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Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Moral compass meltdown

Poor Tommy Sheridan. He may or may not have fucked up. He may or may not have fucked a woman or two outside of precious wedlock. Whatever, he felt the wrath and vengeance of Rupert Murdoch's News of the World - that beacon of morality, shining its light out over a dark sea of filth where only the likes of sodomites, single-mothers and asylum seekers sail.

Its a bad news day for the guardians of morality.

First, we find out that the newspaper that was so outraged by claims that Sheridan took part in '3 in-a-bed' romps was bugging the mobile phone of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler while she still remained 'missing'. The News International stable is infamous for tasteless or outright offensive practises - remember the Hillsborough tragedy anyone? - but surely its sister paper, the NoTW, takes the biscuit for lowlifery. Is it any wonder that tabloid journalists usually occupy the same rung on the ladder of shame as do child molesters and Margaret Thatcher?

Then we find out that Sheridan may have been spared prison. It seems as if some vital emails in the possession of News International went 'missing in Mumbai' prior to the trial which saw Sheridan's former socialist comrades cosy up in bed with dirty Murdoch's organ.


AC Grayling thinks that tabloid journalism in the UK is a major impediment to a more informed and progressive society. Its hard to argue with him.
From the point of view of culture, and in particular from the point of view of British culture, a lot of visitors to the United Kingdom say how surprised they are by the unpleasant, rather raw nature, rather degraded and superficial nature of popular culture in the United Kingdom. The tabloid newspapers, the popular magazines, which are all about “celebrities”, which are all about a certain kind of voyeurism — they hunt in packs, the tabloid press, chasing after people, first to extol them and then to tear them down when they're up. And that there's a presumption that if a nail sticks up, it's got to be hammered down, so anybody who's a bit special in society or sticks out in a certain way is likely to get a hammering by the tabloid press. AC Grayling
If this is all rather depressing then news from the last tribal outpost in Western Europe might cheer you up. The deeply religious people of Northern Ireland are so hungry for flesh that 'houses of ill repute' are doing a roaring trade. This, despite the likes of blawhard bigot Doctor Reverend Iain Paisley preaching to his flock that if they want to be 'loyal' to God and Ulster then they first need to stop sex before marriage, oppose sodomy and spend each Sunday in church. His Roman Catholic 'counterparts in the magic arts' preach the same except they're not too bothered about the Sabbatarian bit as long as you shake your rosaries every once in a while.

This comes not long after Peter Robinson's clean-living, family values campaigner and homo-hating wife Iris was found to be indulging in a bit of sodomy herself with a younger man that was not her husband.

Amen.

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