Heresy Corner

Votes for prisoners?

2012-05-22T19:11:00.006+01:00

The government has six months to obey a directive from the European Court of Human Rights to "bring forward legislative proposals" to allow prisoners to vote. This follows today's ruling (pdf) in the Italian case of Franco Scoppola, a convicted murderer who, ironically, lost his appeal against his own inability to vote in Italy.

Italian law is, in some ways, harsher than that in the UK. Here, prisoners currently serving sentences cannot vote but, having paid their debt to society, regain all the rights they had before being sent down. That is, partly, because disenfranchisement is not a separate punishment but merely a consequence of imprisonment. Prisoners can't vote, any more than can children, the mentally incapacitated and members of the House of Lords. In Italy, however, disenfranchisement is a distinct penalty, imposed on those sentenced to terms of least five years and continuing long after their release. Indeed, the ban is for life, though it is possible for ex-convicts to have their civil rights restored if a court decides that they have earned it. Which the court is free not to do.

The European Court of Human Rights today ruled that permanently depriving offenders of their right to vote was not disproportionate or indiscriminate, and "pursued the legitimate aims of preventing crime and enhancing civic responsibility and respect for the rule of law and ensuring the proper functioning and preservation of the democratic regime." But it took the opportunity to reaffirm its belief that the loss of voting rights by currently serving UK prisoners is a breach of their fundamental human rights.

The United Kingdom Government, intervening as a third party, considered that the Court’s findings in Hirst (no. 2) v. the United Kingdom were wrong. In that case the Court had found a violation of Article 3 of Protocol No. 1 because of the general, automatic and indiscriminate nature of the measure depriving convicted prisoners of the right to vote. The Court noted that, since that judgment, nothing appeared to have changed at the European and Convention levels that might justify the re-examination of the principles set forth in that case – on the contrary, if anything, the trend was towards fewer restrictions on convicted prisoners’ voting rights. The Court accordingly reaffirmed the principles set out in the Hirst (no. 2) judgment, in particular the fact that when disenfranchisement affected a group of people generally, automatically and indiscriminately, based solely on the fact that they were serving a prison sentence... it was not compatible with Article 3 of Protocol No. 1.

The Court considers it outrageous for prisoners to be denied the vote, as they are denied other, more basic, human and civil rights, while they are serving their sentence. This is disproportionate and indiscriminate. Yet it's fine for Italy to have a system under which anyone who has been sentenced to five years or more loses the right to vote for their entire life. What kind of crazy is that?

Being sent to prison entails losing a number of normal rights, privileges and obligations besides the inability to vote. The most obvious deprivation is that of liberty, but it is by no means the only one. Prisoners cannot choose their manner of work, nor demand to be properly rewarded for any work they are compelled to perform. They may not live where they choose, or go on holiday. They may not enjoy sexual relations with their spouse - a particularly harsh deprivation, in that it equally affects the partner (who may be entirely innocent of any offence) and not infrequently leads to the permanent destruction of relationships. Prisoners lose their right to privacy (for example, to communicate with the outside world without those communications being monitored). Their rights to free expression and free association are, at best, severely circumscribed. They have to follow orders. On the other hand, prisoners have their food and shelter taken care of, and they are given educational and training opportunities often denied to those on the outside.

Compared with more basic human and civil rights, the loss of an opportunity to make a mark on a ballot paper, if there happens to be an election, strikes me as a fairly trivial loss. The right to vote is a precious one, of course, but it would be a rather strange person who would prefer to be allowed to vote than to have sex. Or to go where they liked. Or to earn a decent wage. I'm especially baffled that "votes for prisoners" seems to have become a great liberal cause.

If the right to vote is so basic a human right, moreover, why should it be restricted to citizens? Foreign nationals, unless they hail from Ireland or the Commonwealth, are not permitted to vote in British Parliamentary election, even if they have lived legally in this country for decades and never committed a crime. Why should their permanent deprivation - and they may have perfectly good reasons for preferring to remain citizens of their country of origin - be considered less objectionable than the temporary deprivation of those currently serving a prison sentence for a serious breach of society's laws?

But to pose that question is to suggest the true answer: the right to vote is not a natural right but a civil right. It does not properly belong to the sphere of fundamental human rights at all. Rather it is bound up with the constitutional settlement of the nation. The European Convention (Protocol 1.3) provides for "regular, free and fair" elections. It does not specify the franchise. All persons under 18 are currently unable to vote, however intelligent or interested in politics they may be, even if they are (unlike convicted prisoners) working and paying taxes.

If voting is such a fundamental right, on what basis it is withheld from teenagers? More to the point, if it is such a fundamental right, why is it not asserted to be such in the Convention or its Protocols?

There are, no doubt, good arguments for allowing prisoners to vote. Some claim that it may help with the process of rehabilitation. I can't see myself why it should. A prisoner who really cares about being able to vote is more likely to be encouraged towards rehabilitation by the prospect of early release for good behaviour - and thus earlier restoration of his or her voting rights - than if nothing has been lost to begin with. It's said that refusal of the franchise places convicts out of society. Well so it does and, many would say, a good thing too. In any case, this is a political argument, and should be had in Parliament and in the court of public opinion. It is not the sort of question that should be left to unelected judges, especially not to judges who are not part of this country or its legal system.

I hope that MPs have the good judgement to vote down whatever proposals the government feels obliged to put before them. I really do.

Alain de Botton's guide to porn

2012-05-21T13:51:00.002+01:00

The writer and philosopher Alain de Botton has spoken of his desire to create a new form of pornography, one "fit for thoughtful, good human beings" and that could be "harnessed to what is noblest in us." Now, writing exclusively in Heresiarch's Dungeon, he outlines his vision and offers some more reflections on the modern porn industry.

Get out of jail free?

2012-05-18T14:53:00.000+01:00

Here's a fascinating suggestion:

Scottish independence could see the UK kicked out of the European Union and forced to surrender its £3 billion annual rebate if it wanted to rejoin, a senior constitutional lawyer has told MPs.

Patrick Layden QC, a former Scottish Executive legal expert, warned that other EU countries could exploit separation to argue that the United Kingdom has ceased to exist as a member state.

Ministers in Edinburgh and London would then both have to reapply for membership, but he said they could be stripped of “ridiculous” privileges that governments on the Continent resent.

The assumption that an independent Scotland would remain automatically a part of the EU has been questioned before. But the notion that the rump of the UK -- which would still include Wales and Northern Ireland as well as Scotland -- would cease to be the same country in international law is rather more questionable. Would the UK cease to exist if there was a united Ireland? Surely not. Nor would an enlarged Ireland be a new country.

The West Germany that signed up to the Treaty of Rome in 1957 arguably ceased to exist in 1990. In the event of Scottish separation, there would be no new Parliament in Westminster (merely one with fewer MPs); no new government (unless the loss of Scottish members led to the fall of a Labour administration) and no new head of state. That's more than could be said for the Soviet Union when it was dissolved in 1992. It's government and constitutional continuity lapsed with it. Boris Yeltsin, who was already president of Russia within the USSR became the first president of a constitutionally autocephalous Russian Federation by default. It was legally a new country. But it seemlessly inherited the USSR's seat on the UN Security Council and the USSR's various treaty obligations.

So I don't think a shrunken "United Kingdom of England, Wales and Northern Ireland" would find itself outside the EU. And I'd be surprised if Scotland had any trouble being accepted, either. However, it's a nice idea to play with. What would happen if the European Court of Justice were to rule that neither of the two "new" countries remained a member state of the EU?

I've no doubt that such a scenario would be perceived by the British civil service as an ultimate nightmare. EU membership is so intertwined with the way the UK is run that unravelling it would be immensely disruptive and psychologically disturbing to the permanent government. They would advise ministers to avoid protracted accession negotiations at almost any cost, playing on politicians' fears about loss of influence and economic uncertainty. If other member states dragged their feet, surrendering the rebate and promising to join the Euro could be portrayed as the lesser of two evils.

Yet any new settlement would need to be put before the people in a referendum. The EU is unpopular enough as it is, and these days you need to be named Michael Heseltine or Peter Mandelson to not think that joining the Euro would be absolutely crazy. A proposed re-entry based on humiliating terms, leaving the UK shelling out yet more money and receiving even less in return would surely be rejected by a large majority. It's hard to see any government taking the risk.

On the contrary, there would be enormous public pressure to get a much better deal -- and even that would run a considerable risk of being rejected. If the UK suddenly found itself outside the EU, a large section of the press and the Parliamentary Tory party would be ecstatic (thank you, Scotland!) and immediately campaign to keep it that way. The government would have to make a positive case, not to stay in the EU but to join up, and to pay the (rebate-free) £6 billion per year membership fee. The case for not joining would be easy to make: look at Greece. Look at Spain. Look at Ireland.

An enforced departure from the EU, as an unintended consequence of Scottish independence, would provide a perfect opportunity to negotiate the kind of semi-detached, pick 'n' mix relationship that opinion polls suggest that most British (and certainly English) people would prefer. It would also be possible to renegotiate, and substantially reclaim, territorial fishing rights. In the early 1970s, Ted Heath was desperate to get into the Common Market at almost any price. That would no longer apply. The British economy may be in considerable difficulty at the moment, but so is most of the rest of Europe, and with the rise of China and Brazil the advantages of being shackled to the EU corpse are no longer as obvious as they were. An English government would be in an ideal position to play hard to get. Everything would be up for negotiation.

Nor could EWNI easily be portrayed as having "rejected Europe". It would merely, by a constitutional accident not of its doing, find itself suddenly outside the EU's structures. What a remarkable Get Out of Jail free card. For that reason, it is surely highly improbable that any European government (even the French) would deliberately bring Eurosceptics' greatest desire into fruition. It would, rather, be for the government of the rump UK to seize the opportunity, by declaring unilaterally England and Scotland are wholly new entities that would have to apply to join the EU. Time, I think, for Tory Eurosceptics to make a tactical alliance with the SNP.

Rich People don't Create Jobs

2012-05-18T13:51:00.002+01:00

Valdemar thinks this guy talks a lot of sense.

"In a capitalist economy, the true job creators are middle class consumers. Taxing the rich, to make investment to help the middle classes grow and thrive, is the single shrewdest thing we can do for the middle class, for the poor and for the rich."

Something tells me it's not quite that simple.

Leveson: an Independent view

2012-05-15T17:22:00.002+01:00

Lord Justice Leveson himself is now thoroughly bored with listening to the same tales of phone-hacking over and over again. He has nightmares of ending up like Lord Saville, who wasted most of his judicial career on an interminable inquiry into Bloody Sunday. His other main fear is that when he finally does produce a report it will join all the others on the shelf. And then in 10 or 20 years time there will be another scandal. That's how we do things in this country.

So thinks Independent editor Chris Blackhurst, who was talking about the Leveson Inquiry yesterday evening at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. He also conveyed a sense of the overwhelming pervasiveness of what he calls the Leveson industry. His own newspaper is a relatively small player in the ongoing saga of phone-hacking and media cross-ownership (the Indy didn't hack or employ private investigators, he maintained, because it couldn't afford to) but he's still kept busy by it. He recalled one week when he gave no fewer than four talks on the subject. When it will all end is anyone's guess, except that it will enrich many lawyers.

One of Blackhurst's complaints related to the inquiry's open-ended, indeed vague, terms of reference. Leveson is not looking into a specific misdeed or problem, such as phone-hacking or media ownership or the relationship between News International and the Metropolitan police. Rather he is charged with reporting on "the culture, practices and ethics of the press." It is a task that might have no end. Blackhurst himself could only scratch the surface of the issues raised by the current debate on the state of journalism. He didn't mention Johann Hari, for example.

What he did say was that Leveson "goes to the heart of what is wrong with this country today." The laws that were drawn up and passed for a purpose were simply ignored by journalists, by the police and CPS, by politicians. Power silenced what should have been an outcry. The law "fell asleep": the police, the CPS and the Information Commissioner "simply didn't want to know". Only when the hacking of Milly Dowler's phone came to light was their enough of a public reaction to compel David Cameron to set up Leveson as a traditional Yes, Minister-style response to the situation.

And while Leveson is "about" the press, for Blackhurst it is about much more. It should, he suggested, dispel any smug notion that Britain is an unusally clean country, that corruption scarcely exists here. Little money changes hands, instead it works by nudges, winks, mutual favours and (in the case of Rebekah Wade and the Met) gift-horses. Leveson might be exposing the corruption of the press, but less is being said about corruption involving arms manufacturers, the pharmaceutical industry, and PR. Leveson has failed to explore the way that PRs working in businessm the arts, fashion and sports - "some of the most powerful people in the country" - dictate the press coverage given to their employers.

Indeed he sounded quite indignant on behalf of journalism. Week after week journalists are being hounded, he lamented. Leveson has not heard about any of the good things that the press do, such as bringing to light the Parliamentary expenses scandal. All this at a time when the press is weaker than it has ever been, haemorrhaeging money and readers, challenged by an unregulated and unregulatable cyberspace. Nevertheless, he seemed quite comfortable

The real trouble, he suggested, was the Britain had no mechanism for dealing with corporate malfeasance. While the US has regularly seen top executives (such as the Enron crew) paraded through the courts, no banker over here has even been arrested. If the phone-hacking scandal had happened in America, the Murdochs would have done a perp-walk.

A few sidelights:

-The first question was asked by a "gentleman in the front row" who turned out to be Norman Fowler. I wondered if the students in the audience had a clue who he was.

Fowler suggested that the main issue was the concentration of media ownership, especially in Murdoch's hands, to which Blackhurst responded wondering who would buy loss-making newspapers if press empires were broken up. This led to an anecdote about how he and Rosie Boycott had hoped to turn the Express titles into beacons of liberal, intelligent thought (a sort of mid-market Guardian, I suppose) but had been thwarted when the group was snapped up by Richard Desmond. Cue much harrumphing about how Downing Street were "completely slavish" towards the pornographer who temporarily derailed his career.

- No-one mentioned Hari. I intended to, but the time for questions ran out before microphone got round to me. I was going to suggest that a whitewash of an inquiry followed by a period of "retraining" and the expectation that the malicious sock-puppeteer would get his old job back was a good example of the cosy British-style corruption he was complaining about. I was also going to suggest that had it not been for the work of independent, unpaid bloggers (who he seemed to want to regulate) Hari would be back at the Indy today.

- Blackhurst favoured state funding of political parties: it was, he said, "certainly the case that MPs are underpaid."

- When he gave evidence at Leveson, Blackhurst saw one lawyer whose sole job seemed to be to operate a tape recorder.

Cranmer and the ASA

2012-05-13T19:49:00.012+01:00

A substantial and growing number of bloggers have joined a Spartacus-like campaign in defence of my distinguished colleague Cranmer, apparently under the misapprehension that he's being persecuted by the Advertising Standards Authority. The boring truth is that he isn't, although there may have been some sort of mix-up. That said, the case is disturbing for a number of reasons.

For one thing, however the complaint about the Coalition 4 Marriage advertisement is ultimately resolved, the seriousness with which the ASA is treating it provides further evidence of the low value that the regulator attaches to freedom of speech where there any possibility of "offence". I'll come back to that. The more immediate question raised is over the applicability of the ASA's investigatory procedures to smalltime bloggers, even one as celebrated as His Grace.

If you're unaware of the known facts, Cranmer tells his side of the story here. But briefly, he (along with several other blogs) carried a sidebar advert for C4M, which is campaigning against the proposed extension of civil marriage to same-sex couples. The Coalition is clearly on the wrong side of history; nevertheless, it has attracted a great deal of publicity and claims to have collected more than half a million signatures for its online petition. The advert in question linked to the petition: it was thus, in effect, an appeal for signatures. If you haven't seen it already, here it is.

The sidebar link, along with a print version of the advert which appeared in Country Life, was the subject of a number of complaints from individuals, and also from the Jewish Gay & Lesbian Group. It is asserted that the claim that 70% of people support "traditional" (i.e. heterosexual) marriage is misleading. It is also alleged that the ad was itself homophobic and offensive. The ASA has launched a formal investigation into whether the ad falls foul the CAP code (which it applies). As part of that investigation, it sent an email to Cranmer which he regarded as indimidating. It states, among other things, that

We require you to explain your rationale for the ad and comment specifically on the points raised in the attached complaint notification

And demands

robust documentary evidence to back the claims and a clear explanation from you of its relevance and why you think it substantiates the claims. It is not enough to send references to or abstracts of documents and papers without sending the reports in full and specifically highlighting the relevant parts explaining why they are relevant to the matter in hand.

A reply is requested by 21st May, after which the ASA will "draft a recommendation for the Council based on your response to us" and publish its adjudication on its website.

This all does indeed sound fairly intimidating, the more so since it came with a request (or a demand) for confidentiality. It seems that Cranmer felt the need (quite unnecessarily, I think) to seek the advice of a lawyer, at some personal expense. This is unfortunate. On the face of it, it's puzzling that the ASA saw fit to write to Cranmer at all. He did, after all, merely host the advert. He is not responsible for its content, even if he happens to agree with the message it conveys. It is for the advertiser, not the publisher, to justify the content of any controversial advert.

Presumably others who featured the banner on their websites received the same email. Guido certainly did. Instead of writing a lengthy post claiming that he was being persecuted and censored by the "Gestapo", however, he merely offered the following Tweet: "Have received same complaint from ASA told them to take a run and jump." That strikes me as the better course.

The ASA helpfully provides a leaflet for the benefit of advertisers who find themselves subject to one of their investigations. From it we learn that "about 80% of the complaints we receive don't raise any problems and in these cases we simply answer the complaint without any need to contact you." It goes on to inform the reader that "we prefer to work by persuasion and consensus and, where appropriate, we will resolove issues informally." A formal investigation will only take place in cases of "a possible serious breach of the rules." It seems, then, that the complaints about the C4M ad have cleared both those hurdles and that the ASA considers the matter a serious one that cannot be resolved informally.

In such cases, "We'll write to the advertiser and other parties appropriate to the complaint, which might include the ad agency, the media that broadcast or published the ad, and the clearance centre. We'll explain what the complaint is about, which Code clauses are relevant and ask for a response to the complaint." This is what Cranmer, among others, received the other day.

In other words, what Cranmer interpreted as threatening and Guido as in impertinence to be simply tossed in the virtual bin, was no more and no less than the ASA's usual procedure. C4M will presumably have received the same demand; no doubt they are preparing, or have already prepared, their response. The ASA's questions are simply not relevant to Cranmer's role in the affair: what they are seeking, I would guess, is a simple assurance that he accepted the advert in good faith and that he does not consider it to be offensive. A two sentence response will suffice. A mainstream publisher would realise this. Country Life will no doubt pass the ASA's email to their legal department (assuming they have one) who will dispatch a brief response promising to abide by the final adjudication.

In treating Cranmer as a publisher, and not specifying clearly why it was contacting him personally and what it actually expects him to provide, the ASA has blundered into a wholly unnecessary row about free speech. Its approach is clearly not appropriate to the world of blogging and social media. The tone of the email, formal and bureaucratic as it was, is almost certain to come across as threatening and/or presumptuous to an independent blogger who's in no position to supply the information apparently being demanded. The ASA should have realised that its communication might have such an effect. It should certainly take note of the backlash its email has generated and revise their procedures.

[UPDATE: According to Cranmer (via Twitter) there was a crucial difference between the email received by Guido and the one sent to him, in that the former was clearly marked as being for information while Cranmer alone was asked to justify the tone and content of the advert. If that is true, then he appears to have been the victim of an administrative error; all the various publishers should have been treated in the same way. In that case he has valid grounds for seeking an explanation and apology; now that he has consulted a lawyer, I would also suggest he asks for his legal expenses to be defrayed.]

Much of the somewhat hysterical reaction, beneath Cranmer's post and in sympathetic blogs, seems to be based on the idea that the blogger himself is being censored, that the ASA is attempting to run its blue pencil over his opinions. The CAP code is quite clear, however, that it does not apply to "editorial content, news or public relations material". Cranmer can say what he likes about same sex marriage. So can C4M. Only where they use advertising to publicise their campaign do they become subject to the Code.

Finally a brief look att the complaints themselves, and whether they deserve the detailed consideration the ASA is giving them. Leaving aside the contested nature of the 70% claim, the complainants allege that a montage of wedding photos (all of them featuring opposite-sex couples) and accompanied by the message "Help us keep the true meaning of marriage" is in itself offensive and homophobic. Whatever the underlying motivations of C4M (which may well be many and varied) I cannot believe that an advert that says nothing whatever about homosexuality, for or against, can possibly be construed as offensive. Even in its current mood of hypersensitivity as regards issues of offence (a disposition that annoys secularists at least as much as it annoys some religious people) I would be amazed if the ASA decided that such a message falls foul of its Code. But then it's surprising enough that the regulator considered such a trivial complaint necessitated a formal investigation, so you never know.

The preamble states that "the Code makes due allowance for public sensitivities but will not be used by the ASA to diminish freedom of speech unjustifiably". It also states that "the ASA does not arbitrate between conflicting ideologies". A decision that the C4M ad was offensively homophobic would be hard to square with either of those promises. The more serious complaint relates to the use of the 70% figure; there is a reasonable argument that it is indeed misleading.

That is a rather different issue, however.

Review: The Sex Myth by Brooke Magnanti

2012-05-10T19:27:00.008+01:00

One of the best things about Brooke Magnanti's breezily-written new book is her name on the cover. Her previous notoriety as the call-girl blogger turned bestselling author Belle de Jour will (presumably) guarantee sales and has already produced widespread press coverage. Even if it hasn't been universally favourable (a spiteful review in the Telegraph stands out on that score) the press attention at least ensures that the important issues the book raises will reach a wider public than might normally be the case with a volume that seeks to dispell, rather than to sensationalise and talk up, fears surrounding sexuality, pornography, sex work, the sexualisation of children and suchlike recurrent tabloid fodder.

The slightly random collection of "sex myths" under discussion also include attempts to medicalise sex: for example, in trendy concepts of sex addiction or "female sexual dysfunction" (sometimes called "sexual anorexia", a phrase I hadn't come across before but which I'm unlikely to forget). She traces their historical antecedents in nymphomania and hysteria -- there's a hilarious digression about John Harvey Kellogg, a man whose ideas about sexual purity were as flaky as his cornflakes -- and critises the underlying, stiffling assumption that there's such a thing as sexual normality. Perhaps that's the ultimate sex myth.

The subtitle proclaims: Why everything we're told is wrong*. That depends on what you've been reading, of course. Many of these themes have featured here at Heresy Corner over the years, and some of this blog's heroes (such as Belinda Brooks-Gordon and Laura Agustin) are regularly namechecked. Even the Heresiarch surprisingly turns up at one point to accuse the Poppy Project (New Labour's go-to source of evidence-free scaremongering about sex work) of behaving as evangelistically as the Salvation Army.

So it comes as no surprise to me, and I hope to most of you, that MPs and even government ministers have often deployed wildly exaggerated sex trafficking figures or that the review into sexualisation carried out by trash TV psychologist Dr Linda Papodopoulos at the behest of the last Labour government was a seriously flawed document (and the more recent Bailey Review not much better). Magnanti also explores the history of the Obscene Publications Act (up to and including its recent outing in the case of "Sleazy" Michael Peacock and his fisting videos) and revisits the moral panic that produced that monument to bad law-making, the "extreme images" ban.

I find a lot of this yawningly familiar by now, but many people won't and Magnanti's book provides an entertaining compendium of tabloid myths, as well as a source of ammunition. Whether it can do much against the juggernaut of the Daily Mail, currently engaged in a crusade to introduce compulsory web-filtering, remains to be seen. On that highly topical subject she does a good job exploring the links between Claire Perry's Parliamentary campaign to save fifteen year-old boys from being forced to look at porn on the internet and organisations affiliated with the American religious right (such as, for example, the Witherspoon Foundation). Unity has also been on the case recently. I was also startled to learn (though perhaps I shouldn't have been) that in Ireland, a religious order that once ran the notorious Magdalene Laundries (which for decades used unmarried mothers as a convenient sourse of slave labour) is now prominently involved in anti-trafficking campaigns.

Possible links, and commonality of outlook, between radical feminists and religiously-motivated moralists, feature strongly in the final "myth" tackled by Magnanti, the assumption that campaigners are motivated by high principles. She demonstrates how, whatever the original or ultimate motivation of campaigners, the fear industry generates its own momentum. Campaigners rarely let facts get in the way of a good panic, especially when there's a conference circuit to enjoy, privileged access to politicians and policy-makers on offer, celebrity endorsements to win. This isn't entirely cynical, but it is human nature. I was reminded of something Christopher Hitchens wrote about why so many international conflicts seem intractable: because it's not in the interests of the parasitic class of factional leaders for there to be a solution.

Ronald Weitzer, a professor at Northwestern University, has an excellent paragraph that sums up the approach of what he calls "oppression writers" -- anti-porn or anti-prostitution campaigners such as Melissa Farley and Gail Dines. It isn't in Magnanti's book but could almost serve as a precis:

Oppression writers have been roundly criticized for violating standard canons of social science inquiry and for viewing sex work through a monochromatic lens. Despite this criticism, proponents rigidly adhere to the central tenets of their paradigm, even when confronted with compelling counter-evidence. Moreover, most oppression writers restrict their citations to writings of like-minded authors and ignore research findings that contradict the pillars of their paradigm. Such inconvenient findings are plentiful.

Weitzer goes on (pdf) to criticise these writers' neglect of relevant research as "a radical departure from conventional scholarly writings." The Sex Myth offers many examples of this phenomenon, from claims that all porn is violent, or promotes violence, to the propaganda surrounding the "Swedish model" of outlawing the purchase of sex. As you might expect, Magnanti has much to say about prostitution, and convincingly demonstrates how the "rescue industry", by painting all sex workers as degraded victims, objectifies, patronises and demeans the women it is ostensibly trying to protect.

Magnanti is at her best, perhaps, in the chapter dissecting (and effectively refuting) the claim that the presence of a number of lap dancing clubs in Camden had led to an epidemic of rape in the area. Her presentation deploys statistics with devastating force. This is basically a work of polemic, however, and she's not immune from leaping to unscientific conclusions herself. I found some of her aperçus a trifle odd: for example, her suggestion that the relative rarity of missionary position sex in porn films is because it tends to give less pleasure to the woman. Firstly, that is not, in fact, true (well, it may be for her...); secondly, she overlooks the obvious explanation, which is visual. Porn favours positions, and practices, that display most clearly what is going on (which is why ejaculation is nearly always external). And would male strippers really be more popular with female audiences, as she seems to suggest, if they were permanently erect?

As with most books of this type, the emphasis is on women. Perhaps this is inevitable, and to be fair Magnanti does repeatedly criticise (say) anti-prostitution campaigners for ignoring the experience or even the existence of male sex-workers. She also evinces a tender concern for underpaid and put-upon male porn performers, almost making out that the industry is a functional gynocracy. A work dealing with media representations of sex, and the way that sex is problematised in public discourse, is almost bound to reinforce the perception that sex is something that mainly happens to, impacts upon and is most problematic for women.

This suggests a deeper problem, which despite its title the book scarcely addresses. It deals with "sex myths", in the sense of widely circulated inaccurate beliefs; "cargo-cult science", "zombie statistics"; moral panics. But what is the sex myth? Consider the constellation of popular ideas that lie behind and render plausible many of the claims advanced by commercial interests and by moral entrepreneurs. Sex and love belong together. Sex is the most important thing in any relationship. It should never be boring. Commercialised sex is wrong and exploitative. Men are sexually rapacious, visually stimulated and dangerous. Women who dress provocatively are more likely to be raped. Sex is a dangerous force that must be channelled through relationships. Women are, or should be, "modest". There are right and wrong ways to have sex. To be healthy is to be having the right amount of the right kind of sex with the right number of people, preferably one at a time. Porn is degrading. Children should, as long as possible, be kept innocent. Sex should be beautiful, spiritual and profound. There's too much sex on TV. Ban this filth.

Sex is dirty; save it for someone you love.

There you are: the myth of myths, the ur-myth, the underlying psychopathology that gives rise to all the things that Brooke Magnanti is complaining about. She thinks, or at least hopes, that the light of science can illuminate the dark recesses of the soul where lurk myths about sex. She imagines a world "in which reason and experience finally trump the playground demons of rumour and fear." She is calling for an end to ambivalence, for sex to be no longer a mystery. For people to believe what science rather than their own intuition tells them about the most intimate and troubling of human experiences. Dream on, Brooke, dream on.

*Brooke Magnanti informs me that she wasn't responsible for the title, nor for the strapline "Why everything we're told is wrong." I would have gone for "Sex, lies and the media", myself.

Blood and money

2012-05-02T18:45:00.003+01:00

Reviewing some books for Prospect (one of them by the Harvard philospher Michael Sandel), Rowan Williams offers his thoughts on paid-for blood donation, as practised in the United States (and, needless to say, generally frowned upon over here):

Predictably, most of the blood that is dealt with on a commercial basis comes from the very poor, including the homeless and the unemployed. The system entails a large-scale redistribution of blood from the poor to the rich... We hear of international markets in organs for transplant and are, on the whole, queasy about it; but here is a routine instance of life, quite literally, being transferred from the poor to the rich on a recognised legal basis.

Williams goes on to quote the Book of Revelation and Karl Marx while struggling to put his finger on just what is so objectionable about the "commodification of life". He then sets out his reflections with his trademark clarity of expression:

Sandel is describing an alienation of the subject from the body, of the will from the material world. What is lasting and “real” is the abstract ego, independent of its physical nature, its environment, even its actual history. The fundamental model being assumed here is one in which a set of unconditioned wills negotiate control of a passive storehouse of commodities, each of them capable of being reduced to a dematerialised calculus of exchange value. If anything could be called a “world-denying” philosophy, this is it.

But I'd like to go back to the starting point: the "redistribution of blood from the poor to the rich". A very strange expression that, suggestive of vampirism. Is that what is actually going on? For a start, most of those getting the blood will not be "rich" in any meaningful sense (though, this being the US, they will tend to be people with health insurance, or perhaps older people on Medicare). Even genuinely wealthy recipients will only be receiving it from the donors indirectly.

Furthermore, along with the homeless and the very poor (though not, of course, anyone with serious medical conditions, drug users, sex workers and other categories of person usually considered outside the pale and hence ineligible) will be a fairly high proportion of students or housewives looking for a small boost in their disposable income. So it's as simplistic to claim that the donors are poor as it is inaccurate to claim that the recipients are rich.

And if, as Williams claims, "life" was being "quite literally" transferred from the poor to the rich, the poor blood-donors would go into the clinic, be bled dry and never come out. Perhaps that's what the Archbeard imagines is going on over there, though I doubt it.

The redistribution, in fact, is from the healthy to the sick.

Or you could look at the system in another way, as a redistribution of money from the rich to the poor. After all, the poor person who sells his blood gains something absolute in exchange: money that can be exchanged for food, or put in the bank, or spent on otherwise unaffordable books. But all he "loses" is a substance which a healthy body can regenerate in a matter of hours. Indeed, there are positive health effects to blood donation, so the paid donor benefits twice.

There's no logical reason why paid-for blood donation should make Rowan Williams, or anyone else, particularly queasy. It's not like selling a kidney which you can never get back. Blood may be essential to life, but it strikes me as a less intimate product than sperm or eggs, in both of which there is a lively market. If you donate sperm, you're not merely giving up a renewable bodily fluid, you're offering your genetic identity, you're giving away your (potential) children. If you donate your eggs, you're doing all that and undergoing an invasive medical procedure and giving away something of which your body has a limited supply. And the result is not to save life but merely to add to an already overpopulated planet.

It is, nevertheless, interesting that selling one's blood is quite legal in the US, whereas in most states prostitution - which does not represent the commodification of the body but rather the provision of a service - is against the law.

Bearded

2012-04-30T15:21:00.006+01:00

I notice that Mary Beard has a post up on the peculiar tombstone (or perhaps just pseudo-tombstone) that was one of the highlights of last week's episode of Meet The Romans. If you missed it, this remarkable stela was erected allegedly by one Calidius Eroticus, identified as an innkeeper, and features a joke about a customer who spends so much of his budget on a prostitute that he can't afford the hay for his ass. I think that's what it's about, anyway. It's a trifle obscure, unlike Calidius Eroticus's own name.

Beard translates it as "Mr Hot Sex". Does it really need translating, though? Any attempt to render the name into English can only be a diminishment, I think. This applies even more strongly to Mrs Eroticus, whose name (titter ye not!) is inscribed as "Fannia Voluptas". I'm sure the metrosexual baboon-slayer would have enjoyed that, if he's still watching.

About him, the less said the better, except that I don't really buy the assumption (which his victim clearly shares) that Gill's uncomplimentary remarks about Professor Beard's appearance were motivated merely by sexism or by his fear of intelligent and educated women. As Bryony Gordon noted, he's got a long history of making similar remarks about men. (He once likened Tony Robinson to Gollum.) Rather, he's a professional troll. Being outrageous is his gimmick, as it's Jeremy Clarkson's gimmick or (in a different journalist genre) Liz Jones'. Someone I know on Twitter tutted that Gill was "influential", which I seriously doubt. The most likely outcome of the row will have been higher ratings for Beard's show, which is all to the good. (I also note she has twice as many Twitter followers as she did a week ago.)

The other thing I would say (and I hope Mary Beard will forgive me) is that having a female presenter who doesn't look like a supermodel is a huge relief, not least because it makes it easier to concentrate on the subject being discussed. (The sexual objectification of TV historians isn't confined to women, of course. I seem to remember female critics getting very excited, back in the day, about the tight jeans and chiselled jaw of another televisual interpreter of the ancient world, Michael Wood, as he strode around the ruins of Troy. These days there's Niall Ferguson.)

Is Mary Beard now this country's top media don? There's David Starkey, of course, but he isn't really in academia these days (and his own brand of professional trollery has started to wear a bit thin.) Otherwise (ignoring, for these purposes, the scientists) her main challengers for the title are Simon Schama, grandly transatlantic and above the fray, and Ferguson, now absurdly rich and vain. By contrast Beard looks and sounds like a normal human being, the sort of person one might just bump into in Heffers on a wet afternoon.

Except that she's probably way too busy to spend much time pottering around bookshops. The long hours and unremitting grind of modern academic life is one of the principal themes of her always entertaining blog, which has now yielded a second volume of highlights entitled All In A Don's Day. It's a slightly less eclectic selection than last time, I found. This might have something to do with the blog's return to the bosom of the TLS since the Times proper disappeared behind the great Murdoch paywall. Or it may be a symptom of the current crisis in higher education, with its constant soul-searching about fees and funding, cuts and admissions policies, which have all rendered the university sector more newsworthy and controversial as well as more fraught. On the other hand, Beard's publisher apparently advised her that prospective readers would be most interested in inside information about exam-marking and Oxbridge intervews, so perhaps it's just that.

Many of Beard's complaints will find resonances outside the rarefied (or not-so-rarefied, these days) world of Oxbridge colleges or the wider world of higher education, however. She describes academic versions of some of modern Britain's chronic ailments. A professor writes a satirical article about sex with students, is taken literally and denounced as a sexist (or worse). Plagiarism has ceased to be a moral offence (cheating) and has become a nebulous "risk" to which any hapless researcher might accidentally fall victim. The administrative burden grows daily. Threaded through it all is a lament for the way that bureaucracy has increasingly interposed itself between dons and their students, as it has interposed itself between nurses and their patients, or between parents and their children's schools, or between firemen and people they might otherwise be rescuing.

But if gripes about the box-ticking nightmares of Research Excellence Assessments aren't your thing there's plenty more to tempt the fancy, from the politics of Alexander the Great's nationality obscenties to some pointed remarks about Dr Starkey. There's an amusing account of how a post about the possible revision of her college's Latin grace got turned into a "Christianity banned!" scandal in the Daily Mail, a lucid analysis of one of Catullus' more obscene remarks and thoughts about the anthropology of Christmas. I particularly enjoyed a story about how a member of the Scipio family lost an election by cracking a snobbish joke at the expense of a lower-class voter. Arrogant posh boys are nothing new in politics.

A pointless referendum

2012-04-23T15:58:00.001+01:00

Should there be a referendum on reforming the House of Lords? The argument that there should be is easy to make: the topic may be one to which most people in this country are yawningly indifferent (unlike, say, our continued membership of the EU, which merely makes some people bored rigid, which is different), but it is constitutionally quite important.

The British people as a whole (as opposed to the Scots, the Welsh and the people of Northern Ireland) have never in history had an opportunity to vote on the manner in which they are governed and how legislation is passed. Parliament long preceded the advent of democracy. Extensions of the franchise, and changes to the powers and composition of the House of Lords, have always been made by Parliament itself with scant reference to the people. The only partial exception was last year's sad little referendum on the voting system, which evinced enthusiasm only among Westminster chatterers and in a few weird, out-of-the-way places like Cambridge. So you could say that a referendum this time is long overdue.

Daniel Hannan worries that without a referendum the House of Lords reform will be a cross-party stitch-up. The proposals currently on the table certainly look rather like that. Neither the Coalition nor the Parliamentary committee that has been looking at the issue have even plucked up the courage to get rid of the bishops, for example, despite the obvious absurdity of having a small group of religious leaders made ex-officio legislators -- an anomaly that will look all the more absurd in a predominantly elected chamber.

But would a referendum make that much difference anyway? There's a chance that it could be lost. Hannan writes that "the best incentive for supporters of change to come up with an improvement on the status quo is the knowledge that they will have to convince the country." It does not seem obvious to me, however, that the government's proposals are intended to change the status quo, so much as to preserve it. The new house will be smaller, and have a large elected element, thus making it more "legitimate". But the party nominees will no doubt be the same type of political also-rans who can't get elected to the House of Commons (Baroness Warsi, for some reason, springs to mind) while Crossbenchers will continue to be appointed on much the same basis as before.

This is, surely, deliberate. It is a means of preserving the substance of the present house while changing its appearance, above all so as to preserve the pre-eminence of the House of Commons. An elected Upper House, whatever it's called (my own preference is for "Upper House") risks unbalancing the present constitutional arrangements by being more "legitimate", and thus more difficult for the House of Commons to ignore. Its perceived legitimacy, and hence power, would only be increased if, unlike the House of Commons, it could claim to have been voted into being by the people.

Of course Hannan is right that these proposals represent little more than an Establishment stitch-up. But they would be no less of an Establishment stitch-up if presented to the people, merely one that is more difficult to unstitch. Take the continued presence of the bishops, reduced in number but, ironically, increased as a proportion of the whole. (And since the bishops never attend the Lords en bloc anyway, the reduction in their numbers will essentially mean that those who remain will have to neglect their diocesan duties so as maintain a visible episcopal presence in the chamber.) Perhaps one day a government will finally conclude that the absurdity of the arrangement outweighs any benefit the bishops bring to debates; or perhaps the Church of England will finally be disestablished. If the reformed house is merely a creature of statute, getting rid of the remaining bishops would present few difficulties: just pass a bill.

But if the new arrangements have been voted in by the people, a good argument might be made that any changes equally would need a referendum. Indeed it would be constitutionally, or at least democratically, improper for a decision of the people as a whole to be undone by a simple Act of Parliament. So either an expensive referendum will have to be carried out regarding the status of twelve bishops, a question compared to which AV looks as popularly engaging as the final of Britain's Got Talent, or the bishops get to stay because it would just be too much trouble to ease them out.

Tom Holland: a brave man?

2012-04-16T20:39:00.001+01:00

Is Tom Holland brave, foolhardy even, to have written a book about the origins of Islam? Charles Moore seems to think so. Reviewing In The Shadow Of The Sword in the Telegraph, Moore calls it "a brave telling of the Koran’s human stories". Previous reviews, writes Moore, have "skirted around the key point" which is that "much of what Muslims believe about the Koran is incorrect." Holland, he intones ominously, "is being brave."

I don't think this sort of language is at all helpful. It should not be considered "brave", in any respect except a purely literary one, for a historian to attempt an accessible account of a complex but pivotal period in history.

More to the point, the last thing we need is the idea getting around, among easily-offended believers who have not read the book (such people rarely if ever do) that Holland is being "bravely"iconoclastic, tackling taboo subject-matter or standing up to religious pressure. Such prophecies can be self-fulfilling. "British historian defies death-threats" would make a good headline (it would, of course, be unworthy to imagine that that is what Moore wants to see) but it would scarcely advance historical awareness, mutual understanding or public debate.

There's altogether too much fear-induced self-censorship as it is. Moore's tribute to Holland's "bravery", moreover, betrays his own prejudices about easily-aroused Muslim anger. A lot of "respect" based oversensitivity actually does: it's assumed that Muslims will be become upset or murderously inflamed by something or other without any evidence that any actual offence has been, or would be, caused.

I went to hear Tom Holland talking about the book last week in Cambridge. He admitted to having naively underestimated the sensitivities concerned when he first decided to tackle such a vast and contentious subject -- basically, the end of the ancient world and the origins of our own -- but there was nothing to suggest either that he feared for his life or that he had any reason to do so. He made the very reasonable point that while all this may be sacred history to Muslims, who believe that the Koran was the direct word of God and Mohammed the pattern for all righteous lives, non-Muslims have the right and perhaps the duty to explore it historically.

I think this is important to assert. However much Mohammed means to Muslims, as a figure of history rather than faith there can be no intellectual copyright on him, no no-go areas. And Holland has no desire to be inflammatory. Happily there have thus far been no reports of angry mobs setting light to his latest book. It's most unlikely that he would get away with it were he a Muslim writing in a Muslim country, but it says a lot about the paranoid intellectual atmosphere of the moment that it could be thought that a non-Muslim writing in a non-Muslim country for a largely non-Muslim audience would be running a risk.

On to the substance, which was fascinating (there's a lot more in the book, but as a space-limited skinflint I'm waiting for the paperback). Late Antiquity seldom gets the attention its importance deserves. It tends to get neglected in the rush to get to the Middle Ages (Goodbye Romans! Hello Vikings!) It seems too far away, too complicated (it gave us the metaphorical adjective "Byzantine", after all), too alien to modern sensibilities, perhaps just too historically diffuse. It began with the establishment of Christianity as the dominant religion of Europe and the Mediterranean world, followed not long afterwards by the collapse of the Roman Empire in the West, and ended with the beginnings of the Middle East as we know it today. Its most obvious legacy is religious, linguistic and cultural cleavage between Europe and Islam that has, over the centuries, flared up many times into violence but which has more often been characterised by mutual incomprehension, fascination and unease.

One of Tom Holland's aims is to question the assumption that the Arab conquest of North Africa and the Middle East represented a clean break with the past, instead looking at the underlying continuities. The study of history often centres on the tension between continuity and change: it's easy to overstate either. Obviously the changes wrought on the region by the coming of Islam were vast and dramatic. But the change didn't come overnight (Egypt, for example, retained a Christian majority for another five hundred years); and incipient Islam itself owed much to currents of thought that were already present and gaining ground in Late Antiquity. It did not come "like lightning from a clear blue sky" -- or from the remote wastes of Arabia, outside the main centres of East Mediterranean civilisation. Holland goes so far as to describe the new religion as the "culmination of Late Antiquity".

This is the controversial part, of course. Much scholarship (most of it, for sadly obvious reasons, by non Muslims) has been done on such topics as the formation of the Koran and the historical sources for the life of Mohammed. There's a good summary of it here. Holland is however probably the first popular writer to bring these issues before a wider educated public.

The lack of contemporary evidence for Mohammed's career may come as a surprise. Mischievously, Holland began his presentation with a quote from Salman Rushdie contrasting the little we know about the historical Jesus with the vast amount that is apparently known about Mohammed: "We know where he lived, what his economic situation was, who he fell in love with." Except that much of this biographical richness turns out to be an illusion. The earliest accounts of the prophet's life date from more than two centuries after his supposed death. And the author of the principal early biography explicitly stated that he had edited out any material that might be embarrassing or reflect badly on the founder of Islam (did he fear a Khomeini-style fatwa?). Later biographies became progressively more detailed, increasing the impression of verisimilitude while getting ever further from source. They were, in other words, largely fictional. Karen Armstrong's biography certainly reads like a romantic novel; perhaps that's why.

The only possible contemporary reference to Mohammed --a text called the Doctrina Jacobi -- hints that "the prophet who has arisen in Arabia" personally led the Muslim invasion of Palestine. Holland argues that the compilers of the official biographies may have killed Mohammed off early so as to reinforce the parallel between the prophet of Islam and Moses, who died before reaching the promised land.

Holland detonated a few more landmines. Many of the Arabs who "invaded" the Byzantine empire in the early 7th century were already there, being paid as mercenaries to defend the frontiers -- rather as, earlier, the western Emperors had employed Goths, and with similarly catastrophic results when the money ran out. The Koran emerges as less a divine dictation (or the product of one hyperactive imagination) than a compilation of older ideas; and its milieu not the desert but the world of Levantine religious disputation. Forgotten debates about the nature of Christ, old-hat even by the fifth century, are preserved in its verses. One chapter turns out to be an almost word-for-word transcription of a Syrian text.

Most dramatically, perhaps, Mecca plays almost no part in the story. On the contrary, there are references in the text to places in Palestine which "you walk past every day". The original holy city of Islam was Jerusalem; and while traditionally it was Mohammed himself who made the switch, following a row with the Jews of Medina, Mecca only began to achieve prominence a hundred years later during the reign of Caliph Abd al-Malik.

Given the centrality of Mecca to Muslim religious practice -- as the direction towards which prayers are offered, as the home of the great shrine of the Kaaba, above all as the locus of the supreme act of Islamic devotion, the Hajj -- this is, to say the least, somewhat startling. In response to a question, Holland said that there was nothing to suggest that Mecca was an important religious centre in pagan Arabia (there were cube-like shrines in many other parts of the Arabian peninsula), or even an important trading city. It's certainly a very different perspective to that on display the British Museum's highly successful (and officially sanctioned) exhibition about the Hajj. The Saudis will be delighted.

Bettany Hughes: Gushing over goddesses

2012-04-12T19:35:00.001+01:00

In advance of her new TV series on the subject of women in religion, Bettany Hughes has been hard to avoid, with interviews and puff-pieces (some written by herself) popping up everywhere.

The overwhelming message was depressingly familiar -- basically, that the history of religion is really the history of women (incarnation of the divine life-force, earthly channels of the sacred, mistresses of mystery and wisdom) being squeezed out and written out of the picture by jealous men. It didn't exactly raise great hopes for the series, especially as Hughes seemed happy to play fast-and-loose with the (few available) facts.

In the Telegraph, she proclaimed as fact (rather than highly contested speculation) that there were female priests and even bishops in the early Christian church. In the Guardian yesterday she claimed that Theodora, wife of the Byzantine emperor Justinian, was largely responsible for the legal reforms named after her husband. She "incarnated the Biblical understand of wisdom as the ability to make sound judgements" and ruled "with wisdom's lilies woven through her crown." This is, shall we say, a partial description of her known character. Hughes also celebrates the little-known (in the West) 7th century Chinese Empress Wu Zetian:

Consider what Wu achieved. She invaded Korea and Tibet; reformed the administrative system of the Chinese empire; provided Buddhism with a warm embrace when its influence was waning across the Indian subcontinent; and, vitally, she was a patron of printing 700 years before it arrived in Europe.

She sounds like a powerful and fairly enlightened female ruler in the mould of Catherine the Great or or own Elizabeth I, holding her own in a male-dominated society. Good for her, though it seems a stretch to regard her as the incarnation of female wisdom rather than as a successful political leader. As for invading Korea and Tibet, is that really something to celebrate?

Hughes is a good historian and a superlative TV presenter, but when it comes to the Eternal Mysteries of Female Wisdom and Power she does have a tendency to come out with sentimental, romanticised tosh. Her book on Helen of Troy is full of it. When it comes to someone like Helen, a figure of whom the only reliable thing that can be said is that she never existed, the temptation is probably too great to resist. But it is dangerous to present it as history.

Hughes is keen to tell us that "virtually all deities of wisdom, and their acolytes, are female" (in the Telegraph). More specifically, in the Guardian article,

Of all deities of wisdom across the globe and through known time, the massive majority – 97% – were (or are) female. Mankind, for the vast span of human experience, has worshipped at the shrine not of the god, but the goddess, of wisdom.

97% seems a remarkably specific figure. I wonder where she can have found it. Wikipedia has pages for 17 goddesses of wisdom or knowledge and 23 male gods; that list can scarcely be exhaustive, but to reach that 97% would require discovering another 727 goddesses of wisdom and then another 32 for each male deity subsequently found. This is highly unlikely. I haven't tracked any source for the 97% claim prior to recent publicity for Hughes' TV series. I did however discover this, from the write-up to a Radio 3 documentary about Roman Britain that Hughes presented last year:

We love discoveries of forts and towns and baths, and we're lot less impressed by a nice British round house. Yet perhaps 97% of our ancestors would have been living in those roundhouses, many of them turning up their noses at Roman culture beyond the odd bit of bracelet or pottery.

Interesting.

As for last night's programme, it was more interesting for what it left out. Hughes offered us a short history of goddesses from Catal Huyuk to Kali's Calcutta, taking in Cybele along the way. The emphasis was on the goddess as the arbiter of life and death, giving birth equally to live and stillborn offspring and thus (as her Telegraph article put it) "a sexually powerful creature who delights in bloodshed." Hence the goddesses selected.

Hinduism reveres many female deities: Lakshmi, Saraswati, Parvati, Shakti. But only at Kali's temple in Calcutta are bulls still ritually sacrificed to appease the divine bloodlust. Cybele -- the Phrygian import known to the Romans as Magna Mater -- took up almost half the programme's running time. Much was made of the Galli, the eunuch priests of the goddess who would castrate themselves in a state of ecstatic devotion and thereafter wear women's clothing. Much too was made of the taurobolium, the literal bloodbath (or blood-shower, I suppose) in which the worshipper stood beneath a grating above which a bull was being slaughtered. Very primal. But also, in terms of classical goddess worship, extremely atypical.

Concentrating on Cybele risks perpetuating the hackneyed (and surely deeply sexist) equation of Woman with Nature, the chthonian and the primitive. "Mother cults," wrote Camille Paglia, "did not mean social freedom for women" because "nature's burden falls more heavily on one sex," a fact to which honouring the female-ruled mysteries of life and death can only draw attention. I don't agree with Paglia that civilisation was invented by men as a defence against the oppressiveness of female nature. But goddesses like Cybele do embody a set of misogynistic assumptions; at the very least they represent a male way of thinking about, and failing to come to terms with, the Otherness of women. There's nothing whatever "feminist" about them and little that modern women should be wanting to "reclaim".

Hughes could instead have chosen to explore Isis, a goddess most associated with healing and initiation, a deity of compassion, civilisation and, yes, wisdom. Her worshippers didn't castrate themselves or bathe in bulls' blood; they sang hymns and shook rattles. And many of them were women. Or how about Athena -- Hughes' home ground, after all? Athena was the goddess of the city -- and not just of any city, but of the city that, more than any other, lives in the Western imagination as the birthplace of rationality, civilisation and art.

Classical Athens was, needless to say, male-dominated; male-dominated, in fact, to an extent unusual even in ancient Greece. The women were kept at home weaving. A few really lucky ones (Phryne, Aspasia) got to be high-class hookers and went to parties. But women were completely excluded from public life. They couldn't vote. They couldn't even go to the theatre.

Athena, or rather the spindoctors who created her myths, resolved this paradox by downplaying her femininity. She was a virgin (and thus free from the cycles of pregnancy, birth and lactation). She was born, fully-armed, from the head of Zeus. She was depicted as Athena Promachos, fighting on the front-line with spear and armour in defence of her city. She was "all for the father". She has a walk-on role at the end of the Oresteia, where she turns up to cast her vote against the Furies, representatives of vengeance and ancestral irrationality: the old goddesses, in other words.

A male creation she may have been, but precisely for that reason Athena is much more relevant to a modern world in which women are no longer confined to the domestic sphere, or to the biological realm of night, than the bloodthirsty goddesses that she replaced. Women who are expected to compete on equal terms in the Academy and in the Agora have little to learn from the likes of Cybele; Athena, however, shows the way.

The developed Athena was exceptional, but the association of a female figure with civilisation and the city is not. Most ancient cities had a patron goddess. And in the much older epic of Gilgamesh, it is a woman (a temple prostitute) who tames the wild man Enkidu, turns him into a civilised human being. Here it is the woman who represents Culture and the man who represents untamed Nature; and sex, far from being the irruption of subterranean and primeval forces, becomes something civilising and humane.

The series may improve next week. I hope so. It has always struck me, however, that Bettany Hughes is more interesting, as well as more reliable, when talking about men: her series on the Spartans was fascinating, as was her book about Socrates. It's rude (and of course facile) to try to psychoanalyse someone, but it could just be that she has an Athena-like ambivalence about her own sex and, when it comes to goddesses, tends to over-compensate by gushing.

"More left-wing"? Demos and the Absolute Comparative

2012-04-11T15:19:00.002+01:00

There's a slippery grammatical construction known as the "comparative absolute" (or the absolute comparative) in which the adjective of comparison (larger, bigger, better) syntactically expects a comparator, but does not get one. It remains implied, however. My copy of Fowler's Modern English Usage notes that "such implied comparisons are a feature of advertising language", and it's easy to see why: the construction allows the advertiser to make impressive-sounding claims without having to back them up.

"Persil washes whiter" is the classic example. Whiter than what? Whiter than other washing powders, the reader is invited to deduce, but Unilever doesn't actually say so explicitly. So if you can show that, in fact (and this is a pure hypothetical, you understand) Persil performs less well than other leading brands, the company can respond by protesting, "We never said that Persil washes whiter than other brands; we just says it washes whiter. Your clothes are whiter after they've been through the machine than when they were covered in mud, aren't they? Persil washes whiter. Can't you understand simple English expressions?"

I feel a bit like that disgruntled (and, I stress, entirely hypothetical) customer today, having been accused by Demos of "misunderstanding" their claim -- much bandied about in various media outlets over the past few days -- that religious believers were "more likely to hold left-wing or progressive opinions on key social questions around equality and immigration."

Or, as the Observer headline had it, "Religious people are more likely to be leftwing, says thinktank Demos".

Or, as "Daily Mail Reporter" (yes, him/her again) explained, "Christians 'more likely to be leftwing' and have liberal views on immigration and equality".

The natural reading of such statements is that there must be a comparator group (non-believers, perhaps) than whom religious believers are "more likely to be left-wing". But you'd be wrong! The report that Demos were pushing, entitled Faithful Citizens (available here) never actually says that. Indeed it can't, because a close reading of the report shows that religious believers were considerably more likely than the non-religious to call themselves right-wing.

The Demos analysis was based on figures from the European Values Survey and from the UK's National Citizenship Survey. The figures for political affiliation were as follows:

Religious ("exclusivist" and "pluralist") :

Right-of-centre: 44%
Left-of-centre: 56%

Non-Religious ("secular")

Right-of-centre: 35%
Left-of-centre: 65%

It's true that a majority of the religious described themselves as being left-of-centre, whatever their actual views (and a closer analysis of a number of basic political opinions presented a distinctly mixed picture). Indeed, the propensity of a clear majority of the population to identify themselves as being left-of-centre, even when they're not, is an interesting sociological phenomenon in its own right (and one that Conservatives would do well to ponder). But "secularists" (the term Demos used for those people who assented to the proposition that "none of the great religions have any truths to offer") were by a full nine points more likely than believers to call themselves left-of-centre, and similarly much less likely to call themselves right-wing.

It would have been more accurate for Demos to spin these results as "Non-believers more likely to be left-wing" or "religious believers more likely to be right-wing". But that wouldn't have suited the case that the think-tank seems to be putting across, which is that the Labour Party should cosy up to religion.

Being neither left-of-centre nor religious, I don't really have a dog in this fight, and I must say I was rather taken aback with the vehemence with which (in private correspondence) Demos attacked me for suggesting various flaws in their analysis and, most especially, for pointing out that the reports claiming that religious believers were "more likely to be left wing" were seriously misleading. Until I forced them into it, Demos did nothing to correct this misleading impression by publicising the true figures.

Publicly I was accused of being "dismayed" by their findings. I suppose I am rather dismayed to see yet another push to increase the profile of religion in politics, coming hot on the heels of David Cameron's calls for a Christian "fightback" against militant secularists. But I'm more bemused than anything. The rapprochement between religion and the political left is one of the most striking features of contemporary British public life, the more so because levels of religious affiliation continue to decline. Reports such as this one from Demos, or Giles Fraser writing in the Guardian about how the Occupy movement represents authentic Christianity, sit at the more benign end of this coalition. At the other extreme we find that weird love-in between the far left and radical Islam represented by the preposterous figure of George Galloway.

What's it all about? I tend to agree with Max Dunbar that it's part of" a definite intellectual slide towards earthy spiritual values and away from bourgois neoconservative constructions such as secularism, feminism and human rights." Now that global socialism no longer looks like providing a viable alternative to consumer capitalism and increasingly vertiginous social gaps, religions, with their communitarian traditions and critique (in Christianity's case, at least) of worldly success can indeed make common cause with disappointed Lefty liberals.

Indeed, a good case can be made (Michael Merrick makes it) that seemingly left-wing or "progressive" conclusions (at least on socio-economic questions, rather than, say, sexuality or abortion) are for many Chrisitians a logical "consequence of their orthodox commitment to faith". On the political compass, for example, Pope Benedict XVI comes out very strongly as "Authoritarian Left".

Ah, the Authoritarian Left. We had quite enough of that under New Labour, thank you very much.

A True Heretic

2012-04-10T16:15:00.000+01:00

The Guardian is shocked to discover that a member of the Crown Nominations Committee - the Magic Circle of Anglican insiders charged with selecting the next Archbishop of Canterbury - is a heretic. Professor Glynn Harrison does not publicly doubt the divinity of Christ or the Resurrection. It's worse than that: the emeritus professor of psychiatry at Bristol University is said hold the distinctly unorthodox view that homosexuality can be treated. He has apparently written that "there is evidence that some people with unwanted same sex attractions can achieve significant change".

This is a minority view among psychiatrists, most of whom (and certainly the Royal College of Psychiatrists) uphold the modern consensus that sexual orientation is biological in nature, determined by genetic factors and perhaps embryological accident, and therefore nothing to do with one's environment or life history and certainly not something that can be changed. More importantly, a view such as the one that Harrison is alleged to hold is very unpopular with the guardians of secular morality, who regard it as evidence of the most virulent and unredeemed homophobia, as it threatens to undermine the essentialism on which modern gay rights is founded. Sexuality is not only not a choice, it can never be a choice. Not for anyone. Not even if you yourself want to change. Don't even go there.

The Guardian reports that the Rev Colin Coward, director of Changing Attitude (which campaigns "for the full inclusion of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people in the Anglican communion") said that Harrison's position on the commission appeared "cranky in the extreme".

It seems the church is trying to give equal weight to those against homosexuality as those who are for it. In 21st-century British society this is insane. I think the next archbishop needs to be chosen by somebody who is fully confident with lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in the church, because the church stance on this has to change radically. The presence of somebody like Glynn Harrison on the commission really is unacceptable.

The C of E released a statement (helpfully posted by Thinking Anglicans) denying that Harrison believes in "gay cure". He merely "notes that there are anecdotes in the research literature, and in popular media, about individuals who have experienced some degree of change in either the strength or direction of their sexual attractions." This is perhaps the most interesting (from my point of view) part of the statement:

In these publications, Professor Harrison challenges the simplistic binary model (‘either/or’; ‘gay’ v. ‘straight’) of human sexual orientation often assumed in popular discourse. He notes that the most reliable research evidence points to a spectrum of sexuality, with many individuals experiencing bisexual ‘orientation’ and varying degrees of fluid ‘orientation’ in their sexual interests. Thus, there is a range of ‘orientations’ and little reliable evidence to suggest that these are fixed and enduring in all people.

... In this context, there are issues of how to support people of faith who experience bisexual or same-sex attractions that conflict with their deeply-held religious convictions regarding sexual ethics. Professor Harrison recognises that some decide to revise their understanding of the ethical teaching of their faith to accommodate their experiences of sexual attraction, and choose a form of counselling support called ‘gay affirmative therapy’. He fully supports their right to do so. He notes that others want to manage and integrate their sexual interests within the framework of a religious identity grounded in the traditional teaching of their faith. Prof. Harrison supports the provision of sensitive and ethical counselling and pastoral support for such people too. He believes they should be free to receive this support without bullying or discrimination.

Now that might sound reasonable. But it is in those weasel words that the heresy lurks. The "simplistic binary model" which Harrison rejects forms the basis of much modern moral and legal thinking about sexuality. Notice that he even puts the word "orientation" in scare-quotes. This is dangerous stuff. Once you start suggesting that sexuality might change, even for some people, even some of the time, you're on a slippery slope that ends with herding homosexuals into gas chambers.

What this story really shows, I think, is once again that the Archbishop of Canterbury should, like most leaders of most of the world's churches, be elected. The Crown Nominations Committee, like most manifestations of the modern British establishment, mistakes openness for accountability. Thus ever since Rowan Williams announced his departure it has encouraged scrutiny - for example, placing an advert in the Church Times offering suggestions for the "vacancy in the See of Canterbury". On previous occasions very few people had a clue who the CNC were or what they did. The name of the new Archbishop simply emerged one day, after the Prime Minister had made the final decision (something that is no longer supposed to happen) and the mysterious nature of the process added a touch of the numinous, as though the new Primate had been chosen by God. But now the secret is out the members of the committee have to account for themselves; their records, all their previous utterances, are pored over as though they were candidates for the mayorality of London. And in the fraught, ideologically riven world of Anglican politics there are bound to be got-up rows like this one.

There's a much better way: the General Synod should elect the new Archbishop of Canterbury in a special meeting, as other churches of the Anglican communion do, as many Orthodox and Protestant churches do. Even the Pope is elected by the College of Cardinals. Why can't the Church of England do the same?

A Gentlewoman of Fortune

2012-04-05T09:01:00.000+01:00

It is a year, gentle reader, since last we met with the heroine of our tale, the fashionable and ingenious princess of letters Lady Laurelia Penworthy. The sun has completed once more its immemorial circuit of the heavens... and what a changed scene now opens before us! The intrepid Laurelia, tired of the crabbed and confined streets of old London, has turned over the faithful Sebastian Dullbore and his august but (alas) declining magazine. Indeed, she has quitted these shores entirely, pitching up in the pulsating metropolis of New York, that misbegotten pearl in the oyster that is the United States, a city (the sagacious reader will surely reflect) altogether more suited to her indomitable temperament.

Giddily, voraciously has Laurelia tasted the delights and opportunities of the young Republic. She has stood with the downtrodden masses, drunk in fashionable hotels, sat late into the night talking with poets of art and love, worn luminous hairpieces, enjoyed the anachronistic (it seemed to her) courtliness with which men and women of that land become acquainted, entertained all England with her dispatches. Surely this was a brave new world indeed... yet Laurelia could not but reflect that if she needed America, how much more did America need her!

A thousand ideas crowded inside the narrow space of her cranium: thoughts of radical social reform, of freeing women from the eternal dominion of men, of distant wars and unusual cloud formations, of books to be written, speeches to be made, friendships to be forged. Of mundane concerns she thought but seldom. She floated as though borne aloft on the thermals of her own consequence. So it was that one fine morning Laurelia quite forgot in which city she was residing -- quite forgot the custom of traffic in that country, as though still in arrogant revolt against the just laws of good King George, to move contrary to nature. Desirous of crossing the highway, the poor young lady stepped boldly into the path of a carriage that bore down upon her with full speed.

Just think, gentle reader, what dire calamity must have ensued... how our heroine must instantly have been crushed beneath the inexorable wheels of that chariot... had not fate, and fortune (ever Laurelia's faithful handmaiden) not at that very moment intervened. For it so happened that Mr R__ G__, an actor whose performances both tragic and comedic were much applauded by the press, and whose manly features received daily the swooning compliments of ladies on two continents, was strolling along that same pavement.

Of course Laurelia had not noticed him, any more than her eyes had apprehended the approaching carriage that would have ended her earthly existence, and our tale. Yet he had seen her; that was what mattered. At once his strong and virile arm reached out and Laurelia was saved!

We breathe... she, however, still unaware of the danger, was affected most strongly by the indecent familiarity of Mr R__ G__'s spontaneous gesture. To be thus unceremoniously restrained, dragged backwards -- and by a man! -- it was an indignity too great to be borne.

"Unhand me, sir!" she demanded.

"Madam", spluttered he, "I apologise most humbly if I have offended. I sought only to preserve your life." With that he pointed out to her the speeding carriage, which had already passed the spot upon it would have surely run her over. She could not deny it... Mr R__ G__ had, quite literally, saved her life. Perhaps she had judged him too harshly. She looked now for the first time into the face of her gallant rescuer, noted the square cut of his jaw, his azure eyes, his open and manly demeanour... she must admit that he was not unpleasing. Her cheeks flushed with colour, feelings of relief, of gratitude, perhaps of something more, suffused her frame: emotions which, she recognised, she must resist. A battle raged in the turbid mind of Laurelia Penworthy. The outcome was not in doubt. She emerged victorious.

"You need not have troubled yourself, sir," she exclaimed. "I can see you meant well, but I can assure you that I was in no danger. It is not some fragile specimen of feminine weakness that you see before you, one whose only thoughts are of love and whose only end is marriage. I am, sir, a gentlewoman of fortune, a creature of the modern age, indeed its very embodiment. I am not in need of your protection. I was not put on earth to be the passive object of masculine compassion. Please do not bore me with your hackneyed tales of heroism and derring-do."

"But the cab was about to crush you!" protested Mr R__ G__ , who was beginning to wonder whether it might not have been more circumspect to have allowed cruel fate to take its course.

"Bah!" replied our redoubtable heroine. "It would not have dared."

NSPCC brings Brass Eye to Life

2012-04-04T20:00:00.000+01:00

Revealed: the Paedophile Map of Britain, screams the headline in the Mail. Actually, the headline is misleading: it's merely the paedophile map of England and Wales. We'll have to wait for the paedophile map of Scotland. The Mail didn't go for the obvious headline, PaedophIsles, perhaps because they remembered that Chris Morris got there more than a decade ago. But otherwise it Brass Eye come to life. "Why is it that we can no longer think of the British Isles, without the word 'paedoph' in front of them?"

The byline is "Daily Mail Reporter", an infallible sign that what we're looking at is a glorified press release. And the story comes courtesy of the NSPCC, which has compiled the map based on figures obtained from police forces under the Freedom of Information Act. The "shocking" figures refer to reports rather than convictions, and no contextual information is provided: for example, whether the incidence of reported child abuse is increasing, declining or remains fairly constant, or how many of the alleged offences were committed in the home as opposed to by strangers, or why only one in ten of the reports resulted in a conviction.

Nor do the figures set out in the Mail add up. Of the 23,000 reports recorded by the 43 police forces, just under 5,000 (fewer than 20%) related to children under ten, we are told. Around 15,000 victims were aged 11-17. That leaves 3,000 unaccounted for. The NSPCC asked for information on alleged sex offences committed against all children and young people under 18, including rape, incest and child prostitution. Girls were six times more likely to be victims than boys. From this it might be reasonable to deduce that a high proportion of the allegations relate to sexual assaults against teenage girls, including those over sixteen. However serious, such crimes wouldn't fit into most normal definitions of paedophilia.

The message the NSPCC wants to get across seems, though, to be one of generalised, pervasive fear: a message for which the Daily Mail, as so often, makes the perfect conduit. We shouldn't be surprised. The NSPCC has got itself something of a reputation for scaremongering about child abuse. Frank Furedi has described the organisation as "a lobby group devoted to publicising its peculiar brand of anti-parent propaganda" and written that it is "shameless about its obsession with publicity." A few highlights will suffice:

Last November it claimed that one in four babies in Britain were "at high risk" of being abused. The charity was accused of gimmickry for supporting a campaign to get Facebook users to change their profile pictures to those of cartoon characters to raise awareness, or something.

In 2010 the NSPCC released a bizarre and creepy video warning music teachers not to touch their students while demonstrating how to play their instruments properly, lest it be construed as "inappropriate". Michael Gove suggested that the video was "playing to a culture of fear among both adults and children" and "sending out completely the wrong message".

In 2009 the Advertising Standards Authority banned an NSPCC ad campaign which (based on out-of-date statistics) that one in six children are sexually abused. The ASA noted that the presentation of the figures would lead people to infer that the physical abuse of children was far more prevalent than it actually was.

This came two years after the ASA censured the charity for using made-up stories of child abuse to solicit donations, in a hard-hitting mailshot that was liable to cause recipients "undue fear and distress".

A report in the same year (2007) concluded that despite raising £250 in its Full Stop campaign the NSPCC had failed to make much if any impact on the actual abuse of children. It noted the NSPCC's preference for high-profile PR campaigns drawing public attention to child abuse, something that had "very little bearing on whether a substance-abusing parent neglects their child behind closed doors, or whether a sexual offender chooses to abuse a child when they have the opportunity to do so in secret."

1990, at the height of the Satanic Ritual Abuse hysteria, the NSPCC fuelled the panic with a report that claimed that SRA was widespread in Britain. The charity made much of the allegation that groups of ritual abusers were engaged in the systematic production of child pornography, something for which there was never a shred of evidence.

Coalition falls in love with snooping: Disappointing but not surprising

2012-04-02T14:58:00.001+01:00

I'm roused, just about, from my recent gloom-laden inactivity by the news, as depressing as it is ultimately unsurprising, that the government intends to introduce new snooping powers on us all. When the news broke yesterday a few people naively hoped that it might be an April Fool. But of course it wasn't. National security is no joking matter.

This Coalition government isn't like New Labour, many of whose ministers gave the strong impression that they actively enjoyed hacking away at civil liberties. The plans may have been none-too-subtly leaked, but ministers haven't exactly been all over the airwaves defending the scheme. They could, presumably, have made our flesh creep with tales of what criminals, terrorists and paedophiles are getting up to and why they need to be stopped. Why these new powers are really, really necessary. But you can tell their hearts aren't really in it.

Both Lib Dems and Tories opposed these ideas when in Opposition, so effectively that the government was forced to back down and shelve the scheme. Or at least to tone it down somewhat. They are fully aware that they are betraying their promises and further eroding their reputation for straight dealing by bringing these proposals back to the table now. Don't imagine that the sight of David Davis revisiting his past triumphs is anything other than excruciating for senior Coalition ministers (though it must be of some comfort to them to reflect that, not having been given a job in government, he's unable to resign in protest).

The likeliest explanation for this development remains Davis's, that the "securicrats" (or is it "securocrats"?) of the Home Office have worn down ministerial resistance (resistance which, in Theresa May's case, may well have been half-hearted at best). In fact, the latest proposals are a far cry from the all-encompassing super-database of which GCHQ used to dream (and possibly still does), or which the US authorities have been busy building in Utah. (Even if the British government isn't storing details of everything you've ever done online or on a mobile phone, Uncle Sam is.) The onus will be on ISPs to keep hold of the data, who will no doubt transfer the costs on to their subscribers. GCHQ will merely be able to demand to see anything they want, at any time; which probably achieves much the same practical effects as a giant database, but is considerably cheaper and sounds slightly less scary.

The last time there was a big row about this, Henry Porter (who seems to have gone rather quiet since the Coalition came to power) made some rather perceptive remarks:

We should not be lulled into seeing this as change in the government's goal of knowing everything about every one of us. The civil servants behind the scheme have a very long horizon indeed – an agenda that is designed to survive cuts in public spending and any change of government.

They will argue the urgent necessity of the case with force and plausibility to inexperienced Conservative ministers, as they have done to the co-operative second raters in the present government. I pray that a future government will have the gumption, sense of history and political values to resist these arguments...

Fat, as they say, chance.

There may be a European dimension to all this; there usually is. EU Referendum mentions that the Data Retention Directive (under which details of every email sent and website visited are already logged and stored) is currently being revised. "Does anyone believe that, with data retention being an occupied field, the British government is working entirely independently, and has not consulted with the commission on this?"

Probably not. But the British security apparatchiks have long been among the most enthusiastic pushers of EU expansionism in this particular area, hoping (as is their way) that bringing in Brussels will enable them to get round political reluctance at home. This is not some alien imposition. There is in fact rather more concern for privacy and internet freedom at an official level in parts of continental Europe than in either Britain or the USA, whose security services remain institutionally paranoid.

Note also that when the last government abandoned its plans for a Massive Database of Stuff, instead proposing that the ISPs retain the data, the accompanying consultation document spoke of the "need to ensure that UK companies collect and store additional types of communications data about their own services, which are not included under the EU Data Retention Directive. This includes data that communication service providers do not generate or process about their services." The latest proposals are hard to pin down (no-one seems entirely sure just what is being proposed) but it looks a lot like that.

But while we're on the subject of Europe, do you remember (or have you heard of) the Stockholm Programme, a grand coming-together of internal security, immigration, criminal justice and surveillance systems across the EU? Central to it is a secretive new Standing Committee for Internal Security, reassuringly known as COSI, to co-ordinate policy between national forces and EU organisations.

The scheme was described European Civil Liberties Network in 2009 as part of a "paradigm shift" in policing, the economic motor for which was provided by the "security-industrial complex". It went on:

We are now witnessing the political ‘securitisation’ of a whole host of complex policy issues, from food and energy supply to complex social and environmental phenomena such as climate change and migration. The result is an increasingly security-militarist approach to protracted social and economic problems. At times of heightened global insecurity, the danger is that the rule of law becomes secondary to the objective of threat neutralisation.

At times like this I like to remember something Michael Portillo said in an episode of the Moral Maze a little over three years ago:

I having been been in government have every reason for believing that the government routinely abuses the powers it has. It's not a matter of the last resort, it's the first resort. It isn't something that happens exceptionally, it happens all the time.

Worth hanging on the wall, I think.

Shroudmongery

2012-03-27T14:31:00.006+01:00

Another bonkers theory about the Turin Shroud. This one comes from Thomas de Wesselow, a Cambridge-based art historian, and is laid out in a new book entitled The Sign. The Telegraph published an extract the other day in which the author describes his feelings upon finally seeing the Shroud "face to face".

His theory, sorry hypothesis, sorry wild speculation, is that the Shroud does indeed date from the time of Christ and the image on it is indeed that of Jesus. But it wasn't (necessarily) created in a burst of divine resurrection-energy as pious believers have long insisted. Rather, the first disciples saw it and concluded that the image must have been miraculously produced and that therefore Jesus must have risen from the dead. The disciples didn't see the Risen Christ; they saw a soiled cloth. Thomas didn't put his hand in Jesus' pierced but resurrected flesh; he just took a closer look at the Shroud.

Blessed are they who have not seen the Shroud, and yet believe.

De Wesselow happily does away with the "need" for a physical resurrection. As Peter Stanford establishes in the course of his Telegraph interview, the disciples would have been aware of "the decomposing body of Jesus... well-and-truly dead" in the tomb, but were more impressed with the apparently miraculous image on the burial Shroud.

According to Stanford, de Wesselow's research "was largely done at his desk or in libraries, save for one episode he recounts in the book when the connection between the Shroud and Resurrection came to him in a kind of eureka moment in the garden of his Cambridge house."

It figures. However neat de Wesselow's idea might seem (at least, to him) there's no evidence for it. None whatever. No historical evidence, no material evidence, no scientific or archaeological or paleographical evidence, not even any Biblical evidence.

I suppose that you could make something out of John 20, 6-8:

Then Simon Peter came, following him, and entered into the tomb. He saw the linen cloths lying, and the cloth that had been on his head, not lying with the linen cloths, but rolled up in a place by itself. So then the other disciple who came first to the tomb also entered in, and he saw and believed.

That might, at a pinch, be interpreted as meaning "he saw [the image on the cloth] and believed." But only -- and this is the key point -- if you already "knew" that the cloth that the disciples saw had a mysterious image imprinted in it. If you had seen the Shroud, in other words. De Wesselow's suggestion is a good example of backwards reasoning, starting with an elaborate scenario and then seeking to retro-fit the evidence. It could be true, just as there could be a teapot orbiting Mars.

A neat idea, perhaps, but scarcely parsimonious. For it to be true, you must somehow account for the Shroud's survival over almost a millennium-and-a-half, preserved somehow but only attracting an occasional ambiguous reference (most claimed pre-Lirey "sightings" of the cloth probably refer to other relics, now lost, or to the so-called Mandylion of Edessa). If the latest theory were true, surely someone would have given the Shroud an explict mention: one of the gospel writers, or Paul, or an early Church father, someone, anyone.

Like all believers in the antiquity of the Turin Shroud, de Wesselow has to get round the huge problem of the radiocarbon dating. In 1988, as you probably know, three separate laboratories tested samples from the relic, and all offered a date for the cloth's manufacture somewhere in the 13th or 14th century. Given that the known history of the Shroud began in the middle of the 14th century, that might strike a disinterested observer as pretty strong evidence that it was, as many had long suspected, a medieval forgery.

I say long suspected. The Shroud was first exhibited by an impecunious knight in Lirey in nothern France in around 1355. It was withdrawn not long afterwards, mainly because the local bishop (Henri de Poitiers) carried out his own investigation and concluded that it was almost certainly a fake. We know this because a later bishop, Pierre d'Arcis, writing towards the end of the 14th century, described how Henri "after diligent inquiry and examination, discovered how the said cloth had been cunningly painted, the truth being attested by the artist who had painted it, to wit, that it was a work of human skill and not miraculously wrought or bestowed."

To sum up: there is good 14th century evidence that the Turin Shroud was known (or at least very strongly suspected) at the time to be a fake, and there is excellent scientific evidence that the Turin Shroud was a late medieval fake. Conclusion: it's a fake.

There really shouldn't be anything to add. But I will note in passing that were we discussing any other ancient artefact, no-one would even think to challenge the conclusions of the 1988 dating. The fact that sceptics (science sceptics, that is) are able to raise questions about the reliability of the procedure says more about their ingenuity, their desperation to believe, than it does about the tests themselves. If radiocarbon dating is reliable for anything (and it is) then there is no reason to challenge it in this particular case. It would, after all, be approaching miraculous if the normal rules of carbon 14 decomposition turned out to be unreliable just this once.

The real mystery of the Turin Shroud, of course, is why this undoubted fake continues to exert its peculiar fascination over believers, researchers, crackpots, publishers and documentary-makers. But that is a question of psychology, not of chronology and certainly not of theology.

Toulouse and the Guardian narrative

2012-03-22T16:26:00.004Z

It turned out that the perpetrator of the Toulouse shootings was an Islamist nutter. Mohamed Merah was a would-be jihadist who claimed to be acting on behalf of Al Qaeda, his murders of three soldiers, three schoolchildren and a rabbi being a protest against French participation in Afghanistan and against Israel. It might have turned out differently. The killer might have been a far-right nutter in the mould of Anders Behring Breivik. Until he was positively identified, no-one was in a position to say.

That, however, didn't stop them.

On Comment is Free Fiachra Gibbons was quick off the mark on Monday with a monumentally ill-considered piece of conclusion-jumping. Implying (more-or-less out-and-out saying, actually) that the imaginary neo-fascist gunman was the creation of Nicolas Sarkozy's rhetoric about immigration, he wrote:

Police are a long way yet from catching, never mind understanding, what was going through the head of someone who could catch a little girl by the hair so he wouldn't have to waste a second bullet on her. But some things are already becoming clear. He shouted no jihadist or anti-Semitic slogans, going about his grisly business in the cold, military manner oddly similar to Anders Behring Breivik, the Norwegian gunman who massacred 77 people at a social democrats summer camp last summer.

As with Breivik, politicians will be quick to the thesis of the lone madman...

Not even Sarkozy, who has most politically to lose from these killings, is trying to hide the link with race and religion. Just as he echoed the old National Front slogan "Love France or leave it" and then denied he ever said it, he yesterday called on the French people to stand up "against hate", having spent the past few months manically stirring it.

There's something almost gleeful about the way Gibbons tries to pin the blame for the shootings on mainstream French conservatives.

The notion of Merah as a new Breivik fitted so readily into the favoured Guardian narrative that as soon as it seemed possible that the perpetrator might be a far-rightest rather than an Islamist that it took little to convince a wide swathe of bien-pensant opinion that he had to be.

That point came when the killer of Jewish schoolchildren was identified as being the same man responsible for the deaths of three French soldiers of immigrant background -- shootings that had has relatively little publicity outside France. There was an easy motive to hand -- hatred of immigrants. It fitted into a convenient framework -- a story about how foolhardy politicians and opinion-formers played into the hands of extremists by questioning the benefits of large-scale immigration and the growth of large, poorly-integrated minority communities. And indeed, it placed these politicians and opinion-formers on a moral continuum with the perpetrator of this attack. Above all, it allowed people such as Gibbons to feel morally superior.

A form of confirmation bias was operating. Gibbons, and others, leapt upon on any scrap of evidence that might appear to indicate that the Toulouse killer was a white racist rather than an extremist Muslim, however weak (such as the fact that there were apparently no reports of the killer shouting "Allahu Akbar" -- no-one heard him shouting "Hurray for Hitler!" either). And of course the Breivik killings were more readily to mind than less recent Islamist atrocities in Europe. This may be an effect of news filtering rather than of actual occurrences, though. The random massacre of Sgt Robert Bales in Afghanistan has attracted far more news coverage than the almost regular slayings of NATO troops by rogue Afghan soldiers and police.

Just as the Merah killings were eagerly blamed on white racists, so the Oklahoma bombing was speedily blamed on Islamists, as was Breivik's terror spree when the news broke. But then again the Madrid train bombing of 2004 initially looked (to many observers) like ETA. Best not to write these sort of articles until all the facts are in. I can see why Gibbons was so delighted, though. If it had been another Breivik, a Breivik wannabe, a Front National supporter, a neo-Nazi, one can imagine the delirium that would have resulted among the left-wing and the right-on as they fell over themselves to paint the Toulose terrorist as the freakish lovechild of Geert Wilders and Melanie Phillips.

As it is, we have to settle for this kind of thing from Nabila Ramdani:

Far-right politicians have already seized on the image of the lethal young Muslim from an Algerian immigrant background. The National Front leader Marine Le Pen, who is on course to win up to 20% of the popular vote in the presidential elections beginning next month, said it was time to "launch a war" against a "fundamentalist risk which has been underestimated in our country"....

Sarkozy, himself no stranger to right-wing demagoguery, will also now try to make political capital out of Merah. Earlier this month, the president stated that there were "too many foreigners" in France, and pledged to halve the number of immigrants arriving in France. His presidency has been marked by firm measures against Muslims, including a burqa ban. That Merah told the France 24 TV channel by telephone that he "objected to the law on the veil" and that "Jews have killed our brothers and sisters in Palestine" will be fully exploited by Sarkozy as he tries to win back votes from the National Front.

It's always wrong to make political capital out of a tragedy, of course. Though when did that stop any politician or, for that matter, any columnist? But does Nabila Ramdani really suppose that Sarkozy's opponents were not champing at the bit to make political capital out of Toulose had it turned out to be the work of a far-right extremist? Some, as we've seen with Gibbons, had already prematurely done so. Still, there's comfort to be had in the thought that, while it's no longer possible to blame Sarkozy's rhetoric for inspiring the Toulouse killer, you can still accuse him of making political capital out of the situation. Heads I win, tails you lose.

Alas, I can't do better than this comment from Pat Davers underneath Ramdani's article, so I'll just share it with you:

The kind of person who believes Mohammad Merah to be part of a worldwide trend towards Islamism, is also the kind of person who thought Anders Brevik was a lone loony, representing no-one.

The kind of person who believed Anders Brevik was part of a worldwide trend towards Fascism, is also the kind of person who thinks Mohammad Merak is a lone loony, representing no-one.

Is one of them right, or neither or both?

The Other Pope

2012-03-19T16:25:00.005Z

Pope Shenouda III, who died at the weekend, was leader of the X million strong Coptic Church of Egypt (X being a number anywhere between 7 and 13) and possessor of one of the most remarkable beards of any prelate, certainly putting our own dear Rowan Williams to shame. He was 88, to Rowan's 61. But Coptic Popes aren't allowed to retire. Indeed, Shenouda appears to still be in the job, his final duty being to appear, propped up and fully robed in his patriarchal throne in Cairo, looking it must be said livelier than John Paul II did during the last five or so years of his pontificate.

Shenouda's death has attracted warm tributes from, among others, the Archbishop of Canterbury who spoke of Shenouda's "exemplary and outstanding" leadership and his "depth of Christian love, welcome and wisdom." Less attention has been paid to his cosy relationship with Mubarak or his history of making nasty anti-semitic remarks.

The Coptic Pope rejoices in one of the most grandiose titles in the Christian world. So complex is it, indeed, that it's not entirely clear just what it is. But it goes something like this:

Pope and Lord Archbishop of the Great City of Alexandria and Patriarch of All Africa on the Holy Orthodox and Apostolic Throne of St Mark the Evangelist and Holy Apostle; Father of Fathers; Shepherd of Shepherds; Hierarch of all Hierarchs; Pillar and Defender of the Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Church and of the Orthodox faith; Dean of the Great Catechetical School of Alexadria; Ecumenical Judge of the Holy Apostolic and Catholic Church; Thirteenth among the Apostles.

Which is, I'm sure you'll agree, slightly over-the-top, even for a prelate so impressively bearded as the late Shenouda. The title "Pope", by the way, is older by a couple of centuries than that of his Roman equivalent. Strictly speaking, we should refer to the latter as "Pope of Rome" to avoid confusion.

Precisely where the Coptic Pope comes in the global Christian pecking order is complicated by the fact that (as a consequence of various splits and schisms down the centuries) there are both Greek Orthodox and Latin claimants to the Holy Throne of St Mark, though neither have large numbers of followers. But traditionally Alexandria ranks at number three after Rome and Constantinople. To complicate matters, although the head of the church is patriarch of Alexandria his cathedral, as well as his official residence, is in Cairo. And has been since the eleventh century. But I suppose that when you've got a title as long as that one you're better off leaving well alone.

In recent decades the Coptic Pope has been considered the top-ranking member of the Oriental Orthodox communion, a somewhat ad hoc group of churches that does not form a clade but which is united by a reluctance to accept the conclusions of the Council of Chalcedon of 451 AD. It's a long story; let's just say that it had something to do with the vexed question of precisely how Christ could be both God and man. It was to the fifth century church what the argument over gay clergy is to the 21st: divisive, unresolveable and ultimately a bit daft. About twenty years ago a high-powered group of theologians came up with a form of words that seemed to satisfy everybody (except the few remaining Nestorians). But the fifteen hundred odd years of mutual anathemas should stand as a warning to anyone who thinks that the current rows over sexuality and gender will be patched up any time soon.

Perhaps the dispute would have been patched up earlier had Egypt not fallen to the Muslims in 639AD, an event positively welcomed by many Egyptians as it meant seeing the back of the hated Byzantines with their inaccurate Christology. The history of the church thereafter was one of slow decline, however, as the Egyptian population slowly went over to Islam. The process took centuries and (arguably) is still going on. Egypt probably had a Christian majority well into the thirteenth century, and in the eighteenth there were still parts of the country speaking Coptic (the language of the Pharaoahs and still of the church's liturgy). Many observers detect signs of revival in recent years - an increase in recruitment to the monasteries, for example. On the other hand, Copts have faced increasing discrimination, attacks on churches and rising hostility from Islamists. It's reported that hundreds of thousands are now considering emigration.

I was intrigued to learn about the process that will be used to select Shenouda's successor. In some ways it's more open and democratic than the system used to choose the Archbishop of Canterbury (though even the Roman conclave is more democratic, if not necessarily more open, than that) but is also satisfyingly weird. The Synod of the Coptic Church (which corresponds to the House of Bishops in the Church of England General Synod) and a body representing the laity both take part in elections to discover three potential candidates. But the final choice is made by a boy who is led blindfold to the altar and invited to pull one of the names out of a hat. Well probably not a hat, but the same principle applies.

I suppose this vaguely resembles the former system in the Church of England, where two candidates for a vacant bishopric were presented to the Prime Minister to choose between.

Why there should be civil partnership for heterosexuals

2012-03-15T12:47:00.006Z

After much pre-publicity from Cardinal O'Brien and others - so much that the debate now seems tired and not a little boring - the Home Office has today formally launched its consultation process on its proposal to bring in same-sex marriage. You can contribute to it here.

No surprises. Despite the best efforts and hopes of diehard definitionalists, who imagine that by clinging to a word they can alter the direction of society, there's no sign that the government is thinking of abandoning its proposals. Quite the reverse, with Lynne Featherstone giving the Independent a "cast-iron guarantee" that same sex marriage will come into law by 2015 at the latest. The consultation is mainly about how the change will introduced, and in common with most such exercises is largely cosmetic.

I'm all in favour of the change. Contrary to the fears of some religious groups, the document makes a very clear distinction between religious and civil marriage. Same-sex weddings will not be taking place in any church or synagogue, even if the clergy would like to perform them, even though such venues have now been opened to civil partnership ceremonies. That final anomaly will, I've no doubt, be addressed in time. More importantly, there's no question of religious denominations being required either to perform or to canonically recognise same-sex marriages, and no suggestion that they ever will be.

Churches can continue to insist that true marriage can only be between a man and a woman for as long as it makes them happy.

But the government proposals would correct one inequality -- the exclusion of gay couples from civil marriage -- by perpetuating and indeed creating a new one.

Civil partnerships will, it is envisaged, continue to be available to same-sex couples. But heterosexual couples will not be able to contract civil partnerships. This is plainly absurd, illogical and discriminatory. If the rationale for extending full civil marriage to gay couples is, as the government claims, one of equality, then this will not be achieved by allowing them a special legal status denied to straight people. On the contrary, it is likely to cause resentment and lead to costly and unnecessary lawsuits.

At present, there is inequality on both sides. If civil partnership is regarded as a half-way stage towards state recognition of same sex marriage, to be superseded in time by "full" marriage (although the distinction is largely a semantic one) then this double discrimination makes political sense. It enables religious traditionalists to kid themselves that the historic institution of marriage remains sacrosanct while extending the substance of marriage to all partnerships. But once you open marriage to same-sex couples this ceases to be the case. Instead of one institution masquerading under two names you have two distinct institutions operating side by side, one equally open to all, the other confined to members of a sexual minority. This cannot be fair.

The consultation claims that there is no identifiable "need" for heterosexual couples to be able to contract civil partnerships. Yet the need must be at least as great as that for gay couples to be able to contract marriages. It might be said that couples seeking to formalise their relationship can get married. But equally, gay couples seeking to formalise their relationship and gain the legal protections and rights afforded to registered couples can have a civil partnership. Even if the need for heterosexual civil partnerships did not already exist, extending marriage to gay couples will perforce create it.

If there is a distinction between the concepts of marriage and civil partnerships it is that the latter does not come with the historical, cultural and linguistic baggage of the former. This, of course, is why many religious traditionalists object to gay marriage. They believe it will dilute the brand, reduce marriage to a legal contract between two persons (and thus, as John Millbank argues in one of the more thoughtful pieces I've read in favour of the status quo, render all marriages "gay marriages"). But it is also why some heterosexual couples resist marriage. They might crave the legal protection of inheritance and property rights given to registered couples, but they associate "marriage" with a history of sexual inequality or with bourgeois conformism. Many such couples would surely welcome the opportunity to participate in the more neutral and up-to-date institution of civil partnership.

I assume that's the problem, incidentally. The government is afraid of being seen to "undermine marriage", even as it accepts the logic of campaigners who see the inability of gay couples to marry as proof of continuing inequality and discrimination. On the face of it, and despite the Pope's paranoia, allowing more people to get married will not undermine the institution. It will make it stronger. But allowing more people to not get married, yet escape the legal discrimination that still exists against informal cohabitation, might well undermine marriage. It would no longer have much attraction to those who lacked a religious or cultural commitment to it; it would have a powerful, and perhaps in time more popular, rival.

But if the state's desire is to encourage stable, committed relationships, whatever they may be called, as the governement claims, then this shouldn't matter. In the ministerial forward to today's consulation document, Theresa May and Lynne Featherstone are made to say:

This is not about Government interfering in people’s lives, this is about providing choice for our modern society. Quite simply, if commitment and marriage is a good thing we should not restrict civil marriage only to opposite-sex couples.

Quite simply, if commitment and partnership is a good thing they should not restrict civil partnership only to same-sex couples. This is not about Government interfering in people's lives. It is about providing choice for our modern society.

The guilty rape victim: the law isn't always "fair"

2012-03-14T14:34:00.005Z

The Guardian is predictably outraged that the Court of Appeal has "refused" to quash the conviction for perverting the course of justice of a woman who falsely retracted a rape allegation against her husband. The Independent, meanwhile, headlines its fairly sober account of the case with the editorialising words "the court ruling that shows the injustice of Britain's rape laws".

It certainly sounds bad. "Sarah", a victim of longterm domestic abuse who her supporters say was coerced into withdrawing the rape claim, was briefly jailed in Novemeber 2010 after a staggeringly unsympathetic judge gave her an eight-month sentence. She was released on appeal (after spending more than two weeks in custody away from her children), and an embarrassed Director of Public Prosecutions hastily rewrote the CPS guidelines to ensure that women in her position would not be charged in future. But the conviction remained.

"Sarah" and her legal advisers hoped, indeed expected, that the conviction would be overturned, arguing that she was both under duress and suffering from post traumatic stress disorder at the time of the trial. Although she had pled guilty to the perverting the course of justice, her lawyers contended, she would not have done so had she been properly advised or had all the medical evidence been available. And even under the existing CPS guidelines the prosecutors should have exercised their discretion and not brought charges against her. Therefore she should never have been given a criminal record.

None of these arguments found favour with the Court of Appeal. The Guardian's reporting of the case leaves little doubt that the decision is both outrageous and surprising. One QC involved with the case is quoted making the very peculiar assertion that "the law simply cannot tolerate a situation whereby such an injustice is maintained because of perceived constraints in the current legal framework." That sounds to me - perhaps I've parsed it inaccurately - as "the law cannot tolerate the law". The question, after all, is not whether Sarah's conviction, and especially her imprisonment, was unjust. Everyone involved seems to accept that it was. The point at issue was whether the conviction was technically unsafe, whether it was legally and/or procedurally flawed.

But it's easy to lose sight of that when you read that Sarah's husband (Terry) had been charged with no less than six counts of rape against her, or that (as her counsel told the court) he had forced her to work in a "massage parlour", ("this brothel"), confiscated her wages and then "proceeded to attack her emotionally for doing what she had done at his insistence and for his gain". Lord Judge, we read, sniffily dismissed the appellant's case as relying on little more than a "somewhat nebulous basis of unfairness". He sounds - or is made to sound - like the soulless embodiment of dry-as-dust legal formalism, denying justice on a technicality. Unimaginatively and inflexibly upholding a male-made law that does not comprehend, or even recognise, the experiences of women.

As one comment on the Guardian piece put it,

This decision is not justice. It is an appalling, sexist, inhumane and wicked "example" being made of a woman who found herself in too awful a position to be able to make any good decision, and who, by being in such a position through no fault of her own, inconvenienced the courts.

Looking at the actual judgement, however, things do not seem to be quite so clear-cut. For one thing, the facts as set out are open to more than one interpretation. While Sarah had undoubtedly suffered severe abuse and was, more generally, under the thumb of a jealous, manipulative and violent partner, it was far from obvious that she was acting merely out of fear at the time that she withdrew the rape claim.

The police gave her every opportunity to tell them that she was being threatened; indeed, they put her under what seems to have been considerable pressure to admit as much. Not only did she deny that Terry was threatening her, she insisted that she had other reasons for wishing to withdraw the complaint.

They discussed whether her husband had put emotional pressure on her, whether she was concerned about the position of the children, and whether her support network was limited. She was questioned whether he had convinced her to go to the police and withdraw the allegation, and whether he had an emotional hold over her. She was asked whether she had received sufficient support from outside agencies. Even at that stage the police pointed out that if the allegations were true and what she was telling the police now, that is, that the retraction was the lie, she could still tell them about it. She was adamant.

Judge thought it "inconceivable" that had she indeed been threatened with violence or rape if she did not retract the claim she would not have said so at the time.

Sarah claimed, indeed insisted, that she had accused her husband of rape because he disapproved of her work in the massage parlour and she wanted to get back at him. However unconvincing this might seem in retrospect, "this was the explanation that she chose to provide for her false allegations against her husband. She was later to repeat and amplify it."

Purely psychological pressure might, of course, amount to duress. But the relationship between the two protagonists seems to have been rather more complicated than simply one of abuser and victim. At the time she retracted the rape claim, Sarah had in fact returned to her husband. They had spent Christmas together, in violation of Terry's bail conditions. They had sex: "This was not rape, nor even reluctant acquiescence, but consensual sexual intercourse. It happened because, in her reported words, she 'wanted' to." When the breach of bail was exposed, she begged the police not to arrest her husband. He was actually on remand (for the bail violation) when she went to the police to withdraw the allegations, and thus not in a position to threaten her.

She seems to have decided, at that stage, to forgive her husband his sexual violence towards her and to stay together, partly for the sake of the children. She was determined to do whatever it took to prevent the case against him going to trial -- even at the risk (of which she was fully aware) of being put on trial herself. On this basis, and although it seems the police still believed that she had been raped, she was charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice by making a false allegation against her husband.

Shortly before the case reached court that summer she changed her story, telling her solicitor that she had indeed been raped. But even then she did not claim that Terry had been threatening her. Instead she explained that her husband and sister-in-law had both persuaded her that she would probably not go to prison for the lie, and that she didn't want to deprive her children of their father.

Her statements to the police at the time were, the judges concluded, "not consistent with any possible defence of duress."

And that's the key issue, really. "Duress", legally defined, is not the same as pressure. A pre-sentence report, compiled after extensive interviews with the defendant, described the marriage as turbulent, with a history of abuse. But it also stressed that she had tried to make it work for the sake of the children, and because he threatened to harm himself if she left him. It mentioned her feelings of "immense guilt" when her husband was arrested for raping her, and (contrary to what was said at the appeal) suggested that far from forcing her to work in the massage parlour he had disapproved of it from the start; it had "caused immense difficulties between the couple." He did put her under pressure to withdraw the allegation, but worries about the children, her "financial difficulties, lack of family support and isolation" also played their part.

Sometimes he would be so upset that he appeared to be having a nervous breakdown. Thinking of it now it was all a bit over the top, but at the time it made me feel all the more sorry for him. Although he had done what he had done to me, by this time I was feeling responsible for all the upset and worries that he had about missing his children and being frightened of going to prison. The children were upset because they couldn't see their father and it was basically all my fault.

Judge also mentions a letter which Sarah wrote to her husband in prison after she retracted the allegation, and which strongly implies that he had advised her not to: "I told you I would make it all go away and I will by doing what you said not to do. I want you home babe, we all miss you so much. I cry every night and every morning coz your not here."

This complex, dispiriting and all-too-common tale of domestic misery can't be fitted easily into the requirements of the legal defence of duress. In truth, her motivations were more complicated than that. Her feelings for him at the time were, despite the abuse, genuine. The police, it might be said, were themselves putting her under unconscionable pressure by threatening her with criminal charges if she refused to co-operate with a prosecution that she no longer believed in. But from their point of view, and the court's, there was a strong public interest in punishing crime, especially something as serious as rape.

The CPS has since acknowledged that it is inappropriate to bring charges against a woman in Sarah's position, and has revised its guidelines accordingly. But to say that in the circumstances it would have been better not to have charged her is not the same as to say that she was not guilty. She was properly convicted, even if she was not properly sentenced. Perhaps the law needs to be revisited. But it's hard to see how the defence of duress could be extended to cover cases like hers without making it too wide, and without enshrining in law a pseudo-Victorian view of women as helpless victims unable to think or act for themselves. In any event that would be a matter for Parliament.

We are left, then, with what Judge (dismissively?) called "the proposition that it is somehow not fair for the appellant to remain convicted." That has been the tone of the coverage, of most of the comments on Twitter and beneath the Guardian's report. But twisting the facts and the law so as to overturn a valid conviction, just because of an outcry in the Guardian, would set a dangerous precedent.

It seems to me, though, that this would be an ideal case for a Royal Pardon.

Will Young: not "bovred" about free speech?

2012-03-14T09:14:00.003Z

This is a guest post by Rev. Julian Mann

Pop star Will Young speaks for his generation in declaring that vicars should be prosecuted for denouncing same-sex marriage.

In his exchange on BBC Question Time with Daily Mail columnist Janice Atkinson, Mr Young, 33, declared 'rightly so' in response to her concern that Christian and Muslim clergy who described same-sex marriage as 'abhorrent' could be taken down to the police station.

Significantly, last week UKIP raised concerns about the hate crime implications for those opposed to same-sex marriage on religious grounds: "If the government does legislate in this way, we believe that any criticism of same-sex marriage which may be expressed by someone on the basis of their faith could be classified as a 'hate crime'. That would be a grotesque assault on people's freedom of conscience."

Mr Young, who rose to prominence through being a contestant on the Pop Idol TV programme in 2002, is representative in his outlook of those who reached adulthood under New Labour. Freedom of debate is not a cultural value they are particularly bothered about. In fact, they are more bothered that their individual moral choices should be protected from criticism by the politically correct equivalent of a rigorously enforced blasphemy law.

Christian apologist Francis Schaeffer* (1912-1984) predicted the current moral indifference to the preservation of liberty. In his 1976 book How should we then live? he wrote:

I believe the majority of the silent majority, young and old, will sustain the loss of liberties without raising their voices as long as their own life-styles are not threatened. And since personal peace and affluence are so often the only values that count with the majority, politicians know that to be elected they must promise these things. Politics has largely become not a matter of ideals - increasingly men and women are not stirred by the values of liberty and truth - but of supplying a constituency with a frosting of personal peace and affluence. They know that voices will not be raised as long as people have these things, or at least an illusion of them.

Liberty as Western civilisation has been privileged to receive it is indescribably fragile without a firm societal commitment to the truth as God has revealed it in Jesus Christ.

*Schaeffer attracted renewed attention last year after being cited as a key intellectual influence by the former Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann [Heresiarch]

Labour and liberalism

2012-03-13T15:01:00.001Z

Patrick Diamond and Michael Kenny urge the Labour Party to rediscover its "lost liberalism". They write:

We should not forget that the Labour party's liberal heritage has been just as important as its collectivist and statist tradition... It ought to rediscover the insights of early 20th century progressivism: welfare and equality as the basis of a society where all have the freedom to flourish.

Which early 20th century progressives they have in mind, they don't say. I must say a commitment to individual liberty and flourishing isn't the first thing I think of when it comes to early 20th century progressivism. The intellectual cutting edge of British socialism in the first half of the last century was more obviously characterised by enthusiasms for Stalin and eugenics. Diamond and Kenny describe the former Labour project as one of "redistributing power from corporate and bureaucratic elites", whereas it plainly involved redistributing power from corporate to bureaucratic elites. Which wasn't necessarily an improvement.

Sidney Webb, creator of the Fabian Society and intellectual founding father of the modern Labour movement, once wrote that "the perfect and fitting development of each individual is not necessarily the utmost and highest cultivation of his own personality but the fitting, in the best possible way, of his humble function in the great social machine."

Or consider George Bernard Shaw's claim that "the very existence of society depends on the skilled work of administrators and experts." Shaw thought it absurd that while even market traders needed a licence "any fool might be elected to Parliament". He favoured the vetting of candidates on the grounds that "without qualified rulers a socialist state is impossible."

What the Labour Party has lost in recent decades, is scarcely needs saying, is not liberalism but socialism.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn in Cambridge: Permission to Speak?

2012-03-09T15:59:00.009Z

Dominique Strauss Kahn will be addressing the Cambridge Union this evening. Well, that's the plan. Personally I'll be surprised if he gets to say anything. To feminist campaigners the former head of the IMF and longtime key figure in French politics can only ever be an alleged rapist, a subform of life indistinguishable in all relevant respects to a convicted rapist. His presence in Cambridge, where he is supposed to be speaking about the global economy rather than his legal difficulties, is thus an insult to womankind. He must, and probably will, be howled down -- just as David Willetts was howled down late last year for the less obviously serious offence of being the minister in charge of higher education.

Yesterday vandals (or what the Guardian describes as "activists") defaced the Union building with anti-DSK slogans. "This house supports rape culture." Earlier today it was already prepared for the coming siege, with hastily-erected crash barriers and beefy security men wandering around in high visibility jackets. This lunchtime saw a rally of his opponents featuring, among others, Douglas Wigdor, lawyer for DSK's accuser (the New York chambermaid Nafissatou Diallo) and Cath Elliott of CIF fame. No doubt it was an uplifting occasion. CU Women's Officer Ruth Graham tweeted that it was "absolutely fantastic" and the speeches had been "incredibly moving".

DSK, you may remember, was released after the case against him collapsed, not because of some pan-rapist conspiracy but because his accuser's credibility was fatally damaged. He has, it is true, faced other allegations. Journalist Tristane Banon accused him of sexual assault on a TV chat show some years ago, and he was briefly arrested in France last month after he was linked to a Lille prostitution ring. He has long been rumoured to frequent upmarket brothels and has what some might consider to be an excessive sexual appetite. Cambridge's student feminists are more than welcome to dislike him. But he has never been convicted of anything and, thankfully, university women's committees do not get to decide questions of guilt and innocence.

In a typically narcissistic statement, Cambridge University Women's Campaign said that inviting DSK to talk about the global economy despite the allegations against him "feeds an existent culture of silence and shame around rape, in which alleged perpetrators are given a platform mostly denied to survivors of sexual violence". Furthermore, "By inviting him to speak, the Cambridge Union risks colluding with attitudes that condone or trivialise violence against women."

But he is not in Cambridge to promote his Don Juanish lifestyle, to offer dating tips or to speak out on behalf of convicted rapists everywhere. He's there to discuss the global economy, a subject that he might be said to know something about. As the Cambridge Union said in a statement, they've been trying to get him to speak for several years.

He was not invited after or as a result of the circumstances surrounding his departure from the IMF... Mr Strauss-Kahn is exceptionally well qualified to speak on some of the most prominent international headlines of 2012, namely the global financial crisis and the French Presidential election, and so we believe he will give a pertinent and interesting speech.

Hard though this must be for the protesters to understand, the fact that DSK has faced allegations of sexual misconduct does not negate his political expertise. By seeking to deny Cambridge students - the next generation of this country's leaders - the benefit of his insights into finance and diplomacy, his opponents are feeding their own "rape culture" which seeks to turn each and every issue into a discussion about sexual violence. The Union is not "giving a platform" to an alleged rapist but to the former head of the IMF.

The campaigners have determined, in effect, but because of what he is alleged to have done, he must henceforth be a non-person, with no right to speak publicly about anything. Ironically for a group who claim to detect a "culture of silence and shame around rape" their success in attracting support and publicity for their attempt to silence and shame both Strauss-Kahn and the Cambridge Union reveals the precise opposite: the peculiarly intense focus in our culture on sexual crimes, the increasing intolerance shown towards anyone facing even unsubstantiated accusations of sexual misconduct, the synecdoche that would reduce the former IMF chief to his hyperactive penis.

Rape is a very serious crime and rightly attracts heavy prison sentences. But it is not the only thing that matters, and it is not more important than the global economy. And it's ludicrous to see the international hounding that DSK has been subjected to since his arrest in New York last year as evidence of the trivialising of violence against women. On the contrary, for most of the world, Strauss-Kahn's professional achievements are now beside the point. He's the unshaven, shady-looking figure in the notorious photo doing the perp walk.

The protesters will no doubt dismiss the argument (made by the Union) that DSK has a right to freedom of speech. They, after all, have their own right to protest. But the right to protest is a dangerous thing when it becomes a right to silence, a right to bully, a right not only to prevent a speaker from speaking but (even more importantly) the right of others to listen to what he has to say.