The Current Outlook

The government has suffered two shock defeats over attempts to overturn Lords changes to the controversial Racial and Religious Hatred Bill.

It’s nice to see our ‘elected representatives’ actually doing the job they are paid to do for a change. They’ve pretty much neutered the worst effects of this utterly appalling and abhorrent piece of legislation.

Today was a good day for freedom of speech in this country. People who cherish freedom can be heartened by this small yet satisfying victory. Besides, any Bill that sets a grand (and very strange) coalition of Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, some Labour rebels, Rowan Atkinson, the National Secular Society, many more tolerant Muslims and most Christians, the Rev. Ian Paisley’s Protestant fundamentalist Democratic Unionist Party and the likes of Christian Institute dead against it has got to be pretty damned awful.

Mrs. Henderson Presents is about Laura Henderson (Judi Dench), a rather eccentric upper-class English lady who opens up a theatre in London after her husband’s death. She manages to persuade would-be middle-class gentleman Vivian Van Damm (Bob Hoskins) to run the place despite the fact that they seem to be arguing much of the time. Their first idea of a non-stop revue is a success for a while but theatres all over London copy it and they find themselves in deep financial difficulty. Mrs. Henderson has another idea - why not put nudes in the show? The only real problem is the Lord Chamberlain (British ministerial position which acted as the de-facto theatrical censor until Harold Wilson’s Labour government scrapped that power in the late 1960s) but Laura happens to be friends with him and the thing turns out to be a massive success during World War II.

The words ‘dreary’ and ‘tired’ come to mind when I think of this particular movie. Mrs. Henderson Presents would have been far better than it turned out if it was written, acted and directed properly. The entire piece feels rather half-hearted, overwrought and somewhat mawkish - there’s ‘nothing there’, just the stench of total lack of passion on pretty much everyone’s part. Nothing much happens in the entire film: it’s not particularly funny (I only laughed once or twice) but it’s not very involving dramatically either.

You’d be far better off saving your money and your time and go see something else instead of this drab affair.

What could be better on a Sunday afternoon than sitting down at the computer and leafing through Tim Worstall’s BritBlog Roundup, a compliation of the best blog posts of the week, of which this edition is the 50th. There’s a very interesting post on ID/NIR and RFID in there too.

Compulsory ID cards would have only “limited value” in the fight against terrorism, the Government’s reviewer of anti-terror laws has admitted as he signalled a U-turn in his support for the controversial measure.

Anybody with an ounce of sense has long thought this. That a previously pro-ID, Government appointed independent reviewer of anti-terrorist laws has said they would be of ‘limited value’ (though he doesn’t go as far as I’d like) is another nail in the coffin of this expensive and dangerous horseshit.

Six weeks of scandals will not destroy 150 years of Liberalism, Liberal Democrat leadership contender Sir Menzies Campbell has told activists.

The orange lot will forever be a party of missed opportunities. It’s really quite bleak for the future of Britain when you think about it because our country desperately needs a proper party that believes in freedom. And these jokers clearly aren’t it.

More authoritarian Blairist statism from ‘Dave’ Cameron’s ‘New’ Conservatives here we come. I can’t wait.

Jonathan Dimbleby presents a live topical debate from St Michael’s Church Hall, Mytholmroyd in West Yorkshire.

Michael Meacher MP (Labour)

Sayeeda Warsi (Conservative vice-chairman)

Greg Dyke (former Director-General of the BBC)

Sir Bernard Ingham (right-wing columnist and secretary of the Supporters of Nuclear Energy)

I shall be interested to see what Dyke makes of the decision to axe the BBC Radio 4 UK Theme.

Road chiefs are recruiting “pace” drivers to make sure motorists stick to speed limits.

This is one of the stupidest ideas I’ve heard in a while. It seems a lot of motorists are none-too-happy about this, as is evidence by the comments from this Pistonheads entry.

I think this will only end up causing more problems than it solves: accidents and road-rage in particular. Many people drive over the speed limit when they’re on the motorway, this is no way to ‘force’ them to stick to the limit. Quite frankly anyone who would volunteer to become a ‘pace driver’ needs their head seeing to.

Tonight’s Question Time will be in Basingstoke and will be presented by David Dimbleby.

Baroness Amos (Labour; Leader of the House of Lords)

John Redwood MP (Conservative)

Simon Hughes MP (Liberal Democrat; leadership candidate)

Claire Fox (director of the Institute of Ideas)

Zac Goldsmith (editor of The Ecologist; part of the Tory environment policy group)

Two British MPs have tabled motions in the House of Commons criticising the BBC’s decision to scrap the early morning UK Theme on Radio 4.

Well done Mr. Damazer - you’ve just made yourself extremely unpopular among a good few thousand BBC Radio 4 listeners and political correctness claims another victim - this wonderful, poetic, medley of music from right across our United Kingdom.

As the Wikipedia entry for the UK Theme says, it is composed of:

It starts out with the first few bars of Early One Morning (English, horns and trombones), moving on to Rule Britannia (British, woodwind and strings), then changes to Londonderry Air (Irish, English horn and harp) combined with Annie Laurie (Scottish, violin), What Shall We Do with the Drunken Sailor? (Royal Navy, piccolo) combined with Greensleeves (English, strings), Men of Harlech (Welsh, brass and percussion) combined with Scotland the Brave (Scottish, woodwind), and then after alluding again to Early One Morning, ends with a full orchestra version of Rule Britannia over which a solo trumpet plays Trumpet Voluntary. The piece is five minutes in length and was arranged by Fritz Spiegl.

I love the Theme and I fully expect it to be reinstated forthwith.

What’s next, Mr. Damazer? The removal of Sailing By from our airwaves or our national anthem, God Save the Queen? The BBC World Service has already bowdlerized the lovely Lillibullero, just so they can show more shitty trails that absolutely no-one sensible takes any notice of.

There is a petition that you can sign at Save the Radio 4 Theme. You can listen to it in full here.

Tony Blair has promised not to “force through” plans to cut the number of police forces from 43 to 12.

I’ve got an idea for the police. Why don’t they keep their noses out of political affairs where they have absolutely no place and do their jobs instead? It would help if the Government would stop being such hypocrites as to when they will listen to the boys in black (remember the whole 24-hour drinking farrago?) too.