Evolution in Coventry
Sunny morning in London. Rainy morning in Coventry – yet amazingly only 58 minutes apart by rail; I was there to deliver a lecture for Coventry University.
The place nestles around the cathedral in the centre of the city – the lecture was actually in the nave of it.
I had first visited the bomb crater that had been the cathedral when I was nine – the debris was still about and much of the city still bore the scars of the obliteration suffered in reprisal for Churchill’s bombing of Dresden and Munich.
The cathedral, which I last saw when I was 15, has stood the test of time and now acts as a kind of intellectual and spiritual interface between war and peace.
An amazing number of students attended the lecture, local citizens too. We were discussing the evolution of the digital age – I was arguing that it is a golden age of liberation and democratisation.
A decade ago we would never have got the small disk upon which such dynamite material as MPs expenses was stored. TV is no longer a one way street – it is much more interactive than when I began but there is still further to go.
The internet may be the porn broker of the universe but it is also the greatest threat to the authoritarian ways of the Chinese Communist Party.
I’m now back at my basement office wondering if it is still sunny in London and rainy in Coventry.
Time to wrestle with the Goldman Sachs bonus payout. Modest? Exceptional? Outrageous?
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It was great meeting you today, Jon. Your views on the ‘technological revolution’ were insightful and it was nice for aspiring journalists, like myself, and students in general to hear a positive message from someone as respectable and experienced as yourself.
You’re a journalist so check your facts. Coventry was bombed in November 1940, Munich mainly in 1944 and Dresden in Feb 1945. Hardly a “reprisal”.
To quote Bomber Harris himself ;
“The Nazis entered this war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everyone else, and nobody was going to bomb them. At Rotterdam, London, Warsaw, and half a hundred other places, they put their rather naive theory into operation. They sowed the wind, and now they are going to reap the whirlwind.”
There may have been a few years between the Coventry and Dresden events Richard, but it most certainly was a reprisal…
Ray you seem to have misunderstood both Jon Snow’s original statement and my comment. He says that the bombing of Coventry was a reprisal for Munich and Dresden. It wasn’t because it came first.
Goldman Sachs? Outrageous but not surprising. It appears that once people get into a certain position (see MPs) they feel they can pay lip service to change and fairness but then just wait for the furore to die down and get back to business as normal.
And it appears the rest of us are powerless to do anything about it. We can get angry, shout and blog but short of revolution, it will be the same old same old. It’s all very depressing.
I’m with you. My brother’s and I all got different versions of history in school; I only found out about some elements of the conflict in N.I. after I moved to Sweden. A little over a decade ago, Sweden was talking about banning video players so that they could continue to control the T.V. screen (doubtless with the best of intentions). Hopefully, those days are gone forever.
I’m not so sure its a golden age yet Jon. It might turn into one when viewed through rose-tinted specs a few years further down the line, but surely what we’re experiencing at the moment is the white-heat of change….?
No Jon, storm clouds are well and truly brewing over London. Ya see, there are many winds of change howling round Westminster but, the old foundations don’t give up their draconian ways too easy. It’s only lightning bolts that have any effect.
Much resistance resides within the elite ‘Gentlemens Club’. They think they can weather the storm and obsessively promote their ‘let’s draw a line and move on’ policies. Fickle hope though when a Hurricane emerges, angrily ready to root up and, root out the dead wood and shake the foundation so great that irrepairable damage ensues.
“Time to wrestle with the Goldman Sachs bonus payout. Modest? Exceptional? Outrageous?”
Well done Jon on ambushing Mandelson tonight and forcing him to address the outrageous banking bonus intentions! Of course neither he nor Brown will see that anything is done – they don’t want to spoil their own chances of securing a highly lucrative non-executive director’s job with the banks while we little people suffer under the Tories.
Agree with you that the only way things are really going to change is if there’s some sort of revolt. As we’ve seen today, with one MP’s paying expenses to their own company, the ruling classes (not just MP’s) seem to see nothing wrong with that sort of corruption: its all part of the job so far as they are concerned…
Should we not have revolted when Brown was made the Prime Minister without any sort of democratic election, or that Peter Mandelson a man who resigned from his ministerial position twice (for suspected corrupt dealings) only to be made a life peer by Brown and now has a large say over the workings of government without having to answer to any electorate? Should we have revolted when we found out that we have been sent to war on a lie? Should we have revolted on learning of the “Super Injunction” being used to suppress the freedom of the press and to protect multimillion corporations?
Revolt only happens when the majority people stand in unison against those in power. The sorry truth is that we who have an interest in our national affairs and care about such injustices are a minority. For a revolt to happen the Government would have to cancel X Factor and Dancing with the Stars.
Jon why didn’t you question Peter Mandelson’s commitment to the FSA being able to sort out the banks last night, when the report you played 2 minutes before stated that the banks don’t care about the FSA, because they will just get around them using overseas accounts?
Well said Jimmy B.
Totally agree with everything you said.
JS: Anyone who can describe Coventry Cathedral as a “spiritual interface between war and peace” is alright-by-me.
Either that, or he’s been eating some strange mushrooms.
Look at the title Richard ” Evolution in Coventry”
Your explanation today of your obvious fury at media’s “collusion to collaborate with government” over prince Harry’s posting to Afghanistan made perfect sense (namely the fact that the established D notice procedure should have been used rather than a trade for eventual juicy, perhaps contrived, media material in exchange for silence). But, would you concede you didn’t really state this at the time and instead gave the impression that you thought Harry’s posting was fair game in the interests of freedom of the press? Your point today is of vital and correct importance but, at least from my perspective, was not evident at the time.
Thanks for an excellent talk today.
Dave Pritlove: JS was astonished(as any citizen of the UK’s democracy would be) that the Establishment can still buy-off ‘the fourth estate’. If there’s confusion, it’s that Snow and C4News are themselves part of this fourth estate.
In other words, there is no fourth estate – that term has always been a sweetener to pacify journalists. I hope that with the decline of traditional newspapers there may be more Snows in the future – i.e. more rogue-reportage. Journalism grew up as part of the Establishment (that’s what “fourth estate” means), but now it may be about to break free.
JS was exactly right to query this Harry-nonsense. What’s the alternative?GMTV.
The trouble with inciting notions of revolt, is that it not only stirs the young vulnerable minds into action ( although at Uni they would proabably say that they were in control of their thoughts and actions) but also opens a door for more radical action.
We have witnessed in many of your overseas coverages anarchy leading to civil disturbances .It is only yesterday we witnessed the indiscriminate violence where civilians were taking pot shots at one another.
I myself witnessed yesterday how transferral of power from central to local can provide local corruption and local resolutions.
Why do we always talk of ruling classes as being more corrupt than others. ? Isn’t it the fact that they have more money and contacts to corrupt in a bigger way?
Whe I first read the NHS plan for ” communitarianisms in 1999 I realised that the plan ideally had it’s good points. The restructering was not targeted soley at the NHS , but rather on society as a whole. However this also frightens me a great deal , for now there are many power bases and the lynch mob precident is corruptive. Communities will not spend money for , thoughtful beings, but are swayed by an adoration for brass.
Corruption, greed and selfishness is rife at all levels. Whether you’re in Government circles or washing up in some Cafe’, almost everyone is on the fiddle in some way. The trouble is, when the governing law making central or local government set a president of corruption, when they’re suppose to to be the ‘standard bearers’, this leads to hatreds, resentments, inequality and No hope of a decent future. This is typified by the British Government. Those running it are the worst type of people and, their connections with the rich, eventually create such hatreds that a revolt becomes the only language they listen to.
Whilst watching BBC parliament and observing the democratic process in action. The Law commission Bill is being discussed at present, with Bridget Prentice the “Justice Minister” proposing amendments are too rigid and flexibility is required to meet individual cases.
Clarification and decisive language is being put forward by Chrisopher Cope MP for Christchurch.
Flexibility and rigidity are the two basic concepts in the democratic process.
An example of this is to look at out own blogsites “rule of thumb”
If I were to say” Jon Snow is desirable” then I would have a long list of university students and young ladies, where power , sexuality and reason are confused .The proposal would get many “thumbs up ”
This sort of personality politics, or the lack of it, is where the house gets it right.
I am perhaps moving away from entry into and the scene setting of Coventry for the student lectures, however since democratisation, liberation and authoritarianism appears to have been on the agenda ,I feel as though I need to clarify my point.
Who precedes whom in corruption.?
Ann Widdecombe rightly said that she abided by the rules at that time in the expenses scandal and yet many others
with large amounts of hidden dealings were probably going ‘scot free’ , due to underhandedly not documenting financial transactions .
Who are the standard bearers?
to abide by the rules at the time is like a soldier saying i was following orders .It is the excuse of those that have been caught out in wrong doings.That our legislators resort to such excuses is unforgivable.To claim any form of expense it must be one that is open to scrutiny, proven by receipt and lawful both morally and legally.