Inquiries are morally vacuous

This blog is cross-posted from the Huffington Post where it first appeared.

There has been a lot of talk about ‘moral vacuums’ in recent months.  The staff of News International apparently functioned in one.  So too, casting our minds back, did many MPs.  And now we see – finally, horrifically confronted with what is an everyday reality for so many – that significant numbers of our young people are floating around in a moral vacuum as well. What, then, is to be done?

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Max Wind-Cowie, 17-08-11 L

Not an 'underclass' but undeserving

Over the past week commentators, including the BBC’s Mark Easton and Andrew Neil, have begun wheeling out the popular phrase of the 1990s, ‘underclass,’ to describe those who took part in the riots.  But the term ‘underclass’ wrongly conflates two notions – that of desert and of poverty. To speak of an ‘underclass’ is to assume that poverty drives ‘undeserving behaviour’. In fact, you can be ‘undeserving rich’ as well as you can be ‘undeserving poor’.

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Thomas Gregory, 15-08-11 C

The protection racket unravels

Apologies for not blogging here sooner about the outbreak of criminality that afflicted London's streets last weekend.  On Monday evening - as London descended into its worst night of anarchy in living memory - I was on Radio 4's PM programme giving my reaction.  My line was clear and, I felt, utterly uncontroversial - that these disturbances reflected a violent sub-culture, hell bent on domination of our streets and vicious in its sense of entitlement.

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Max Wind-Cowie, 13-08-11 L

Don't pin this on Jesus

The horrors that unfolded yesterday defy any capacity I might have to describe them.  I am neither a poet nor a priest and this, truly, is a situation that demands response and description from a combination of those rather than from a political hack and policy wonk.  Suffice to say that I am filled with sympathy for Norway and for its people, that I am disgusted by what occurred and that I am truly sorry that it happened.

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Max Wind-Cowie, 23-07-11 L

Freedom isn't free - even on the internet

I’ve recently been asked to work on the first episode of Amnesty International TV. Amnesty is well known for its cutting edge campaigns. And this time it was no exception. 50 years ago, the lack of freedom of expression in Portugal triggered the birth of Amnesty. Being portuguese, I felt honoured to be able to use my skills to spread awareness about the very same problem but this time in the XXI century.

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Bruno Ferreira, 16-07-11 C

Other candidates for the 'Ofcom' test

Ofcom, the regulator of broadcast in Britain, has been making quite a fuss over its duty to impose a 'fit and proper person' test on News International before allowing their takeover of BSkyB to go ahead.  I approve of the test immensely, in a democracy where so much of public opinion is mediated, facilitated and translated through broadcasters - and especially through their news and current affairs packages - it's only reasonable that we assess whether the proprietors are people we can and should trust with that responsibility.

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Max Wind-Cowie, 11-07-11 L
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