Prom 74 (12.09.20) Last Night of the Proms

[Serial_Apologist]

The only sensible decision in the circumstances.

The BBC seemed blind to the political perspective - and that it has many, many enemies within the Tory party.

On the contrary, I think it knows only too well: and therein lies the cowardice.

I may add that it's one of a piece with ragular mainstream broadcasters, who seem to feel duty-bound to always have some Tory apologist on daily phone-in panel programmes such as Jeremy Vine on Channel 4; and it's no good saying they always ensure political balance when it's self-evidently not the case. This is what I call boosting the populist consensus.

[LMcD]

It looks as though my suggested compromise, namely to sing every other word, has not met with official favour.

[french frank]

This is what I call boosting the populist consensus.

The BBC will never be confrontational. But we could be getting something worse than the BBC, at which point the choice will be BBC v Fox. Like Biden v Trump, or Starmer v Johnson.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2020/aug/29/rivals-plan-fox-news-style-opinionated-tv-station-in-uk

[LMcD]

The BBC will never be confrontational. But we could be getting something worse than the BBC, at which point the choice will be BBC v Fox. Like Biden v Trump, or Starmer v Johnson.

https://www.theguardian.com/media/20...-station-in-uk

It's OK, I'm getting used to living under a mediocracy.
Isn't Sky News an alternative to BBC News? My current news channel of choice is France 24.

[french frank]

Isn't Sky News an alternative to BBC News?

Wrong way. Ask a Brexiter/anti-vaxxer/climate sceptic type of person.

[teamsaint]

Wrong way. Ask a Brexiter/anti-vaxxer/climate sceptic type of person.

Where are the forum venn diagram tools where you really need them ?

Oh no , actually, seems we don’t need one......

[french frank]

Where are the forum venn diagram tools where you really need them ?

Oh no , actually, seems we don’t need one......

No, I don' t know where Jeremy's elder brother would fit on the diagram. Though apparently he's a Clexiter anyway (Brexit + Climate Exit).

https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/news/who-were-the-so-called-top-doctors-and-nurses-that-addressed-the-anti-covid-measures-demo-as-global-death-toll-reaches-843k/30/08/

[Pulcinella]

Jacob Rees-Mogg has now added his bit.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/sep/03/rees-mogg-plays-rule-britannia-commons-celebrate-proms-u-turn

I'm posting this on the 'Sorry' thread as well, as his apology is typical.

[DracoM]

Frankly, that would make ME even more determined to drop it.
Is this how Tim Davie plans to run BBC?

[Serial_Apologist]

No, I don' t know where Jeremy's elder brother would fit on the diagram. Though apparently he's a Clexiter anyway (Brexit + Climate Exit).

https://www.thelondoneconomic.com/ne...es-843k/30/08/

Such a shame in Piers' case, as he was such a nice, albeit ecentric bloke when I knew him back in the early 1980s. From possibly faulty memory, he had just joined a far left group which called itself Workers' Fight, which was highly dogmatic and "fundamentalist" with regards to our "holy texts", considering everyone on whichever part of the left to have betrayed theoretical Marxist basics. Also from memory they had been expelled from the Socialist Workers Party over disagreements over the definition of the Soviet Union, claiming it to be - in orthodox Trotskyist terms - a degenerated workers' state, as opposed to the SWP position, namely state capitalist. They were therefore in agreement with our lot (the IMG) on that subject, but in disagreement in sticking to the SWP line of prioritising so-called rank-and-filism, or the idea that the only place ultimately to build the revolutionary party was in the organised (i.e. unionised) working class, where recruitment was to be prioritised, rather than for example among students or the womens liberation or gay movements. They quickly declared themselves as the Revolutionary Communist Party, presumably on grounds that everyone else had become too impure ever to be it, titularly lending themselves a superficial resemblance to the Maoist organisations (who had themselves undergone numerous u-turns by the early 1980s) but differentiating themselves by omitting the self-appended M-L (Marxist-Leninist) subtitle - which we lot always considered to be a synonym for "Stalinist".

I shall never forget an occasion when two sisters from the RCP stood up at the end of a rally organised by us with the well-known left economist Ernest Mandel as the guest speaker, and accused him, and by association us, of being "nationalists" and "petty bourgeois reformists" for advocating quitting the EC, as it was at the time of the 1975 referendum. Our argument had been that the EC was the specific form adopted by international capitalism to maximise competitive advantage in relation to the USA - size being the clincher - and that breaking it up would be tantamount to delivering a blow against the capitalist world order. We watched Mandel putting his glasses down on the speakers' table and shaking his head from side to side in sheer disbelief at what was being said; and when he rose to his feet, he said, in his strong Franco-Belgian accented English, "In my time, I 'ave been accuse of many, many things; but neveur, NEVEUR, 'ave I been accuse of being a PETTY BOURGEOIS NATIONALISTE!" With the subsequent fragmentation and collapse of much of the far left - the SWP, to their credit, excepted - the RCP, shorn of any base to speak of, fell prey to least worst political options, and ended up where it sadly now aparently is. Piers had been part of the Real Ale movement at one time, and I don't know if he still runs - and swears by - his self-styled weather forecasting methodology, based, I believe on sunspot activity.

[Richard Barrett]

Interesting bit of lefty history there, S_A.

[Old Grumpy]

Interesting bit of lefty history there, S_A.

Somewhat sinister, IMV

[Bryn]

My own recollections of Piers Corbyn go back to the early to mid-70s. At that time he was a close ally of Tariq Ali. As to the 'Maoist' groups. The M-Ls were various, The ECM-ML became the CPE-ML and later the RCPB-ML, its origins being in a group in Canada influenced by the Naxalites in India. A significant proportion of the Scratch Orchestra gravitated towards it and several, including, for a while, myself, became active supporters or members. The CPE(M-L), too, held a pro-yes position regarding the 1975 EEC referendum, and on a very similar analysis to that mentioned by S-A. There was also the CPB(M-L) founded by ex-CPGB Industrial Organiser Reg Birch. There was some movement between the CPB-ML and the CPE(M-L) which took on the new mantle of RCPB(M-L). One such individual, who attended the same higher education institution as Piers Corbyn, turned out to be quite a political party tourist, going from CPB-ML to RCPB(M-L) to, believe it or not, the National Front, then Norther Irish Loyalist organisations, eventually heading back to marry a prominent anti-fascist activist. The various groupings of Life of Brian infamy had nothing on what Sinn Fein's Republican News referred to as the British micro-left. For my part, I later took up with the CFB(M-L) which, in turn, mutated into the RCLB(M-L) before I resigned my membership in 1983 and went to Middlesex Poly as a mature student. The following summer I got to know a certain Richard Barrett during rehearsals for the first complete performance of Cornelius Cardew's The Great Learning. Cardew had been a leading member of the RCPB(M-L). Small, strange world.

[Bryn]

Somewhat sinister, IMV

A dextrous retort, what? .

[french frank]

Piers had been part of the Real Ale movement at one time, and I don't know if he still runs - and swears by - his self-styled weather forecasting methodology, based, I believe on sunspot activity.

Apparently. I was following with some interest the Talk Page on his Wikipedia entry (which he has frequently altered where he didn't agree with something which had been written about him). There was an argument about whether he could legitimately be described as a 'meteorologist'; or whether it should be 'weather forecaster' or 'weather consultant'. Currently 'weather forecaster, businessman and activist'.

Sounds as if he was a bright guy but now eccentric isn't the word for him. Well, yes, I suppose it is.

As far as I know, however, he has not expressed an opinion on whether Rule Britannia should be sung at the Last Night. I'm currently wrestling with the ethical question of whether 'personal sensitivities' need to be 'justified' in some way in order to be considered a reason for social change, public policy etc. Or merely persuasively argued.