the world and was the toast of London and Paris when he attended Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897. He ruled until 1911, cementing Macdonald’s vision – and expanding on it – of a distinct nation, separate from the United States, on the northern half of our continent.
Even when conscription and other issues related to the bloodbath that was the First World War tested Canadian unity, Laurier never lost faith in Canada. Near the end of his life he gave this advice to young Canadians. “I shall remind you that already many problems rise before you: Problems of race division, problems of creed differences, problems of economic conflict, problems of national duty and national aspiration,” Laurier said. “Let me tell you that for the solution of these problems you have a safe guide, an unfailing light if you remember that faith is better than doubt and love is better than hate. Let your aim and purpose, in good report or ill, in victory or defeat, be so to live, so to strive, so to serve as to do your part to raise even higher the standard of life and living.”
Though none of our prime ministers have been perfect, far from it in fact – and the seven living Canadians who have held the job would be the first to tell you that – so many of their stories are remarkable all the same.
The much maligned R. B. Bennett – who lacks even a Parliament Hill statue for reasons I have never been able to fathom – is a case in point. One of the most successful lawyers and businessman of his generation, he chose to serve in the hurly-burly world of politics instead. Rejected by Canadians in the 1935 election, he retired to Britain and continued to make great contributions to Canada and Commonwealth – contributions mostly ignored by his fellow Canadians then and now – from the House of Lords.
In our own lifetimes we have been fortunate that Canadians such as Brian Mulroney, John Turner, Joe Clark and Paul Martin were willing to give up their best earning years to public service. Sometimes they succeeded, sometimes they failed, but as Teddy Roosevelt famously said, they did so while daring greatly in the arena of politics and leadership.
Mr. Mulroney, for example, put it all on the line and gave us free trade with America. He defied the odds and wide swaths of public opinion and transformed our land. Even some of his harshest opponents from 1988 now say he was right to do so.
While Kim Campbell did not serve long as prime minister, she remains a living symbol to young women across our land that in Sir John A. Macdonald’s Canada, anything is possible. And in political retirement she continues to proudly serve.
Jean Chretien; when Canada needed it most, he was there, speaking for our country in church basements across his native Quebec in 1980’s referendum and forever afterward. Macdonald’s bicentennial weekend is no time for partisanship (full disclosure, I worked proudly as a speechwriter for Prime Minister Stephen Harper), but we should say this: In the Prime Minister and the opposition leaders that oppose him, we again have Canadians who have answered the call to public service.
Like Sir John A. Macdonald’s legacy, that too is worth celebrating today.
We can all agree on that.
France’s deep-seated tradition of subversive satire
Irish Times:
‘Charlie Hebdo’ shootings and terror attacks in France
Sir, – The ambassadors to the US of the 28 EU member states and the EU delegation issued a joint statement condemning the attack on the staff of Charlie Hebdo. The statement reads in part: “Freedom of expression and freedom of the press are essential elements of any democratic and open society. Each is protected, on both sides of the Atlantic”. Did the Irish Ambassador or delegation struggle with the wording given that the type of expression engaged in by Charlie Hebdo is not protected in Ireland, since it would likely fall foul of section 36 of the Defamation Act 2009, which covers the offence of “publication or utterance of blasphemous matter”? I hope that the Act can be amended to align with our Ambassador’s view. – Yours, etc,
PADRAIC HENEGHAN,
Carpentersville,
Illinois.
Sir, – A culture of extreme and unjustified violence, combined with discrimination and racism, seems to be increasing in societies in the Middle East, the West, and in eastern Europe. The atrocities committed in France are the most recent example. There has been a significant increase in anti-Semitism and Islamophobia across Europe, as well as anti-Christian attacks and persecution associated with conflicts in several Middle Eastern states. In eastern Europe anti-Russian feeling is being fanned by the conflict in Ukraine and by western propaganda.
The right to freedom of speech is being cited as justification for the publication of materials that are deemed offensive to people of certain cultures. All rights and all aspects of freedom carry responsibilities, and it is essential that responsibility is exercised by all societies and by political leaders and media outlets, to avoid inflaming racism and discrimination.
The Huffington Post, in an article entitled “In wake of Charlie Hebdo attack, some media self-censor cartoons”, criticises such self-censorship. Responsible editing and common sense sensitivity to the feelings of others should not be labelled as unacceptable censorship. It is unduly offensive to Jewish people, and to most other people, to make jokes about the Holocaust. Similar sensitivity should be applied to all communities internationally.
It is essential that we should all do our utmost to improve relationships, and to promote peace rather than conflicts, between societies and communities both internationally and within our own countries. Racism and violence are two sides of the same coin. – Yours, etc,
EDWARD HORGAN,
Castletroy,
Limerick.
Sir, – It’s worth remembering that those champions of free speech, who paid the ultimate price for their art this week at the hands of fundamentalist wretches, would have been potentially subject to a fine of €25,000 for every one of their “blasphemous” cartoons from 2009 to today had they been operating in Ireland.
By voting to remove this restriction against the practice of free speech, the Irish public can show that our support for the brave voices at Charlie Hebdo extends beyond hashtags and that we truly believe in the principles of liberty, equality and fraternity. – Yours, etc,
JOHN HOGAN
Ballyneety,
Co Limerick.
Sir, – The dreadful killings in Paris bring to mind the words of Blaise Pascal that “men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it out of religious conviction”. There is implicit in these words a call for responsibility and moderation to the leaders of all world religions. Indeed the events in Paris remind us of the danger inherent in all kinds of absolutism. – Yours, etc,
DECLAN MORIARTY,
Finglas,
Dublin 11.
Sir, – Your report containing the words of Dr Ali Selim of the Islamic Cultural Centre of Ireland (“Dublin based cleric warns of legal action over religious depictions”, January 8th), to the effect that he would be prepared to pursue a legal action under blasphemy legislation if “an Irish media organisation or social media carried a depiction of Muhammad, an act which Muslims find offensive”, constitutes the best argument so far for the repeal of this ridiculous legislation.
Even the fact that such a thing can be contemplated here, in the light of the appalling attack on freedom of expression in Paris, a nursery of democratic republicanism, is calculated to earn Ireland the opprobrium of the rest of the developed world, and deservedly so. – Yours, etc,
SEAMUS McKENNA,
Windy Arbour,
Dublin 14.
Sir, – I was surprised that Pakistan should join the list of countries that have condemned the murder of 12 people at the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris on Wednesday. Pakistan currently has about 13 people on death row for committing “blasphemy”, including Asia Noreen Bibi, a Christian mother of three. She was working as a farm labourer in the Punjab in June 2009 when she was wrongly accused of insulting Muhammad. She has been held in prison in appalling conditions ever since. Sean Kenny TD is the only politician to have even mentioned her case in the Houses of the Oireachtas. – Yours, etc,
KARL MARTIN,
Bayside,
Dublin 13.
Sir, – I commend The Irish Times for showing solidarity with Charlie Hebdo. In your editorial (January 8th) you characterised the attack as “not only a barbarous act of terrorism but an assault on freedom of expression, one of the fundamental human rights”.
Is it possible, however, to express true solidarity in Ireland, as your newsroom staff did, with the phrase “Je suis Charlie” when the publication of material satirising any religious beliefs is open to prosecution under our blasphemy law? It is a law that criminalises freedom of expression by giving preference to religious beliefs.
I agree with you that it is “one thing to argue about whether particular expressions of satire are appropriate or tasteful but quite another to claim a right not to be offended”. That is why the offense of blasphemy needs to be taken out of our constitution.
We need to be able to say “Je suis Charlie” and mean it. – Yours, etc,
GERARD GREGORY,
Stillorgan,
Co Dublin.
Sir, – The members of Al-Mustafa Islamic Cultural Centre Ireland wish to extend their deepest sympathy and condolences to the families of the victims and the people of France .
The killing of journalists in Paris on Wednesday was not only an attack on France but also an assault on Islam and the very freedoms that allow 30 million Muslims to prosper in the West.
Unfortunately there is a problem of extremism and radicalisation among a minority of Muslim youth in western countries. It is the responsibility of Islamic leaders to highlight the peaceful and just message of Islam in which there is no space for extremism. – Yours, etc,
Dr MUHAMMAD
UMAR AL-QADRI,
Al-Mustafa Islamic
Educational
and Cultural Centre,
Ireland
Blanchardstown, Dublin 15.
Sir, – The murder of the cartoonists in Paris brings to mind Lord Byron’s observation in Don Juan: “And if I laugh at any mortal thing, ’Tis that I may not weep.” – Yours, etc,
Dr JOHN DOHERTY,
Gaoth Dobhair,
Co Dhun na nGall.
Sir, – Irish PEN joins PEN International and 47 PEN centres worldwide, including French PEN, PEN Canada, English PEN and PEN American Centre, in condemning the unprecedented attack on the office of the French publication Charlie Hebdo in Paris in which 12 people died and seven were injured.
We were sickened and shocked by this savage attack and we extend our heartfelt sympathies to the families of the victims and all affected.
As PEN International states, in the face of such violence it is incumbent on all governments and religious leaders to strengthen their commitment to press freedom and to safeguard freedom of expression as a fundamental human right.
PEN stands for the principle of unhampered transmission of thought within each nation and between all nations. Irish PEN is part of PEN’s global community of writers, spanning more than 100 countries, which stands together to oppose any form of suppression of freedom of expression. – Yours, etc,
VANESSA
FOX O’LOUGHLIN,
Chairwoman,
Irish PEN,
c/o United Arts Club,
Upper Fitzwilliam Street
Dublin 2.
Sir, – Dr Fergal Hickey makes an eloquent case for more accident and emergency funding by citing the situation in Australia (“Australian emergency care the State’s best template”, Opinion & Analysis, January 8th).
What he doesn’t say is that Australia has invested heavily in primary care with GPs resourced to deal with much of the work that Dr Hickey and his colleagues currently see in their departments. Every A&E department that has been extended and better resourced here in Ireland is too small and too busy within 18 months because of a culture of attending A&E in our cities and consequent lack of development of out of hours care in the community. Dr Hickey is making a good case for emergency care for trauma such as serious road traffic accidents and acute cardiac and respiratory illnesses. These are relatively uncommon situations. Indeed to deal with such urgent cases we don’t need all our A&E departments. Our improved road access and increasingly professionalised ambulance service now makes this reduction possible with very sick patients having much better outcomes with such a specialized service. What rightly upsets Dr Hickey and his colleagues are the vast numbers attending A&E that could be dealt with by general practitioners. This is now happening nationally with GP co-operatives seeing over a million patients out of hours last year. I know of one long-established co-op that sees twice as many patients as does its local A&E department and another new co-op that sees nearly 30 per cent of the numbers seen at its local adult A&E. In an experiment in St James’s Hospital in Dublin some years ago, employing GPs in A&E meant far fewer patients were referred into the hospital system when compared with the usual care. The decision-making ability of the more experienced GPs led to more patients being discharged back to their own doctor for further care. A&E as it is currently functioning has senior staff trained to deal with trauma and very sick patients. The majority of patients don’t need that level of care. Our A&E departments are currently functioning as primary care facilities but with access to diagnostic and inpatient facilities denied to GPs. This puts GPs at a clinical disadvantage in terms of resources and in providing an appropriate level of care to patients. The country cannot afford more of the same in A&E departments which will never solve the problem. It needs to rationalise our existing A&E departments into a few well-placed trauma centres. But most of all the system needs to strengthen primary care to let Dr Hickey and his colleagues do what they have been trained to do in a few well-placed specialised centres. – Yours, etc,
TOM O’DOWD, MD
Professor of
General Practice,
Trinity College Dublin.
Sir, – Planning for emergencies should be done in advance. The annual crisis in our hospitals takes place each winter and planning should begin at least six months beforehand and all contingencies should be factored into the plan to be implemented as and when appropriate. When next winter arrives, as it will, perhaps Minister for Health Leo Varadkar and his handlers , advisers (special and otherwise), civil servants, etc, will be prepared? Probably not. – Yours, etc,
HUGH PIERCE,
Celbridge, Co Kildare.
Sir, – In future when our Defence Forces deploy overseas, will they be bringing field hospitals with them or will portable corridors suffice? – Yours, etc,
HUGH T HYNES,
Limerick.
Sir, – Reading Frank McNally’s “An Irishman’s Diary about Alan Turing and crossword-solving” (January 9th), I suggest even the Enigma codebreakers would be challenged by the Crosaire crossword. – Yours, etc,
BOB BARRY,
Ashbourne, Co Meath.
During quieter times in Paris, a few years ago, I visited the grave of a man called Victor Noir, who in his own way, like the victims of the Charlie Hebdo massacre, was a martyr for free speech. Born Yves Salmon, he adopted the pseudonym when joining La Marseillaise, a newspaper opposed to the Second Empire regime of Napoleon III, in the late 1860s. And it was that paper’s publisher, Henri Rochefort, who provoked the homicidal wrath of the emperor’s cousin, Prince Bonaparte. But Noir was the one caught in the crossfire. In the fashion of the era, the prince wrote to Rochefort inquiring, provocatively, “whether your inkpot is guaranteed by your breast”. This was a challenge to a duel, towards which end the letter also included Bonaparte’s Paris address, where the publisher was urged to present himself. In the event, it was the 21-year-old Noir and a colleague who were dispatched there, as seconds, to arrange the duel. And the insult of having to deal with “underlings” only added to the prince’s ire. Details were subsequently disputed, with Bonaparte claiming Noir assaulted him. In any case, he shot the young newspaper man dead. The killing became a cause célèbre for republicans, 100,000 of whom attended the funeral at Neuilly. Years later, in a post-imperial France, Noir was promoted to a more prestigious cemetery, Père Lachaise. And ever since, his grave there has been a shrine, although not just to press freedom. For more mysterious reasons, possibly relating to the French sense of humour, which can be very earthy, the horizontal life-sized bronze sculpture of Noir, portrayed as he lay after the shooting, also became the focus of a fertility cult. The idea is that touching his effigy in a certain place ensures good luck in procreative endeavours. So, as the sculpture’s conspicuously shiny crotch testifies, Père Lachaise may be the only cemetery ever to have had a problem with grave rubbers. They tried fencing it off some years ago for decency’s sake. But even that was considered an infringement on free expression. The obstacle was removed eventually. As far as I could see, the rubbing continues. These are troubled days in Paris, again. And among the many journalists covering events there this week, I noticed, was a Reuters reporter one called John Irish. It could almost be another pseudonym, but it’s not, apparently. Just to confuse the issue, according to his Twitter account, Irish is “French-English despite the name”. I’m reminded of the mildly notorious plaque on one of James Joyce’s former Paris addresses, 71 Rue Cardinal Lemoine, which annoys at least some tourists by calling Joyce an “écrivain brittanique, d’origine irlandaise”. Even allowing that Joyce was born under the empire, and that he carried a British passport, this seems wrong. It contrasts with – for example – George Bernard Shaw, who unlike Joyce spent most of his career in Britain but is an “écrivain irlandais” on his Paris plaque. It’s a minor offence, I know. But on foot of mentioning it here some time ago, I received an interesting letter from London-based Brian O’Shea, who back in the 1990s co-authored a tourist guide to The Paris of Joyce & Beckett. While compiling this, naturally, he wanted to include mention of the Cardinal Lemoine address, where Joyce completed Ulysses. So he wrote to the modern residents of No 71 (an apartment block) seeking permission. He was disappointed to receive a return letter from the “Le Propiétaire” urging him not to mention the building’s Joycean connection, in case it would attract burglars. There had been a series of “cambriolages” already, the person wrote. And although taken aback, the publishers would have respected the residents’ wishes. But in a follow-up letter, O’Shea felt compelled to suggest that the incidence of burglary was very low among literary tourists. Whereupon he received a further missive from No 71, this time from the “Président du Conseil Syndical”, who assured him that the residents would be delighted to have their address mentioned, and who was mystified as to the identity of the burglary-fearing imposter who had replied previously. Who knows – maybe the phantom objector was himself a burglar who had intercepted the letter and wanted to deter tourists? In any case, the address was eventually included in the book, controversial inscription and all. Whatever about robbers, it may be rubbers – Père Lachaise-style – that No 71 needs. In the meantime, I’m told the guide is still available from selected bookshops, or direct from the publishers, London Irish Literary Travel, The Busworks, North Road, London N7 9DP. @FrankmcnallyIT
Of rubbers and robbers – An Irishman’s Diary about Victor Noir and James Joyce
‘Noir’s grave has been a shrine, although not just to press freedom’
Grave of French journalist Victor Noir (1848-1870) at Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. Photograph: Joel Saget/AFP/Getty Images
Irish Independent:
I refer to Dr Ali Selim’s threatening of the Irish media with legal action if they publish the Charlie Hebdo cartoon he finds offensive and which others found so offensive that they killed 12 people (‘Islamic cleric threatens Irish publications with legal action if they publish offending cartoon’, January 8).
First, how nice of Dr Selim to assure us that lives will not be in danger. It is reassuring that lives will not be in danger if a humorous cartoon is published in a democratic republic which upholds those essentials of democracy, freedom of expression and freedom of speech.
But, the reality is that people would have grounds to be worried if they were to publish the cartoon. We have been here before with the Danish cartoons, which were followed by hundreds of deaths and attacks on Christians, churches and European diplomatic missions.
When have also been here with the fatwa against Salman Rushdie in 1989, when the head of Iran’s hardline theocracy backed the murder of a foreign national. Why? Because he considered the writer’s work of fiction offensive. The book’s Japanese translator was stabbed to death in 1991. Its Italian translator was seriously injured in a stabbing in Milan in 1991. Its Norway publisher was shot three times in an attempted assassination in Oslo in October 1993. The book’s Turkish translator was the intended target in the events which led to the Sivas massacre in 1993, which caused the deaths of 37 people.
You reported that Dr Selim “insisted that he believed in freedom of expression and speech. However, he said that the image was offensive to equality”. An explanation of how the cartoon is offensive to equality is not proffered. Perhaps Dr Selim might enlighten us.
This brings us to the related issue of blasphemy. Dr Ali Selim previously argued in your newspaper against the abolition of the offence of blasphemy from our Constitution (‘Blasphemy offence is vital to our peaceful co-existence’, February 10, 2014).
Dr Selim said that blasphemy laws are “abused” in other countries. It would be more accurate to say that blasphemy laws are not abused – but enforced – in other countries. In Egypt, insulting Islam and Muhammad has resulted in the death penalty.
Do we really want to live in a country where being involved in the likes of a humorous cartoon, ‘Fr Ted’ or ‘The Life of Brian’ could result in a fine of up to €25,000?
The law against blasphemy is an anachronism and should be removed.
Rob Sadlier
Rathfarnham, Dublin 16
Aftermath of Paris attacks
The events at ‘Charlie Hebdo’ were shocking. Journalists and members of the public have showed solidarity with the journalists of ‘Charlie Hebdo’ by holding up “Je suis Charlie” placards. The sheer volume of people taking part in these acts of solidarity has been tremendous.
The deaths in Paris take place at a time when some divisions in society are increasing – yes, between peoples of different faiths (and none), but also between richer and poorer, between the older and the younger, between indigenous populations and newer migrants composed of a variety of colours, languages and creeds.
Europe finds itself in a tinderbox – the last week has seen demonstrations by the German far-right group Pegida, killings by people claiming to act for Islam, bombings and burning of mosques, and much else.
The principles of the French Republic are summarised in the slogan – Liberta, Egalite, Fraternite. There has been much talk about the first two, but what Europe and the wider world needs now is an emphasis on the third; we must as humans show humanity, and rise to be worthy of the acclaim we have granted ourselves.
We have been asked to show solidarity with those who died this week. Let us extend this idea further – let us show solidarity, and with it benevolence and restraint, to all participants of society.
Society can become stronger, but it will be tested before it becomes so. For it to become stronger, effort is needed. Or we can allow society to erode and fracture; and that requires good people to do nothing at all.
There will be a clamour from some portions of society to show ‘strength’ and solidarity in a particular way – by publishing offensive imagery and cartoons. I urge journalists and editors to not do so.
There is no doubt that we live in a society in which there is freedom of expression, but freedom of expression does not entail that there is a necessity of expression. We are already in a cycle of despair and hatred; we do not need to accelerate it. For those journalists and editors who are inclined to publish cartoons (of any subject matter), I urge them to engage in dialogue with those whom publishing will affect, and understand what the effects of doing so are.
Of course, dialogue requires a common language, hence those with whom such a dialogue will be undertaken need to be sought out – not the roughnecks, but the calm, quiet voices of wisdom which exist in every community.
Fraternite implies that we see others as having moral value; not that we see them as inferior, as the Other.
Dr Mobasher Choudhary
Northamptonshire, Britain
Following the threat issued to the Irish media by the Islamic scholar Dr Ali Selim of the Islamic Cultural Centre of Ireland – that the ‘Charlie Hebdo’ cartoons must not be republished – the Irish Government must immediately repeal the bizarre blasphemy law inexplicably foisted upon this state by Dermot Ahern and the Fianna Fail administration in 2009.
Bernard Guinan
Claremorris, Co Mayo
A culture of extreme and unjustified violence, combined with discrimination and racism, seems to be increasing in societies in the Middle East, the West, and in Eastern Europe. The atrocities committed in France are the most recent example.
There has been a significant increase in anti-Semitism and Islamophobia across Europe, as well as anti-Christian attacks and persecution associated with conflicts in several Middle Eastern states. In Eastern Europe, anti-Russian feeling is being fanned by the conflict in Ukraine and by Western propaganda.
The right to freedom of speech is being cited as justification for the publication of materials that are deemed offensive to people of certain cultures. All rights and all aspects of freedom carry responsibilities, and it is essential that responsibility is exercised by all societies, and by political leaders and media outlets, to avoid inflaming racism and discrimination.
‘The Huffington Post’ in an article entitled ‘In Wake Of Charlie Hebdo Attack, Some Media Self-Censor Cartoons’ criticises such self-censorship. Responsible editing and common sense sensitivity to the feelings of others should not be labelled as unacceptable censorship. It is unduly offensive to Jewish people, and to most other people, to make jokes about the Holocaust. Similar sensitivity should be applied to all communities internationally.
It is essential that we should all do our utmost to improve relationships, and to promote peace rather than conflicts, between societies and communities both internationally. It is essential that we should all do our utmost to improve relationships, and to promote peace rather than conflicts, between societies and communities both internationally and within our own countries. Racism and violence are two sides of the same coin.
Edward Horgan
Castletroy, Limerick
Irish Independent
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