It's My Baby (& I'll Smoke If I Want To)

I love abusing song lyrics... That one was originally "It's my party and I'll cry if I want to" and popularised in 1981 by Dave Stuart and Barbara Gaskin's number 1 cover.

Anyhoo...

Anyone who reads this blog regularly (or knows me personally) will tell you that I'm very, very, pro-choice (pro-abortion if you want to be inflammatory). It's not that I think we should use abortion as a primary means of contraception, but I strongly believe in a woman's right to make informed choices without legislation saying otherwise.

So what I'm about to say may now surprise you: foetuses deserve better than smoking mothers.

In the west, smoking is a personal choice as is pregnancy for the most part. We hear of "accidents" all the time but in reality you can, for the most part, replace accident with hubris, carelessness or downright bloody-mindedness.

A new survey reported at the BBC suggests that one quarter of pregnant smokers fear telling their GP, health visitor or midwife about their habit because of (I love this) "worries about being criticised."

Naw! You don't say! (Apparently, over 50% of those questioned in a separate poll were of the same view.)

Dr. Miriam Stoppard (please tell me this was quoted out of context) says on the site:

"Pregnant women who smoke do not automatically find it easy to stop smoking as soon as they become pregnant."

No shit Sherlock! My question is what the fuck are they doing trying to conceive while the are still addicted to weed?

I've always felt something ambivalent over the smoking ban. On the one hand if people chose to slowly kill themselves, that's fine by me; on the other, I do like to go into a pub and not be assaulted by the odoriferous wafting of stale tobacco smoke.

An unborn child has no such choice.

Every single atom of oxygen it uses while attached to its mother's placenta has to come via the mother's lungs. It's blood is fed oxygen and nutrients from it's mother's bloodstream and (because we didn't evolve to smoke) many toxic chemicals can cross the placental barrier: CO and nicotine being just two of them.

As as pure drug, nicotine is thought to be more addictive than Heroin (tell that to your local crack-whore) and CO - that's the stuff in car exhausts that people use to commit suicide. I'm sure you don't need me to tell you how much this effects the development of a tiny embyo.

Child abuse is a very emotive issue - yet every day, mums-to-be the world over are abusing their unborn children with a vast array of poisons entirely legally; just for the sake of a cigarette.

And then they have the bare-faced cheek to worry what we think about them!

By Golly! More PC BS @ BBC

Does anyone mind if I call myself a "cracker bastard?" Would I mind if Chris Rock, that excruciatingly awful comedian and sometime ham actor called me one?

Answer to both questions is no (at least it should be).

Rock isn't to everyone's taste - that's the nature of comedy - yet when he refers to white folk in his performances as "crackers" (a clear racist pejorative) no one seems to bat an eyelid.

That's OK even though it's a double-standard because in reality it's not the word that should be censored but the malice hiding behind it; a word is just a word whereas underlying sentiment is something else entirely.

Thanks to a culture of PC ignorance that seems intent on examining the minutiae of everything we say, think and do, the BBC has in a high-profile move, removed Carol Thatcher from a prime-time show for an apparently off-the-cuff reference made off-air in a private conversation.

What the fuck is wrong with these people?

It's entirely proper that Johnathon Ross was suspended over the Andrew Sachs affair [Sachsgate] (which was also blown completely out of proportion) but to effectively sack a contributor for a private comment smells worse than one of Stinky's* farts after a particularly juicy plate of over boiled sprouts.

The story goes [and there's been no official announcement as such] that Ms. Thatcher (daughter of the erstwhile British PM, Margaret, referred to an Australian tennis player as a "Golliwog" in jest.

She has (rightly in my view) refused to apologise.

I'm actually old enough to have not only owned a "golly" but to fondly remember the mascot adorning jars of marmalade in my mother's pantry (example above). As children we used to cut out and collect them - it was an early loyalty scheme!

Adrian Chiles, presenter of The One Show is reported to be one of those offended by the remark but he's not actually a lot younger than me. Perhaps his mother didn't buy Robertsons' jams?

Although Robertsons has long since caved into PC pressure to drop Golly, the fond memories we baby boomers have remain and I for one never confused the cheerful characture with anyone real.

It's almost as if some people take it upon themselves to be offended by proxy.

Taking offence? Here, have the fucking railings and gate too while you're at it.

UPDATE:

BBC News now reports a counterstrike from Thatcher's camp - Ms. Thatcher's agent, Ali Gunn said on TalkSport that it "was absolutely outrageous" that her client's conversation had been leaked to the public and that, "They should be issuing us with an apology."

Too fucking right.

*Stinky is what my kids call "Atlas" my Great Dane - the poor old chap is getting rather late in life and has terrible flatulence which the vet tells me is entirely normal for one of his advancing years and harmless. Presumably, he also lacks a sense of smell.

BBC Editor: It's My Way or The Highway

Rather like a few politicians I could mention, Radio 4 controller, Mark Damazer obviously forgets who pays his wages.

Towards the back end of 2008 Gavin Orland set up a pledge on Pledgebank to have Thought For The Day either removed or revised to include non-religious speakers such as A.C. Grayling (who correctly describes TFTD as a homily). Those who contacted the BBC (over 1,500 if PB is to be believed) received a nonchalant and thoughtless automated "fuck you" from Damazer, which goes like this:

Thank you for your email.

I regard this as a genuinely difficult question. There may be a case for widening the pool of contributors on Thought for The Day by having someone with an avowedly non-religious perspective. However on balance the BBC's position is that it is reasonable to sustain the slot with believers. Let me now set out the reasoning.

Thought for the Day is a unique slot in which speakers from a wide range of religious faiths reflect on an issue of the day from their faith perspective. In the midst of the three hour Today programme devoted to overwhelmingly secular concerns - national and international news and features, searching interviews etc - the slot offers a brief, uninterrupted interlude of spiritual reflection. We believe that broadening the brief would detract from the distinctiveness of the slot.

Within Thought for the Day a careful balance is maintained of voices from different Christian denominations and other religions with significant membership in the UK. We are broadcasting to the general Radio 4 audience which regularly engages with the comments and ideas expressed by our contributors from the world's major faiths - whether they are believers or not.

Outside Thought for the Day the BBC's religious output contains both religious and non-religious voices in programmes such as Sunday, Beyond Belief, Moral Maze. In these programmes atheists, humanists and secularists are regularly heard, the religious world is scrutinised, its leaders and proponents are questioned, and the harm done in the name of religion is explored.

Non-religious voices are also heard extensively across the general output in news, current affairs, documentaries, talks, science, history. These programmes approach the world from perspectives which are not religious. As, of course, do the other 2 hours 57 minutes of Today.

Yours sincerely

Mark Damazer
Controller, Radio 4

OK. So this clearly isn't good enough for those of us (probably a majority) think that TFTD is exclusive and pointless - especially when it's broadcast at peak time in the station's flagship news programme! Many of those people offended by this response wrote back in stronger words:

Sir,

why is it I just feel as if I've been gently patted on the head and told to return to my seat?

I AM NOT A SMALL CHILD.

Besides being a published author, I am also researching a book into this sort of platitudinous stock response from broadcasters.

My original email already addresses the note attached and I now require this complaint is escalated to the next person in charge - beyond Mr Damazer since he is obviously incapable of making a cogent argument without resorting to the supernatural.

I will, in time, escalate this to the BBC Trust and my MP if necessary - as a fee-paying licence holder I expect to be treat with more respect than this.
Predictably perhaps, the response came back within a couple of days:
Dear Marc Draco,

Thank you for your further email reply.

As I intimated this is a genuinely difficult issue, but I don't think I can add anything of real substance to my original email. If you would like to pursue this further, it is open to you to write to the BBC Trust at 35 Marylebone High Street, London W1U 4AA. Full details of the complaints and appeals process are on the BBC Trust website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/appeals/index.html

Yours sincerely,

Mark Damazer
Controller, Radio 4 

So, stock answer #2 - not as obvious this time (the other one appeared on the Radio 4 iPM website) but fairly obvious as it includes my full name and a gentle push to fuck off and complain to the trust. Damazer knows full-well the trust has no power to press for changes in editorial policy so this is a dead end.

Or is it?

Gavin Orland has had enough, writing to the signatories of the original pledge, he says:

"Ultimately, we were “stonewalled” by Mr Damazer and the religious department. He did not engage with any of the arguments put to him. It is obvious the religious dept. wield disproportionate influence in this – but it remains a mystery to me as to why.

"Some have said the trouble here is this is just not public enough. The BBC are in trouble over all sorts of other issues, but this one seems so far to have slipped under the radar, despite all our action.

"I personally am not listening to The Today Programme any more. I find the BBC generally too religious and too politically correct and am so fed up of TFTD specifically, and by the way we have been ignored, that I just don’t feel like it any more. I also, of course, have my own life and work to get on with."

More news when I hear back from the BBC Trust because I won't let this arrogance drop without a fight.

The ASA Might Draw Battle Lines!

Work commitments prohibit me from commenting any more than to promise I'll write more on this later with citations, but currently reports are suggesting that 100+ people have added their voice to that of Stephen Green complaining about the atheist bus advert.

This is likely to be the ASA's toughest ever challenge.

If it decides it has to rule (and it might even have that hand forced) it may effectively have to rule on the very existence of a god or gods.

If it were me, I would demand the complainants define what constitutes god (because you can't have something if you can't define what it is) AND which god they are alluding to. The nasty, jealous, antagonist, murderous fucker of the Old Testament or the slightly more charismatic and gentile figure portrayed in the New. Which is a dichotomy in itself!

Gavin Orland, who organised a campaign to email the BBC to protest about the corporation's Thought for the Day told the Telegraph:

"The fact that humanist, non-religious contributors are excluded from the slot gives the impression the BBC believes morality is the exclusive remit of religious people, which is offensive, unrepresentative and untrue.

"It's great that there will be a non-religious thought allowed on iPM: let it be an example to the Today programme."

This may indeed be a turning point for religion in the UK, which although ostensibly secular, still carries the weight of centuries of Christian heritage. At the simplest level, this manifests itself as people, almost instinctively, tick CofE [Church of England] on forms where religious affiliation is requested; right through to the startling control that religious influence still holds over schools. In England, religious schools are maintained by the state; yet are free to fill the minds of vulnerable children with sectarian bile.

The problem for tub-thumping "out" atheists is that ordinary English folk don't care either way.

It's part of being English. We drink milky tea, go out in the noonday sun and declare to be Anglicans (unless we're catholic) even when we're not. Even today, many official forms still contain options for religious affiliation (AS IF IT FUCKING MATTERED) and yet omit the option for: none.

Many regard Stephen Green and his ilk as a bit of a joke - but a harmless one - when in reality, it's only the efforts of a campaigning core of rational, free thinkers that keeps him tethered.

Chief god-botherer , Tony Blair was quite happy to allow Peter Vardy's Doberman, Nigel McQuoid to teach Creationism in his academies until a bunch of academics and ordinary folk came out and took a stand until the government was forced to legislate against the slow march of stupidity.

I was one of them and I'm proud of our collective achievement.

But this is far from over - this country - indeed the West as a whole needs to a have an open and honest debate on these matters.

BBC Fined £95,000: but who pays?

The great British public, that's who.

Competitions ran as far back as 2006 were pre-recorded so there was no way that viewers could win despite being charged premium-rate calls. However, thanks to the unique way the BBC is funded (essentially an annual television tax) the BBC isn't actually paying: the poor British public is.

Fuck that.

If presenters, producers and others are going to play fast and loose with the rules, they should be sacked. Not suspended, not wrist slapped, but sacked for gross misconduct.

Job done. No excuses. No buck passing and no fining people twice.