Notes and Comments: 25/04/2007

NOTES:

Here’s a couple of links from a few days ago.

First at Civitas: How egalitarian social policy has failed working class children

Then at The Guardian, a rather odd piece. One of those pieces that make me feel as though the media – in particular The Guardian – seem to exist in a parallel universe to me, where it all seems similar on the surface, but on closer examination it turns out to be a far different world: Expensive tastes.

COMMENTS:

A stale, Labour-weary mood

My comment:
Back at the fag end of the Major period I voted Labour – despite Blair, not because of him – because, I thought, no matter how bad Blair could be there would be no way he could be worse than Major.

How wrong I was. How wrong all of us were.

Old labour ran aground back in the 70s, and now the New Laborg collective has screwed up completely in the 90s and beyond.

I think you are going to have to face it Polly, and those few loyal Guardianistas that still remain, the whole left wing project has failed, failed completely, and there is nothing that can be done to fix it because it is its entire underpinning ‘philosophy’ that is… well.. just simply wrong*.

Sorry.

*In fact, it seems its failure is so complete that even (some of) the French have – at last - begun to notice it doesn’t work too.

Not another digital villain

My comment:
What you must remember is that 'Ban' is a great word for newspaper headlines and one-minute news summaries - short, sharp, strong, active.

It is a great word for researchers to use to get publicity (and, hence, further grant money) for their researches, far better than weasely words like: tends to suggest, moderation, indication, and all the other doubts and hesitancies that would really reflect the world.

Politicians love the word 'ban', it makes them seem strong, active, decisive - all those things that research suggests (see?) that voters like. It gives the impression of action being taken, of wrongs being righted, of worlds being saved, of children being protected and gives the politician something to posture about to justify an otherwise pointless existence.

Meanwhile, out here in the trenches of real child-rearing we know that occasionally putting the kids in front of the TV for a bit can give us a few minutes to prepare meals, tidy up a bit, read the paper and all the other domestic trivia that tends to get re-prioritised when there is a Lego castle to build or a doll's severed-limb crisis.

However, our TV is very rarely on because we as adults very rarely watch it and the kids have therefore picked up the same habits. More importantly, though, our kids have never had a TV in their bedrooms, and never will, because that is just wrong.