Culture

David Bowie: 1947-2016

Samuel Hooper4 Comments

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Memory of a Free Festival

The children of the summer’s end
Gathered in the dampened grass,
We played our songs and felt the London sky
Resting on our hands
It was God’s land.
It was ragged and naive.
It was Heaven.

Touch, we touched the very soul
Of holding each and every life.
We claimed the very source of joy ran through.
It didn’t, but it seemed that way.
I kissed a lot of people that day.

Oh, to capture just one drop of all the ecstasy that swept that afternoon,
To paint that love upon a white balloon,
And fly it from the toppest top of all the tops that man has pushed beyond his brain.
Satoria must be something just the same.

We scanned the skies with rainbow eyes and saw machines of every shape and size.
We talked with tall Venusians passing through.
And Peter tried to climb aboard but the Captain shook his head
And away they soared,
Climbing through the ivory vibrant cloud.
Someone passed some bliss among the crowd.
And we walked back to the road, unchained.

The sun machine is coming down, and we’re gonna have a party.

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RIP David Bowie, who died of cancer last night in New York.

Obituaries here, here and here.

Background to “Memory of a Free Festival” here.

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The Daily Toast: The Christian Case For Brexit, And Against The EU

Samuel Hooper6 Comments

Christianity - Europe - EU - Brexit - 3

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There’s nothing Christian – or in any way moral – about throwing away our hard-won democracy in the drooling pursuit of European political union

Adrian Hilton of the excellent Archbishop Cranmer blog has a very noteworthy piece in Reimagining Europe, making the rare (but very welcome) argument against the European Union from a Christian perspective.

Hilton writes:

Unlike many politicians and most bishops and other circulating elites, I don’t equate historic Europe with the political civic empire called the EU, and it seems that my desire for UK secession from this artificial construct makes me ‘un-Christian’.

How welcome these words are. The lazy but insidious notion that the continent of Europe and the political construct known as the European Union are one and the same thing is hugely damaging yet near-universally held. People worry about “leaving Europe” as if by leaving one particular (very expensive) geopolitical club, Britain would literally be levering herself away from the continent of Europe, walling ourselves off in Fortress Britain, when this is clearly not the case.

But the lazy belief that British membership of the European Union is somehow as logical and essential as our geographical location within the continent of Europe is widespread, and so it is unsurprising to see it mindlessly repeated by the Church of England.

The same goes for the risible idea that leaving the EU would be to cease any kind of friendship or cooperation with the other countries of Europe, another argument commonly deployed by europhiles, as Hilton recounts:

“So we stop working with our neighbours; finding common ground; influencing for good – not my idea of Christian,” [Lord Deben] tweeted to me a few weeks ago. Like Jeremy Corbyn, it seems, I’m locked into an otiose 1970s view of the world. Everything has changed, and I just haven’t realised that sovereign nations can no longer work effectively with their neighbours on matters such as trade, taxation and regulation: “Most big international decisions (are) made between EU and US,” Lord Deben asserted, before needling: “Why do you want Britain excluded?”

You see how the caricature goes? The EU is ‘top table’ (though it really isn’t, but that’s another blog post), and Christians who favour UK-EU secession become isolationist, xenophobic, un-(anti?)-Christian ‘little Englanders’. He didn’t say ‘fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists’, but he might as well have done. My ‘idea of Christian’ is self-evidently blinded by nationalistic bigotry and naively fomenting apocalypse. No matter how much you try to reason back with gracious statistics, humble facts and philosophical insights, the inference is clear and crushing: there is no place in the Church of the Enlightenment for those who identify with the narrow, sectarian parochialism of a national democratic polity. No informed, intelligent or discerning Christian could possibly be so spiritually witless or theologically illiterate as to advocate withdrawal from the EU.

But of course there is nothing Christian about allowing the United Kingdom – our flawed but essentially decent democracy – to be subsumed into an explicitly political supranational union which is the peculiar, flawed vision of founding fathers who – unlike their American predecessors – are largely unknown and unloved, because their elitist vision for technocratic governance so utterly fails to resonate in the hearts of Europe’s citizens.

Neither is there anything “moral” or Christian about divesting ourselves of judicial, legislative and executive sovereignty, only to slowly and stealthily transfer and pool those powers into an entity with which most of us feel absolutely no heartfelt love, affiliation or loyalty.

Or as Hilton so eloquently puts it:

I support the Leave campaign not because I desire economic isolation or social exclusion from the Continent, but to extricate the UK from the unaccountable elitist pursuit of unending politico-economic integration at the expense of democracy, accountability and liberty, which, to me, are perfectly sound biblical principles.

Ask a europhile how these principles are to be preserved in a European Union of relentless, unapologetic political integration and you will be met with a very long silence.

Ask a europhile how they plan to preserve democracy when they undermine the nation state at every turn, and give its powers to a supranational organisation which commands no feeling of affinity, and you will get tumbleweeds. Because they have no answer. Either they have not thought the issue through, or – far more frightening – they have thought about the ramifications for our democracy, but simply don’t care.

Hilton concludes:

We, the governed, ask ‘Who governs?’, and the answer is lost in a pathology of bureaucracy and unfathomable institutional structures which seem purposely designed to convey a façade of democracy while shielding the executive elite government from the inconvenience of elections. We are governed by a wealthy, supranational, technocratic oligarchy, and no popular vote can remove them or change the direction of policy. This might fulfil Lord Deben’s apprehension of righteous government, and I am sensible to the fellow-feelings of European humanity in its unanimous yearning to eradicate civil strife and internecine war. But all I see are disparate peoples desperate for the restoration of national identity against the failures of forced continental integration.

UKIP. Front National. The Danish People’s Party. Jobbik. The Freedom Party. Finns. All across Europe, eurosceptic parties – some mainstream, some more extreme and less pleasant – are flourishing because of a growing number of citizens who have had enough of enforced European political unity and remote government-by-technocrat, and who would much rather that meaningful power returned from Brussels to the level where they feel a sense of belonging – be that their region, province or country.

Too often – at least in Britain, with the media’s patronising and dismissive coverage of UKIP leading up to the European and general elections – we explain away these populist movements, or belittle their support base by suggesting that they are all economically left-behind losers or curtain-twitching village racists.

And it’s partly true, only not as an insult. If you are a well paid professional in rude financial health you can better afford to be a consumer rather than a thinking citizen. You can use your vote to signal your virtue (anyone but UKIP!) or advance your lazily thought out utopian daydreams, with little fear of the consequences. But those of our fellow citizens on the sharp edge of globalisation – those whose livelihoods are impacted by deindustrialisation, new technology, outsourcing and the information economy – tend to see things differently.

This doesn’t mean that we should adopt every nativist, protectionist policy that comes along – because barriers to trade are never the right answer. But it does mean that we should acknowledge that the eurosceptic parties of the Right and the Left are at least asking some important questions that the mainstream parties, trapped in their centrist consensus groupthink, have consistently failed to do.

And too often the Church has sided with the establishment, reflecting the voice of the political class and the prosperous middle class rather than the informed citizenry or the imperilled working class. Worse still, it has done so while shamelessly dressing itself in the robes of enlightened internationalism, progressivism and virtue.

If nothing else, it is encouraging to see that thanks to the likes of Adrian Hilton, they will no longer be allowed to do so unchallenged.

More semi-partisan commentary on Re-imagining Europe here and here.

Christianity - Europe - EU - Brexit

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You Wouldn’t Buy A Song Praising HMRC, So Stop Worshipping The NHS

Samuel Hooper5 Comments

NHS Choir - Harriet Nerva

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Buying and praising the NHS Choir’s Christmas single is not “harmless fun”. In fact, anyone who truly believes in improving healthcare should see through this complacent, self-congratulatory piece of propaganda

It’s amazing how easy it is to be published in the Guardian, just so long as you hold the “correct” right-on, trendily left wing views, and have distinguished yourself with some suitably ostentatious act of public virtue-signalling.

Enter Harriet Nerva, junior doctor and newly ordained High Priestess of the NHS. Nerva is one of the principal architects of that sappy piece of virtue-signalling NHS propaganda inflicted on the (sadly often-willing) British populace this winter – the “Bridge Over You” single which predictably made it to Christmas No. 1 in the charts.

I explained at the time why singing hymns to a powerful government monopoly was neither a morally virtuous nor a productive thing to do, and was met with a predictable chorus of criticism and accusations of being a Christmas Grinch. But the argument against this latest piece of NHS-worship needs to be restated and expanded, particularly in light of the failure of other commentators to utter a critical word, and also because of the nauseating victory lap currently being taken by the #NHS4XmasNo1 campaign chiefs.

In her self-aggrandising victory speech, published in the Guardian, Nerva begins by declaring:

As a junior doctor, I started a campaign that united the public, staff and patients in its demand for a free and properly funded healthcare service for all.

Already it starts to become clear that this is all about the Harriet Nerva Show first and foremost, long before any other consideration. The article continues:

Since becoming a junior doctor 18 months ago, I have felt immensely proud to work for the NHS. In particular, I’ve been humbled by how well we cared for one patient in their dying days, and felt privileged to have forged a relationship with this person in the last few weeks of their life.

Again, this is boastful and irrelevant. Nerva isn’t “humbled” by anything, she is proud of her accomplishment – and that’s fine, but not when it is wrapped in the pretence of promoting the NHS, or when the fact that she gave good care to a dying patient is misused as an argument for persevering with one very specific model of healthcare delivery.

Nerva concludes by inadvertently calling the song what it really is – a religious hymn:

This campaign has made it clear that the public, staff and patients are singing from the same hymn sheet. We are united in the belief that we should have a free and properly funded healthcare service available to all in our society, one that values and respects its staff and users. The choir have sung, the public have spoken, and now it’s time to listen.

Meanwhile, the Mirror reports approvingly:

Harriet told Mirror Online: “I didn’t have any links with the choir but what they have produced is a fantastic celebration of the NHS”.

“Seeing the video moved me to tears. The context of it is very powerful. I qualified 15 months ago and I love the NHS, I’m very proud of it. And I feel getting it to Number One would bring to the public’s eye the fantastic service it provides in very challenging times”.

But this reasoning is nonsense. Everyone in Britain already knows about the excellent and important work done by doctors and nurses, and the vast majority support the NHS. It’s hardly as though there is some massive popular revolt against our system of nationalised healthcare.

Most people seem content with our current system when they bother to think about it at all, and (left-wing scaremongering aside) no major politician from any party has serious plans to dismantle what currently exists, let alone end the principle of healthcare free at the point of use.

So, since there is no imminent threat to the NHS (it survived eighteen years of Tory government before 1997, and will do so again), what is this really all about? What really motivated a junior doctor to make us endure this turgid hymn to the NHS?

NHS Choir - Christmas Single - 3

By prancing around with her Twitter hashtags and handwritten signs, Harriet Nerva isn’t just saying that she shares our presumed love for the NHS or has a strong devotion to providing healthcare. What she is really saying is that she is a better person than you, because she A) works for the NHS, and B) organised a huge act of public NHS-worship.

“Think you’re a good person just because you like the NHS?”, Nerva is saying. “Well I’m ten times better than you, because I got the British people to collectively sing a hymn to the NHS on Christmas Day. I love the NHS so much that I made this extraordinarily extravagant public gesture. What did you do?”

And of course short of sacrificing ourselves on a huge pyre as a burnt offering to the NHS, there is nothing that we can do to better her accomplishment. Harriet Nerva wins.

But this is noisy, shallow virtue-signalling, and nothing more. I’m sorry if it sounds harsh or seems unpleasant to rain all over what first looks like a harmless act of charity, but the NHS Choir’s Christmas single is so much more than that. And so much worse. It is yet another part of the vast tapestry of reflexive NHS worship which smothers Britain, and prevents us from looking critically and dispassionately at one of the most important issues in our society.

And we need to wake up, stop patting ourselves on the back for the accomplishments of previous generations, and recognise that singing hymns to an outdated healthcare delivery model from the 1940s is going to do nothing – nada, zilch – to ensure that Britons enjoy the best healthcare in the world in this century.

NHS Worship - London Olympic Games 1

It is therefore heartening to see a few other brave souls also now daring to stick their heads above the parapet and call the NHS Christmas single what it is – emotionally manipulative propaganda.

My Conservatives for Liberty colleague and Creative Director, Paul Nizinskyj, also picks up on the pseudo-religious undertones beneath this latest act of NHS-worship:

This was encouraged by a message on the music video, which urged people to “Show how much you #LoveYourNHS” by buying the single. Well, this is a concept I struggle with, because I have no love for a catastrophically flawed system of healthcare which seriously fails its patients, despite the best efforts of its frontline staff.

But that distinction – between the structure of the NHS and the people who work for it – is one we seem to struggle with in this country. So, instead of a conversation about why the NHS continues to fail the people who pay for it, we again exalted it as an infallible deity, this time in a kind of Christmas Day papal coronation.

One of the Left’s greatest successes has been to conflate “Our NHS” with “healthcare” in the minds of the British people, so that the two concepts effectively merge to become one and the same. This was a war of words, and the Left won a total victory – now, even those people who are naturally sceptical of government monopolies often speak of the two terms interchangeably, and carve out an illogical exception for the NHS when they extol the virtues of competition and privatisation.

But as Nizinskyj points out:

I’m certain dedicated health professionals would be dedicated and professional under whichever system of healthcare they were working, but the results of that hard work often depend on whether the system is working with them or against them. And, when it comes to the NHS, I’m afraid it’s working against them.

This is the point which continually eludes the NHS priests and their congregation of grateful but uncritical Britons. Yes, of course the doctors and nurses who saved your life / delivered your baby / cared for your dying relative did an amazing job. But that is a reflection on them, not on the system in which they operate.

Lives are saved, babies are delivered and dying relatives cared for in healthcare systems all over the world. Many of these other healthcare systems do the job very well, if not better, than the NHS. Many of these other healthcare systems are also free at the point of use. Very few of them are like the American system, which is always cynically held up as a bogeyman to scare British voters and shut down debate. And yet mysteriously, none of these other healthcare systems copy the NHS model.

Think about that for a moment. Every day, people are treated with love and dedication in hospitals and healthcare systems around the world, and in many cases receive comparable or better care without being stuck with a bill that they can’t afford. Yes, poor people actually receive medical care in other countries, not just Britain. And yet we are not able to even look at these other systems or ask ourselves the question whether the decision we made as a country in 1948 is still the best choice in 2016.

Why are we not able to do this? Why can we not look at best practice from around the world and strive to emulate and build on these ideas so that we have the very best healthcare in the world, rather than being satisfied with an ebbing and subsiding parity? Because of people like Harriet Nerva, and the closed-minded viewpoint of legions of others like her.

NHS Choir - Harriet Nerva - 2

There are two forces are at work here. First, there is the British public’s irrational, unshakeable devotion to “Our NHS”, about which a bad word can never be spoken. Sure, you can criticise waiting lists, falling standards or the inevitable winter crises, but politicians question the wisdom of sticking with the NHS model itself at great peril – and so none do.

And secondly, there is the growing phenomenon of online virtue-signalling, fuelled by social media, in which your political stances are worn and discarded like this year’s latest fashion, and where your stance on key social issues is taken to determine whether you are a “good” or “bad” person. Thus thousands of Twitter bios proudly proclaim that the account owner is a “lefty” or that “I voted for Corbyn”, while people looking for love (or something else) on dating sites like Tinder will often have “don’t bother if you are a Tory”, or other dismissive words to that effect, emblazoned on their profiles.

Take the British public’s “pre-existing condition” of an uncritically sentimental attachment to the NHS and add the social cachet and sense of identity which now comes from blaring one’s political views online and wearing political stances like a fashion statement, and this is what you get: people taking selfies of themselves holding up devotional banners praising the NHS, and even more people singing hymns in honour of Saint Aneurin Bevan’s sacramental gift to our nation.

It’s the easiest thing in the world to get swept up in the NHS love-fest. You are guaranteed to get smiles from strangers and likes on social media with every unthinking post and re-tweet of a “Love Your NHS” meme. You will suffer no negative consequences at all for declaring your blind loyalty to this one particular branch of government, and in fact will be praised for doing so. Just by clicking a few buttons and sharing a couple of posts on social media, 90% of the population will think you are magnificent.

But it is not magnificent. It’s self-aggrandising, counterproductive and wrong. It actively detracts from efforts to improve healthcare for Britons, and it stifles and prejudices a much needed public debate before it can even take place.

I’m sorry to be Scrooge this winter, but there’s no other way of saying this: if you bought the NHS Christmas single, you are part of the problem, not the solution.

Christmas number 1 race

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Music For Christmas Day

Samuel HooperLeave a comment

 

Some neglected Tchaikovsky music for Christmas Day

Tchaikovsky, Piano Concerto no. 3 – Denis Matsuev / Valery Gergiev, Mariinsky Orchestra

I was fortunate this winter to see the Royal Ballet’s excellent production of The Nutcracker with my wife, just prior to leaving Britain to spend Christmas in Texas.

For many people, of course, The Nutcracker is the quintessential Christmas music. But I have long felt that Tchaikovsky’s unfairly neglected third piano concerto has an equally festive and magical quality, one which also happens to work better as a standalone piece.

The third piano concerto was left unfinished, with only the first movement completed at the time of Tchaikovsky’s death. However, second and third movements do exist in the form of separate piano outlines which were fleshed out and orchestrated by Sergei Tanayev.

Few recordings exist of the piece in its entirety, but there is an excellent Naxos recording as well as several on YouTube.

The festive atmosphere of the first movement and its hushed bassoon opening contrasts well with the beautiful second movement, which always puts me in mind of a snowy town or village on Christmas night.

When and wherever you happen to be celebrating the holidays this year, I wish you, your friends and family a very Merry Christmas.

Christmas Wreath 2

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A Merry Semi-Partisan Christmas

Samuel HooperLeave a comment

Political Blogging 2

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Onward to 2016, with your help

2015 has been a very good year for this blog. The frequency of posts increased dramatically as we covered the general election and its aftermath, and we have kept up the pace ever since. There are now new articles nearly every day, as well as a more lively Twitter feed.

The net result has been an increase in readership of nearly 400%. This blog is still small, but a number of articles have caught the attention of influential MPs, journalists and activists. And nobody recognised or wrote about the eventual cause of Labour’s general election defeat before this blog, though many others have subsequently swooped in to take credit.

My writing is syndicated at Guerilla Policy, where I seem to be the lone conservative voice amid a sea of unabashed lefties, and I am proud to contribute regularly to the excellent campaign group Conservatives for Liberty.

Semi-Partisan Politics will continue to grow and flourish as we enter 2016, and will campaign – loudly and unapologetically – for the following goals and ideals:

 

Brexit: freedom from the European Union

Democracy and national sovereignty

Constitutional reform and a federal UK

Separation of church and state

Healthcare reform, not NHS worship

Smaller, smarter government

Free speech, without restriction

Fighting timid centrism on the Right

Fighting empty virtue-signalling on the Left

 

If you agree with these objectives and have enjoyed this blog’s coverage over the past year, please do consider using the PayPal tip jar to make a small regular contribution or a one-time donation:

 

 

Any reader donations will 1) be a personal ego boost to myself, 2) help me to do more original reporting, like the successful live blog of this year’s UKIP annual conference, and 3) help me promote this site and the work of other like-minded writers so that we can actually make a difference.

As I swiftly learned this past year, writers don’t get paid very much (unless you are Owen Jones). This blog is written in my spare time around a day job, usually between midnight and 3AM, and is available to everyone free of charge.

However, small donations from individual contributors are not only greatly appreciated, but also help to preserve independent journalism and commentary in general – so that nobody has to rely exclusively on the BBC, the Guardian or the Telegraph to understand what’s going on in our country and around the world.

If you are happy getting all of your news, analysis and commentary from the BBC or the big national newspapers, then by all means carry on. But if you value independent writing which is not beholden to any party, clique or the Westminster establishment, then please consider helping to ensure its continued existence by donating a couple of quid to the independent sites which keep you coming back for more.

But it’s not all about the money. What matters even more than that (for me) is spreading the word and sharing the message – and these days that means social media. So if you read something you like here, don’t just sit on it. Share it on Twitter or Reddit. Email it to a friend. Be that person on Facebook who posts provocative political articles on their timeline (but all things in moderation).

With the help of my informed and generous readers, 2016 will be another record-breaking year for Semi-Partisan Politics.

Many thanks to all of you, and a very Merry Christmas.

Christmas Wreath 2

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