Gaunts' Britian

Talking of Jon Gaunt...

Matthew Norman:

In Brits we trust

On the op-ed page of The Sun are extracts from Gaunty’s Best of British: It’s Called Great Britain Not Rubbish Britain, and many thanks to Rebekah Wade for offering the choicest cuts from an opus on which I still haven’t lavished £18.99. Included in this saliva-inducing amuse bouche of Gaunty faves are not only the great British summer fete, pork scratchings, saucy seaside postcards, queuing (“What is it with us Brits and queuing?”), HP Sauce, marmalade and the NHS (no direct comparison with the French system, but we take the point).

Also making the cut is tolerance.

Jon Gaunt is the most appalling hypocrite

Oh this really got my goat.

Having spent the last few years railing against the "nanny-state", Jon Gaunt wrote in his most recent column about how the parents of Danny James (who was left paralysed after a serious Rugby injury) travelled with him to Switzerland, in order for Danny to visit a euthanasia clinic.

After vilifying Danny's loving, and no doubt grieving parents, Gaunty points out that "Assisted suicide is a crime in this country and it should remain so."

That may be true, but it doesn't make it right. What right does the State really have to force a person to suffer a life they find unbearable? Surely the ultimate line between state authority and personal liberty is one of life itself.

Jon Gaunt is all very well bitching endlessly about the Labour government's interference in our daily lives, but then he takes utterly illiberal positions like this. I know I say this every time, but the guy's a 24-carat gold hypocrite ::

But no, his parents took him to Switzerland and instead of truly confronting the horror of their actions, politicians are now turning a blind eye to the death clinics and refusing to even have the moral debate in this country.

This is not a theocracy, Jon. I couldn't give a monkeys what politicians think about this, there is no "moral debate" worth having. The State has no legitimate right to block suicides - assisted or not.

Taking their son to Switzerland must have been a harrowing experience, but Danny's parents understood that his fundamental human right is to self-determination.

It was Danny's wish to die. That's all we need to know.

What a charming young lady.

We've noted in the past that the Sun's readers often think that the antics of the newspaper they read are either tasteless or out of order. No real surprises then that they don't think much of the paper's buying of the story of Georgina Baillie, currently at the head of the storm involving the calls made by Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross to her grandfather, Andrew Sachs:

"Excuse me ???? She said her issue over this was that whatever happened between her and Brand ought to have been a private matter.!! NOW she comes to cash in. Hypocritical in extreme.
Spilling the beans is almost as bad as Ross/Brand yelling it down the phone to her grandfather.What bit does she not get about "respect" ??????"

"So the official response to despicable behavior is then to behave (and print) vengeful abuse in return? Why didnt I figure that one out, there was me thinking publically abusing people was bad, apparently not, only if someone does it without being paid for the story first. I get it."

"what a hypocrite, she whines that her privacy was invaded and then does the exact same thing back"

"I do believe that Andrew Sachs was genuinely upset over the comments made about his grand daughter. Not something you want to hear. But his grand daughter seems to be reeping the rewards for what happened. She wanted her relationship (if thats what you call it) with Russell to be private but now she is selling her story on their sex life (slept with him on first night, must be well proud). I would also like to know if this radio programme had not gone out on air, would there be so much hype about it. Ross and Brand took a joke one step too far but I dont think they should be sacked. To be honest the cost of TV license is more of an issue and cause for complaint than this."

"An unkonown milking this for all it's worth. For god's sake give it a rest, nobody is interested."

"Unfortunately for her poor granfather, he now has to read about his granddaughters antics in The Sun. What a charming young lady."

"What is more upsetting to Andrew Sachs? Russell Brand saying it on a radio show that 400,000 people listened to or his grand-daughter repeating it over and over again in a national newspaper giving all the sordid details?"

"This is pathetic, if this girl is so upset by what has been said. Why is it that she has sold her story about her relationship with brand to the newspapers. There are far more serious things going on in the world at the moment. This show was pre-recorded so why didn't somebody edit all this out before it was broadcast?"

"Not only has poor Andrew Sachs gone through the humiliation of all of this, the poor sod gets to hear how his granddaughter rates one of her former lovers in bed!!! He'll love that!! It's given her the publicity she wants anyway.... How much did she get for telling her side of the story???"

"Methinks someone might be smelling an opportunity to become famous..."

Meanwhile, the Sun was demanding this morning that more heads roll. Nausea prevents me from pasting parts of it, such is the cant of demanding that such filth be prevented from reaching us, but the accountability part is worth linking in:

"This week the BBC has looked leaderless. Bosses froze in the face of national outrage.

The BBC has huge power. It receives vast sums of our money.

In return it has huge responsibilities.

Yet the BBC’s lack of accountability means it too often shows contempt for public opinion.

At a time of crisis its top managers have been exposed as weak and indecisive."

Yes, all this over two presenters who went a bit too far in phoning up a guest who was meant to be on their show but couldn't make it, who even authorised the broadcast as long as it was toned down a bit. The Sun meanwhile back in July was part of the troika of newspapers which paid Robert Murat libel damages for printing numerous reports alleging that he had abducted and/or killed Madeleine McCann. What's worse? An old actor being somewhat humiliated by a granddaughter he must have had an inkling was hardly a shrinking violet or a man having his life ruined at the hands of the gutter press? We all know now.

Target audience

Phil Woolas, the minister against for immigration reckons Sun readers hold all the power.

BBC:

The government calls the new points based immigration system "Australian-style" to get its message across to Sun readers, Phil Woolas has said.

The immigration minister said it was "not a direct comparison" but he believed it was a fair one.

He challenged a CBI immigration conference audience to come up with a better description for a Sun headline.

"If you ignore the Sun reader in this debate you are not going to move it forward," he added.

hmmm.

Explaining his latest comments to journalists after the CBI meeting, he said Sun readers knew as much about the realities of immigration as many "so-called experts".

"Victim's Rights"

The Sun today has an article about Jack Straw's plans to, as the Sun puts it, "put the victims first".

It mentions the usual suspects - the Human Rights Act, political correctness and Labour being "soft on crime". The only scrapegoat it misses out is the Data Protection Act, presumably because it doesn't naturally fall within this particular group.

It quotes a victim of crime, who, while I am sympathetic to them, doesn't seem to be basing her views on any rational or half-way intelligent position. She seem to completely ignore or be oblivious to the fact that the Human Rights Act applies to everyone - that why it's called the "Human Rights Act" not the "Human Privileges Act" - not just people with an unblemished record. She must be completely unaware of the good that the HRA has done to the UK (a pdf from 2006 is available).

What the Sun doesn't seem to realise is that - as bad as it sounds - victims are probably the last people you should think of when designing laws. What counts is that there is a fair trial in which the Defendant is able to give his case - not what makes you seem hard in front of the tabloids or to try and out-do your opponents.

Feel my Mercedes pain.

Sometimes the contrast between articles tell their own story. The Sun reports:

"THE number of unpaid energy bills has increased nearly 50 per cent due to price rises, a study found.

Homes skipping electricity bills jumped from 1.31million to 1.96million in the past six months.

And 1.61million Brits missed paying their gas bill, compared to 1.16million in the last six months of 2007, the YouGov poll of 2,157 people found.

Website MoneyExpert.com said: “Households are feeling the strain.”

Meanwhile, the Sun's star columnist and ex-editor Kelvin MacKenzie has other things on his mind:

"A MONTH ago I was critical of Mercedes-Benz who gave me a £1,500 estimate to repair a two-centimetre square scratch, which in the end I had fixed at my local body shop for £350."

For a paper that so pretends to understand and fight for its readers, who are rather more likely to be in the former category rather than in MacKenzie's shoes, his woes over his Merc are hardly likely to inspire much sympathy.

P.S.

The Sun's smear of Katy Perry has fallen even further apart.

A knife for the girls.

Another teenager dies as a result of a stabbing, which means the Sun just has to find someone or something to blame, and in this instance it happens to be Katy Perry. Yes, her of the kissing girls and liking it song.

The Sun has decreed that she must apologise for this heinous insult to all the families grieving as a result of knife crime. Perhaps if the photograph was recent, or as they describe it, from a recent shoot, she would have done: instead, the Katy Perry forum suggests that the photograph is two years old, and was residing until a Sun journalist spotted it, on, you guessed it, Perry's MySpace gallery. This friends is how you invent a scandal and make money out of it.

Much longer post on this over at mine.