The changing moral landscape – the next chapter

I wrote a piece on this blog a couple of months ago called ‘The changing moral landscape’. In it, I suggested Britain is adopting the politics of change too broadly, and that some things are best left untouched – chief among them being some of our more traditional attitudes and the social structures they underpin.

In between now and then, I’ve begun to wonder if the pendulum might be starting to swing back the other way. Which has taken me a bit by surprise. Perhaps I could explain.

For better or for worse, we are changing. This economic crisis has knocked us all for six and it’s making us reassess how we make decisions, how we live and even who we are.

This change is dependent on one simple variable – how much cash we have in the bank. Broadly speaking, the faster that figure soars or plummets, the faster we change.

Money gives us belief in ourselves. If we are rich, we are confident in our own decisions and actions. The wealth of the last couple of decades has convinced us we’re closing in on infallibility – consider our government borrowing money to the threshold of oblivion and beyond, or rock stars announcing that cocaine is no more dangerous than a cup of tea.

By comparison, if we’re strapped, we lose that confidence and begin to question what we do, whether that’s something day-to-day like buying a giant TV on credit or a much more complex matter like advertising the morning-after pill.

My theory is, that as the material world we’ve created crumbles around our ears, we will unravel impressions of our own infallibility. Our conclusions will be both fiscal and moral – and, in many cases, both.

This becomes really interesting when we try and work out what we’ll look like by the time this crisis is over.

Obviously, for some time, we’re going to be more economically prudent. Cameron’s cuts begin to sound not only sensible but also like a moral obligation, while Brown’s borrowing is now certain to leave him with a legacy as the man who broke Britain. Cameron now looks a dead cert to win the next election.

If, as the theory goes, our confidence in the economy inspires moral fluidity, it could be that economic pessimism will mean we’re less likely to experiment with our value system.

Then again, it may not – it’s an early call. But you don’t have to look far to see the signs. Talk of late about teaching five-year-olds how to use their sexual organs might once have been seen as progression and part of the foundation of an open society, but reading the hundreds and thousands of comments on major news organisations’ websites this week, the general opinion seems to be these are terrible ideas.

I’ll admit last week’s Miss USA contest might not be the best place from which to continue the argument, but it was this that first made me wonder. Perez Hilton’s response to Miss California’s statement that marriage should only be between a man and a woman was to call her a ‘dumb bitch’ whose views belonged to another time. The gay activist and pageant judge might have expected broad and vocal support of his view, but the prevailing attitude was that he was out of line. Not necessarily for his opinions on gay marriage, but certainly for failing to permit hers. Even on his high-profile blog, his normally besotted fans rued the incident, one lamenting, ‘You may have shot yourself in the foot on this one, Perez.’

As we become a more financially cautious society, will we adopt a similarly careful approach to our morals? Who knows. It’s only a theory. Interesting times, nonetheless.

Her death does not become us

Something extraordinary happened to me today. I found myself agreeing with something Noel Gallagher said.

Mr Gallagher and I come from different backgrounds, lead very different lives and might take different standpoints in just about every pub debate under the sun, but it seems we’re united in our embarrassment at the media coverage reserved for Jade Goody in recent weeks.

No doubt about it, what is happening to her is grim. On a personal level, it’s tragic, not least for her two boys who are set to lose a parent while too young to understand how or why, let alone what impact their loss will have on their future.

But the way this is being covered by the British press and the hunger of Joe Public to feast on every detail of her demise is just plain ugly.

Here is a woman, who in life has been celebrated for her simpleness, for her banality, for her ability to shock us by doing or saying the wrong thing when we’re all watching, and who now in death is holding the front pages as a saint might the attentions of a faithful congregation.

This is what Gallagher had to say about it in last weekend’s Sunday Times: ‘I mean, I’ve got f*** all against Jade Goody, that’s nothing to do with me. But it bends my head. That, to me, sums up in one tiny five-minute thing on the news, what an embarrassing place Britain is right now.’

Erm, well said Noel.

We are hooked on the saga of Jade Goody’s death. Why? Who is this woman that she should command such attention? It just doesn’t feel right.

In fact, it feels downright alarming. For two reasons. First (and I hate to sound dreadfully Victorian about this), because death should be a private matter, not a time of life to be played out in the tabloids for everyone to see. Death is a time for close family and friends. If you get the chance to know it’s happening to you, it’s a chance to see out your last days with a spot of dignity, to try and make good anything you got wrong in life, to say goodbye with your self-respect intact.

I know Jade has had to drag herself out of the gutter and that her life has not been formed by parameters like these, but there are a lot of people close to her who should know better. Some of them do know better, but do otherwise – stand up, Max Clifford.

Second, and more significantly, because Jade Goody’s fame is based on her ignorance, racism and complete lack of self-awareness, and her condition exposes that fame for what it really is. Meaningless.

That is the irony of the extensive coverage of her death. Jade Goody is the current pin-up of cheap fame, both among those who aspire to it and those who despise it, and rather than being a testament to anything genuinely worthy, this obsessive journaling of her end is an indictment of her hollow celebrity and the vacuous promotion of it. So, how then can we bring ourselves to feast on it?

In her demise she now inhabits two ends of what I’m going to call the Silly Spectrum. On the one hand, her fame is absurd, silly in the extreme. But on the other, her illness and premature departure from this world are not at all silly – they are desperate, horrible and unfair. Terminal cancer always is. There’s a real conflict in that paradox, one with which I don’t imagine anyone can feel comfortable.

So, if we learn nothing new of Jade Goody from this experience – we know all there is to know about her – then surely we must learn something of ourselves, of contemporary Britain. Why did OK! magazine sell two million copies of the Jade Goody wedding issue in its first week, when the publication’s average sales figures are only 25 per cent of that number?

Could be any number of reasons. Perhaps our fascination with the story is in fact a national outpouring of grief for the wealth we’ve just lost. Perhaps it’s a subconscious reaction to our spiritual nihilism. Perhaps it’s our own fears realised. Of course, it’s all these things and more.

Whatever the reason, there’s no question this is the ugly face of Britain. The only right response to this modern parable is to stand back and take a long, hard look at ourselves and do some meaningful soul searching. If that were her legacy, it would be one worth leaving.

Pity it will never happen. We all know others will follow, with a similar lust for cheap fame, and we’ll do little or nothing to deter them. Perhaps that is her tragedy, more than any other.

There is no scorn towards a dying mother – that can never be. But our gluttonous obsession with Jade Goody’s last days on earth does not become us.

The changing moral landscape

A lot of people die these days. They really do. David Vine died this week, which is sad. No offence Graham Bell, but Ski Sunday hasn’t been the same.

Then there was Eartha Kitt. She died on Christmas Day last year, which was weird. There are 365 days in a year and all of us have to die on one of them, but it still seems odd that for some people that turns out to be December 25.

As is appropriate, when famous people die, the eulogies pour in. Vine was described as a ‘true and utter gentleman’. Kitt as ‘the most exciting woman in the world.’ All fair and good.

Without making reference to either of them, it occurred to me that these days we rarely hear anyone tagged in life or in death as a ‘moral’ person. I have an inkling this is because the attribute makes us uneasy. It could even be considered an insult.

Think about it. ‘He was a very moral man.’ In your mind, you’re probably thinking of a Victorian gentleman with a monocle, a clipped moustache and a cane to beat you with. And he’s frowning. If you can be described as moral, chances are everyone else thinks you’re mean, judgmental and about as much fun as a night out with Hazel Blears.

Funny? Good. Loving? Excellent. Talented? Superlative. But moral? You’d better hope not. Adopting this position means you’re against stuff. A killjoy. Narrow-minded. A hypocrite, even. Not mad keen on abortion? Struggle with the idea of gay marriage? Be careful how and where you express these opinions.

There must be a reason for this. A cause. A will. An all-consuming, overwhelming force edging rectitude to one side and propelling laissez-faire.

And it’s this. Change. The very word. A small, single-syllable word that has flooded our consciousness and now pervades our collective attitude to pretty much everything. To be better, no matter what it is, it has to change.

Who kicked this off, I don’t know. New Labour is a good candidate for examination. Back in 1997 and running with the electoral slogan ‘things can only get better’, for Blair and company change wasn’t an idea, it was a mandate.

Football managers do it all the time. Former Chelsea manager Claudio Ranieri was dubbed the Tinkerman because he changed his team incessantly (it didn’t work and he was fired). President-elect Barack Obama stole a march on world history with his own brand of change politics, although we’ve yet to see what this means other than the end of Bush-branded Republicanism. Artists of every persuasion change methods all the time.

And of course, the results of change are often spectacular. I’m glad someone stuck a few magnets under the strings of an acoustic guitar and made it electric. I’m pretty pleased my car boasts the technical advances of the last 90 years. The way I drive, I’d be in the ground by now without them. Change in itself is no charlatan. A change of government in Zimbabwe would be a fine thing.

But as a mantra for life, it’s too broad. Some things are best left alone. And morality is one of them. Just wait, euthanasia will be legalised soon. Same-sex couples will be allowed to conceive children. Change will come. You don’t have to look hard to see it.

As the culture of change seeps in, our vision of the traditional moral compass fades. Trouble lies therein.

Fatherless Britain

Despite the particular, horrible circumstances of this Karen Matthews thing, there’s also something uncomfortably familiar about it all.

The story has left me wondering how many people there are out there capable of this kind of behaviour, who they are and where they live. I fear the answers are – lots; those living below the poverty line (£11,000 per household); and everywhere. This will not be the last case of its kind we see. It will be followed by others, some of which will be more disturbing – and soon.

And I suspect the same conclusions are being drawn up and down the country, as curtains become twitchier and the number of people applying for a job with social services nosedives.

What we’ve been reminded of in recent weeks, first through the awful case of Baby P and now the reappearance of the Matthews’ case, is that there are a lot of bad parents in this country.

Why? Karen Matthews is today’s bête noire, but she’s an extreme case of a symptom visible across the country, and as such, she’s not unique. For every teenage gang member, murderer, suicide victim and truant deliquant there’s more often than not a Karen Matthews behind the scenes. And, more likely, no father. Which is significant.

According to research carried out by the Separated Parenting Access & Resource Center in the US, a child from a fatherless home is five times more likely to commit suicide, 20 times more likely to have behavioural disorders and 20 times more likely to end up in prison.

It’s easy to generalise when a case like this hits the headlines, but we’ve seen so many stories recently that point the finger at absent fathers that surely the time has come to make the traditional family unit central to government policy.

But for now, I think we’re unlikely to see this happen. Labour has gone to extraordinary lengths to dilute the meaning of the word ‘family’, to the extent that a single mother with five children by five different fathers will receive more in benefit than a mother and father still together will with same number of kids. What happens next is not rocket science. It simply encourages the breakdown of the family. Or, to put it abruptly, it incentivises social degeneration.

All the statistics point to this, and yet nothing is being done about it. Our elected leaders are paranoid that speaking out in favour of traditional values is a vote loser, because it upsets the sensibilities of anyone who has done life differently and makes them seem out of touch. But that’s the reality of leadership. You can’t please everybody all the time, and if doing what’s patently right disturbs the more liberal voter, so be it.

More than any other matter on the public agenda, it’s this that will swing my vote at the next election. Tax me, fight whichever dictator takes your fancy, build a bus lane across my lawn – I don’t care. The only thing we can really do to make this country better is promote the family.

Why Britain really does have the X Factor

Amid the downpour this morning, a guy at the mouth of my local Tube station handed me a copy of Shortlist, one of those free mag-paper things. On the cover was a picture of paradise – the usual clichéd mix of blue sea, white sand and palm tree paraphernalia. The coverline announced, ‘Your new life abroad: How to find a great job, an amazing house and fend off visiting ‘friends’.’

Of course, the feature inside was a damp version of the sell, and after reading the article, I was no more convinced a life of expatriate bliss is either achievable or desirable.

All of which brought me back to my thoughts on Blighty. By which I mean my campaign to explain ‘why Britain’s not all that bad’.

Judging by the chaos caused up and down the country today by the odd snowflake, I thought I’d turn my attentions away from both the weather and our infrastructure, and instead promote Britain by talking about X Factor mastermind Simon Cowell.

In case you flinched, yes, this is an argument in favour of Britain, not against.

Simon Cowell has been an ever-present on TV screens in the UK and US this decade and doesn’t need a lot of introduction. Pop impresario, talent show judge, big mouth, multi-millionaire, self-confessed Botox user – there’s not much we don’t know about him.

What I like about the man is that in recent years he has done a Clarkson, who came a close second in the competition to be the subject of this aphorism. And I don’t mean as in the late-90s, faux-pas prone Clarkson – no. Like Britain’s favourite petrolhead, Cowell has managed to reinvent the way the public perceive him. He’s gone from being broadly despised to widely admired, even if it is begrudgingly (which is itself a very British way of acknowledging achievement, but that’s for another day). I’m not suggesting everyone likes him – they don’t. But for a man who left school before sixth form, got his first job in the music industry in the mail room (which, universally speaking, seems to be the best place to start any bid for superstardom) and came to our attention with the nickname ‘Mr Nasty’, he’s done well. Very well.

And I think this is thanks in no small part to his Britishness. Britons are often described as having ‘pluck’, but that makes us all sound like Spitfire pilots. In any case, it’s more than that. I’m talking about a cocktail of ambition and resilience. It’s our small island mentality perhaps, being prepared to stand up for ourselves when we want something, whether it’s justice, honour, or in Cowell’s case, fame, power and money.

These are motives, though. To my mind, it’s the characteristic beneath them that qualifies our Britishness. And for that reason I wish we had more Simon Cowells. Which is something I never thought I’d hear myself say.

The true cost of low-fare airlines

Britain has gone to the dogs. Financially and morally bankrupt. Unemployed and unhappy. Without any sense of national identity. And it rains a lot.

Well, yes – and no.

Thing is, it’s easy to whinge about Britain. I do it all the time. It’s grey and rude and run by bureaucrats and blah, blah, blah... True.

But until climate change really kicks in and Britain becomes a tropical island the size of a toaster, this is where I live. And it’s where most people I know and love live. And that makes it home.

For all that every time I come home from a budget holiday in the Costa del Hot, full of paella and cheap beer, claiming life would be so much better if only I lived on a beach in San Somewhere by Sea, I have to remind myself in the cold light of day that it just might not.

The true cost of low-fare airlines is that they’ve turned us into a nation of Britain-haters. Self-loathing fuelled by a week in Palma that cost us what Tescos are charging for half a dozen eggs and a Twix.

I am very British. In the morning, I like Weetabix with cold milk from cows that have fed on British grass. I like reading Simon Barnes and A.A Gill in The Times. I like driving on the left. I like the TV department on the 5th floor in John Lewis. I like the smell of a fresh Farmhouse loaf. I like £20 notes. I like the sound of Clive Tyldesley’s voice when I’m rooting for whichever English team is playing in the Champions League. I like the way black cabs can turn in the road in one swoop. I like Jamie Oliver. I just can’t help myself. Heck, I even like Mondeos. They make me feel comfortable.

So that’s it. I’m going to embark on a journey that will show me why Britain’s not so bad. I have a feeling I might surprise myself.

What are we doing to Christmas?

Grief. My free evening paper tells me tonight that Westminster Council have banned Debenhams on Oxford Street from playing Christmas carols because they create ‘noise pollution’. This is nonsense. Claptrap of a particularly bitter vintage. Silent Night at any volume is about as offensive to the ears as a baby rabbit is to a four-year-old girl called Bubbles. Sorry thing is, I don’t think there’s anyone who didn’t see it coming.

Christmas is in for a good bashing this year. Ever since a dullard named Mike Chubb persuaded Birmingham City Council to rename it Winterval a number of years ago, the trend for eroding all things Christmassy has gathered pace – and I’ve no doubt it’s not going to stop here.

Why? What’s wrong with Christmas? Ok, so if your parents are vegetarians and present you with tofu-loaf for Christmas dinner when everyone else is stuffing themselves with sausages wrapped in bacon, I can understand why you might not be salivating at the thought it’s only 36 days til Santa brings you some things you don’t want.

But Christmas is the only time of year that requires no specific set of conditions (weather, location, company and so on) to make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Summer doesn’t – it’s always either cold and wet, or so hot you have to sleep naked.

I felt this feeling just the other day in Starbucks. As I sipped on a Gingerbread latte with Wham’s Last Christmas schmoozing over the stereo, I felt happy – for no other reason than I felt Christmassy.

So I get a bit upset when the Red Cross says it’s not going to put nativity displays in the windows of its charity shops because it might distress members of other religions (would it really?), or when Coke adverts tell me ‘the holidays are coming’, because it’s as if they’re saying to me, ‘you’re not allowed to have Christmas, but if you must, it will have to be a quiet, solitary affair, beyond public view.’

Goodness knows we need it at the moment. People are losing their jobs like I’m losing my youth, England lost to the Australians, and John Sergeant has been bullied into stepping down from Strictly Come Dancing even though he brought pleasure to millions. Oh, and then there's that fixed rate mortgage I took out in July...

Wouldn’t it be nice therefore, to do a little bit of celebrating? Forget about all the bad stuff for a while? Without Christmas, winter is just, well winter. And this year it will be winter with recession. Which will be rubbish.

This Christmas I shall be pulling crackers, wearing paper hats that make me look horribly bald, singing Noel, Noel with gusto and liberally pouring out seasonal salutations. And, I expect, feeling all warm and fuzzy inside.

Perhaps I might be the first then, to wish you ‘A Very Happy Christmas’.