Official Verdict: Stephen King, George RR Martin, Anthony Beevor, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Allen Ginsberg, Nigel Barley

Her Majesty's Government-in-Anonymity is about to relocate its administrative centre – we are, you see, very security-conscious. Whilst Viscount Welwyn prepares for this move, the Government-in-Anonymity feels Her Majesty's loyal subjects could do with some advice on reading material. Read below for reviews of Stephen King, George RR Martin, Anthony Beevor, Allen Ginsberg and Nigel Barley.

The Dark Tower VI & VII by Stephen King
Song of Susannah and The Dark Tower round off King's epic story, started in the early 70s and finished in the mid 00s after an unpleasant encounter with a Patrol Boy. It is hard to get across the essence of a fantasy epic cycle via a review – it is something to be experienced from the beginning. So I will first say that you should read book I, The Gunslinger, and go from there. This is a series about an amoral, titanic hero called Roland Deschain, son of the last ruler of the greatest land in a world now lost to history. He quests for a place called the Dark Tower, for reasons that only gradually unfold. He is one of the greatest creations in literary history; ruthless, focussed, downright antiheroic at times, but challenged by his circumstances and new friends to reconsider his way of living.

So as he comes to the end of his quest, we readers are heavily invested in his fate. Of the first four books, The Gunslinger is great fun, with marvellous fantasy vision, finely observed characters and a brutal twist. It is the weakest of the first four, however, plainly written by a young man. The Drawing of the Three and The Wastelands see a growing confidence, with King's world unfolding – a collapsed, rotten fantasy world, linked in many ways to our own, vibrant one. Roland and his growing band of companions (his ka-tet, or fate-band, eventually reaches six in number) see off lobstrosities, New York mobsters, horny demons, political gangs grown old and past remembering their causes, and a suspiciously creepy monorail train. The strongest of the first four – written before King was hit by a vehicle in 1999 – is the fourth, Wizard and Glass, which is mostly a flashback to Roland's youth, and shows the cause for the quest for the Tower, and the first of his many sacrifices to that cause. Meijis is beautifully drawn, seeing the young Roland at length is fascinating (the flashbacks in The Gunslinger are mere hints), and Susan Delgado is magnificent.

And so for the final three, written in one great block. In Wolves of the Calla, Roland and band are still in Mid-World, and star in their own version of The Magnificent Seven. Book V is good, in my opinion (though many slate it and the final two books), with good characters, magnificent set-pieces, and a brave (if hammed-up) twist about the nature of the universe.

Then comes Song of Susannah, which is by far the weakest book in the series. Partly this is due to the prose being the most forced it has been; King's laconic style slips into ineloquence of the highest order. Partly it is due to the real-world setting of the majority of the book. It is not that the real world is a no-go zone, but laboured prose about Maine in 1977 is not where one generally heads for entertainment. There are still high points – John Cullum especially, and Mr GAWD-BOMB – but the whole thing limps along in a most frustrating manner. What is often lambasted – the insertion of a character version of Stephen King – is not actually the weakest part, insomuch as it makes plot sense and is only somewhat self-indulgent.

The final book does a good job of redeeming the King-character arc, however, as Roland finally reaches the home strait for his goal. There are brutal surprises in store for the ka-tet from the off, with heart-breaking, beautiful set-pieces. Every movement has its magnificence – from the assaults on the Dixie Pig (in New York) and Devar-Toi (in End-World) to the brutal trek through the snows to the equally brutal Dandelo business. The characters buzz throughout – not just Roland but all the other principals, even down to the mute artist Patrick. And then, the crescendo!

The final movement does the whole epic justice – inevitably, as with Browning poem, Roland reaches his Tower and sounds the challenge. Equally inevitably, I was in tears. Finally, there is an incredibly clever little postscript, which asks its readers if they really want to read on – and the final twist is surprising but somehow certain.

The meandering mediocrity of Song of Susannah is worth wading through to the get to the final, cataclysmic book of the Dark Tower series, which is one of the most dramatically satisfying conclusions to a story I have ever read. Between patchwork literary and cinematic source material (Browning, Leone and Eliot especially, with Elton John and others of King's own books getting strong look-ins), King has created the best of the post-Tolkien epics.

A Song of Ice and Fire V: A Dance With Dragons by George RR Martin
From the same epic cycle as the source material of the recent TV series Game of Thrones. Without mapping out the arc of the story (as I did with The Dark Tower), suffice to say Martin writes engrossing, very long medieval dark fantasy, inspired heavily by the Wars of the Roses (English civil war, not bizarre dramedy).

The strengths of Dance are Martin's mainstays: brutal, backstabbing politics and dense, believable, surprising characters. Tyrion's journeys are stately but well-paced, Jon Snow's travails at the wall are well constructed and presented, and the bitparts played by the Martells and (at the end of the book) Lannisters are effective and dramatic. The great triumph of the book, however – beyond moving the plot on! - is the Reek arc. The character begins in an absolutely pathetic, miserable state – and perhaps he deserves it, after a fashion, or so we might think at first. But even Reek does not deserve what he is put through, and slowly, falteringly, a path opens for Reek to redeem himself and regain some dignity. The question one asks right until the end is: will he? This is Martin's best character writing – powerful, moving and gripping.

The chief weakness is a weakness Martin identified years before publication – the so-called “Meereenese knot” that delayed completion for so very long. The Dany material is drawn-out, slow, and repetitive. As Martin in essence acknowledged both on his blog, and implicitly in the conclusion of the Meereen arc in this book, it became a quest to escape from a plot dead-end. The ending was satisfying, after a fashion – getting there was not.

Again, a series and book that is necessary reading for fans of epic cycles.

The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939 by Anthony Beevor
A well-written, comprehensive analysis of the Spanish Civil War, by an author with relatively little sympathy for either side, especially as the war progresses. A difficult read, however, due to the absolute loss of moral compass by nearly all involved, and the subsequent horror of war being magnified many times beyond my emotional limit. This was not just, or even particularly, due to the particular acts – neither side, quantitatively, challenged Hitler or Stalin – but finds a lot of its grounding in a grim hopelessness about the entire business. Dresden was a horrific war crime, but it happened in the right war. By half way through the Spanish Civil War, there were no more heroes to believe in, no real cause to cling to beyond the (very typical) power-mad seekings of rabid ideologues.

Innocent Erendira and Other Stories by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
A collection of early short stories from the master of magical realism. It is plain that even in the 1950s, Garcia Marquez had a magnificent imagination. A regular theme is life beyond death or at least beyond the body (“The Other Side of Death” especially, but also “The Last Resignation”, “Eva Is Inside Her Cat” and “Dialogue With The Mirror”), whilst the vision at times savage (“The Night of the Curlews”).

There is not, however, very much of the deep-grained sympathy for the characters that is present in his novels. Of course, this is endemic to the entire genre of short stories, and it is no surprise that the longest of the included pieces, the eponymous novella, is the story with the most rounded characters. But it is not so much “roundedness” I am pinpointing – rather, as stated, it is “sympathy”. Marquez does not seem to feel much for his characters in these stories. They are, it seems, ciphers and/or instruments, and little more. Compared to the magnificently handled, vast cast in One Hundred Years of Solitude or the great dictators in The Autumn of the Patriarch and The General in His Labyrinth, it feels like Garcia Marquez has not grasped his characters – they lie beyond his reach, forcing him to utilize them as mere tools. (No comparison should be made to Love in the Time of Cholera, because that is a joyous book, where Garcia Marquez's usual tropes are confusion and heartbreak.)

The picks of the bunch are the eponymous novella, “The Sea of Lost Time” and “The Woman Who Came at Six O'Clock”.

Howl and Other Poems by Allen Ginsberg
Ginsberg's masterpiece was so shocking to its 1950s audience that it caused a court case, where the plaintiffs sought to ban the poem. It still retains its force now, if not its sheer shock value (though it is still astonishingly frank about homosexual activity).

“Howl” itself is magnificent, needless to say, in its Ginsbergian appropriation of “The Waste Land”; shorter but equally valuable is “America” with its political ferocity, with “Sunflower Sutra” coming up behind (oi oi!) in a close third place. It is all in typical Beat style – think long lines of highly textured, elliptic verse. If you don't know what that will sound like as it trips along your tongue, buy this collection.

White Rajah by Nigel Barley
The White Rajahs of Sarawak fascinate me. James Brooke was an English eccentric who was born in British India and started his adult life serving in the East India Company's Army. His career in that consisted of raising a regiment of irregular cavalry, leading two courageous, pleasingly successful cavalry charges, and then getting quite badly wounded. He was invalided out and never quite got back to India (though not for want of trying).

So, out of a mixture of high-minded idealism, thrill-seeking and boredom, he ended up helping the Sultan of Brunei crush a rebellion in western Borneo, and in return was (eventually) granted freehold rule of his own kingdom. He was, strictly speaking, initially simply a private British citizen (though Imperial interests obviously got entangled soon enough). This was not, then, purely an Imperial venture (the great era of Empire was still 30 years off in 1841 – in Brooke's day many Britons didn't much like Empire). Indeed, one of the fascinating contours of James Brooke's personality was his own distaste for the profiteering, exploitative nature of empire – he sought to rule Sarawak by a set of values that would protect and develop the natives (though it might be considered a little forward to assume one knows which values will best better the poor foreign wallahs).

Sarawak continued to develop under Brooke's heir, his nephew Charles, who passed it on to his own son Vyner. Vyner was a little baffled by the whole business, and his wife was a grasping attention-seeker, but when the Japanese occupied Sarawak during World War Two, its people ardently desired the return of its rulers. When he returned in 1945, Vyner promptly sold Sarawak to the British Empire in return for a big pension – over the strongly-held objections of his subjects. Bizarre, fascinating, rollicking stuff.

Nigel Barley presents “A Biography of Sir James Brooke”, and it is that – it is very much a biography rather than a history, in the sense that Suetonius is not Tacitus. This bears fruit in some respects – compared to the standard texts of Runciman and Reece, Barley does a better job of presenting the personalities around Brooke, as well as the boisterous lives of the Rajah and his early cohorts.

This interest in personality does, however, lead on to the book's chief failing. Barley is not always particularly clear-sighted in his focus on Brooke's personality – he has, for instance, a prurient obsession with Brooke's sexuality that angles its way in (oi oi!) on more or less every page. No action of Brooke's can, Barley suggests, be understood without reference to his adoration for nubile midshipmen. Well, firstly I'm not convinced, though certainly it will have been a factor at times; and secondly, it reads like a bonkers tabloid exposure of some generally admirable public figure. It is not so much the topic that is the issue – I agree Brooke's sexuality is relevant, and disappointingly concealed by Runciman and Reece – as the tone. Barley's matey, winking prose works when dealing with the mischievous, Boy's Own elements of the story, but becomes leering when approaching the topic of sex (whether to do with Brooke or anyone else, and it is a staple of the book).

I enjoyed the book. Barley is an entertaining writer, the history is legitimate, the portrait of an opaque, charming, conflicted adventurer is convincing – but do take it with more than the standard grain of salt. Runciman is a vital counterweight, insomuch as his more sober (though no less poetic) analysis of the Brookes highlights the multifaceted motives of the White Rajahs. It wasn't all about buggery amidships.

BBC Policy

I believe it is now time to set out some government-in-anonymity policy for the BBC (The Queen's Broadcaster) since it is your taxes that pay for it. What I want to do first off is to say that I, under no circumstances, will be using the phrase “Is this what I pay my license fee for?” As a rule, we are opposed to people who use the phrase “Is this what I pay my license fee for?” The comedian Mitch Benn came up with a fantastic metaphor for the BBC license fee, he compared it to a bus ticket rather than a taxi. So I pay my license fee to go to Doctor Who, Would I Lie To You? and What To Do If You’re Not Like Everybody Else (iPlayer it. It’s good.), but I accept that on the way the bus/BBC has to stop off at Snog, Marry, Avoid, The One Show and any number of BBC3 sitcoms for other people to enjoy. I wont get off the bus and explore these culturally barren lands, but the advantage of the license fee acting like a bus ticket is that you could. I can jump off at one of the smaller stops in the obscure little village of BBC4 and explore.

Which brings me to the government-in-anonymity's policy of support for BBC4. Rumour is currently circulating that BBC4 could have it’s budget and remit cut considerably. To be fair, I don’t watch BBC4 that much, I was scared off by an episode of Only Connect - start using the Greek alphabet and you’ve lost me. But that’s what the BBC should be doing, because it can. The unique way the BBC is funded means that they can do shows that appeal to everyone and shows that appeal to two weird philosophy nerds living on the Isle of Man. Of course the BBC shouldn’t persevere with an unpopular program, but it should be doing more to push niche programs. BBC4 is a great mix of artsy documentaries, high-brow comedy, low-brow comedy that’s good (I recommend Getting On staring Jo Brand and the excellent TwentyTwelve. Very good, but hardly prime-time BBC1 stuff), imported foreign language gems, classic concerts and some well chosen repeats. It might not be your cup of tea - and most of it isn’t mine, I might be boring but I’m not that boring - but where else are you going to find these programs other than, perhaps, Sky Arts? (My only problem with that option being how much more you have to pay for it.)

The BBC think that more money should be spent on programs for the 18-35-year-old market and are pushing programs on BBC3. That’s a good thing and definitely something the BBC should be doing, something it’s good at doing, but it’s not as important. That’s a clumsy way of making my point, but what I’m trying to say is that if Snog, Marry, Avoid wasn’t made by the BBC no doubt someone at Channel 4 or Sky Living would have picked it up, E4 would probably quite happily take Family Guy rites off BBC3’s hands and shove a break in. The likes of Being Human would have found a backer elsewhere because it is bloody brilliant. Seriously amazing. The last series finale, I mean Wow! How dark was that?! It’s right that the BBC make Being Human because they’re more likely to commission a mad idea like “a vampire, werewolf and ghost share a house in Bristol,” and let’s face it the BBC will do it better. They’re the BBC, respected around the world, they can attract the best people. But I guess I’m saying it’s more important for the BBC to make the obscure arts programs and imported Icelandic comedy because they can and no one else will. I’m not arguing that that stuff is better (nothing’s better than Being Human) but it is part of the important service that the BBC provides and that has made it a name respected around the world. Commercial television ignores that stuff for the sake of turning a profit, the BBC doesn’t have to.

That’s why last year I signed online stuff and wrote scathing tweets about the decision to cut BBC6Music, and since then I have found myself listening more and more to 6 Music because it brings me new music to test out, rather than hits from the last 30 years or the same six songs from the charts played over and over again interrupted by mad characters phoning-in to tell us what the craziest thing they’ve ever done on holiday is. I listened, for a bit, to the commercial station Absolute Radio the other day. They had a “no repeats guaranteed” policy, but when you stand out from the crowd because you don’t repeat the same songs all day, well that’s not a good state for commercial radio to be in. I’m not saying we should all rush to the sofa and watch BBC4, but it should be there for the people who want it.

Anyway, moving on. It’s slightly harder to knock the BBC than it was to criticise ITV last week, because the BBC is actually, you know, good. And this week Mock The Week, Would I Lie To You?, and QI all returned - I do love my panel shows - and of course they do Doctor Who and Torchwood. But then interestingly a comedy promoter called Noel Faulkner made the assertion that TV was killing comedy. Noel Faulkner owns a comedy club in London that is none-to-healthy thanks to the recession and names now famous for TV work refuse to come back and gig there, so his comments should be taken with a pinch of salt (as should chips by the way KFC! Our movement decrees that if elected we'll make KFC less stingy with the salt) but in some ways he’s right. He says that too many comedians are given TV exposure “We put too many people on TV. TV is such shite that people should be ashamed of themselves for going on.” He is of course speaking the demented cowshit of a man who can’t book Michael McIntyre to play his club anymore. TV is a good place for comedians. Comedians want to make people laugh, this way they can make the whole country laugh and increase their profile.

Where I agree with Mr Faulkner is his accusation that TV comedy is often generic. Unfortunately the BBC guide book, “How to do comedy,” has been lost in a filing cabinet drawer somewhere along with the best-before date for My Family and the instructions for how to dismantle Chris Evans. I’m getting tired of the amount of times I read that a comic I like has been given their own TV series that “boasts a mixture of stand-up and sketches,” because this invariably means that they’ve taken a stand-up whose set they like and included sketches so the stupid viewers at home don’t get bored. This is particularly noticeable in the otherwise excellent John Bishop’s Britain in which the sketches involve actors playing John and his friend’s acting out what John is saying while he says it, with any similes he uses turned into crazy visual gags. I’d honestly feel less patronised if the head of BBC light entertainment came round to my house, held my hand and explained the jokes to me slowly in words of one syllable.

Likewise, Stephen K Amos, one of my favourite comedians whose live shows are some of the best nights out I’ve had at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Night’s where I have been searching the room to see if anybody looks like a doctor because I can’t breathe from laughing. His TV show was the kind of thing that made me look around the room for a mirror to see if the corner of my mouth twitched a bit at the punch line. Rather than capturing his stand-up in a studio, he did random sketches, spoke to his “mother” which was a pre-record of him in a wig that flowed remarkably well in the obvious edit, and had needless gimmicks. I love stand-up, a lot of comedy fans do, so just give us six half hour shows of stand-up someone please! Sketches have their place, they’re called sketch shows, they’re very good. Recently BBCTwo ratings sensation (not) Stewart Lee returned with a second series of his downbeat stand-up show Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle this time round without the sketches. It was one of the best series on television this year. The closest thing to genuinely original and clever stand-up I’ve seen and very very funny. How was he rewarded for this? It was on at 11:30 on a Wednesday night and the BBC didn’t think to tell anybody it was on. It’ll never be a runaway success like Michael McIntyre’s Comedy Roadshow but it distresses me to see the BBC treat good comedy this way and water down the likes of John Bishop and Stephen K Amos.

Really we have the Daily Mail to blame for this, because one time Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand were rude to Manuel which knocked Osama Bin Laden down to fourth in the Axis of Evil list (Piers is still top, even if he has convinced the yanks he’s just a friendly talk show host who would never immorally fake newspaper photos and definitely didn’t do no phone-hacking). The Mail then leapt on Frankie Boyle for being vulgar and not-English. They then, with frightening speed, attacked Sandi Toksvig of The News Quiz for making the joke “The Conservative Party: Putting the N into cuts,” a mere six months after the joke was broadcast. It seems that’s how long it took them to get it (they’re gonna flip when they realise Mr Humphries was gay). It seems nobody can say anything slightly rude without the Daily Mail deciding it’s collapse of British morals and will lead to “feral youths kicking people’s heads like footballs” (true quote). Ironically, this is probably political correctness gone mad. Just as a direct appeal to the BBC, I’m afraid I have to ask you to stop being such a pussy bitch too. Stand by your programs and talent, because there’s nothing wrong with a bit of controversial comedy. If Channel 4 will stand by Frankie Boyle when he says something genuinely disgusting about Katie Price’s son – which sounded more like a Jim Davison gag – then surely the BBC could have said “We think he’s all right on Mock The Week leave him alone. We like a bit of rude humour.” As the comedian Marcus Brigstocke said, “if we had no offensive material on TV all we’d have is The One Show and where does that leave us?”

Perhaps there’d be less need for offensive comedy is the BBC remembered how to do pre-watershed sitcoms again. The answer isn’t to try and do a hundred remakes of My Family with a hundred different, less funny families. But I’ve ranted about this for too long.

Just one more thing, I bought Frasier the complete series 3 DVD box set the other day for £20. A fair price. A bargain maybe even. That’s for 8 Hours, 46minutes of TV. Every year we spend around £50-£60 on the new Doctor Who DVD box set. So if we pay £20 for 8 Hours 46 minutes of TV, then surely £145 for 43800 hours of TV is a totally awesome deal, it annoys me when people say it isn’t worth it. (365x24 x that by 5 for BBC1, BBC2, BBC3/CBBC, BBC4/Cbeebies, BBC News.

BBC3, 4, CBBC and Cbeebies are only on half a day, and I didn’t count BBC Parliament because it’s BBC parliament. I didn’t mention the radio or online stuff either). PS. That metaphor only works with DVDs. A blu-ray is about £10 more expensive and has the same number of discs, even though Blu-rays fit more on than a DVD so could be smaller, cheaper box sets. Save your money, buy DVDs. That's government policy now. Better still videos, they're harder to lose and don't get scratched.

The Government-In-Anonymity's Opposition To "Red Or Black"

Hello Reader.

That's enough with the pleasantries.

Today I'd like to make the strongest case I can think of in favour of the BBC - the Queen's broadcaster - license fee: ITV.

The ITV logo is now accompanied by a caption reading "Terrestrial Channel of the Year." This is not a title endorsed by the Queen's Government-in-Anonymity, and I will now explain why.

Last night, I watched the pretty damn brilliant Doctor Who on the Beeb. Afterwards I thought I'd check out this new ITV thing, Red or Black, and was surprised to find a concept that was somehow less complex than the title indicates. It was however, irritatingly, hyped up and treated as if it had the complexity of LOST mixed with Moffat-era Doctor Who. Normally, I would never blog about a show based on only seeing the closing half-an-hour of an hour-and-a-quarter program, but seriously if you expect me to watch an hour-and-a-quarter of that dire turd-fest, then you probably also didn't expect me to mention Doctor Who four times in the opening paragraph of a blog that isn't even about Doctor Who because you clearly don't know me at all.

When I turned over at the end of Doctor Who (OK, last time I promise. No more mentions), a young feller was telling us a sob story about how his young daughter/son lost his wife/fiancé/girlfriend's wedding/engagement/onion ring. I know, I sound insensitive, lazy and horrible because I didn't commit this story to memory and perhaps I would have had it not cut instantly to another person's unrelated back story. I have to admit it, by the fifth person's story, I was enjoying it. In fact I laughed out loud really long and hard. Somebody had made an excellent parody of a Simon Cowell TV program and it was just sob stories back-to-back. This is all rather amusing. By the seventh contestant's story I was shouting obscenities at the TV, was this it!?! Had the first 45 minutes of this program simply been a collection of two-minute stories of people going "I'd love to win £1million, I think it would really help me out in some way."?

After an incredible eight of these stories we return to the studio and even Ant appeared to be struggling to hide a smile at how ludicrous it all was while And-Dec introduced the game that the team would be playing. It concerned a selection of sealed brief cases that had either red or black lining. The contestants job was to guess what was in one of these suitcases. Meanwhile the pranksters who had suggested Deal or No Deal choked on their caviar and champagne. "I can't believe someone has done it again!" said one of them. "Don't you remember Golden Balls," said his pal. "No-one remembersGolden Balls," said the first prankster and they high-fived before switching to BBC Three for Doctor Who Confidential (It's a different show. I never said I wouldn't mention that one. I'm not obsessed).

To compare this to Deal Or No Deal though is frankly an insult to Deal Or No Deal's relative complexity. It emerged that what was to happen in this game was that a group of dancers would pass the fifty or so identical cases between themselves, thus randomising them, while Leona Lewis sung and looked a bit like a horse. At the end of which the eight contestants were asked to choose "Black or Red." In the event the first five contestants chose: Red, Black, Red, Red, Red" and so the final three were forced to have black to balance it out. Each of them were then forced into saying something like "Well I was going to choose black anyway so I'm happy." or "I would have gone with red, oh no!" While I screamed "IT DOESN'T FUCKING MATTER IT'S 50:50!!" at the television loud enough to wake the dead, apart from those in Helensburgh Cemetery who had already been woken by a strange spinning sound coming from John Logie Baird's grave. Leona then picked the suitcase and, after the kind of tedious pause normally only heard before the sentence "you've got four yeses," the colour was revealed.

Next up, a man who catches arrows fired from a bow would catch Red and Black arrows and the winner would be the person who backed the colour he caught the most of. Once again, half the contestants had the colour picked for them to balance it out, thus rendering the whole thing utterly pointless. In the end it was a draw and so the catcher simply picked an arrow out of a box that had a red tip and red's won. And I sure as hell wasn't the only one saying "Why didn't he do that in the first place?" Then there were congratulations to winner, commiserations to losers and cliches and overhype all round. And-Dec then told us that we should tune in after The X-Factor for the final while Ant told us that "history would be made, with the £1million winner." An overstatement on a par with "Tesco have sold out of a Salt and Vinegar crisps? IT'S THE END OR THE WORLD!" or "The Biggest Brother Yet. Five. 9pm" or "We have listened to what the public have said and a coalition between ourselves and the Conservative party seems to be the best way forward."

Earlier I said that to compare this to Deal or No Deal is an insult to Deal or No Deal. At least with Deal or No Deal there is some element of skill to it. Ok, so it's no Mastermind but the contestant knows what values remain, and make a vaguely informed decision on whether to accept the offer accordingly (with assistance from Noel and the East/West wings - though anyone who takes advice from people who think chanting 'blue' with their eyes closed will make it 1p is a moron). There is a modicum of skill in Deal Or No Deal and I can see why people get drawn into it. But when it's pure chance and half the contestants don't even make a choice, what’s the point? Where's the tension? We can't even play along at home! At least with Deal or No Deal we can shout "oh! Take that offer, you wont get better without the £250,000."

Simon Cowell is playing a very clever game: by sandwiching The X-Factorbetween two instalments of Red or Black he actually makes X-Factor look like a decent show. I think maybe he knows that Red or Black is shite and so tries to throw in every cliche he can find. The sob stories, the long-dramatic pauses, the hype, the thing where one word comes up on the screen at a time while being shouted. It's like someone has bought together everything hateful and stupid about X-Factor and BGT and got rid of the bits that matter. I wish I could just flash my light five times and lock them all in a wardrobe where I never have to see them again (What?!).

Not content with making all music generic and bollocks, Cowell is now trying the same trick with TV, and ITV and viewers seem to fall for this. I said a while ago that I use "You can't argue with that kind of success," as a way of getting out of arguing with people who like mainstream drivel (incidentally, I'm not saying everything mainstream is drivel, just a lot of it), but surely people can see that this crap they fill every program with is bad for TV and choice.

Surprisingly I'm quite in favour of The X-Factor and BGT despite the somewhat awkward day when I walked into the LGBT and tried to impress them with some dance moves. Should really have read that more clearly, though with both Simon Cowell and Piers Morgan there it's easy to see how I'd be confused. I have, as my Facebook friends and Tweeps will know, been watching The X-Factor for a couple of years now. I mocked away, but last year found myself getting quite drawn into it for the first time. I had favourites (Matt, One Direction, Cher (yes, I can be wrong too)) and people I hated and I actually genuinely like seeing a proper talent competition. I'm also not, not at all, above laughing at overconfident hopeless auditionees as much as I'd like to be. But I hate all the interviews, hype and silly over-the-topness that surrounds all that. This series I have been tweeting a lot less, because 1) I've said it all the last few years and frankly it doesn't change or evolve ever. 2) I'm actually just getting sick of it treating viewers like idiots and telling me what I should be thinking/feeling about things.

A couple of weeks ago on The Daily Show, a clip was shown and references were made to Spitting Image. An American TV show were referencing an ITV show from the 1980s. A show that politicians watched and worried about, because it was proper grown up satire, that is still respected by satirists like Jon Stewart around the world in 2011. I'm sure back in the daySpitting Image was probably followed by some silly program like You've Been Framed or Beadles About but at least ITV was producing clever and engaging content back then. Get a bit of balance between your cheesy Saturday night talent shows and gameshows and some quality entertainment.
Two points there: 1) I like a bit of Midsomer Murders, Morse, Marple orPoirot as much as the next man, but crime drama alone does not make a terrestrial channel good.
2) Cheesy TV should be on Saturday nights, - that's it's place, it works there and to some extent it's no bad thing - It should not be on all week like Red or Black is.

Tonight, ITV are showing a controversial drama about Fred West. I don't know if it'll be sensitive, challenging and brilliant or be ITV's usual crime drama schtick, and I probably wont even watch it (it's not my thing.) but I offer them my full support for tackling a challenging issue that might upset people rather than playing it safe with generic stuff. Good luck ITV. And as you are also showing Serenity tonight which is one of mine and Viscount-Welwyn's favourite films and on the government's official list of films followers really must see, I'm slightly sorry I shouted at you.

Oh, by the way, Million Pound Drop don't think you've got away with it by being on Channel 4. You too need to cut down on the hype, long pauses and rubbish-lets-have-a-chat-with-their-family stuff, coz you've got a good gameshow there, but you're so annoying.

Next Time: My Problem with the BBC. (Don't worry Doctor Who you're safe.)

Governmental Comments on Equality, Dale Farm and House of Lords Reform

Today I'm going to write about two subjects. The first is a philosophical one: it is an examination of the problem of “equality”. The second is a political one: a response to a particularly egregious example of proposed House of Lords reform.

Equality
I have long been distressed by the peculiar misuse of the word “Equality” by the left-wing of politics to which I belong. I am not sure the word has a dictionary meaning any longer; it has acquired a frisson of doublethink in its deployment.

The generic argument proceeding from various minorities and their allies proceeds as follows: we have formerly been oppressed; we have fought for some rights and desire others; we believe society owes us a debt for our historic pains and continued disadvantaged position. I do not in fact have a problem with the broad conclusions of this argument – minorities have been oppressed in Britain; they do deserve equality under the law; and government must support their continued efforts to be recognized as such, and ameliorate their societal disadvantage.

My gripe comes, really, when one grasps the absolute intellectual incoherence of the “generic” argument. It begins from postmodern formulations: our society is structured in favour of a power-group who utilizes language and force to maintain its authority and preference its prejudices. Minority groups – such as Black and Minority Ethnic, LGBT, and disabled people – have been the targets of this oppression. They are often villainized for the political gain of the majority; even where power is not the immediate concern of the majority, the undeconstructed Freudian bigotries of the majority are enforced upon disenfranchised minority agents.

In postmodern terminology, that seems a perfectly accurate assessment. However, the Equality Brigade bring this to a modernist conclusion: therefore it is MORAL to campaign against the status quo. Disaster! There is no possible synthesis of postmodern presuppositions and modernist conclusions. Postmodernism may be useful as a resource for modernists or paleo-conservatives, allowing them to analyse situations from a Construction perspective. It does not, however, manage to co-exist when used as the basis of a philosophical system aiming at discovering “morality”.

Historic leaders of minority movements argued their positions from broadly modernist positions. Gandhi and Martin Luther King appealed to their religious experience as a source of their belief in the objective right of their cause. Emmeline Pankhurst was inspired by the Enlightened egalitarian fervour of the French revolutionaries, whilst fellow Suffragette Emily Davison's Christian faith was her chief touchstone. Now our minority leaders all too often argue for their own objective right, whilst appealing to subjectivity as its source.

This is particularly obnoxious when seeking to negotiate an equitable solution to thorny moral issues. In some of these cases, the negotiating position of one side consists of the formula:
                     a) Power Group are reducing material or psychological position of Interest Group.
                     b) Power Group has no innate right to do this, as morality is subjective.
                     a+b =Interest Group has an innate right to protest against Power Group, being morally right.
In the technical sense, this is a classic non-sequitur, as well as an unfounded appeal to emotion. Its conclusion denies its premises, and uses weighted language to blackmail the listener into consent.

A current and frustrating case is that of the evictions from Dale Farm. Neither the Government-in-Anonymity nor I individually take any stance on the situation, apart from noting the illegal tenancy of the travellers in question. However, those defending the travellers' right to stay have not, as far as I can tell, thought through their argument one jot. Of course the opponents of the travellers have, in some cases, been racist nutjobs – but we expected that! The defenders of the travellers claim to be the intellectual progressive future – yet they have not at any point made a cogent argument for the case.

For fairness, I will present the flawed arguments of both sides. The fallacy many critics of the travellers is as follows:
                          Evidence: It appears that these travellers have broken the law.
                          Conclusion: Therefore these travellers have forfeited any rights under the law.
The fallacy of many progressives is this:
                          Evidence: Children live on the site.
                          Conclusion: The ordinary law does not apply to these travellers.
Both make the same catastrophic mistake – they are both appeals to emotion which completely ignore the concept of due process or equality before the law. Surely the travellers maintain any RIGHTS (as opposed to privileges) they already had; but equally, surely they are punishable under the law whether they have children or not.

Our chief problem – for those of us on the left, and not every member of the Government-in-Exile is on the left – in coping with moral issues in a cogent manner. “Equality”, whether applied to LGBT (no, not Q, because that's imperially labelling a group whose very identity is label-less) or travellers, is a vital (and for Christians, Biblical) concept. But it cannot be achieved in an equitable way by people who do not believe in any stronger reason for it than their emotional preference for it. Beginning from a misunderstanding of liberty (as if “human rights” were discoverable separate from knowledge of “human wrongs”; authority defines all liberty), we have seen the left's stand on equality fall into dark farce. It must be reclaimed by left-wingers who know and can define why they believe what they believe. If we cannot, we must recognize that the bigots and plutocrats have the same “right” as us to their repulsive beliefs and lifestyles.

Parliamentary Reform

An article on Labour List by Brian Barder (here) yesterday floated the idea of an immediate replacement of the House of Lords with an 80-person Senate, equally representing the nations of the United Kingdom federally, as with the US Senate. You can imagine how the Government-in-Anonymity's breakfast felt upon reading this – it worried it might soon face an unexpected and speedy journey skywards.

But Viscount Welwyn, you say, why should an elected Upper Chamber be an issue? Well, dear loyal citizen, there are two parts to my response. One is a qualification and one is the main critique.

My qualification is that I am categorically not opposed to a hybridized Upper Chamber which is partially elected. For instance: 25% elected via regional list, 25% hereditary, 25% life, 25% community (e.g. the present Lords Spiritual, University representatives, other faith leaders, community organizers, etc).

My criticism is that the concept of reforming it into a Senate is the follows: what a load of US-aping, ill-thought-through bollocks. If it were exactly like the Senate, that would give each country 20 representatives – meaning the seditious SNP would end up controlling about 1/8th of the upper house, if it followed current Scottish Parliament trends. Talk about inviting the cuckoo in. No, any election to the Upper House must not be gerrymandered, but truly proportional. If it is proportional, the House of Lords must be returned powers it lost via the Parliament Acts – it will have become, in part, more democratic than the first-past-the-post constituency-based Commons! Now THAT would be a check on the fickle, semi-presidential style of Prime Ministers of late.

A second issue is that of the assumption that some form of elected Upper Chamber is the only meaningful solution. This is to assume that democracy is somehow the only morally virtuous path. Do not get me wrong; democratic expression must be the bedrock on which our entire system stands. However, democracy itself is not a virtue – it is a necessity. Because the powerful have proven incapable of treating the majority well unless the majority ensure that happens, democracy must be our main instrument of government. That does not mean it is the only tool available, however. Democracy is prone to degenerating into ochlocracy – mob rule. The only indisputable argument an individual has for their right to participate in the governance of the people is that they are one of those people, and that concept of “people” (its membership, its identity, etc) has already (as noted above) been defined by an authority representing those people. Therefore, any right of the individual – and their rights are and must be considerable – cannot claim an idolatrous centrality above the rights of the community. The two are symbiotic.

On that basis, hereditary peers are as “qualified” as anyone to act as a check and balance. They are efficient insomuch as they are naturally, on the whole, reactionary; they have not achieved their position by playing politics – indeed, their right to speak based solely on being born seems like a fitting poetic echo of democratic principles; and they are often well-qualified (and if they are not – well, then they act as representatives of the underqualified in this nation, whose MPs tend to be highly-educated, out-of-touch intellectuals).

In a real sense, this misbegotten attempt to emulate America as part of a worship of pseudo-democracy stems from the same root as the fallacious post-modern struggle for “equality”. It chooses to set up as idol a principle which is not self-demonstrating (tell me, please, on what basis people deserve to control their own fate?); it critiques any who point out this lack of New Clothes; and it premise (no-one can be trusted to rule because no-one has a definitive moral stance) undermines its conclusion (therefore the rule of all is definitively moral).

So in conclusion: yes to civil unions and BAME rights, yes to democracy, no to demagogic babble demanding blind adherence to these principles.

God save the Queen!