A few things around Christmas have got me thinking about society, the media and our wonderful ability to have an opinion on anything – regardless of how little information we have about it. For example, Frankie Boyle took a slating when he used racist terms in his show. Obviously that sort of language isn’t acceptable at all, and plenty of people complained about he was racist towards certain groups. He wasn’t, if you’d seen the show (and I bet a fair few of those complaining hadn’t), you’d know that he was in the middle of a routine about how little the media (and to a much lesser extent, society) seems to care about the innocent civilians caught up in the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts. I believe that term was used to emphasise the fact that we don’t care about them as much.
This leads on to my second point, the Joanna Yeates case. Joanna’s landlord, Chris Jefferies, was released on Police bail on Sunday after being arrested on suspicion of her murder. Within hours the media was drawing attention to his scraggy hair, unusual dress sense and the fact he lived alone, demonising him to the public, portraying him as a potentially evil man. Have they not heard of Innocent until Proven guilty? They have no evidence - yet they can’t wait to imply he’s guilty, it’s shocking. Let’s wait and see if Mr Jefferies is arrested again, then let’s wait until after the jury has made up their minds. Then, and only then, we can properly make up our own minds. We seem to love making kneejerk reactions, it seems that everyone has to have an opinion even if they know very little – a look at few forums for national newspapers proves this, “I never watch [Boyle’s] shows, he’s disgusting”
Then again, people will soon have to make up their minds on who to vote for in the Holyrood elections in May. I think we’ve given the Government long enough now to have a fair shot at governing and we do have evidence to back up our judgements. The Lib Dems promised to vote against raising tuition fees – of the 57 present for the vote, just 21 voted against the rise. David Cameron said he would protect SureStart nurseries, yet it was reported this week that an English Council was planning to slash the scheme by 60% and that many more councils were likely to follow.
And now on an altogether different tangent, since it’s a new year I’ve been thinking about new year’s resolutions for some of the big names in politics at the moment.
Nick Clegg – Put some money away for your children’s university education...
Vince Cable - Stick to the dancing, since your policies are much like your dance moves: 1, 2, 3 – about turn! Oh, and stop declaring war on people.
David Cameron – Make the ‘Big Society’ work by doing something unpaid, being Prime Minister for instance, you have a rather large income as it is...
Lindsay Roy – Keep up the good work! Inside sources at the Labour party said they wanted a “Lindsay Roy – type character” to fight the Oldham East by-election.
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