Categories: Mark Steyn

Hell, Britannia, you’re just nasty

Licence to make crass sexual jokes on the BBC about the Queen is depravity, not liberty

by Mark Steyn on Wednesday, October 7, 2009 3:40pm - 111 Comments

Hell, Britannia, you’re just nasty Earlier this week, David Cameron, the British Conservative Party leader and probable next prime minister, was “cleared” of “breaching” “the broadcasting code” by the country’s TV and radio regulatory authority, Ofcom. Back in July, Mr. Cameron had been appearing on the morning show at Absolute Radio, a national rock station, and had, apropos the political class in general, observed that “the public are rightly, I think, pissed off.” To a question about why he was not using Twitter, the Tory leader replied, “Too many twits might make a twat.”

“That seemed to go okay,” reckoned Cameron as he left the studio. “Apart from the language,” responded his press secretary, Gabby Bertin.

“Oh, yeah, ‘pissed,’ sorry about that.”

“No, it was the ‘twat,’ ” said Ms. Bertin.

“That’s not a swear word,” insisted the heir to Thatcher, Churchill, Lord Salisbury and Disraeli. My dictionary says:

“noun [origin unknown] (1656): VULVA—usually considered vulgar.”

On the other hand, an Ofcom report from 2005, Language And Sexual Imagery In Broadcasting: A Contextual Investigation, is more ambivalent, concluding only that “twat” is “very polarizing . . . offensive especially to British Asian females and some women from other groups, but many especially men think it is an everyday word.”

Nevertheless, Ofcom felt obliged to spend two months investigating David Cameron, prompting lefties to advance the theory that the Tory honcho deliberately said “piss” and “twat” on the radio in order to appear “cool” and not your usual uptight conservative like . . . um, well, names no longer spring easily to mind in the British Tory party. But imagine Mitt Romney going on the radio and saying “muthafucker” to look cool, or Stephen Harper revealing he has nipple piercings.

If it wasn’t a focus-group-generated coolness op, Mr. Cameron might reasonably wonder why in the United Kingdom of 2009 his on-air effusions should merit a two-month investigation. I am a wee sensitive soul and so, when in Britain, try to avoid turning on the TV. A couple of years ago, I forgot myself and switched on to find in progress a game show in which the male contestants were required to remove the female contestants’ brassieres without using their hands. This was on the BBC. Which is funded by a poll tax: if you own a television set in the United Kingdom, you are obliged to pay a licence fee of £142.50—or about 250 bucks Canadian—which goes to fund the BBC. This is necessary, so it is claimed, to prevent the airwaves being clogged with hideous down-market trash of the kind that infects American telly by enabling the BBC to produce quality programming the market would not support. Like televised bra-removal competitions. Although, if that’s not commercially viable, it’s no wonder capitalism is dead.

Anyway, speaking of “everyday words,” and indeed of vulvas, last year I forgot myself again and switched on for my annual 15 minutes of BBC quality programming. This time I caught an episode of Mock the Week. This is one of those shows in which comedians say funny things about the news. If you’re thinking, “Ah, you mean like Air Farce or 22 Minutes?”—not exactly. If you’re faintly irked by those shows’ cozy relationship with the political establishment they’re meant to be afflicting and the party leaders showing what good sports they are by appearing in toothless sketches, that doesn’t seem to be a problem at Mock the Week. The host, Dara Ó Briain, asked the panel to suggest things Her Majesty the Queen would be unlikely to say during her Christmas message.

The show’s star, Frankie Boyle, replied: “I’m now so old my pussy is haunted.”

What larks!

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Tags: Britian, David Cameron, Ofcom, twat

More by Mark Steyn

s. balogh

sounds more and more like "A Clockwork Orange" society everyday

http://intensedebate.com/people/Wakefield Wakefield

Yes, and we're all going to lick the blinky boot very soon…

http://intensedebate.com/people/Gaunilon Gaunilon

I'm in complete agreement on the general point that sexual license is merely a sedative to keep people from rebelling against the theft of actual freedoms, but I have to wonder: by being so explicit in repeating and mocking the BBC's on-air depravity, isn't Steyn contributing to the coarsening of culture?

Granted the general crassness is more a symptom of societal decay than a cause, but it does contribute somewhat to the problem and Steyn does not help by being just as crass as those he's lampooning.

http://twitter.com/southsidewood @southsidewood

Spot on, Gaunion. He could easily have used abbreviated terns etc. He actually condones and condemns at the same time by his explicit description.

Uh huh

Yes. More euphemisms please. But leave them just close enough so I know which real word you're talking about. That way I'm a cleaner person when I'm reading it. If we put one guy in charge of these things, it would be more consistent too. And so much safer.
The bell tolls for we.
http://intensedebate.com/people/Lord_Bob Lord Bob

The problem is not the word "twat". The problem is saying that the Queen's vagina is a haunted house because you can and not because of any editorial comment. Perhaps if it had been tied into some serious political point. "The Queen's vagina is like a haunted house, and this is obviously bad for our nation so we should have a royal Logan's Run thing going on."

Vulgarity for vulgarity's sake.

Mr. Steyn, on the other hand, was using vulgarity to make his point. That's one of his, like, three writing techniques, so it should be pretty easy to keep track of.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Gaunilon Gaunilon

No, he was using it to be entertaining. He could easily have made his point without the crassness.

scf

I disagree. I don't think it's possible to understand without the quotes, and in fact, if the material was broadcast across England, I don't think it's crass to repeat the same material in a critique.
http://intensedebate.com/people/Gaunilon Gaunilon

True, but he didn't just quote it. He riffed on it throughout the piece.
http://intensedebate.com/people/HarleyDave HarleyDave

Steyn doesn't know how to entertain. He is the reason that I will not renew my subscription!

http://intensedebate.com/people/Wakefield Wakefield Tolbert

I have a moderating, "in between" point of view that allows us to use these nifty monikers for female anatomy while making real social progress.

1) Do not allow this crud on publically funded "telly", as the Brits call their version of the Idiot Box.

2) Use these terms in the privacy of your own bedroom with tarts of choice, and have fun, but this time to the ends of procreation rather than vulgarity for shiggles' sake.

Thereby…

3) …replacing at least one part of Europe's bustling old folks homes with some new hip action in the maternity wards, thus insuring a reversal of some rather odious trending of late, where the name Jack is now second to Mohemmed as the number one baby boy's name in the land that gave us the Magna Carta (is that translatable to Arabic? Just curious.)

The problem IS twats and peckers. But not how we at first think….
http://intensedebate.com/people/HarleyDave Knuckle_Head

But is it haunted, and if so does she need an exorcism?

Michael

I don't understand the comparison.No different than reporting rape ,murder or Genocide.Would that be contributing as well.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Gaunilon Gaunilon

You can write about those without doing them, just like you can write about crassness without being crass. Steyn chose to write about crassness while descending to exactly the same level himself.
http://www.intensedebate.com/people/Gaunilon Gaunilon

You can write about murder and rape without doing them, just like you can write about crassness without being crass. Steyn chose to write about crassness while descending to exactly the same level himself.

Ginna

In the US, when some twit (that's TWIT) is focusing on trivia in the midst of disaster, we say he's straightening the deck chairs on the Titanic. Good Lord, Gaunilon and the rest of you, your country is dying and YOU'RE KILLING THE MESSENGER!!!!!!!! (another apt expression).

Josh P.

I love Steyn, but I agree with Gaunilon. But maybe he's making a point about unnecessary vulgarity. I'm not sure. For the record, I still love Steyn.
RSP

I doubt the euphemisms that Gaunion seems to advocate would convey how infantile TV, and indeed our entire culture, has become. In this case, there is no substitute for simply reproducing the sorry spectacle in repulsive detail.

Incidentally, I don't think Steyn's primary point is that the taxpayer is forced to pay for intellectual sewage. His deeper point, somewhat implied, is that there is a market for it and that it says as much about the audience as it does about the broadcasters.
guest

I vaguely remember some debate about some cartoons that we wern't allowed to look at. I think we should leave debating about abstract, unseen ideas to earnest high scool students (They still teach debating in schools. Don't they?).
Ivan

I agree Gaunilon. I could have got the idea without quite such a detailed description. And some people here in Canada think CBC is a little over-the-top. This type of 'coarse culture' shows a lack of education and a lack of respect. We are hearing a lot of negative things about England lately; too bad.
Bill Bohlender

I Agree with Gaunilon and I am getting disgusted with Mclean's articles which are more explicit than necessary. I was in England several years ago and was disgusted with the crudeness then on TV.

Craig O

Now, exactly who forced Steyn to listen to these comedians? It's all well and good to complain about people who's candor you disagree with, but it's hardly out of his power to simply change the channel (or turn off the TV).

horatio dunesbury

you're right craig o, but if you think that's the point, you missed it completely.
Dude

The issue is not whether Steyn is forced to listen to this drivel, but rather should it be created and distributed on the public dime.
Can the BBC or the CBC survive in a free market? We all know the answer to that….
http://intensedebate.com/people/Gaunilon Gaunilon

No one is forced to listen to it, but anyone with a TV is forced to pay for it. I think that's the point.

Craig O

They're forced to pay for the BBC, not necessarily this show. As Steyn points out, the point of the public funding of the BBC is so that it can produce shows that serve a public interest, but wouldn't survive in the free market. This receives a lot of complaints, that the public shouldn't be funding anything that wouldn't survive in the free market. How many times has Steyn complained about the publicly funded CBC?

The irony here is that any time such publicly funded organizations actually try to do something that would garner their own revenue, such as shock shows like the ones described here, they're lambasted for not filling the very role that they're receiving complaints about filling in the first place. This show gets 3.5 million viewers regularly, probably one of the few programs the BBC makes that actually produces a profit in terms of ad revenue.

I understand Steyn's complaint, that the public shouldn't be subsidizing programs that aren't in the public interest (the public interest being a very loose, undefinable term when it comes to entertainment). However, Steyn also frequently complains about any publicly subsidized programs (partially because of the inherent difficulty in what constitutes being in the public interest for the media), so I find it rather hypocritical that he would be so upset about a BBC show that actually tries to support itself.

http://www.intensedebate.com/people/Gaunilon Gaunilon

You're being disingenuous here. If people are forced to support the BBC, they're being forced to pay for this show that the BBC puts on.

It's entirely reasonable to point out that (a) a publicly funded British network shouldn't be airing crass references to the Queen's genitalia, and (b) the reason given for publicly funded networks – that it keeps the programming above the crass and worthless – is thoroughly contradicted by programming like this.

Come on.
http://www.intensedebate.com/people/Gaunilon Gaunilon

You're being disingenuous here. If people are forced to support the BBC, they're being forced to pay for this show that the BBC puts on.

It's entirely reasonable to point out that (a) a publicly funded British network shouldn't be airing crass references to the Queen's genitalia, and (b) the reason given for publicly funded networks – that it keeps the programming above the level of crass and worthless – is thoroughly contradicted by programming like this.

Come on.

Craig O

If the show can support itself through its own revenue, then it isn't being publicly funded. At that point, it would actually be reducing the financial burden on the public through its profits. It's as simple as that – the network may be publicly funded, this show likely isn't.

A publicly funded British network shouldn't be airing crass references (and who gets to decide what's crass and what's not?) on the public dime, but that's not necessarily the case here.

My point is that you can't levy criticism against public program from both angles – Steyn has spoken out before against publicly funded programming because it can't survive in the market. Yet, when it tries to survive in the market, he criticizes it for not making programming that can't survive in the market. He's complaining that the public programming is defying the very spirit that he complained about in the first place.
http://intensedebate.com/people/Gaunilon Gaunilon

Au contraire. The BBC are the ones who can't have it both ways. Either they're providing worthy shows that merit public funding or they should cease to be publicly funded. Steyn is pointing out the dichotomy.
Craig O

Why can't they have it both ways? The public funding goes to the worthy shows. The "unworthy" shows garner their own private funding and subsidize the worthy shows with their profits, lowering the financial burden on the public.

This is before asking the question, who gets to decide what's worthy? 3.5 million people who pay their dues to the BBC seem to think that the show's worthy.
http://intensedebate.com/people/YYZ YYZ

I'm with Craig – he's right. It's the same reason CBC runs Jeopardy. Helps them pay for other stuff.
GEC

Er – there is no ad revenue on the BBC. Its entirely funded by taxes and license fees, so there is absolutely no need to produce such "commercially viable" programming.
Craig O

Wikipedia. It takes two seconds. They get over $700 million in funding from their corporate wing. Heck, go to BBC.com right now, you'll see an ad. The bulk of their funding comes from the public, yes, but they get plenty of ad revenue as well.
davey

Why shouldn't a publicly funded network air crass content? There are huge proportions of the population that find exactly this kind of programming hilarious, and these people are taxpayers too. Its an often implied assumption that publicly funded networks are suppossed to be a bastion of upper crust snooty culture, but that is just elitism.
Perhaps if more public broadcasters did air content that appealed to a "broader" audience, then people wouldn't whine so much about their tax dollars paying for something they don't use. I think this is ultimately what the revamp of Radio 2 was all about, and I have to say I much perfer the new version.
I think Steyn and his followers are really just offended because they hold Christian right wing values, but perfer to cloak their arguments against other viewpoints in nonreligious ways because it ostensibly makes them easier to swallow.
Guest

"It is often an implied assumption that publicly funded networks are (supposed) to be a bastion of upper crust snooty culture…"
Maybe that's because they're the ones implying it.

Rob H

He is commenting on England with specific examples of it television. He is a commentator stupid. By your reasoning no one can criticize anything because they don't have to read, watch or listen to it. Idiot.

Craig O

Steyn is not a tv critic, he's a social commentator. He has no reason to watch or criticize the show except for its larger impact on society. My point, as I elaborate in my other comments, is that his criticism of the show for its larger impact on society are at odds with his previous statements.

It's not the fact that he doesn't like the comments that I care about, that's just personal opinion. It's his rationale for why he dislikes it that's the problem, because it smacks of hypocrisy. He's welcome to hold any opinion he wants, but if he's going to publish those opinions through a national media outlet, I'm going to at least insist he provide consistent reasoning for his opinions.

Maureen

As soon as people are forced to pay for something, then the provision of that 'something' had better be in the public interest! I find that many on the left of centre complain bitterly when their taxpayer subsidies are challenged, but they don't accord the same right to complain when people on the right of centre do the same thing. I would never willingly go to a Russel Brand concert, but I don't care if he is offensive one bit as long as I'm not REQUIRED to support his nonsense through my taxes – I already have to do that for abortion, gay pride parades, single moms who think having 8 kids by 8 different men is just fine and that I should provide for their day to day financial needs etc. – and I'm expected to shut up about it.

Craig O

Seriously people, please read the other comments I've made. This program gets more viewers than most things on the BBC and, because of the nature of shock comedy, probably brings in quite a bit of ad revenue, above and beyond its operating costs. You may well not be paying for it.

You are, however, likely paying for part of the Russel Brand concert, as many arenas where he would play are constructed and heavily subsidized by local governments, in addition to the increased police presence that accompanies any large music event.

But again, I'll ask, who decides what's in the public interest? 3.5 million viewers watch and seem to enjoy the show – they all have to pay the tax to the BBC too. Why does your view of what's in the public interest supercede their's?

davey

Come on Craig O, you know who decides whats in the public interest: the Christian right wing morality police. What these people need to realize (which I'm sure they actually do but refuse to admit it) is that we all pay taxes, and as such, we all deserve to be represented in publicly funded programs.

MarkD

Hogarthian depravity? I’m sorry, but I just don’t recognise the UK you are talking about. I have recently come back from a 2 week trip to London with my old Mum, and the abiding memories that I have are a) how clean and safe the city was, and b) how every time we took the Tube, people (young, old, men and women) would very kindly get up to offer her their seat. I didn’t see drunken teenagers lying in pools of vomit!
I’m not saying the UK hasn’t got serious problems, thanks to 12 disastrous years of failed social manipulation and PC bullying by the Labour party, but lets get a sense of proportion here and a tad less tabloid hysteria. Also, don’t forget that the wreckers will be out of government following the 2010 election and we can start rebuilding.
I agree the BBC needs reigning in. It is like every arrogant, unaccountable, self-interested, state funded bureaucracy that has mushroomed in Blair and Brown’s Britain; from the NHS, to Quangos. They have all lost sight of who they serve what their function is supposed to be. Their time is running out.
(By the way, God only knows where you managed to find a bra removing contest on the telly! I’ve never seen one.)

http://intensedebate.com/people/Gaunilon Gaunilon

If people are forced to support the BBC, they're being forced to pay for this show that the BBC puts on.

It's entirely reasonable to point out that (a) a publicly funded British network shouldn't be airing crass references to the Queen's genitalia, and (b) the reason given for publicly funded networks – that it keeps the programming above the crass and worthless – is thoroughly contradicted by programming like this.

Come on.
Bill Simpson

This is not so new. Britain has always had these dismal characteristics to go along with its better side. Steyn references Hogarth and his shocking pictures of the Brits at play, and Dickens hardly had a kinder view of it all.

What is tiresome is that the BBC has adopted this dismal brew of schoolboy sexuality and drunken viciousness as its message to the nation, instead of providing a counterweight, as it used to.

Anyway, Steyn milked this for some good fun, for which I thank him.
http://intensedebate.com/people/Thomas_L Thomas_L

Here in Canada our public broadcaster regularly roots for and makes excuses for the Liberals and openly ridicules PMSH or merely damns him using Peetah Mansbridge's eyebrow. I'd might actually prefer the sexual type of obscenity over the sort we see every night unless we turn it off.
By the way, just once I'd like Peetah to call the weather girl, Claw-ear or something. Do a Kidman at the Oscars and lose the accent dear!

http://intensedebate.com/people/HarleyDave HarleyDave

Oh the extreme right-wing…seeing the evil "leftie" boogeyman in every nook and cranny. Mansbridge lifts an eyebrow and it's a communist plot. No wonder anyone with any modicum of intelligence pays them no heed. If Steyn is an adament supporter of free speech and as against censorship as he claims, he shouldn't be too upset when the comments made by a right-wing politician (or anyone else) on a publicly funded broadcast don't fit with his "high" moral standard.

Thomas_L

The "extreme right wing"? WTF??? That makes you an "extreme moron" since you have no idea who I am or where I stand on anything except caring how my tax dollars are spent. Wanna throw around insults? Maybe since you're still in your mom's basement, and don't pay even a modicum of taxes, you think you're pretty darn special. Back to the porn channel, doofus!

http://intensedebate.com/people/HarleyDave HarleyDave

oooohh…. cut a little too close to the bone did I? FYI – served in CAF regular forces 3yrs. retired millwright (34 yrs same company); now self employed. I repeat..anything "left" of Attila the Hun and the righties see red!

Pedro

Western civilization is on an irreversible downward spiral. What will replace it?

Darden Cavalcade

National Socialism most likely.
Petra

Radical Islam, since they will consider themselves the only adults left. They seem to be filling the vacuum in Britain now, no? Does it really come as a surprise when one becomes so self indulgent and infantile that someone with stronger beliefs takes over? Very sad unless people start waking up.

Tyrone Slothrop

And what, pray tell, is so bad about Radical Islam, anyway? I'm a man, so there are no "second-class" citizen worries for me, plus I don't drink and am actually pretty flexible for my age, so daily proskynesis poses no difficulties whatsoever. We would once again have a culture to be proud of and the kind of criminal punishments that would make many a potential offender reevaluate their career decision. Furthermore, if the Sunni's could somehow be exterminated during this societal takeover, the remaining Sunni base would have no reason for violence against each other; I would predict a drastic lowering in crime rates and violence worldwide. Let's also not forget that Jesus is a revered prophet in Islam, second only to Big M himself, so Christians would have no real reason to complain.

Radical Islam or a continuing line of insipid Jennifer Anistonlike blech-fest romantic manure piles? I suggest taking a very serious look at the former.

Adios.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Wakefield Wakefield Tolbert

Hopefully I'm tired and am just missing the knee-slap tongue-in-cheek at play here.

But to add some fun and dark levit: Would that life gives us so ample a range of stark choices. Gosh, celebrity worship of pot smoking trollops, or the decapitation congregation of the sons of Allah.

Well, if one figures in that in the mix of free men free to choose Jenny's boobies and boobed out brain (as opposed over the neck slice imam brigades now piling into Britain) also includes such ditties as freedom, capitalism, modern technology, modern sanitation, advanced medical treatments, and the free expression of ideas that allows one to go to the library on any given day and discover that while Allah is great, perhaps He is not the author of comet tails, or that comets are made of ice more so than the love handles of hot teenage chicks, then perhaps–just maybe–also we'll find that there is some vestigial portion of the West worth fighting for.

And no, it's not all about Jenny's boobs or beer.

Tyrone Slothrop

I believe you are doing the (so-called) "decapitation brigade" a grave disservice. Such gruesome violence is principally reserved for the infidels, who quite rightly have no legitimate claims to the mercy of Allah. Once we have all converted to Islam – preferably adhering to one of the more rigorous sects, like Wahhabism – the need for such cautionary violence will have been removed. I'm not saying there won't be some nasty business in getting there, but if the end result is one pious-and-hot-pants-free global village wherein we all recognize our place in Allah's munificent scheme of things, well I say bring it on Ali!

While I can appreciate your sincere attempt to make an abbreviated case for capitalism, free expression, sanitation, Jenny's boobies, etc, if you are being honest you would have to admit that such things are very messy, complicated, mentally confusing and spiritually enervating. How else can one explain "Dancing With the Stars"? Freedom is vastly overrated when you consider all the dull, plodding work and constant vigilance required to prevent the perversion of the system by the a callous oligarchy of the superrich. Under a global caliphate, everyone will (more-or-less) know their place, not only in the world but in the universe as well – and while Allah most certainly does not scorn merchants, we all know how he aims to keep them honest! Furthermore, seeing how so much of the world's population lives in miserable poverty in stinking third-world slums, the inevitable mass-slaughter that the imposition of Radical Islam will require will do much to relieve the terrible burdens that both these slum-slaves and Mother Nature are currently laboring under.

I hope this helps to clear up any misunderstandings my original post may have caused.

Adios.
http://intensedebate.com/people/mendelbot mendelbot

"Once we have all converted to Islam – preferably adhering to one of the more rigorous sects, like Wahhabism – the need for such cautionary violence will have been removed. I'm not saying there won't be some nasty business in getting there, but if the end result is one pious-and-hot-pants-free global village wherein we all recognize our place in Allah's munificent scheme of things, well I say bring it on Ali! "

Mohammed yelled at his sons fighting over succession as he lay dying. If we fall to Islam it would be only natural and probably a just fate for a culture of child-killers. But it is unlikely to be peaceful except in transitory stagnation.

TedTylerEzro

"We're not really a nation of zinc kitchen surfaces and brushed aluminium. We're more a nation of Wetherspoons, and Heat magazine, and…chlamydia." …

Jeremy Clarkson – Top Gear.
Ed S

Not to worry. This problem will vanish once Sharia is imposed.

Vorpal

Yes, and the sad thing is that when Sharia is imposed, it will seem like a relief. At least initially. Until the torturing and honor killings start.

Andrew (not Potter or Coyne)

It seems Steyn’s point is that the BBC should not being subsidized. Yet he spends the entire column railing against the decay of British society. Is the BBC causing social decay? If not, he seems to be focusing on the wrong problem.
R Brandenburg

Mr. Steyn: I'd pay to see more BBC-style trash. Instead, we get crap like the CBC's self-congratulatory and Islamo-apoligist dud called "Little Mosque on the Prairie". I don't even need to drink to excess to vomit British style – I simply watch 30 seconds of the puerile crap and the technicolor yawn spews forth. True, the self-induced barf-fest does keep me slimmer, but I do wish we could see something better than this taxpayer-sponsored turd.

Craig O

Heh.

Little Mosque on the Prairie, while I consider it to be pretty bad, using worn-out plot lines from the 80's just in a different setting, is hardly a dud. It's actually one of CBC's better rated shows, getting over a million viewers a show for the first two seasons. It also sold production rights to stations in many countries, something few Canadian-produced shows ever manage to do.

R Brandenburg

A lot of televised crap gets millions of viewers. And Mosque will sell the same way a lot of garbage will sell – it's cheaper for other countries to buy it than produce it. Worse still – liberal toadies see the show as a great way to "humanize" Islam. It's got the Multicultural Canada seal of approval all over it.

http://intensedebate.com/people/HarleyDave Knuckle_Head

You're right about televised crap getting millions of viewers. Just look at Bill O'Reilly on FOX news; it doesn't get any more vile than that!
Craig O

Just because it's crap doesn't mean it's a flop. Regardless of why it got viewers, it got viewers! This is exactly the kind of thing proponents of free-market entertainment, like Steyn, should be celebrating – a station trying to make commercially successful shows and succeeding, rather than failing and taking taxpayer money in the process.

But, instead of support, Steyn bashes such moves, because they became commercially successful without doing things his way, or appealing directly to him. This is why I find him so hypocritical, because he complains about oppression of the state, through taxes, laws, etc – but only if it happens to him or those who think exactly like him. If it happens to someone else, it's ok.

Fundamentally, this is a freedom of speech issue – people are saying things Steyn doesn't like, in public, and he thinks they should stop. But when he said things people didn't like, in public, he fought tooth and nail to not only retain the right to say such things. He can't have it both ways – either everyone has the right to say what they wish to say or no one does.

And before I get jumped on for taxpayer subsidies, I've already argued in my other posts that the shows he's complaining about probably aren't financed by taxpayers – address those points if you're going to argue that angle, please.

Hank

How dare they allow Muslims to appear on a sitcom! Sitcoms must always revolve around a WASP middle-class nuclear family!

N. Robertson

It's interesting to me that Steyn picked up on Britain's "nastiness". I live in Scotland and I was commenting to friends recently that the society (in Britain, not exclusively Scotland) has a real undercurrent of nastiness. People will quickly lose the veneer of decency if you, say, look at them the "wrong" way in a shop or drive at the speed limit. My wife and 1-year old are verbally abused by schoolkids passing by the garden. And we live in the best street in town. It's a worrying time to be British.

D. Cummings

It might be because you live in the best street in town. To me, the most annoying people in Britain are the class warriors furious that someone might have any reason to imagine themselves a "posh" person.

http://www.wakepedia.blogspot.com Wakefield Tolbert

God Save the Queen's Vomit and Tart Twat Strewn Dominion.
hinckleybuzard

Love that sophisticated european nuance.
Old Brit

I found this page on a Daily Telegraph blog (yes Mark, people do miss you in Britain.) There are two questions. First what caused the plummetting of intellectual standards in Britain. The surface answer seems to be the doctrines of equality and anti-elitism as propagated by the BBC. That arrogant organisation (still producing good work here and there in a few of its parts – e.g. Radio 4) really should be disbanded. If we get anodyne North American style news in its place, so be it. But I doubt that there will be a change.
Old Brit

continued..
The second point is the curious way in which the BBC 'hegomonic' values work. Its multicultural 'consensus' values have to be respected, but it doesn't care a..fig..about the sensitivities of others who don't like infantilism, obscenity and scurrility, let alone those of a particular 81-year old lady who has indubitably worked tirelessly for her country and people over many years. [The BBC wants a republic so she is fair game, like Marie Antoinette before her.] There is something deeply repellent about that.

On David Cameron, I never knew that twat meant that. Perhaps he didn't either.

But you're right. Britain is nasty these days and the BBC is nastiest of all. That's why so many of us no longer live there.
dbk

This reminds me of our dear CBC.

In 2003, a forest fire approached Kelowna. On friday, I talked to a business associate in Kelowna, and he said that embers were falling on their parking lot. I turned on CBC radio to see what was going on. They had a show on necrophilia.

Later that day, the wind picked up and a firestorm burnt through residential areas of Kelowna. A number of people lost their homes.

I'm sure a humorous discussion of necrophilia and the type of stuff Steyn refers to attract audience. Every so often something like the Kelowna fire shows how disconnected these government funded operations can be. The local radio stations were responding to the needs of their listeners, while on government dime it seems they were humoring themselves with their own brilliance and daring.

Derek
http://intensedebate.com/people/Grahampink Grahampink

No western government should be in the business of broadcast media. If we accept television and radio, why not newspapers and all the rest.
Imagine what what could be done with the 1,000,000,000 dollars we flush down the toilet every year at the CBC.

http://intensedebate.com/people/HarleyDave HarleyDave

Yes and imagine if there were no contrary opinions to media outlets like Fox, CNBC, CTV or any of the other right-wing jokes that pass for news. The extreme Christian Conservatives control most of the media; a strong public broadcaster is needed to at least balance theri one sided message.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Grahampink Grahampink

Huh?
Which ones are those, CBC, CTV, ABC. CBS, NBC, CNBC, MSNBC?
The only remotely conservative media outfit is FOX, and they get called right wing because they don't carry water for the Progressive Agenda.
I understand when you drink liberal koolaid all your life it tastes like water, but it's still liberal koolaid.

http://www.proudtobecanadian.ca/
Great site that does a masterful job of following the how the CBC pushes the Progressive Agenda.

http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/
Great place to read conservative view points from Hollywood.

http://corner.nationalreview.com/
Your one stop for conservative commentary.

http://intensedebate.com/people/HarleyDave Knuckle_Head

FOX news REMOTELY conservative????? I'm sorry, but if you believe FOX owned by Rupert Murdoch, an extreme right-winger, that employs blowhard, bombastic fascists like Bill O'Reilly, and disseminates falsehoods on a regular basis (remember: those 9-11 terrorists coming from Canada; Canada fighting with the US in Vietnam and other FOX blunders) is only remotely conservative, you must goose-step to a different drummer.
http://www.intensedebate.com/people/HarleyDave Knuckle_Head

FOX news REMOTELY conservative????? I'm sorry, but if you believe FOX owned by Rupert Murdoch, an extreme right-winger, that employs blowhard, bombastic fascists like Bill O'Reilly, and disseminates falsehoods on a regular basis (remember: those 9-11 terrorists coming from Canada; Canada fighting with the US in Vietnam and other FOX blunders) is only remotely conservative, you must goose-step to a different drummer. And by the way, if you are not PROGRESSIVE, you are REGRESSIVE.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Grahampink Grahampink

Sip, sip, sip.
Yes, FOX News is conservative in the sense that they provide both sides of an issue, unlike the rest of the State Controlled Media in the US and Canada.
And if not being a progressive means I'm regressive, then I will wear the label proudly., especially if being a regressive means I think that I should keep as much as possible of what I earn, if I believe in a strong military, if I believe in not killing babies in the womb (and I don't consider myself religious), if I believe in the unconditional support of the state of Israel, if I believe in individual rights not group rights, if I believe that spending 2,000,000,000, dollars making sure that the only people who can own guns in Canada are the cops and criminals (oh, by the way, the criminals are winning). If these and more make me REGRESSIVE, then yay for our side.
http://www.intensedebate.com/people/HarleyDave Knuckle_Head

Thank heavens that your "side" is in the very small (minded) minority. Me, me, me. I certainly hope you enjoy your Thanksgiving meal. Don't forget to shine your jack-boots tonight before turning in; you'll probably have a busy day tomorrow kicking those less fortunate than yourself.

Smilla

Spare us.Thanks Mark. I lived for a few years in the UK in the eighties and wouldn't recognise it now. A Dutch friend who moved there recently commented without prompting on the binge drinking everywhere. And I am sick of plain old misogyny being considered edgy and cool jokes.
david halfpap

Unfortunately, Britain has been headed in that direction for years.I could not agree more with previous posts.Britain is a nasty place,anyone who gets a chance moves away.I am one of them.Thank God.
Richard

New York's murder rate is around the 600 mark, down from over 2200 in the early 1990s. The current London murder rate is around 180 although there was a spike in 2005.
Over 50% of murders in London are committed by foreigners and most of the rest are committed by 'minorities'. It is actually unusual for the English English to commit murder in London.

The statistics for mugging, sexual violence, kidnapping etc share the same profile.

http://intensedebate.com/people/YYZ YYZ

Citation please.

Ian

While I fully agree with Mark Steyn's overall comment, I am not at all comfortable with the repeating of the specific language, likely for the its 'shock effect'. Perhaps more disturbing in terms of our future is that our national magazine published it.
Ian

Agree or disagree, I usually love reading your articles. This one not so much. It wasn't funny or witty and whatever point you were trying to make seemed strained as you rambled on like an old man. If the vulgarity on the BBC is so bad why repeat and wallow in it for your own shock value? Hope to see better next time.
Jack Stack

Just 70 years ago Britain stood against overwhelming odds to save civilization.Didn't they sing "there'll Always Be an England".? Well, there may always be an England but what sort of England will it be? No wonder it has no guts for standing up to the forces that would destroy it from within.
siamdave

It might be a bit more useful to wonder 'why' these things are happening everywhere. Of course, that would lead quite quickly to examining the kind of society encouraged by the dominant economic-political model of the day, capitalism, with its dog-eat-dog philosophy, and the rise to the top of the most brutal and venal, with their 'manly' disregard for the finer points of civilization, which is then, of course, emulated by the lesser intellects who are naturally so inclined to begin with, and relish a society where their natural inclinations are given free reign by the rulers. And we certainly wouldn't want to be talking about that in our capitalist-supporting media.

shel

you must be a teenager.

the cause of today's decay can be summed up simply: cradle to grave welfare state coddling, and a snotnosed sense of entitlement with little sense of self responsibility.

blame the state, not capitalism by itself.

http://intensedebate.com/people/HarleyDave HarleyDave

The only ones with a sense of entitlement that I see are the ultra-rich ….vulture capitalists, bankers and insurance moguls that have destroyed our economy with impunity. The same ones who have no compunction about taking huge salaries, bonuses and stock options and will be the first to tell you that even though they have driven their respective companies into the dumper, they are worth every penny. That is the cause of today's decay – GREED. And that is the only scenario that the "trickle down" theory applies…if the clown at the top can get away with it, why not me?