One of the most striking moments in cinema is when a murder-crazed Jack Nicholson smashes an axe through a door in the closing act of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining.
Quango chiefs throughout Britain must be eyeing their doors every 15 minutes, wondering if a similar crashing moment of destruction is imminent.
If the UK Film Council could perish in the age of austerity, what hope was there for the Advisory Committee on Historic Wreck Sites?
Quangos exist at “arm’s length” from Government and bodies such as the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority make monumental decisions on issues of intense controversy.
Politicians can win applause by passing responsibility to panels of experts and pledging to stop party politics interfering on issues. But if democratic government is about the people’s representatives making decisions this can look suspiciously like passing the buck.
Former First Minister Rhodri Morgan staged a “bonfire of the quangos” when he brought bodies including the Welsh Development Agency and the Wales Tourist Board into the Assembly Government.
This merger has not been easy and it is not hard to find people who lament the passing of such institutions, but in Wales – especially in education – there is a new confidence that democratically elected leaders should be unafraid to set the agenda.
For much of the first decade of this century the power of individual politicians and even entire governments could seemed dwarfed by the might of multinationals corporations and super-banks that had a spending power which eclipsed the GDP of many nations.
But politicians, many of whom earn in a year what a commercial mogul takes home in a week, rode to the rescue when the punch-drunk banks teetered on the abyss. Elected representatives used taxpayers’ funds to stave off a second Great Depression.
The fiasco of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill has dented faith in the technical wizardry of the energy sector’s engineers, just as the supposed supernatural powers of bankers were exposed as cheap tricks when Lehman Bros disintegrated.
The supposed genius of the private sector has not delivered Britain a rail service that would make the French go jade in envy, and the inability of mobile operators to come to an agreement on roaming irritates anyone who loses signal when they walk from the living room into the kitchen.
Ultimately, Britain is not locked in a battle between the left and the right about the role of the state but needs a generation of politicians who have the courage and imagination to at least try and sort things out.
Any politician with a democratic mandate should not shy away from fighting for bold decisions that have the potential to improve our lives. In fact, that is what they are paid to do.
A Thursday column
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Thursday, July 22, 2010
The Farmer's Three Films
A friend recently encountered a charming farmer who cheerfully admitted he had only seen three films in his life.
These were Cool Runnings, the upbeat tale of the Jamaican bobsleigh team; Forrest Gump, a vision of modern American history through the eyes of a bright-but-dim Tom Hanks; and Hedd Wyn, the Welsh-language depiction of the acclaimed war poet.
If a visiting alien asked for three examples of world cinema you could do worse than offer this selection.
Cool Runnings is a yarn about unlikely heroes triumphing over adversity, propelled by nothing but hope and friendship. It is a quintessentially “feel-good” film which addresses our enduring hunger for entertaining codswallop.
Forrest Gump justifies insertion in the canon partly because it took more than $670m at the global box office – this is a prime example of the type of thing humans like to watch.
This story of a exceptionally simple man’s enduring love for a kind-hearted but needy girl he knew as a schoolboy finds flashes of decency in some of the darkest episodes of recent American life. The eponymous Forrest serves in Vietnam, witnesses the Watergate break-in and wades through the dark side of 1960s counterculture but never loses his faith in homespun wisdom – and he repeatedly hits the capitalist jackpot as crazes ranging from shrimp to the Apple computer sweep the nation.
Critics divide on whether the film is a patriotic condemnation of the dishevelled excess and untethered liberty of modern America, or actually a cynical work which argues only an idiot can believe in the American dream. Either way, audiences loved the special effects which allowed Hanks to shake hands with JFK, laughed at the jokes and were swept up by the romance.
Hedd Wyn was a cultural milestone. It was the first Welsh language film to win an Oscar nomination, and the story of a World War I poet whose final work wins the Eisteddfod chair but who perishes from his war wounds deserves to be told in every culture.
As 2001’s Parisian romance Amélie demonstrated, more than a handful of people are willing to pay to see a film not in their first language. In fact, seeing a foreign language movie in a cinema with crystal clear subtitles is one of film’s greatest delights because it combines the pleasure of reading for 90mins with complete immersion in the sights and sound of another culture.
I am intrigued how this farmer, who could have done a lot worse in his cinema choices, spent the time that he didn’t devote to watching films. Perhaps he can speak more languages than Nick Clegg?
I’d also be delighted to hear your suggestions for the three films every human must see. Please do let me know what choices make your final cut.
A Thursday column
These were Cool Runnings, the upbeat tale of the Jamaican bobsleigh team; Forrest Gump, a vision of modern American history through the eyes of a bright-but-dim Tom Hanks; and Hedd Wyn, the Welsh-language depiction of the acclaimed war poet.
If a visiting alien asked for three examples of world cinema you could do worse than offer this selection.
Cool Runnings is a yarn about unlikely heroes triumphing over adversity, propelled by nothing but hope and friendship. It is a quintessentially “feel-good” film which addresses our enduring hunger for entertaining codswallop.
Forrest Gump justifies insertion in the canon partly because it took more than $670m at the global box office – this is a prime example of the type of thing humans like to watch.
This story of a exceptionally simple man’s enduring love for a kind-hearted but needy girl he knew as a schoolboy finds flashes of decency in some of the darkest episodes of recent American life. The eponymous Forrest serves in Vietnam, witnesses the Watergate break-in and wades through the dark side of 1960s counterculture but never loses his faith in homespun wisdom – and he repeatedly hits the capitalist jackpot as crazes ranging from shrimp to the Apple computer sweep the nation.
Critics divide on whether the film is a patriotic condemnation of the dishevelled excess and untethered liberty of modern America, or actually a cynical work which argues only an idiot can believe in the American dream. Either way, audiences loved the special effects which allowed Hanks to shake hands with JFK, laughed at the jokes and were swept up by the romance.
Hedd Wyn was a cultural milestone. It was the first Welsh language film to win an Oscar nomination, and the story of a World War I poet whose final work wins the Eisteddfod chair but who perishes from his war wounds deserves to be told in every culture.
As 2001’s Parisian romance Amélie demonstrated, more than a handful of people are willing to pay to see a film not in their first language. In fact, seeing a foreign language movie in a cinema with crystal clear subtitles is one of film’s greatest delights because it combines the pleasure of reading for 90mins with complete immersion in the sights and sound of another culture.
I am intrigued how this farmer, who could have done a lot worse in his cinema choices, spent the time that he didn’t devote to watching films. Perhaps he can speak more languages than Nick Clegg?
I’d also be delighted to hear your suggestions for the three films every human must see. Please do let me know what choices make your final cut.
A Thursday column
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Ghosts on the Ardoyne
Hollywood westerns and musicals splutter in and out of fashion but zombie movies are, appropriately, a genre of cinema that refuses to die.
They hinge on the moment of fright when what looks like a corpse suddenly lunges for a victim and mayhem ensues.
Such shocks send popcorn spraying in a crowded cinema, but are not so much fun when the images are played on out on the streets of a city.
The return of rioting which features dehumanising brutality in Belfast is proof that sectarian violence has not vanished from these islands but appears alive and dangerous.
The sight of children and teenagers attacking a police force which was designed to command the confidence of both communities proves that this generation, too, has been pulled into the orbit of violence.
Interpreting the cause of this latest rioting is as difficult as solving one of Fermat’s harder theorems.
The tangled politics of this neighbourhood is a microcosm for the cauldron of competing forces within both communities in the province.
There were undoubtedly recreational rioters on the streets but there are also left-wing republicans angry at perceived injustice who are organising with energy, as a surf of websites quickly shows. They do not want to jettison the socialist dream of an Irish republic which excited James Connolly.
A merrily capitalist Ulster featuring regular royal visits and nothing to unsettle multinational investors and international tourists – a Devon Eire, if you like – is not their preferred vision for the future.
But you also have thousands of people who did not become paper millionaires during the housing boom, who are angry at continued deprivation, disillusioned with politics and labouring each day under enduring pain from the trauma of the Troubles.
Into this cocktail is dropped the hyper-inflammable ingredient of an Orange march.
Northern Ireland has never had the Springbok moment, when Nelson Mandela put on a rugby jersey and neutralised the sectarian connotations and rebranded it as a symbol of South African pride. It is unthinkable that a former republican prisoner putting on an Orange sash would have the same effect. But the province needs a moment of grace.
What would happen if Orangemen braced for resistance had been greeted with utter indifference or – most shockingly – a warm welcome?
The true revolutionaries on both sides of this divide will never reawaken Ireland’s awful history of maiming and killing. Instead they will seek to subvert it in the hope that the monster of hatred will collapse and this time stay dead.
A Thursday column
They hinge on the moment of fright when what looks like a corpse suddenly lunges for a victim and mayhem ensues.
Such shocks send popcorn spraying in a crowded cinema, but are not so much fun when the images are played on out on the streets of a city.
The return of rioting which features dehumanising brutality in Belfast is proof that sectarian violence has not vanished from these islands but appears alive and dangerous.
The sight of children and teenagers attacking a police force which was designed to command the confidence of both communities proves that this generation, too, has been pulled into the orbit of violence.
Interpreting the cause of this latest rioting is as difficult as solving one of Fermat’s harder theorems.
The tangled politics of this neighbourhood is a microcosm for the cauldron of competing forces within both communities in the province.
There were undoubtedly recreational rioters on the streets but there are also left-wing republicans angry at perceived injustice who are organising with energy, as a surf of websites quickly shows. They do not want to jettison the socialist dream of an Irish republic which excited James Connolly.
A merrily capitalist Ulster featuring regular royal visits and nothing to unsettle multinational investors and international tourists – a Devon Eire, if you like – is not their preferred vision for the future.
But you also have thousands of people who did not become paper millionaires during the housing boom, who are angry at continued deprivation, disillusioned with politics and labouring each day under enduring pain from the trauma of the Troubles.
Into this cocktail is dropped the hyper-inflammable ingredient of an Orange march.
Northern Ireland has never had the Springbok moment, when Nelson Mandela put on a rugby jersey and neutralised the sectarian connotations and rebranded it as a symbol of South African pride. It is unthinkable that a former republican prisoner putting on an Orange sash would have the same effect. But the province needs a moment of grace.
What would happen if Orangemen braced for resistance had been greeted with utter indifference or – most shockingly – a warm welcome?
The true revolutionaries on both sides of this divide will never reawaken Ireland’s awful history of maiming and killing. Instead they will seek to subvert it in the hope that the monster of hatred will collapse and this time stay dead.
A Thursday column
Thursday, July 08, 2010
Ambition for Breakfast
Ralph Miliband’s 1977 Marxism and Politics is dedicated to his sons David and Edward – both of whom now stand an excellent chance of winning the Labour leadership contest.
What did they have for breakfast in that household?
Scriptwriters who write the inevitable docudrama about how a left-wing historian raised these Premier League politicians will try to recreate the dinnertime conversations.
It is fascinating that his offspring did not follow in the master theoretician’s footsteps but instead jumped headlong into the political arena.
Each brother could have thrived in academia. David followed his time at Oxford with a spell at MIT, while Ed took a break from politics to go to Harvard.
Democratic politics is a rough business defined by fierce competition and constant insecurity, and contrasts with the comparative coziness of a tenured academic life.
But the Miliband home was a place where the cocktail of confidence, ambition and sense of purpose was stirred.
Similarly, the celebrated London-based Renaissance scholar Evelyn Welch did not coax her daughter into the academy. Instead, Florence Welch picked up a microphone and fused art and pop music in her own blaze of creativity with the 2009 album Lungs.
The Milibands’ father’s writing documents a world in which Marxism was a vital political force and theorists argued over whether reform or revolution was the best course.
His sons are no doubt deeply proud of their father but they do not seem diehard disciples.
Each was a central figure in the modernisation of the Labour party; David was Tony Blair’s head of policy and Ed was a special advisor to Gordon Brown. Their work helped bring the bourgeoisie of Middle England into the party of the red flag.
But what they have taken from their father is a belief that rather than sitting back and watching the narrative unfold it is possible to influence the shape of the story.
A similar brand of lightning crackled around the home of Lancashire cricketer Neville Neville, whose sons Gary and Phil are two of the outstanding footballers of their generation – and whose daughter Tracey set the world of netball alight.
In a way, this is a more remarkable achievement of fatherhood than raising his own cricket team. Rather than imparting the skills of a particular sport, he has passed on the personal qualities of determination and discipline.
Great parents do not try and duplicate their careers in their children or push them to pursue their own unfilled ambitions. But they can give them the belief that in a world of six billion-plus people they have the chance to make an extraordinary contribution.
If UK politics, pop culture and sport seem underwhelming, perhaps the solution is not to bemoan the ineptitude of today’s managerial class but to raise some kids and suggest they should have a go at doing better.
A Thursday column
POSTSCRIPT
You might enjoy this football chant to the tune of David Bowie's Rebel Rebel:
Neville Neville, they're in defence
Neville Neville, their future's immense
Neville Neville, they ain't half bad
Neville Neville, the name of their dad
What did they have for breakfast in that household?
Scriptwriters who write the inevitable docudrama about how a left-wing historian raised these Premier League politicians will try to recreate the dinnertime conversations.
It is fascinating that his offspring did not follow in the master theoretician’s footsteps but instead jumped headlong into the political arena.
Each brother could have thrived in academia. David followed his time at Oxford with a spell at MIT, while Ed took a break from politics to go to Harvard.
Democratic politics is a rough business defined by fierce competition and constant insecurity, and contrasts with the comparative coziness of a tenured academic life.
But the Miliband home was a place where the cocktail of confidence, ambition and sense of purpose was stirred.
Similarly, the celebrated London-based Renaissance scholar Evelyn Welch did not coax her daughter into the academy. Instead, Florence Welch picked up a microphone and fused art and pop music in her own blaze of creativity with the 2009 album Lungs.
The Milibands’ father’s writing documents a world in which Marxism was a vital political force and theorists argued over whether reform or revolution was the best course.
His sons are no doubt deeply proud of their father but they do not seem diehard disciples.
Each was a central figure in the modernisation of the Labour party; David was Tony Blair’s head of policy and Ed was a special advisor to Gordon Brown. Their work helped bring the bourgeoisie of Middle England into the party of the red flag.
But what they have taken from their father is a belief that rather than sitting back and watching the narrative unfold it is possible to influence the shape of the story.
A similar brand of lightning crackled around the home of Lancashire cricketer Neville Neville, whose sons Gary and Phil are two of the outstanding footballers of their generation – and whose daughter Tracey set the world of netball alight.
In a way, this is a more remarkable achievement of fatherhood than raising his own cricket team. Rather than imparting the skills of a particular sport, he has passed on the personal qualities of determination and discipline.
Great parents do not try and duplicate their careers in their children or push them to pursue their own unfilled ambitions. But they can give them the belief that in a world of six billion-plus people they have the chance to make an extraordinary contribution.
If UK politics, pop culture and sport seem underwhelming, perhaps the solution is not to bemoan the ineptitude of today’s managerial class but to raise some kids and suggest they should have a go at doing better.
A Thursday column
POSTSCRIPT
You might enjoy this football chant to the tune of David Bowie's Rebel Rebel:
Neville Neville, they're in defence
Neville Neville, their future's immense
Neville Neville, they ain't half bad
Neville Neville, the name of their dad
Saturday, July 03, 2010
Communion Prayer
On the back of a Tesco receipt, Adam, 19, dashed off an articulation of what it means to belong to the church, Christ and each other which would humble a theologian with its oxygen-pure articulation of what it's all about.
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