Leveson's recipe for a happy medium?

 

With Lord Leveson’s recommendations increasingly imminent, the Prime Minister kicked off the routine rally of political pre-emptive striking with a warning against pre-judging the findings of his inquiry into the culture, practises and ethics of the press. Undaunted however, Communities Secretary Eric Pickles leapt like a salmon into the fray, swimming upstream against the Downing Street directive, and lending his weight to the anti-legislation lobby by quoting Thomas Jefferson. “For a free society to operate,” he said, “the river of a free press had to flow without restriction,” and as principal author of the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson knew a bit about freedom.

However, if Mr Pickles had looked instead to another American heavyweight, Mark Twain, he would have found the former journalist saying of his own profession; “there are laws to protect the freedom of the press’s speech, but none that are worth anything to protect the people from the press.” No doubt a sentiment with which Hugh Grant, and others on the serrated end of the hacking scandal, would concur.

On the other side of the fence from Eric Pickles, and characteristically not sitting on it, Harriet Harman said the current system of self-regulation had “failed” and advocated the establishment of a “truly independent” body to look into press complaints. After the phone hacking furore, reported payments to police officers and public figures, and the closure of the News of the World amid wider questions over editorial ethics, it is increasingly more difficult to disagree. However, hands up who is “truly independent”?  

Speaking to Andrew Marr earlier this month, David Cameron politely declined an invite to guarantee implementing the Leveson findings in full, prior to their publication, reiterating his desire to maintain a “free press”. The Prime Minister’s warning against “heavy handed state intervention” engendered echoes of the “light touch” regulation rumoured to be in the running. ‘The Australian’ newspaper reported that Lord Justice Leveson was leaning towards the system used in the Irish Republic, with legislation extending solely to the establishment of a new press council, with an ombudsman to address complaints.

Exponents of a “free press” label legislation as a last resort, but surely it’s a large and unlikely leap from press regulation to state media censorship. Self-regulation is almost an oxymoron anyway, some will behave because they feel they should do, but many just because they must. The threat of sanction is a necessary motivation for standards. A civilised society needs a free press, but not at any cost.

What differentiates us from China, apart from population, cuisine, and global economic dominance of course, is the courage of democracy to permit criticism from within. At its best, the media provides an unfettered forum that serves the population in holding its leaders and institutions to account, at its worst, a parasitic entity that regurgitates the baser actions of its consumers to feed their own voyeurism. Finding a framework to further the former whilst limiting the latter is the challenge from which the current crop of Westminster tenants must not shrink.  

Yours, grovelling Gove of Surrey.

Michael Gove’s apology to his former French teacher is relatively refreshing. Most politicians, presumably to make space for the letters ‘M’ and ‘P’ after their name, choose to abandon any apparent sense of humility.

 In an open letter, published in this week’s Radio Times, the Education Secretary describes the scene in Mr Montgomery’s classroom at Robert Gordon’s College in Aberdeen as a maleficent melee of “pathetic showing off” and “clever-dick questions”. Perhaps not a prime study scenario, but perfect preparation for Prime Minister’s Questions.

 Acknowledging that his apology is tardy to the tune of 30 years, the Conservative MP for Surrey Heath referred to himself and his classmates as “a cocksure crew of precociously assertive boys”. An appraisal as accurate as it is eloquent perhaps, and apt of a man earmarked in his early years as a “future leader of the Conservative Party”, by a teaching colleague of Mr Montgomery.

Mr Gove delivers an enthusiastic eulogy to the educative efforts of his former schoolmaster, although referring to him as ‘Danny’ could be deemed an unnecessary effort to adjust their erstwhile status gap. He concedes; “you were trying, patiently, doggedly, good-humouredly, to broaden our horizons. You were, without any pretension or pomposity, attempting to coax a group of hormonal lads to look beyond familiar horizons and venture further.”

 Depending on who you speak to, young master Gove may indeed have learnt the lesson of ‘looking beyond familiar horizons’, although apparently backwards, and he may have been absent for the without ‘pomposity’ part. Politically, his Education White Paper produced a predictably mixed reaction, and when questioning members of the profession itself, as politicians all too rarely do, the responses range from suspicious to snarling. 

Having said that, breaking what John Bangs, the former Head of Education at the National Union of Teachers, referred to as high-stakes commercialism in the GCSE exam board system must be a plus. When it came to light that some examiners were selling seminars, offering insider info on teaching to the tests, Mr Bangs said the boards were in “the last chance saloon.” Calling time on that cash cow may be widely welcomed.

In addition, Steve Sinnott, the NUT General Secretary welcomed the commitment to more personalised learning, which the union itself had previously advocated. But, his overall response to the reforms was rather less than rapturous. “The pity is,” he said, “that hidden amongst outlandish ideas, the White Paper has some genuinely good proposals.” His deputy at the NUT, Kevin Courtney, felt that Mr Gove was too quick to level unjustified criticism at the achievements of both teachers and pupils. This, he said; “serves the Education Secretary well in securing headlines,” but “alienates and demoralises the profession which strives day in and day out, often in difficult circumstances, to achieve the best for all their pupils.”

 So, riding that self-made wave of tepid togetherness and absent enthusiasm Mr Gove rallied the troops in February with a warning that the reforms risked fewer kids passing exams and more headteachers being sacked. Now that’s how to motivate the education profession.

 Whilst his epistle of apology to Mr Montgomery is admirable, if Michael Gove seeks to say sorry to every teacher he has left disgruntled and disrespected, he’s going to need a bigger pen.

 

 

Defending, the Beast of Bosnia.

 

The war crimes trial of Radovan Karadzic at The Hague was never likely to be the definition of swift justice, and judging by the opening statement of the former Bosnian Serb leader as he begins his defence, it may run for as long as he did. In a meandering monologue, the man previously dubbed the ‘Beast of Bosnia’ referred to himself as “a tolerant man with great capacity to understand others.” He now has 300 hours to prove that.

Arrested in 2008 in Belgrade, while working in alternative medicine under the alias Dragan Dabic, the former Bosnian Serb war-time president had been on the run for nearly 13 years. Karadzic stands accused of war crimes reportedly committed in the aftermath of the break-up of Yugoslavia, which include arranging the murder of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica in 1995, the siege of Sarajevo between 1992 and 1995 that left 12,000 dead from starvation and sniper fire, and taking 284 United Nations peacekeepers and military observers hostage, to be used as human shields.

Responding to multiple allegations, including the persecution and extermination of Bosnian Croats which gave rise to the term “ethnic cleansing” Mr Karadzic said; “instead of being accused, I should have been rewarded for all the good things I have done.” Such claims were greeted with cries of “he’s lying!” from the public gallery, yet Radovan Karadzic certainly appears to believe every word he says. Convincing the judges however, may prove a tougher task.

The Karadzic trial began three years ago, and that of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic ended up lasting longer than he did. These length litigations may force a postponement of any potential sense of collective closure for those affected, and yet the need for justice endures.

Many families of the 96 victims of the Hillsborough disaster refused to collect the death certificates pertaining to their lost loved ones, unable as they were to reconcile themselves to the authenticity of the inquest they emerged from. With the announcement this week from Dominic Grieve QC that he will apply to quash the original verdicts of accidental death, those actions now feel vindicated.

John F. Kennedy said that every time a person “strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope,” and when you add the ripples together, we can “build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.” 

Amen mate.

A parent's worst nightmare.

The Indian physician and author Deepak Chopra wrote; ‘There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in.’ Although you can’t fully insulate the innocent, and maybe you shouldn’t, recent events can barely fail to thrust into an ever sharper focus, the delicate balance parents face in policing those doorways.

It was a wearyingly familiar sight, hope palpably draining from the faces of the tireless ranks of volunteers and rescue professionals as the search for April Jones made its sad, semantic shift to a murder inquiry. The only suspect, Mark Bridger has now been remanded in custody, to appear on January 11^th, charged with April’s abduction, murder, and attempting to pervert the course of justice through the assumed concealment of her body. The painstaking process of evidence gathering will continue, as the world watches on, helpless but for empathy, pondering how to permit our kids the adventure of independence, whilst protecting their passage through childhood.

For me, those grainy CCTV images of little James Bulger being lead away by the hand linger long in my conflicted consciousness, making objectivity unlikely when my daughter bemoans her perceived absence of personal freedoms. I trust her, it’s everyone else that bothers me. Statistics surrounding child abduction are not absolute, however in May of this year the Sun claimed one goes missing every three minutes. These figures naturally feature runaways, and those that return home, often unreported, yet it is believed that around 150 children are taken by strangers every year in the UK. Perhaps the lasting legacy of the unimaginable limbo in which Kate and Gerry McCann now exist, is an increased awareness of abduction when navigating the daily dilemmas of family logistics. One wrong decision might be all it takes.

Although no surprise to some, the snowballing revelations surrounding the late Sir Jimmy Savile have sent further shivers down the spine of a society at pains to protect its most vulnerable. If even half what is alleged proves accurate, we face another collective failure to have missed the signals, and maybe worse.

Widespread suspicion of Savile’s sexual preferences seems evident, but as a leading establishment entity, not to mention a well-connected and commercially significant figure, this was an inconvenient truth. Many in the media would not readily bite the hand that feeds, whatever the dirt under its finger nails. Even some of Savile’s prolific charity work can now be deemed uncomfortably cynical, given that many of the victims of his alleged abuse were reportedly recruited from children’s homes.

That his own family have consigned his headstone to landfill is as close to a conviction as it comes. This posthumous punishment seems the only suitable sanction, since the called-for stripping of his knighthood is apparently not applicable. Such honours are deemed to exist solely for the duration of a person’s live, naturally expiring on death. That said, the question remains as to how the honours system conferred the knighthood, potentially dignifying the actions of an abuser, against what now appears to have been a background of serious and widespread allegations.

 If children embody hope, walking symbols of the latent potential of an unwritten future, then taking the life, or indeed the innocence of a child, is the bitter final refuge of one whose hope has gone. The final betrayal of the victims would be our collective failure to confront not only those directly responsible, but also those who turned a blind eye.