On Thinking Well of Yourself

Anyone who doesn't have the wit to think well of himself is a fool; but anyone who is foolish enough to think too well of himself is a conceited ass.

This aphoristic profundity passed through my brain after reading an article in a 1958 edition of Encounter, the Anglo-American cultural magazine (1953-1991) by up-and-coming Bradford novelist John Braine. It was an account of a post-prandial Q&A between the author of Room at the Top and J B Priestley, Bradford-born author of numerous novels, plays, essays, newspaper articles and radio broadcasts.

Braine was clearly of a mind to think well of himself in the company of the creator of works as various as The Good Companions, An Inspector Calls, English Journey and Postcript. Priestley, born in 1894, the year the Independent Labour Party was founded in his home town, was the grand old man of English letters even if the dons of Oxbridge didn't think him worthy of a footnote in their fabricated great traditions: he was beyond thinking well or badly of himself.

Braine's self-imposed mission was to explore his mixed feelings about the legend of "Jolly Jack, the successful Bradford businessman who dealt in words instead of wool."

After a "very good lunch" at Priestley's apartment in the Albany, Braine fired his opening shot. Priestley had been on the Western Front during the 1914-18 War; why hadn't he used his experiences in his writing? Priestley ducked the shot, saying by the time he had accumulated the necessary experience as a novelist a number of very good books about the War had appeared; then he fired back: "Incidentally, I wonder if you remember my account of the battalion reunion in English Journey? If you don't know the book, you might take a look at that chapter sometime. You'll find your War there."

First blow to Priestley. Braine then changes tack, raising the subject of the the snobby division of literature into popular best sellers and serious novels. "...haven't you suffered from it?" he concludes.

"Yes," says Priestley. 'Best-seller' is a trade term and should not be used by critics as if it had some literary significance. Some bad books have been best-sellers, but then so have all the world's best books too...The books I published before The Good Companions were generally praised in the weekly reviews. Then by accident - for what I wanted to do was to write a long picaresque novel and neither my publishers nor the booksellers, who only subscribed three thousand copies, thought it would be popular - I brought out a novel that everybody's aunt wanted to buy and read, so that six months after publication it was selling five thousand copies a day - and in the sight of the weekly reviews I stopped being a promising literary man and became an adroit Bradford businessman...If I'm left out of those solemn lists and assessments of contemporary English authors, it serves me right, partly for doing so many different things and also for not caring a damn."

Room at the Top was on its way to first-year sales of 35,000 copies. Braine would be receiving royalty cheques for anywhere between £12,000 and £15,000: riches that, in 1958, would have turned almost anyone's head, let alone the creator of Joe Lampton, who lusted after his own Aston Martin.

As though to establish his bone fides as a serious man of letters, Braine asserts that Bright Day is Priestley's "very best novel". Priestley counter-punches: "Well, that's what you say. Somebody else would say Angel Pavement...I've been told so often that only some particular book or play has justified my existence, that I've lost interest in the subject."

Braine tries to recover ground by including Priestley's observation. "As long as a lot of people all like different ones among your books or plays, that seems to me quite a satisfactory state of affairs." He goes on to ask the great man if writing should always be a full-time job and receives what could be a back-handed complement.

"I think you ought to make it a full-time job - you have the right temperament, the right attitude," says JB. "But I also think that a great many young writers, by no means without talent, would be happier not trying to earn a living with their writing. Delicate temperaments and talents are better off as amateurs. A professional writer should be tough and copious."

Braine had started out delicate - he had been in a TB sanitorium for more than a year - but after many rejections, had learned to be tough - and unpleasant with it. As though to demonstrate his toughness he tries again to take Priestley on.

"...You've never done anything better than An Inspector Calls...But They Came to a City, to my mind, is a classic of how not to do it. In the first, real people expressed a universal truth; in the second, abstract ideas were stated by puppets."

Priestley, rather like a literary Matt Busby, responds benignly, apparently. "They Came to a City was a play written for a specific period - the middle of the war. It said something that needed to be said at that time, when, by the way, it was enormously successful. I try to discourage people from producing it now. Incidentally, aren't you in danger of being rather negative in your criticism, or worrying too much about work you don't like?"

There is more, but this exchange gives a flavour of what I mean by thinking well of one's self. John Braine, whose debut novel I both like and admire - Priestley did too, although he said it wasn't "big enough" - concluded by saying he had to his own satisfaction exploded the legend of Priestley as "Jolly Jack, the Hard headed Yorkshireman". Priestley's reputation in England as a serious writer was far below what it deserved to be.

Want to Change the World? Then Change Your Life

"I don't know how I ever got a Nobel Peace Prize, because when I see children die the anger in me is just beyond belief," Mrs Betty Williams told school children at Brisbane City Hall in 2006. "It is our duty as human beings, whatever age we are, to become the protectors of human life."

Since winning the honour with Mairead Corrigan in 1977 (for the 1976 Nobel Peace Prize), her career has become the embodiment of the truth that if you want change to come you have to be prepared to change your life first, even at the risk of being disowned by those who claim to love you.

The former Belfast receptionist changed her life in more ways than simply divorcing husband Ralph and marrying James Perkins. She persuaded Protestants and Catholics alike to come out on to the streets in their thousands and protest against sectarian violence. The IRA said she was a "dupe of the British".

She travels the world lecturing on the subjects of peace, justice and equality, a trinity of values some find as hard to swallow as atheists would the Eucharist. Justice and equality before the law are still widely subjugated to cultural values more in keeping with nomadic desert tribes than the urban reality of 21st century Western life.

For instance, forced marriage (for males and females) and honour killings. Here are some statistics from Jaswinder Sanghera, whose charity Karma Nirvana campaigns on these issues in the north of the UK.

. At least 12 so-called honour killings occur every year although the Crown Prosecution Service thinks there may be many more.

. The Home Office's Forced Marriage Unit deals with 5,000 calls for support annually and 400 cases of repatriation a year, a third of which are for under-16s.

. South Asian women aged 16 to 24 are two to three times more likely to commit suicide or self-harm.

Jaswinda told me recently: "I am perceived as a threat by people who have a mindset, who operate in an honour code, who don't want their children to integrate or have choices. They see me as a cultural threat.

"What I deem culturally unacceptable is when they abuse their child to maintain their own idea of what's right and what's wrong...Professionals know what's happening, but have been disarmed when dealing with other communities. They fear getting it wrong and being called 'racist'.

"The perpetrators of forced marriage and honour killings are gaining power through using the race card."

There is still much work for the likes of Jaswinder Sanghera and Betty Williams to do.

The Last Train to Clarksville - or Anywhere...

Those old enough to remember the days of train travel, before the triumph of privatisation, may recall the television commercial featuring Sir Jimmy Savile in which the public were encouraged to take the strain out of long-distance journeys by taking a British Rail train.

If, unlike me, you own a car and like your own company, the only reason you might choose public over private transport is likely to be for the purpose of helping the environment. Take issue with that as you may, lots of ordinary people do that because they believe, in good faith, that care of the environment is their responsibility. Some of them even listen to earnest eco advocates like Prince Charles.

Having given up driving in 1989 - my car kept getting stolen - I used buses and trains ever since. On Saturday, in a burst of pre-Valentine's Day passion, I was due to meet the woman of my dreams at Kings Cross in London at round about 9.45am. We used to go out when we were 17, had recently fallen in love, but had not met for 44 years.

That's why I got out of bed at 4.15 on Saturday morning, to make sure I caught the 6.20am Grand Central from Bradford to King's Cross. I trusted the train to get me there at the appointed, time-tabled time. Having made this journey in late October to visit my sister, I had no reason to suspect things might be different.

I arrived at 6am. No train in sight. Alarmed, I made inquiries, to be told that the train had been cancelled due to engineering works at Doncaster. There was one at about 8.30am, which got to King's Cross at 1.15pm. That was no good. I was advised by an apologetic station staff man to take the next train to Leeds and buy a ticket for the 7am East Coast service to London. Which I did, at a cost of £89.50 for a return.

At Leeds I was told that, due to engineering works at Doncaster, the 7am was cancelled. The one at 8.05am stopped at Huntingdon where a bus would take me to another station for a local through train. That was no good. I was directed through the barrier to the information office, where four people in uniform were having a natter. Only when I banged by bag down on the counter did one of them look up.

My best option, apparently, was to go to Doncaster and wait for a London train from York or Edinburgh. By this time I was in a state of near panic. Not having a mobile phone (my fault entirely), I couldn't alert my true love to the chaos on the railways.

On the Doncaster platform, a large woman with ginger hair asked if I would mind taking part in a 'customer survey'. Although I was the very kind of person she should have questioned, she retreated when I intimated that my day was being ruined by the railways.

By chance I glanced at the electronic information board to see there was a 7.34am East Midlands train to St Pancras, next door to King's Cross. None of the rail staff I had spoken to had suggested this alternative, in spite of their computers and radio links. I boarded this train and got to London at about 11.20am in a state of extreme anxiety. I had to do breathing exercises on the way in to calm down.

Fortunately, the light of my life had had the bottle to wait, trusting me to turn up. I collapsed into her arms and was virtually speechless for a minute or more, as the tension eased. But for her I think I might have had a turn for the worse.

We had a happy time together until the time came for us to go our separate ways. Eventually, I and several thousand others, lots of them England supporters who had been to Twickenham, stuffed on board the 6.55pm East Coast train to Leeds. Standing room only. It was quite alarming. The 5pm and 6pm trains North had been cancelled, presumably due to engineering works at Doncaster, in spite of the fact that at least 150,000 people had converged on the capital for matches at Arsenal and Twickenham.

Departure time came and went and still the train hadn't moved. A voice over the pa system told us in broken English that departure would be delayed by at least 30 minutes, due to the late arrival of the guard. We were given regular updates on his estimated time of arrival. Turned out he was travelling south on another East Coast train that had been delayed two hours at Doncaster, due to a householder who had thoughtlessly chopped a tree down in his garden that had fallen across power lines and across the railway track.

Forty-five minutes late, our train got moving, only to stop before Stevenage, after Stevenage and several points between right up to Doncaster, where it stopped for about 30 minutes or more. The attitude of passengers around me was remarkable, especially the group of England rugby fans from Newark. They chatted and laughed, cheerfully taking the tension out of a stressful situation. They bought strangers drinks and, all in all, kept up the spirits of all within earshot. They performed the job that the train crew were being paid to do and didn't.

One or two people for whom the situation evidently proved too much had a sneaky smoke in the toilets. The official reaction was to announce that anyone caught smoking would be reported to British Transport Police. Meanwhile, just after Peterborough, we were told the bar was out of beer.

We got into Leeds at midnight, after all connecting services had stopped. Passengers who had missed trains were directed to approach station staff for help. No one met us off the train. About 50 of us went to the customer services office to inquire, politely, what was happening. A squat man declared it was nothing to do with him. Someone from East Coast would be along to sort it out, although he couldn't say when. After receiving a rather civilised bollocking from a man waiting to get back to Hornby, this Jobsworth simply buggered off, leaving us to it.

A decent chap in a red East Coast cap did arrive and sorted out taxis for us. It took a while, but what impressed me was the kindness of these people to one another. We all did our best to be helpful rather than irate. Even the chap in the cap was thanked for doing his best. I got home at 1am, exhausted from the emotions of the day and the stress of the journey.

If a train is an hour late you can claim for your ticket money back. I've done that. But supposing my day had been completely wrecked by the mixture of official incompetence and indifference that I experienced: how was that damage going to be repaired?

During the big snows, thousands of people had even worse problems at British airports. I gather passengers are regarded as "self-loading baggage" by airport staff. The rugby fans were saying that next time they ventured South to support England they would be going by car. Can you blame them?

Of course the rail companies would say that updated information about delays and cancellations had been put up on their website, implying it was the fault of ticket-holding passengers for failing to check this information before setting out. This is known as passing the buck - having already taken the bucks from trusting fools like me.

If this was a microcosm of the true state of this nation, God help us. It was clear to me that the majority of people paid to run things efficiently weren't bothered, while a stream of useless or patronising information was constantly relayed over tannoy systems to frustrated passengers. In spite of being entangled in a nightmare of regulations, warnings and idiotic announcements, most people remained robust and resilient, laughing at officials who, bound by more rules and regulations, were unable to adapt flexibly to a bad situation.

Every day we are lectured by the likes of Prince Charles on how we must lower our standard of living to benefit others in the Third World. The last time I saw HRH in person, he was making his way through Bradford's Forster Square station with a handful of officials, en route to his rather large private train. He made a joke to commuter passengers being held back from theirs until his train had left.

I very much doubt that His Royal Highness will ever find himself in the predicament of his future long-suffering, train-travelling subjects.

A Riposte to Andrew Marr

What the BBC's Andrew Marr said about bloggers at the Cheltenham Literary Festival - "A lot of bloggers appear to be socially inadequate, sitting in their mother's basement ranting...spewings and rantings of very drunk people late at night" - could have come out of Private Eye's Street of Shame.

Socially inadequate Lunchtime O'Booze spewing and ranting late at night outside the Lamb and Flag...no wonder the late, lamented Jeffrey Bernard was so often unwell.

Andrew Marr should know from John Simpson's book Unreliable Sources how badly the public has been misled by the MSM in its reporting of wars and political upheavals, particularly from foreign parts.

He should also know from Andrew Neil's well-visited political blog that MSM journalism is not incompatible with informative, serious blogging. Therefore to Marr all bloggers with the same tarry brush is as ill-considered as talking about Lunchtime O'Boozers in the same breath as Christopher Booker, Andrew Rawnsley and Jeremy Paxman.

As a mainstream media hack of long-standing and a blogger since April 2008, I know the strengths and weaknesses of blogger-rhythms and journalism.

Journalism is neither objective nor impartial. Items collated by news editors for news pages are selected. News, like time, is man-made; unlike the quality of mercy it droppeth not from the sky like gentle rain. Often news stories are angled, sometimes to reflect an argument or point of view, but more often to get the thing going. Journalists are constrained by deadlines, space and the success or failure of their ability to assimilate at speed disparate pieces of information. The quality of the questions they ask depends on that. Journalists have to interview people they do not like. But good or bad, a journalist has to stand by what is published under his by-line, even if it has been messed up by indifferent subbing. Occasionally he'll be praised. More often he'll be damned - especially when least expecting it.

Bloggers don't have to suffer personal ridicule or death threats, as I have. They can publish more or less what they like without disclosing their identity. They can pick and choose their subjects whereas journalists are asked to chase a story in which they may have no interest. They do not have to interview or question people they do not like. There is nobody subbing their copy or reminding them of C P Scott's dictum: Comments is free but facts are sacred. Within the laws of defamation they are free to be as vituperative or unfair as they like: balance is not a prerequisite as it usually is, certainly in regional journalism.

Andrew Marr should know that our privately-owned MSM, with its self-proclaimed credo to educate, entertain and enlighten, historically evolved from squibs, pasquinades, courants and samizdat pamplets such as the one penned by Jonathan Swift in 1729 - A Modest Proposal for the Preventing of Poor People in Ireland, From being a Burden on Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them beneficial to the Publick. These represented a form of blogging, if you will, in that debunking, damning and mocking often appeared anonymously or under a false name.

Some bloggers are raging nocturnal ranters. But nutters aside - and there are just as many green ink letter-writers to newspapers - there are plenty of others, digging into matters of controversy the MSM is too timid to mine. Irascible buggers such as Richard North - in another life an 18th century pamphleteer - challenge conventional wisdom and accepted opinion on man-made global warming and other scare stories, the European Union and the conduct of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

These bloggers offer an uncompromising alternative to official policy, editorial bias, MSM ignorance, the cult of celebrity and blandness.

What a pity the celebrated Andrew marred his case the way he did. Meanwhile, the world waits for the appearance of the 33 Chilean miners, buried alive for more than two months. What place will this story get on the news list of Mr Marr's next Sunday morning television show, I wonder.

Afghanistan: The End Game?

The Army Game used to be a popular weekly comedy on British television. In the early 1960s the British Army wasn't striving to combat foreign insurgencies.

Unlike today. The cost of that effort in Afghanistan has registered 307 on the meter. The cost of dying, as David Cameron has already said, is likely to rise through the summer.

But for how much longer? Less than two years, thinks Professor Paul Rogers from Bradford University's Peace Studies department and a contributor to the Oxford Research Group independent think tank, which specialises in issues of national and international security.

He said: "I think the death of the 300th soldier will remind people of the continuing losses in Afghanistan. Sympathy for the Army across the country does not translate into support for the war. I think there is widespread dismay about why we are still there.

"There is some pretty serious re-thinking going on behind the scenes. The Strategic Defence Review of the whole armed services will look at Afghanistan. They cannot keep 9,000 to 10,000 troops there for another ten years.

"Scaling down is likely to happen all the faster because there is a new Government and, more significantly, because domestic politics in the United States dictates that American tropps have to be withdrawn before the 2012 presidential election. That's the plan; if it works, the British will happily go along with that.

"I meet quite a few soldiers, including squaddies. They will acknowledge that the rate of training of the Afghan Army is very slow and they do not trust the Afghan police - they're too corrupt.

"Although they see themselves as proving themselves to the country, because fighting is what an army is all about, there are mixed feelings about the future. Very sharp intelligence officers I have spoken with know they - the army - cannot win.

"The more troops that go in the more they are seen by locals as occupiers and resistance rockets. In the first four months of 2010 the number of roadside bombs doubled over the same period for 2009. For a larger percentage of Afghans they are occupiers.

"I will be very surprised to see the same number of troops out there in the next two years.

"Had a large peace-keeping force been put in place after the Americans defeated the Taliban in 2001, the situation in Afghanistan might have been different."

Prof., Rogers has consistently argued that the US made an error of judgement after 9/11. Instead of treating Al Qaida as a "trans-national force of criminals" and sending in small specialist forces to bring them back for trial as criminals, it treated Bin Laden's men as members of a terrorist army.

So it looks as though the fate of the British Army in Afghanistan depends upon the election strategy of President Barack Obama. Is that what is known as a 'special relationship'?

Richard North warned in Ministry of Defeat that the British, in a state of denial about Iraq, ran the risk of making the same military and political mistakes made in Afghanistan.

"This is a politicians' war - it has nothing to do with the people. The people did not ask the soldiers to 'invade' Afghanistan, know little about the country and are indifferent to the aims of this Government, even if they are aware of them," he said.

More than 1,800 NATO soliders have now been sent home in boxes, more than 1,000 of them Americans - hence the significance of the US presidential election.

Can anybody without a vested interested seriously doubt that what has happened to Defence Chief Jock Stirrup and now General Stanley McChrystal are but two moves on the chess board of Afghanistan towards the end game?

Cutting the Obvious

The first cut is the deepest, says the hit pop song. Angela Merkel has made the first swipe with her axe, announcing cuts of 80 billion euros in Germany by the year 2014.

Laugh that one off Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy. The Germans expect the southern member states of the EU to be no less ruthless. They won't, of course. Where's there's a euro there's usually a wangle. Claiming for bogus olive oil production used to be a favourite scam. Probably still is.

Now Europe waits to see how good a head's man David Cameron is. He says everybody in the country is going to be affected.

Until events prove otherwise I shall take the Prime Minister at his word and assume that this means...

. Abolishing universal child benefits and winter fuel payments to pensioners. In future no British Government will pay women to have babies irrespective of social background, marital status, and record as a good citizen - ie not a screeching neighbourhood drunk or junkie. Universal benefits of every description will be means tested.

. Ending free drugs and needles for junkies. All junkies will be obliged to undertake supervised cold turkey until free of addiction. Ditto alcoholics.

. Cutting payments to quangos - about £43 billion - by at least half.

. Saving approximately £21 billion annually by giving Scotland independence and withdrawing its £13 billion subsidy - that will really give the Scots something to moan about. Similarly suspending the UK's annual payment to the EU of about £7 billion until the EU's books are signed off by auditors. Neil Kinnock, sorry, Lord Kinnock, should be able to advise David Cameron about that matter.

. Scrapping all payments for climate change projects immediately. That alone should tot up to something in the region of £18 billion a year.

. Slashing Overseas Aid Payments, which largely maintain the status quo because its not in the interest of government agencies to kill the goose that lays the golden egg.

. Stripping out managerial layers from the NHS, education and social welfare.

. Reducing defence spending. The only way to prevent the boys at the Ministry of Defence wasting mega millions on expensive toys unsuitable for the type of warfare going on in Afghanistan.

. Slashing the numbers of councillors and MPs. Bradford Metropolitan District Council has 90 councillors and five MPs. The cost of the councillors alone is £1.8m a year and rising. All of them get a basic salary of £12,700. Others get extra responsibility allowances ranging from £12,500 to £35,000. Those who don't enjoy ERAs merely have to turn up twice a year to guarantee their money. Nice non-work if you can get it. As things stand this country is a satrapy of the Greater European Empire of the EU, therefore we don't need 650 MPs in the House of Commons as well as European Members of Parliament. Playacting at democracy costs us at least £4 billion a year, maybe a lot more. Get rid Mr Axeman. Public service is just that: providing the public with services they need. It is not a job creation scheme for graduates, political activists and women who think they have a right to a career rather than a desire to serve.

Of course, little or none of the above will actually happen. The Ugly Kingdom, the UK, can rest easy in the grease and gravy of its dependency. But I'm not bitter.

That Picture on the Labour Manifesto...

It conjures up the days of Flanders and Swann, before the Beeching cuts, when Britain was networked with state-owned railways and families could take a steam train into the country, find a sunlit hill, and look towards the future optimistically.

Richard North says it reminds him of railway posters of 50 years ago. It reminds me of the kind of Communist art, call it social unrealism, favoured by Joseph Stalin: bright, sunny landscapes with smiling peasants in collectively-owned rippling wheatfields; the strong arms of bronzed industrial workers; the excitement of electricity pylons.

Only, in the picture on the cover of Labour's manifesto the cosy Beatrix Potter fields are unmarked by either electricity pylons or wind turbines. There they stand: the ideal white nuclear family, without an iPhone between them: mum holding the baby, dad standing with son, gazing into what looks like a nuclear explosion of a sunrise. In the far distance the silhouette of a city on a hill. The caption is: A Future/ Fair for all.

Wait a minute...isn't this picture of an England on which the sun does not set reminiscent of the picture Winston Churchill painted in his Finest Hour speech of June 18, 1940, just before the Battle of Britain?

...If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world move forward into broad, sunlit uplands...

It's a picture of the future in the guise of the imagined past, how things used to be before Windrush docked, before Yorkshire's mill owners imported all that cheap labour from North West Pakistan, before the egregious European Union opened its borders and opened up Blair's Britain to the wondrous benefits of over-population, religious intolerance and cultural diversity.

It's a future devoid of the social anxieties of the present. In short it's a picture of Peter Pan's Never Never land, where no one grows old, needs emergency hospital treatment or the assistance of the police or social workers. A future where youngsters are not abused and killed, where families are functional, crime is low, the weather is always sunny and the trains run on time.

The subliminal message of this piece of kitsch is, of course:- if you, the voters, can withstand the blandishments of David Cameron and Nick Clegg, then we, the Labour Party and you, can look forward to a sunny future.

This must have been the sort of picture that the Ministry Health, under Enoch Powell, showed round the townships of Jamaica in the mid-1950s, when London was short of nurses and bus conductors. While I didn't expect Labour to be honest and publish a picture of a wasteland, nor did I expect them to treat the public like foreigners, although in one sense I suppose we are.

Even people unable to read can see through this picture. Just because they can't spell subliminal or discuss semiotics in their pilates class, they know when they are being sold a pup. Think of all the people who have come back from a shit holiday in Spain, having mistaken the picture on the holiday brochure for reality.

For Labour's dream to be reality Gordon Brown and his merry chairpersons would have to stop immigration, restore marriage as the only basis of family life, withdraw all planned spending on climate change schemes - wind farms, again - and abandon John Prescott's scheme to fill greenfield sites with 300,000 new homes.

The boy in that idyllic picture can grow up sure in the knowledge that he won't be called upon to get his legs blown off in some doubtful foreign war. The baby, assume it's a girl, in the interests of balance, won't grow up hiding her face under a veil.

A future, fair for all: if you can forget the Australian national anthem - Arise, Australia fair - it's almost a line from a party marching song.

A future fair for all

A future fair for all...