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An agenda

“Melanie” rides again

Time for an apology. I am sorry for implying that Johann Hari in general was an “idiot” and an “anti-intellectual”, ((In this post, now updated with more handy footnotes for idiots.)) instead of limiting my contumely strictly to the idiotic and anti-intellectual nature of his printed assault on Zizek. There’s a difference between saying something is idiotic and calling someone an idiot. Another good reason to apologise for this is that, allowing too free a use of such words, we might run out of vocabulary for people like “Melanie Phillips”.

In this recent post, “Melanie” is writing about the recent resignation of Lord Browne, head of BP. Browne has been defended by Matthew Parris, who writes: “What this story is really about is the awkardness of gay sex in the business world and our general fascination with the lives of the rich and (in Lord Browne’s case) slightly famous.” “Melanie” responds:

What extraordinary insouciance towards dishonesty in court. And what a spectacular misrepresentation of the cause of Lord Browne’s downfall. That noise you can hear is the rumbling of an agenda that drives all before it. It is not a pretty sound.

“An agenda”? Time to conjugate:

I have principles;
You have interests;
They have an agenda.

And what is this nefarious “agenda” to which “Melanie” objects? The second half of Parris’s column is about what he calls “a lingering problem about homosexuality and business” in Britain. Obviously, Parris’s “agenda” is to discuss bigotry. What a terrible thing to have on your to-do list. Well, I suspect that that’s not quite what “Melanie” thinks the “agenda” is. Darkly warning of this “agenda” that is “rumbling” and “drives all [all!] before it”, making a sound that is not “pretty”, “Melanie” is really sticking her fingers in her ears and screaming: “Shut up y00 gayz!!!!!!!!”

Of course “Melanie” has no “agenda” of her own. I certainly doubt it has entered into the calculations taking place in her tiny mind that Lord Browne, for example, is widely admired as the head of an oil company who has stated clearly that anthropogenic global warming is real, and caused by burning fossil fuels. Doubtless her post is pure of intention, as far as shrill hatred goes.

Anyway, perhaps we should have a whip-round to buy “Melanie” a pair of earmuffs, to protect her from the horrible “noise” of this gay agenda. Ah, but on second thoughts, if an excellent pair of earmuffs were clamped or stapled to “Melanie”‘s head, we would still be able to hear her, even if she couldn’t hear anyone else: arguably, the worst of all possible worlds. Come to think of it, it’s rather like the one we live in already, isn’t it, readers?

27 comments
  1. 1  Ex Ponto  May 3, 2007, 7:51 pm 

    Thanks for reading “Melanie” so we don’t have to. The disappointing thing about “Melanie” is how calm “she” seems in person. Whenever I watch “her” interviewed, I pray that the bile and vitriol will come will come burbling to the surface. Unfortunately she seems able to retain at least a veneer of sanity, at least for television appearances.

    p.s. Parris and Simon Jenkins are the only reasons I read The Times these days. I’ve thought for a long while that the Tory Wets would be preferable to the whole New Labour project.

  2. 2  Richard  May 3, 2007, 8:29 pm 

    Unfortunately she seems able to retain at least a veneer of sanity, at least for television appearances.

    Does this constitute further evidence of Steven’s thesis that she is a construct? The actress isn’t paid for bile and vitriol: that’s the writer’s job.

  3. 3  Niko  May 3, 2007, 9:14 pm 

    My final comment: we have reached consensus. “Melanie” is a floating signifier – for evil…

    Have you seen her views on intelligent design?

  4. 4  Ex Ponto  May 3, 2007, 9:38 pm 

    The actress isn’t paid for bile and vitriol: that’s the writer’s job.

    What is she paid for, then? Her good looks? Honestly, it’s a sloppy effort.

  5. 5  Steven  May 3, 2007, 9:46 pm 

    The existence of “Melanie” is itself a standing refutation of “Intelligent Design”.

  6. 6  Cian  May 3, 2007, 11:40 pm 

    She doesn’t sound sane on the fucking moral maze, which given her competition is Claire “Living Marxism” Fox is some achievement.

    I assume everyone saw her “interesting” article in the Spectator on the world wide conspiracy to hide the evidence of WMD in Iraq. Loony Tunes.

  7. 7  Alex Higgins  May 4, 2007, 12:12 am 

    OK, that’s better… Johann’s a big fan of this site in general, by the way.

    And we both loved this line:

    “Doubtless her post is pure of intention, as far as shrill hatred goes.”

    Applause!

    I wonder if the image in the last paragraph isn’t becoming a little violent, though? Are you losing patience, Steven? :o)

    I was interested to check the ID thing out, since I was under the impression that like many of her bent, our Melanie was not religious but liked/cynically exploited religion in so far as it could be used to bolster social reaction and generally opiate the masses. Why propose ID then? Just a general antagonism towards science?

    She writes:

    Th[e ID] movement is growing so fast that the more prominent atheists are becoming ever shriller in their denunciations. Last weekend Professor Colin Blakemore, head of the Medical Research Council, even used the arrival of bird flu on British shores to beat the drum for Darwin and claim that there was no intelligent design in a virus, only the mindless force of natural selection.”

    Will they stop at nothing? Why they will even exploit the mutation of a virus into a more deadly strain to argue for evolutionary biology! I sense an agenda.

  8. 8  Steven  May 4, 2007, 12:55 am 

    I wonder if the image in the last paragraph isn’t becoming a little violent, though? Are you losing patience, Steven? :o)

    The first version had “nailed” instead of “stapled”, so under the circumstances I think I was quite mild.

  9. 9  Alex Higgins  May 4, 2007, 2:53 am 

    Oh, admirably so.

  10. 10  Leinad  May 4, 2007, 5:48 am 

    Why propose ID then? Just a general antagonism towards science?

    I think it’s just antagonism to you know… reality.

  11. 11  Thom  May 4, 2007, 9:02 am 

    I do find the focus on the gay element of this story a bit uncomfortable. I mean, if he was lashing out his wages on young women, I don’t think quite the same tone would have been adopted.

  12. 12  Andrew Brown  May 4, 2007, 4:59 pm 

    But, shorn of the agenda business, she does have a point. It wasn’t “perjury, fiddlesticks”; it was perjury, and that is something powerful people should not get away with. Nor can I entirely escape the suspicion that Matthew Parris was arguing in a way that he wouldn’t have done had it been a Ms Chevalier.

    One can buy the larger Parris argument — that it is a shame that Lord Browne felt he had to conceal his sexuality, and possibly a tragedy as well — without accepting that as a result of this shame his actions were blameless. They weren’t. That’s what tragedy means.

  13. 13  Alex Higgins  May 4, 2007, 5:36 pm 

    “What extraordinary insouciance towards dishonesty in court.”

    As I read that, a thought occurred to me.

    Google: Melanie Phillips, Scooter Libby

    Yep.

    “But, shorn of the agenda business, she does have a point. It wasn’t “perjury, fiddlesticks”; it was perjury, and that is something powerful people should not get away with.” (Andrew)

    Interesting point. Should the powerful be allowed to commit perjury? Let us ask Melanie Phillips:

    “Many American commentators have expressed justifiable outrage over the perjury convictions of Lewis ‘Scooter’ Libby, the former aide to the US Vice President Dick Cheney… Libby was hung out to dry for perjury. But the lies he appears to have told on oath concerned merely the identity of the person who had told him about Ms Plame. And the person who told the real whopper was none other than Joseph C Wilson IV himself.”

    Needless to say, the prominent defenders of Mr. Libby (“many American commentators” – no doubt drawn from across the US political spectrum, from William Kristol all the way to Fred Hiatt) are without anything so nefarious as an agenda. In stark contrast to agenda-monger Valerie Plame, who shall remain nameless.

  14. 14  Steven  May 4, 2007, 5:55 pm 

    Nice work, Alex!

    Of course, one may sincerely disapprove of perjury as “Melanie” pretends to selectively (some of my best friends take perjury very seriously), and not start ranting along with her about a gay pro-perjury “agenda”.

  15. 15  Stephen  May 5, 2007, 3:15 am 

    I wanted to comment on “Googleerse” but it looks like the comments are closed. So here is a search result that led to my blog:

    Ten big beautiful women winds and clouds announcement
    Place Key word Tendency Today searches
    1 Liu Yuqi ? 329,899
    2 Liu Yifei ? 197,563
    3 Cai Yilin ? 183,603
    4 Tonga Li ? 144,672
    5 Open ?? ? 120,588
    6 S.h.e ? 118,203
    7 Zhang Shaohan ? 107,968
    8 Xu if ?u ? 101,861
    9 Lin Zhi Ling ? 98,332
    10 Li Yuchun ? 94,150

    How about that for weird?

  16. 16  Andrew Brown  May 6, 2007, 7:51 am 

    Alex: that she herself has an agenda; that she was wrong about Scooter Libby — none of that takes away from the fact that she did have a point when attacking Lord Browne. Mind you, a good catch about SL.

    I was going to write that even a stopped clock must be right twice a day but possibly paranoiacs are right more often, for if their clock is not merely stopped, but goes backwards, it will be right more often than twice every 24 hours.

  17. 17  David Duff  May 7, 2007, 11:24 am 

    The late and un-lamented Nikita Kruschev was a shrewd, old monster who once said that there was no such thing as a neutral man. Perhaps you high-minded fellows here could point me at anyone who does not have, as you put it, an “agenda”. (I shall try to resist a snigger at the constant misuse of this word on a site that pretends to high standards in the use of English.)

    As for Lord Browne, he is a man who buys sex, which is not unusual and therefore not worth remarking; but he is also a man who when caught out, kicks the prostitute, and that is! In addition, he is a man who lies about it afterwards. “‘Nuff said”, I think is the current jargon.

  18. 18  Alex Higgins  May 7, 2007, 4:59 pm 

    ‘Perhaps you high-minded fellows here could point me at anyone who does not have, as you put it, an “agenda”.’

    Er… it wasn’t Steven or anyone else here who “put it”, it was Melanie Phillips.

    “…the constant misuse of this word on a site that pretends to high standards in the use of English”

    But no one has used ‘agenda’ on this thread, except ironically. And the misuse of the word is the subject of the thread.

    “I shall try to resist a snigger…”

    Actually, I doubt that you ever try to resist a snigger.

    It would be difficult for you, since your only form of communication with others appears from your comment and website to be ill-founded sneering. (Including a post that disputes the argument of a 7/7 survivor by calling her a “stupid, egotistical woman with limited intelligence but unlimited emotional difficulties”, and refers to her breasts in the title – classy, mate, really classy).

  19. 19  David Duff  May 7, 2007, 11:13 pm 

    “Bosoms”, Mr. Higgins, not “breasts”! There is delicate distinction that would be appreciated by our host who is, I gather, a connoisseur of words.

    Also, the sneer on my site was not aimed a “7/7 survivor” but at an unharmed, uninjured 7/7 ‘survivor’ who has subsequently backed determinedly into the media spotlight in pursuance of what you might call, ironically, of course, her ‘agenda’. Anyone on a political platform is fair game, in my opinion.

    Finally and happily for both of us, I am not your “mate”!

  20. 20  Jim  May 8, 2007, 11:51 am 

    Bosom was the word you were looking for then, mate.

  21. 21  redpesto  May 8, 2007, 6:48 pm 

    “the noise you can hear is the rumbling of an agenda that drives all before it. It is not a pretty sound.”

    At the risk of turning into Jeremy Clarkson (‘In the name of God, no…’) or Chris Morris: what kind of ‘agenda’ is it? A juggernaut-like vehicle? A bulldozer? Or is the noise like Holst’s ‘Mars, The Bringer of War’? Or is the agenda like some kind of demonic drover, cackling evilly as it herds the sheep-like masses to who-knows-where?

  22. 22  merkur  May 8, 2007, 9:00 pm 

    “Anyone on a political platform is fair game, in my opinion.”

    Indeed they are; but calling somebody “a stupid, egotistical woman of limited intelligence” isn’t a valid political point by anybody’s definition.

  23. 23  David Duff  May 10, 2007, 5:33 pm 

    If it’s true it’s valid!

    [Put a sock in it – SP]

  24. 24  merkur  May 10, 2007, 8:50 pm 

    No it isn’t, you malicious dimwit.

  25. 25  David Duff  May 11, 2007, 9:14 am 

    Fery surry, Mr. Hurty flurty schnipp schnipp! Merker, Sur, und yuoo moost ixcoose-a my deemvittery, su vhet it is it – epert frum beeeng un essershun sumoohet seemiler tu yuoors?

    [translated by the management – SP]

  26. 26  Flying Rodent  May 11, 2007, 12:03 pm 

    The Duffer’s up to his old tricks, I see.

    I’m sure you’re aware that what he’s really after is to be banned, so that he can pound his chest in wailing victimhood over his persecution.

    Never happy unless he’s miserable, that man.

  27. 27  merkur  May 11, 2007, 2:10 pm 

    Yes, I realise I should avoid rising to the bait, but the jet lag’s keeping me up.

    I suppose I should feel sorry for him, but there are more important things in this world to worry about.



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