Although the Armando Iannucci Shows first appeared six years ago, one particular sketch of his stuck in my head the whole time. Salvadore from Smaller Than Life has awakened this dormant memory in my oft-confused brain with a hilarious series of posts. Read them, then watch Iannucci work his magic. Or vice versa, it doesn't really matter.
Friday, March 30, 2007
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Flat out
Me and Sarah are moving in together. It's great! But first we need to find somewhere to move to, and in this great and fraught city, that's no easy cabbages.
The whole thing's made harder by the fact that when it comes down to it, we really don't know where to live. Here are the criteria:
Oh, and yes, this will mean the end of the Stockwell Flats project. I'm sorry. It was just their time.
Any ideas?
* Update: We've found somewhere! It's in Kennington, which satisfies all the above criteria. Score!
Must be in London (yes, that rules out Hill Valley)Should be in zone 1 or 2, in the vicinity of some kind of tube station (preferably a good one)Can't be in Stockwell or BrixtonTravelling to both Paddington and Brixton must be manageableArea should not resemble hell, but nor should it resemble Mothercare
Oh, and yes, this will mean the end of the Stockwell Flats project. I'm sorry. It was just their time.
* Update: We've found somewhere! It's in Kennington, which satisfies all the above criteria. Score!
I got five on it
It's the 10th birthday of the oft-ridiculed Channel 5 (aka Five) tomorrow. Fact fix: the first advertisement to appear on the channel was for the perfume Chanel No 5. Cunning, eh?
Let's Go See: 18 Doughty Street
[Originally published in Total Spec magazine, February 2007]
Welcome to Doughty Street: Politics on an internet rocket
In the depths of London's Bloomsbury, to the north of Chancery Lane, lies Doughty Street. It's one of those roads most of us can't imagine living on without an unlikely change of career, large inheritance or lucky lottery ticket, lined as it is with stately Georgian terraces which stretch out symmetrically into the distance. There are, naturally, iron railings all over the place and at number 48 sits Charles Dickens's only surviving London home, now a museum.
I wander further up the street and get to number 18. It's a bit hidden by scaffolding, but behind that imposing black door something rather interesting is going on. For, over the last few months, 18 Doughty Street has not just been an address, or a number on a door: it's the name of an internet-only political TV channel. Go to their website between 7pm to 12am on Mondays to Thursdays and you can watch a range of live and pre-recorded discussion programmes about everything politics. Launched in October last year, it's financed by YouGov founder Stephan Shakespeare and run by a small group of intrepid right-of-centre politicos who seem to be making the whole thing up as they go along.
But for what is, compared to the likes of the BBC or Channel 4, a low-key operation, the channel has been known to get in some prestigious guests, albeit of the kind not so often seen in the mainstream media. The launch show featured an exclusive interview with Australian PM John Howard, followed by a discussion with Ian Duncan Smith and Australian High Commissioner Richard Altston. Since then, 18 Doughty Street has had visits from Shadow Home Secretary David Davis, UKIP leader Nigel Farage, Conservative Party Chairman Francis Maude, MPs Mark Oaten, Ann Widdecombe, Stephen Twigg, and so on.
Not everything will be to everyone's taste - "I've never really watched [news discussion programme] Up Front," admits one guest, and "I avoid the tax programme – it's a kind of Tory tic," says one of the channel's presenters - but watch an evening of programmes and you get the impression that the whole point of 18 Doughty Street is that all opinions are welcome. Although there are no pretensions of impartiality (this is internet TV, so it's not regulated by Ofcom), the station is aiming to be about discussion, not indoctrination. "We're not seeking to ram propaganda down people's throats, we want to make people think," says one of the channel's lynchpins, Iain Dale.
Dale's background shows him to be something of a jack of all trades, as long as the trades in question involve politics (and often Conservatism). As well as numerous appearances on television and radio as a pundit, he founded political bookshop and publishers Politicos, has edited 14 books on politics, and his rather excellent blog is one of the most popular of its kind in the UK. There's also a few things he's probably less keen to shout about: standing in the May 2005 general election and losing to Lib Dem; working as David Davies's chief of staff in the MP's unsuccessful Conservative Party leadership campaign. But, hey, that's politics, right?
Now Dale is one of the four directors of 18 Doughty Street; the others being Stephan Shakespeare, Tim Montgomerie, the founder of ConservativeHome website and the Conservative Christian Fellowship, and Donal Blaney, who is CEO of the Young Britons' Foundation. If that wasn't enough, Dale is, unofficially, the channel's chief presenter, garnering more air-time than anyone else (he's trying to cut down: "from a viewer's point of view, you want more variety than that," he says). He's new to presenting – "I absolutely love it" – but wasn't the only one who's had to learn the ropes.
"None of us had been involved in television before and we've got no professional production staff," he says. There were, he adds, two people on the staff who had worked on TV documentaries, and the team, with their scant knowledge, found themselves having to bow to their whims. This was not good. "We kept coming up with ideas, and they'd come up with 20 reasons why we couldn't do them, which proved to be very wearing," he says. "Eventually we got rid of both of them." Free from the shackles of convention, they were free to experiment.
The channel's willingness to try to do things differently from the traditional media outlets is one of its main selling points. But in its current incarnation, a factor that seems even most integral to its identity is the freedom of time. Dale cites the channel's coverage of the US mid-terms as a key example: they broadcast for six hours starting at 8pm and analysing the exit polls before the BBC did (where coverage started at 12am). Oh, and this was only three weeks after Doughty Street had launched.
The looseness of time constraints is a crucial factor in day-to-day programming too: "If we have a politician on to be interviewed for an hour, they can't just come out with a two-minute soundbite, because they've got to fill 58 more minutes," says Dale. "In that time, they're bound to say something that’s different from what they'd say in a three-minute interview on the Today programme."
"In the mainstream media you can't even have a half-hour discussion on one subject with one person because they think their audiences have got the attention span of a flea," he adds. "The number of times you hear an interviewer saying on Radio 4, "I'm sorry, but that's all we've got time for," just as the interview has got going – it's incredibly frustrating."
It's this willingness to give politicians and pundits time to breathe that suggests the channel is about taking politics seriously – backed up by their slogan "Politics for adults". But because of the political position of the founders, another slogan which has inevitably come their way is the no less snappy "Tory TV". Dale disputes that Doughty Street is a centre-right propaganda tool, mentioning the left-of-centre guests who have appeared and adding that the Liberal Democrat and Labour MPs who have been interviewed are perfectly comfortable with the station's stance. However, he doesn't deny that when interviewing someone, he won't pretend to be impartial or shy away from getting his own views across.
One regular show on the schedule is Claire Fox News, which aims to look at "what's really going on behind the headlines". Fox is now head of think tank the Institute of Ideas (IoI), a former member of the Revolutionary Communist Party, and once co-publisher of the now defunct Living Marxism magazine. In short, she's a long way from your traditional old-school Conservative. Did she have reservations about collaborating with Dale and co? "I've long since given up caring what people can work out by association," she says. "I'm much more interested in people listening to what I've got to say and what the people on my programme have got to say."
Fox says she doesn't see 18 Doughty Street as a challenge to conventional television, but does see a gap in the market left by broadcasters trying to sidestep serious discussion. "There is a tendency in the media to reduce things to a black and white argument," she says. "There's an obsession in contemporary media circles, particularly in relation to current affairs and politics, with trying to sex it up using rather superficial tricks, whereas I think these issues are interesting enough in themselves – they should be trying to make things intellectually sexy, by allowing open discussion."
No stranger to controversy, Fox relishes the chance to get some more leftfield opinions out there. "In the mainstream media if you have a discussion on, say, environmentalism and you aim for impartiality by inviting all three main parties, they'd actually all say that they're greens. Because of that, there's no longer any sense of that debate really occurring. For a more impartial approach, I try to look around for people who are saying different things."
Dale agrees that one of the channel's plus points is the editorial freedom which allows it to bring together unlikely combinations of guests. "We had John Redwood and Andrew McKinley, a left-wing Labour MP on recently," he says. "It's a combination that most programmes wouldn't even think of having. But it was fantastic, they both found that they actually agreed on a lot of things, which you would never have expected."
Step inside 18 Doughty Street itself, and, passing a brightly-lit brand new office on the left, you're faced with flaking and cracked pink-tinted paperless walls, and some rickety-looking stairs heading upwards to some rooms which look like they've only just been built, and which wouldn't look out of place in a haunted house. Dale apologies – "the builders are in" – and, not unreasonably, seems keen to hurry us through. We head downstairs, past an unlit "on air" light, and suddenly, we're in what feels more like the real 18 Doughty Street – the studio.
Under hot bright lights, five cameras surround a Good Morning-like pair of sofas, a brown globe, a shelf of political biographies. On one of the tables, there's a laptop, with the 18 Doughty Street logo printed out on A4 and sellotaped to the back. It's a funny combination of the technological and the makeshift, and seems to aptly symbolise the whole operation.
That laptop, usually situated to the right of whoever's presenting that night, brings with it another interesting aspect of the channel. As well as viewers being able to comment on the programmes via the website, they can also add the channel to their Windows Messenger contacts, and so are able send their questions and viewpoints via instant message to presenters while they're live on air. It emphasises the democratic and conversational aspect of the channel and seems far more satisfying and instant than emailing or texting in.
"We may have a small audience, but it's a very interactive one," says Dale, who came up with the instant message idea in the studio, set it up himself, and announced the plan on air. Within a few minutes people had signed up. "If I dry up, there will always be something there that I can latch onto. You can always tell when you're doing something interesting, because that's when the orange message boxes start lighting up."
As interactivity goes, it sure beats 'pressing your red button now'. However, Claire Fox is not so convinced. "That's not an innovation for Doughty Street," she says. "Every time I turn on the BBC, they'll be saying 'we've got an email from Joe in Sunderland, he's got a great insight' or something. There's always a danger of that being patronising and trying to pretend that you connect."
"On the front page of the December issue of Time magazine, for their person of the year feature, they had a picture of a computer screen, which they did as a mirror. You look at it and you see yourself. It says 'You control the information age. Welcome to your world'. This is what's called an abdication of responsibility. It's absolutely ludicrous. I think that's one of the ways people fetishise new media - as bringing democratisation."
She's hit her flow now. "If Time can't give a lead in deciding on who the person of year is without overly flattering its readers by pretending it's us, there's something seriously wrong with the mainstream media. I don't want to emulate that kind of spineless, craven, chasing of the audience."
"I'm not opposed to audience interaction," she adds. "I just don't think that's what will make 18 Doughty Street successful. For me, it's a really stupid way of understanding what's important about an audience. Honouring an audience is giving them something that think about, that they're interested in, that challenges them."
Fair enough, but who is this audience, and why should they turn to 18 Doughty Street? "We're not catering for political geeks," says Dale. "We're catering for people who are fed up with the current affairs coverage on the BBC and other channels, which are being dumbed down to the extent where on Andrew Neil's programme on a Thursday night after Question Time, you have important issues being discussed with comedians. I'm sure comedians have views just as much as anyone, but to have a political programme where they don't have any politicians on seems utterly ridiculous to me."
"The aim, in the end, is to try and get people watching who aren't interested in politics at all, who are just put off it. At the moment, it is a small audience, we don't deny that, but we think as word travels about what we're trying to do, we really think that we've started something that could be quite powerful."
"Any gestures you want?" says Dale as he poses for the Total Spec photographer. "We're an on-demand service." Well, it's not quite there yet – at the time of writing, the channel still relies heavily on its audience tuning in to watch programmes streaming live, rather than choosing when to view a la YouTube. But there should be a new website live by the time you read this, and Dale hopes that technology that allows viewers to watch internet video on their television sets will begin to take off in 2007. And if it does, that scaffolding outside 18 Doughty Street will be down in no time.
At 6.55pm we break off our chat; at 7pm, Dale has to do a live two-minute piece to camera introducing the night's programmes. He wanders off to get a crib sheet; a make-up girl appears from nowhere; he sits back on the sofa as she starts dabbing at his face. She finishes and starts adjusting the camera – it looks like she's the camerawoman as well. Dale glances at the sheet of paper, is counted in, looks up, and begins to reel off the evening's programming. The week's viewing has begun.
Welcome to Doughty Street: Politics on an internet rocket
In the depths of London's Bloomsbury, to the north of Chancery Lane, lies Doughty Street. It's one of those roads most of us can't imagine living on without an unlikely change of career, large inheritance or lucky lottery ticket, lined as it is with stately Georgian terraces which stretch out symmetrically into the distance. There are, naturally, iron railings all over the place and at number 48 sits Charles Dickens's only surviving London home, now a museum.
I wander further up the street and get to number 18. It's a bit hidden by scaffolding, but behind that imposing black door something rather interesting is going on. For, over the last few months, 18 Doughty Street has not just been an address, or a number on a door: it's the name of an internet-only political TV channel. Go to their website between 7pm to 12am on Mondays to Thursdays and you can watch a range of live and pre-recorded discussion programmes about everything politics. Launched in October last year, it's financed by YouGov founder Stephan Shakespeare and run by a small group of intrepid right-of-centre politicos who seem to be making the whole thing up as they go along.
But for what is, compared to the likes of the BBC or Channel 4, a low-key operation, the channel has been known to get in some prestigious guests, albeit of the kind not so often seen in the mainstream media. The launch show featured an exclusive interview with Australian PM John Howard, followed by a discussion with Ian Duncan Smith and Australian High Commissioner Richard Altston. Since then, 18 Doughty Street has had visits from Shadow Home Secretary David Davis, UKIP leader Nigel Farage, Conservative Party Chairman Francis Maude, MPs Mark Oaten, Ann Widdecombe, Stephen Twigg, and so on.
Not everything will be to everyone's taste - "I've never really watched [news discussion programme] Up Front," admits one guest, and "I avoid the tax programme – it's a kind of Tory tic," says one of the channel's presenters - but watch an evening of programmes and you get the impression that the whole point of 18 Doughty Street is that all opinions are welcome. Although there are no pretensions of impartiality (this is internet TV, so it's not regulated by Ofcom), the station is aiming to be about discussion, not indoctrination. "We're not seeking to ram propaganda down people's throats, we want to make people think," says one of the channel's lynchpins, Iain Dale.
Dale's background shows him to be something of a jack of all trades, as long as the trades in question involve politics (and often Conservatism). As well as numerous appearances on television and radio as a pundit, he founded political bookshop and publishers Politicos, has edited 14 books on politics, and his rather excellent blog is one of the most popular of its kind in the UK. There's also a few things he's probably less keen to shout about: standing in the May 2005 general election and losing to Lib Dem; working as David Davies's chief of staff in the MP's unsuccessful Conservative Party leadership campaign. But, hey, that's politics, right?
Now Dale is one of the four directors of 18 Doughty Street; the others being Stephan Shakespeare, Tim Montgomerie, the founder of ConservativeHome website and the Conservative Christian Fellowship, and Donal Blaney, who is CEO of the Young Britons' Foundation. If that wasn't enough, Dale is, unofficially, the channel's chief presenter, garnering more air-time than anyone else (he's trying to cut down: "from a viewer's point of view, you want more variety than that," he says). He's new to presenting – "I absolutely love it" – but wasn't the only one who's had to learn the ropes.
"None of us had been involved in television before and we've got no professional production staff," he says. There were, he adds, two people on the staff who had worked on TV documentaries, and the team, with their scant knowledge, found themselves having to bow to their whims. This was not good. "We kept coming up with ideas, and they'd come up with 20 reasons why we couldn't do them, which proved to be very wearing," he says. "Eventually we got rid of both of them." Free from the shackles of convention, they were free to experiment.
The channel's willingness to try to do things differently from the traditional media outlets is one of its main selling points. But in its current incarnation, a factor that seems even most integral to its identity is the freedom of time. Dale cites the channel's coverage of the US mid-terms as a key example: they broadcast for six hours starting at 8pm and analysing the exit polls before the BBC did (where coverage started at 12am). Oh, and this was only three weeks after Doughty Street had launched.
The looseness of time constraints is a crucial factor in day-to-day programming too: "If we have a politician on to be interviewed for an hour, they can't just come out with a two-minute soundbite, because they've got to fill 58 more minutes," says Dale. "In that time, they're bound to say something that’s different from what they'd say in a three-minute interview on the Today programme."
"In the mainstream media you can't even have a half-hour discussion on one subject with one person because they think their audiences have got the attention span of a flea," he adds. "The number of times you hear an interviewer saying on Radio 4, "I'm sorry, but that's all we've got time for," just as the interview has got going – it's incredibly frustrating."
It's this willingness to give politicians and pundits time to breathe that suggests the channel is about taking politics seriously – backed up by their slogan "Politics for adults". But because of the political position of the founders, another slogan which has inevitably come their way is the no less snappy "Tory TV". Dale disputes that Doughty Street is a centre-right propaganda tool, mentioning the left-of-centre guests who have appeared and adding that the Liberal Democrat and Labour MPs who have been interviewed are perfectly comfortable with the station's stance. However, he doesn't deny that when interviewing someone, he won't pretend to be impartial or shy away from getting his own views across.
One regular show on the schedule is Claire Fox News, which aims to look at "what's really going on behind the headlines". Fox is now head of think tank the Institute of Ideas (IoI), a former member of the Revolutionary Communist Party, and once co-publisher of the now defunct Living Marxism magazine. In short, she's a long way from your traditional old-school Conservative. Did she have reservations about collaborating with Dale and co? "I've long since given up caring what people can work out by association," she says. "I'm much more interested in people listening to what I've got to say and what the people on my programme have got to say."
Fox says she doesn't see 18 Doughty Street as a challenge to conventional television, but does see a gap in the market left by broadcasters trying to sidestep serious discussion. "There is a tendency in the media to reduce things to a black and white argument," she says. "There's an obsession in contemporary media circles, particularly in relation to current affairs and politics, with trying to sex it up using rather superficial tricks, whereas I think these issues are interesting enough in themselves – they should be trying to make things intellectually sexy, by allowing open discussion."
No stranger to controversy, Fox relishes the chance to get some more leftfield opinions out there. "In the mainstream media if you have a discussion on, say, environmentalism and you aim for impartiality by inviting all three main parties, they'd actually all say that they're greens. Because of that, there's no longer any sense of that debate really occurring. For a more impartial approach, I try to look around for people who are saying different things."
Dale agrees that one of the channel's plus points is the editorial freedom which allows it to bring together unlikely combinations of guests. "We had John Redwood and Andrew McKinley, a left-wing Labour MP on recently," he says. "It's a combination that most programmes wouldn't even think of having. But it was fantastic, they both found that they actually agreed on a lot of things, which you would never have expected."
***
Step inside 18 Doughty Street itself, and, passing a brightly-lit brand new office on the left, you're faced with flaking and cracked pink-tinted paperless walls, and some rickety-looking stairs heading upwards to some rooms which look like they've only just been built, and which wouldn't look out of place in a haunted house. Dale apologies – "the builders are in" – and, not unreasonably, seems keen to hurry us through. We head downstairs, past an unlit "on air" light, and suddenly, we're in what feels more like the real 18 Doughty Street – the studio.
Under hot bright lights, five cameras surround a Good Morning-like pair of sofas, a brown globe, a shelf of political biographies. On one of the tables, there's a laptop, with the 18 Doughty Street logo printed out on A4 and sellotaped to the back. It's a funny combination of the technological and the makeshift, and seems to aptly symbolise the whole operation.
That laptop, usually situated to the right of whoever's presenting that night, brings with it another interesting aspect of the channel. As well as viewers being able to comment on the programmes via the website, they can also add the channel to their Windows Messenger contacts, and so are able send their questions and viewpoints via instant message to presenters while they're live on air. It emphasises the democratic and conversational aspect of the channel and seems far more satisfying and instant than emailing or texting in.
"We may have a small audience, but it's a very interactive one," says Dale, who came up with the instant message idea in the studio, set it up himself, and announced the plan on air. Within a few minutes people had signed up. "If I dry up, there will always be something there that I can latch onto. You can always tell when you're doing something interesting, because that's when the orange message boxes start lighting up."
As interactivity goes, it sure beats 'pressing your red button now'. However, Claire Fox is not so convinced. "That's not an innovation for Doughty Street," she says. "Every time I turn on the BBC, they'll be saying 'we've got an email from Joe in Sunderland, he's got a great insight' or something. There's always a danger of that being patronising and trying to pretend that you connect."
"On the front page of the December issue of Time magazine, for their person of the year feature, they had a picture of a computer screen, which they did as a mirror. You look at it and you see yourself. It says 'You control the information age. Welcome to your world'. This is what's called an abdication of responsibility. It's absolutely ludicrous. I think that's one of the ways people fetishise new media - as bringing democratisation."
She's hit her flow now. "If Time can't give a lead in deciding on who the person of year is without overly flattering its readers by pretending it's us, there's something seriously wrong with the mainstream media. I don't want to emulate that kind of spineless, craven, chasing of the audience."
"I'm not opposed to audience interaction," she adds. "I just don't think that's what will make 18 Doughty Street successful. For me, it's a really stupid way of understanding what's important about an audience. Honouring an audience is giving them something that think about, that they're interested in, that challenges them."
Fair enough, but who is this audience, and why should they turn to 18 Doughty Street? "We're not catering for political geeks," says Dale. "We're catering for people who are fed up with the current affairs coverage on the BBC and other channels, which are being dumbed down to the extent where on Andrew Neil's programme on a Thursday night after Question Time, you have important issues being discussed with comedians. I'm sure comedians have views just as much as anyone, but to have a political programme where they don't have any politicians on seems utterly ridiculous to me."
"The aim, in the end, is to try and get people watching who aren't interested in politics at all, who are just put off it. At the moment, it is a small audience, we don't deny that, but we think as word travels about what we're trying to do, we really think that we've started something that could be quite powerful."
***
"Any gestures you want?" says Dale as he poses for the Total Spec photographer. "We're an on-demand service." Well, it's not quite there yet – at the time of writing, the channel still relies heavily on its audience tuning in to watch programmes streaming live, rather than choosing when to view a la YouTube. But there should be a new website live by the time you read this, and Dale hopes that technology that allows viewers to watch internet video on their television sets will begin to take off in 2007. And if it does, that scaffolding outside 18 Doughty Street will be down in no time.
At 6.55pm we break off our chat; at 7pm, Dale has to do a live two-minute piece to camera introducing the night's programmes. He wanders off to get a crib sheet; a make-up girl appears from nowhere; he sits back on the sofa as she starts dabbing at his face. She finishes and starts adjusting the camera – it looks like she's the camerawoman as well. Dale glances at the sheet of paper, is counted in, looks up, and begins to reel off the evening's programming. The week's viewing has begun.
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Experts + Opinions: David Chandler
[Originally published in Total Spec magazine, February 2007]
Foreign affairs & the desire to impose tolerance: David Chandler is having none of it
The University of Westminster's Professor of International Relations offers us a drink: "Coffee? Or some whisky?" We think David Chandler's joking about the booze, until we spy a large bottle of scotch sitting atop the filing cabinet in the corner of his office. He smokes roll-ups too. Cool.
Rock and roll lifestyle aside, Chandler's been teaching at Westminster for three and a half years now, and has published a rather fearsome line up of books: from his most recent Empire in Denial: The Politics of State-Building to 2002's Human Rights and International Intervention. His writing has asked questions such as: When is it right for countries to intervene abroad? How do we go about building states? Is the rise of human rights campaigning a good thing? That kind of stuff. And if that wasn't enough for you, in 2007, he'll be launching a journal called the Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding.
Many would answer a question about their political inclinations with a two or three well-worn words, but Chandler aims for a bit more precision, calling his politics "a challenge to the new culture of bureaucracy and administration, in favour of rescuing a view of the political and our capacity to engage". So engage away, people.
LET'S START WITH IRAQ. THERE’S BEEN A LOT OF PRESSURE RECENTLY FOR BRITAIN AND THE US TO CHANGE THEIR FOREIGN POLICY. WILL THERE BE A RE-THINK?
It's a difficult one for Bush and Blair, because from the beginning of the invasion, there was always a reluctance to deal with the consequences. There was this idea that they weren't really fighting an enemy but were liberating the Iraqi people - it wasn't viewed as a traditional conflict. I think it was Simon Jenkins in The Times who said it wasn't so much occupation, more squatting; the main aim was to go there and come back and it wasn't clear what the goals were. That idea was reflected in the so-called handover of sovereignty in June 2004, which was obviously very artificial. So I don't think it's really right to see it as a change of strategy now; there wasn't really any real sense of commitment from the beginning.
DO YOU SEE THE COUNTRY'S FUTURE AS FAIRLY BLEAK?
It's always difficult to predict these things, but one thing that seems clear is that the society is fragmenting. To recreate a sense of collectivity, the people need to have some sense of ownership, some cause. Toppling the statue of Saddam, or his symbolic capture, or maybe even his symbolic execution, will be just that: purely symbolic. Such acts won't actually reflect the realities of the situation. What can be sold as a success in the West doesn't look like such a success if you're in Iraq and just shows how dangerous it can be to try to resolve other people's problems.
WOULD YOU SAY IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO IMPOSE DEMOCRACY ON OTHER COUNTRIES?
It's a controversial issue. I've argued for quite a few years that 'imposing democracy' is a contradiction in terms. Democracy by its very nature implies autonomy, self-organisation and self-government. Paddy Ashdown, who's now the high representative of the international community in Bosnia, recently argued that it was much better to impose the rule of law and provide a level playing field that way. In theory, people would then choose democracy once the safeguards were in place. But in my personal opinion, you can't impose the rule of law any more than you can impose democracy - law must consist of rules generated by consent. When a major power intervenes on the basis of protecting or liberating someone else's rights, as we saw in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq, often it results in even more limitations on people's capacity, autonomy, democracy and self-determination. You can't liberate or empower other people, unfortunately.
DOES THAT MEAN INTERVENTION IS NEVER RIGHT?
I wouldn't say that. My main point is that interventions in the political sphere generally produce unintended consequences. External interference to try and promote 'the good guys' tends to skewer the political process, recreating divisions or institutionalising them. In Bosnia, for example, they banned some political parties and sacked certain politicians, but that didn't really solve the root problem. The point is, those parties and individuals were elected because they reflected something about the concerns or needs of the people in that society.
YOU ONCE WROTE: “TODAY IT APPEARS THAT EVERYONE IS AN INTERNATIONALIST”. IS THE INCREASING NUMBER OF VOICES CAPABLE OF HAVING A SAY IN WORLD AFFAIRS A GOOD THING?
We have this sense that NGOs and human rights groups are good, because they seem to be less connected to power and interests, but it's unsafe to give legitimacy and credibility to groups which have got nothing at stake in the process. As much as we might want to criticise traditional policy-making that's based on interests, at least it's forced to engage with the societies it's dealing with.
YOU’VE ALSO WRITTEN ABOUT A NEW SENSE WE HAVE OF MORAL OBLIGATIONS TOWARDS INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY. IS THAT WHAT'S DRAWING US TOWARDS WORLD AFFAIRS THESE DAYS?
One of the reasons that we're drawn to the international sphere is unfortunately a negative one: a sense of alienation from our domestic society. Our own society appears to be oppressing us: the fact that we have to win arguments, be elected and then be held to account seems to restrict our political possibilities. But the global sphere looks like it offers us freedom where we can act as individuals, as a place where you're not required to build a collective movement or be affiliated to one party. You're never really held to account because you can always blame the failure of your aspirations on America, or on the UN, or on politicians in Africa. So you're basically picking and choosing your causes to create an identity for yourself.
In the past, there was a sense that if we actually wanted to change things, we had to do it collectively, which involved respecting and engaging with other people. I'm not saying that people who are involved in global issues and global politics aren't genuine and serious – but it's just much easier to do now as an individual. It seems that engaging with other people is something that's oppressive to us rather than liberating.
SO PEOPLE ARE ENGAGING WITH INTERNATIONAL POLITICS AS A WAY OF FORGING AN IDENTITY?
Some people are still interested in proper intellectual discussion, but for many, it's like saying: "I'm anti-war, I'm not to blame" – it's not a spur to collectively get engaged, to try and change the world, it's more like saying "stop the world, I want to get off". I see that as being anti-politics. In a way it's misanthropic: it's saying "my fellow human beings are scum, I don't really want to get involved with them".
The whole idea of awareness is interesting. In their campaigning, people's aim is to make others aware, or demonstrate that they themselves are aware. But what does awareness mean? It's not about actually changing something, it's just about saying "I'm better than you because I'm aware of poverty", or whatever the issue is. If you ask my students what theories they support, their answers are to do with their self-portrayal, rather than how they understand international affairs. People are more focused on their own identities than finding out about and changing other people's views and the world itself.
With Iraq, the neo-cons didn't win the arguments domestically and failed to reassert a sense of American identity at home, so they attempted to recreate one in the Middle East through intervention and war. I think we can see the same with the UN and its desire to send in its peacekeepers. It’s supposed to be a sign of how much we care about people – we want to send troops and make a statement of our commitment – but really it's a superficial act that says more about us than anything else. That's the worst aspect of what's called ethical foreign policy. It's a peculiar and twisted situation.
ARE YOU OPTIMISTIC ABOUT THE FUTURE OF WORLD AFFAIRS?
It seems that international affairs are becoming increasingly central to the way that we see and understand ourselves and even the way that domestic politics plays out. Much as we might criticise previous projections of power abroad based on interests, at least there was a framework to constrain the more irrational aspects of policy. Today, we have an anti-foreign policy, one which gives us the freedom to talk about ourselves and our values. As the international sphere increasingly becomes a place where we can attempt to construct or create an identity, the more irrational and destabilised it will be. So I guess I'm pessimistic.
Foreign affairs & the desire to impose tolerance: David Chandler is having none of it
The University of Westminster's Professor of International Relations offers us a drink: "Coffee? Or some whisky?" We think David Chandler's joking about the booze, until we spy a large bottle of scotch sitting atop the filing cabinet in the corner of his office. He smokes roll-ups too. Cool.
Rock and roll lifestyle aside, Chandler's been teaching at Westminster for three and a half years now, and has published a rather fearsome line up of books: from his most recent Empire in Denial: The Politics of State-Building to 2002's Human Rights and International Intervention. His writing has asked questions such as: When is it right for countries to intervene abroad? How do we go about building states? Is the rise of human rights campaigning a good thing? That kind of stuff. And if that wasn't enough for you, in 2007, he'll be launching a journal called the Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding.
Many would answer a question about their political inclinations with a two or three well-worn words, but Chandler aims for a bit more precision, calling his politics "a challenge to the new culture of bureaucracy and administration, in favour of rescuing a view of the political and our capacity to engage". So engage away, people.
LET'S START WITH IRAQ. THERE’S BEEN A LOT OF PRESSURE RECENTLY FOR BRITAIN AND THE US TO CHANGE THEIR FOREIGN POLICY. WILL THERE BE A RE-THINK?
It's a difficult one for Bush and Blair, because from the beginning of the invasion, there was always a reluctance to deal with the consequences. There was this idea that they weren't really fighting an enemy but were liberating the Iraqi people - it wasn't viewed as a traditional conflict. I think it was Simon Jenkins in The Times who said it wasn't so much occupation, more squatting; the main aim was to go there and come back and it wasn't clear what the goals were. That idea was reflected in the so-called handover of sovereignty in June 2004, which was obviously very artificial. So I don't think it's really right to see it as a change of strategy now; there wasn't really any real sense of commitment from the beginning.
DO YOU SEE THE COUNTRY'S FUTURE AS FAIRLY BLEAK?
It's always difficult to predict these things, but one thing that seems clear is that the society is fragmenting. To recreate a sense of collectivity, the people need to have some sense of ownership, some cause. Toppling the statue of Saddam, or his symbolic capture, or maybe even his symbolic execution, will be just that: purely symbolic. Such acts won't actually reflect the realities of the situation. What can be sold as a success in the West doesn't look like such a success if you're in Iraq and just shows how dangerous it can be to try to resolve other people's problems.
WOULD YOU SAY IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO IMPOSE DEMOCRACY ON OTHER COUNTRIES?
It's a controversial issue. I've argued for quite a few years that 'imposing democracy' is a contradiction in terms. Democracy by its very nature implies autonomy, self-organisation and self-government. Paddy Ashdown, who's now the high representative of the international community in Bosnia, recently argued that it was much better to impose the rule of law and provide a level playing field that way. In theory, people would then choose democracy once the safeguards were in place. But in my personal opinion, you can't impose the rule of law any more than you can impose democracy - law must consist of rules generated by consent. When a major power intervenes on the basis of protecting or liberating someone else's rights, as we saw in Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq, often it results in even more limitations on people's capacity, autonomy, democracy and self-determination. You can't liberate or empower other people, unfortunately.
DOES THAT MEAN INTERVENTION IS NEVER RIGHT?
I wouldn't say that. My main point is that interventions in the political sphere generally produce unintended consequences. External interference to try and promote 'the good guys' tends to skewer the political process, recreating divisions or institutionalising them. In Bosnia, for example, they banned some political parties and sacked certain politicians, but that didn't really solve the root problem. The point is, those parties and individuals were elected because they reflected something about the concerns or needs of the people in that society.
YOU ONCE WROTE: “TODAY IT APPEARS THAT EVERYONE IS AN INTERNATIONALIST”. IS THE INCREASING NUMBER OF VOICES CAPABLE OF HAVING A SAY IN WORLD AFFAIRS A GOOD THING?
We have this sense that NGOs and human rights groups are good, because they seem to be less connected to power and interests, but it's unsafe to give legitimacy and credibility to groups which have got nothing at stake in the process. As much as we might want to criticise traditional policy-making that's based on interests, at least it's forced to engage with the societies it's dealing with.
YOU’VE ALSO WRITTEN ABOUT A NEW SENSE WE HAVE OF MORAL OBLIGATIONS TOWARDS INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY. IS THAT WHAT'S DRAWING US TOWARDS WORLD AFFAIRS THESE DAYS?
One of the reasons that we're drawn to the international sphere is unfortunately a negative one: a sense of alienation from our domestic society. Our own society appears to be oppressing us: the fact that we have to win arguments, be elected and then be held to account seems to restrict our political possibilities. But the global sphere looks like it offers us freedom where we can act as individuals, as a place where you're not required to build a collective movement or be affiliated to one party. You're never really held to account because you can always blame the failure of your aspirations on America, or on the UN, or on politicians in Africa. So you're basically picking and choosing your causes to create an identity for yourself.
In the past, there was a sense that if we actually wanted to change things, we had to do it collectively, which involved respecting and engaging with other people. I'm not saying that people who are involved in global issues and global politics aren't genuine and serious – but it's just much easier to do now as an individual. It seems that engaging with other people is something that's oppressive to us rather than liberating.
SO PEOPLE ARE ENGAGING WITH INTERNATIONAL POLITICS AS A WAY OF FORGING AN IDENTITY?
Some people are still interested in proper intellectual discussion, but for many, it's like saying: "I'm anti-war, I'm not to blame" – it's not a spur to collectively get engaged, to try and change the world, it's more like saying "stop the world, I want to get off". I see that as being anti-politics. In a way it's misanthropic: it's saying "my fellow human beings are scum, I don't really want to get involved with them".
The whole idea of awareness is interesting. In their campaigning, people's aim is to make others aware, or demonstrate that they themselves are aware. But what does awareness mean? It's not about actually changing something, it's just about saying "I'm better than you because I'm aware of poverty", or whatever the issue is. If you ask my students what theories they support, their answers are to do with their self-portrayal, rather than how they understand international affairs. People are more focused on their own identities than finding out about and changing other people's views and the world itself.
With Iraq, the neo-cons didn't win the arguments domestically and failed to reassert a sense of American identity at home, so they attempted to recreate one in the Middle East through intervention and war. I think we can see the same with the UN and its desire to send in its peacekeepers. It’s supposed to be a sign of how much we care about people – we want to send troops and make a statement of our commitment – but really it's a superficial act that says more about us than anything else. That's the worst aspect of what's called ethical foreign policy. It's a peculiar and twisted situation.
ARE YOU OPTIMISTIC ABOUT THE FUTURE OF WORLD AFFAIRS?
It seems that international affairs are becoming increasingly central to the way that we see and understand ourselves and even the way that domestic politics plays out. Much as we might criticise previous projections of power abroad based on interests, at least there was a framework to constrain the more irrational aspects of policy. Today, we have an anti-foreign policy, one which gives us the freedom to talk about ourselves and our values. As the international sphere increasingly becomes a place where we can attempt to construct or create an identity, the more irrational and destabilised it will be. So I guess I'm pessimistic.
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Bandinage
It's quiz time on the Electric Goose today. Below are nine bands which feature famous people, including one odd one out. Get to work!
- Thunderbox
- The Ugly Rumours
- The Waiting Room
- Scarlet Division
- Rust
- 30 Odd Foot Of Grunts
- Dogstar
- Foregone Conclusion
- 30 Seconds to Mars
Only human Bondage
Just finished reading Casino Royale. It's the first Ian Fleming book I've read and seems strange when all you know are the film adaptations/reinventions. For a start, there's James Bond's old-fashioned chauvinism, softened in the movies into charming roguish womanising. When 007 hears his Number Two will be Vesper Lynd - a woman! - his reaction is parodically dismissive:
Also interesting is Bond's extravagance; he comes across as something of a show-off. Remember, the book is set in the post-war years, a time when the kind of stuff Bond's pouring into his smug mouth was beyond the reach of all but the most privileged:
Later the British spy orders what was to become his trademark drink: a dry martini. But this one features "three measures of Gordon's, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet". The mixer? "A large thin slice of lemon-peel". Bond tells CIA man Felix Leiter that he hates small portions of anything (a statement backed up by a moment in the book when we discover that Bond's cigarette is his seventieth of the day!) and, sounding more like a schoolboy (Jennings springs to mind) than anything else, adds boastfully:
But in places, Casino Royale's just plain old-fashioned, in language and attitudes. It is of course incredibly immature to find the following passage funny. But it just is:
Despite all of the above, it is, of course, a cracking read.
And then there was this pest of a girl. He sighed. Women were for recreation. On a job, they got in the way and fogged things up with sex and hurt feelings and all the emotional baggage they carried around. One had to look out for them and take care of them.
Also interesting is Bond's extravagance; he comes across as something of a show-off. Remember, the book is set in the post-war years, a time when the kind of stuff Bond's pouring into his smug mouth was beyond the reach of all but the most privileged:
"The trouble always is," he explained to Vesper, "not how to get enough caviar, but how to get enough toast with it."
"Now," he turned back to the menu, "I myself will accompany Mademoiselle with the caviar, but then I would like a very small tournedos, underdone, with sauce Bearnaise and a couer d'artichaut. While Mademoiselle is enjoying the strawberries, I will have half an avocado pear with a little French dressing. Do you approve?"
Later the British spy orders what was to become his trademark drink: a dry martini. But this one features "three measures of Gordon's, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet". The mixer? "A large thin slice of lemon-peel". Bond tells CIA man Felix Leiter that he hates small portions of anything (a statement backed up by a moment in the book when we discover that Bond's cigarette is his seventieth of the day!) and, sounding more like a schoolboy (Jennings springs to mind) than anything else, adds boastfully:
"This drink's my own invention. I'm going to patent it when I can think of a good name."
But in places, Casino Royale's just plain old-fashioned, in language and attitudes. It is of course incredibly immature to find the following passage funny. But it just is:
"I do believe I'm tight," she said, "how disgraceful. Please, James, don't be ashamed of me. I did so want to be gay. And I am gay."
Despite all of the above, it is, of course, a cracking read.
Wood for the trees
Interesting article which my Dad sent me in the post… Entitled "Green bullets", it appeared in the magazine of Tearfund, a Christian aid organisation. An extract:
Leading arms manufacturer BAE Systems is designing a new generation of "green munitions" including "lead-free" bullets. BAE also wants to cut toxins in its jets, fighting vehicles and rocket artillery, which it warns "can harm the environment and pose a risk to people".
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
