I am not a fan of a lot of what Melanie thinks (especially about religion and foreign policy) but you are really not picking a good issue to tackle her on.

See this isn’t about some positive initiative by a community, by a set of farmers, or by a local government with some spare money in their budget (if that ever existed). That would be fine and noble.

No, this is a story about stiles being illegal. Something that has functioned for centuries until now is not something with a bit of a room for improvement, somewhere some innovation ought to be encouraged and funds committed when they are available: they are ILLEGAL! Verboten! Which means essentially that someone could sue the public for allowing them to go on existing. People must be forced (i.e. via taxation) to remove them immediately or the public must be punished (I suppose by potentially being sued in this case).

Of course, it is one those soft, ambiguous laws so although we are technically (as a whole country) in breach of a law that has been going for a whole decade, somehow it doesn’t seem to matter. A law becomes something other than something clearly defined and quite easy to not break. Instead, we exist in a constant state of being in breach of several laws (often as individuals but apparently as members of a public too) while only being dimly aware of it. This undermines the rule of law as suddenly it changes the whole notion of the law to social obligation that can never be satisfied.

Hence, being law-abiding is no longer a norm, but an aspiration! That is why these “laws” are mad, and potentially bad.

“No, this is a story about stiles being illegal”

No it isn’t. Go back and read the story again, and if possible think about the reality of the DDA rather than the “political correctness gone mad” stories which appear in the right wing press (with very little basis in fact, like this one in the Telegraph).

Stiles are not just a problem for wheelchair users. I used to go out with a ramblers’ group where many of the members were fit enough to walk long distances but found stiles very difficult – there are all sorts of mobility problems which don’t preclude walking in the countryside, but do make it difficult to clamber over stiles (partially sighted people also have problems with stiles). Suffolk’s own website says they are working to remove as many as possible, and are providing wheelchair access to “the more accessible sites”. The council’s Rights of Way Improvement Plan talks of reducing the number of stiles and other barriers, not of eliminating them.

This is stuff that a semi-competent journalist could find out in about ten minutes. But it’s much easier to produce a brainless knee-jerk “why oh why” article for the Spectator based on an article you read in the Telegraph, isn’t it?

Nick, regardless of the local context, the point is about how MP responds, which is what Keith is referring to (I’m assuming). She’s not pointing out the local intricacies, she is genuinely annoyed that any attempt to make life easier for disabled people should be made.

Keith, you say: How can these ideas be combatted?

By showing them up for their stupidity? Melanie Phillips is pro-minority… it’s just that she is pro only one minority. She just disregards anyone else.

The thing is, I’ve seen this crazy behaviour with other minorities too. When they become so extremely conservative, they start associating their ideals with the protection of the majority constituency (and so no longer see themselves as part of a minority).

There are some extreme examples here. There are some genuinely fascist Hindus in America who hate Muslims so much they set up this site years ago. Now… on the one hand their political idols used to worship Hitler back in the days (and the Shiv Sena top brass in India also has admitted to admiring Hitler), and on the other they have made alliances with (and helped by) extremist Jews in New York who shared their hatred of Muslims.

I just find all this alliance making between racists (including Muslim extremists) all very amusing.

Mad Mel doesn’t goes that far… but her world-outlook is no so different from ultra-conservative Hindus here who are very very conservative and, despite being a minority, would share her attitude. They see the world through the lense of:
1) Liberals (also called ‘Pinkos’ in India) are destroying everything.
2) They don’t have principles, only allies and enemies.

Let’s be magnanimous and give Rabid Spice some credit for spurring action, whatever perspective she comes at it from – she has got a job to do, and we can show our sensitivity to her opinion without letting it needle us further than necessary. It’s far better that she remains engaged in intellectual politics than starts providing support for some revolutionary front with her verbal explosives.

I’ll admit hysteria doesn’t win many friends among the sane, it tries to drag the sane down to their level instead. So let’s just roll our eyes again, say three bags full, ma’am, and get on with the job at hand.

My own thesis is that she genuinely has gone mad. Of course, there also those who say socialism is a mental illness, too.

Either she’s secretly channelling Maistre or, more likely she just yet more proof that a retreat into ultra-orthodox religion seriously screws you up.

My money’s on the latter I should say.

I think there are several parts to it. I’m not sure that madness is such a good explanation- partly because I always wonder whether its just a cop out to say someone is mad. I do think its interesting to think about why she and other rightwingers feel so threatened by the rights of minorities. Lets take for example gay marriage- a clear case where no heterosexual is disadvantaged- and yet tons of people feel that that is a clear assault on their rights. I think that’s interesting- it might have to do with the idea that when I grant you a right, I concede respect to you and that people’s identities are bound up with ideas of superiority. At least its my country etc etc.

As far as people moving from left to right goes- I wonder whether its people like Melanie Phillips who are idealists and believers. For some reason the veil is penetrated- they see that for example the Labour leader is a charlatan or the leftwing academic a fraud, and they then believe that all leaders and all academics on the left are frauds and charlatans. I wonder whether it isn’t an advance in cynicism- the kind of thought process that goes these ideas let me down once, so I’m damned if they will let me down again.

I don’t think anyone’s personal ideological journey is that simple- there must be other factors- to be honest I think that everyone’s ideology is more influenced than they would want to acknowledge by their friends, teachers (both at school and in life) and parents. But I do think its an interesting question- because if its true that for instance people depend on inequality to validate their identity, or that disillusionment leads to a complete rejection of a set of principles it has consequences for how we see politics.

Oh dear, yet more self-righteousness on this site.

What makes you think that MP, and others on the “right”, if that is where she is, do not want a “better society”? I’m sure she/they do.

I thought this site was going to make the case for the “liberal-left” view of what constitutes a better society, and how to get there.
We haven’t had much of that as compared to snide remarks about free markets and pointless attacks on easy targets such as MP.

Why do people move from left to right?
I think because they see that the *methods* of the left have failed.
A fair view.
Unfortunately that can lead them also to abandon some of the more noble *aims* of the left.

In an interview I read a while ago MP stated that she was on the left because she believes in progress and improvement and got tired of Guardian style liberalism because she thought that they did not (here it is: http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/politicsphilosophyandsociety/story/0,,1798994,00.html).

From what I can make out, she held to a rather neo-conservative notion of progress, i.e. the badly off are not disadvantaged, they just need to have some gumption and pull themselves up by their bootstraps. For MP, the stereotypical Guardian handwringing about poverty etc. being ‘society’s fault’ was a barrier to progress. But there is a small step from this neo-conservative, moralistic position to blaming the victim and becoming totally hostile towards the notion of social progress. A step which she has clearly leaped over.

Unity: ‘more likely she just yet more proof that a retreat into ultra-orthodox religion seriously screws you up.’
Point of information: Melanie Phillips may consort with Christian fundamentalists, however the synagogue she actually belongs to New North London (http://www.nnls-masorti.org.uk/) is not an orthodox one. Indeed, the rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg has a history of championing liberal causes.

In response to the various other comments, I do not think Melanie Phillips has gone ‘mad’ and I don’t think it’s helpful to call her ‘Mad Mel’. I do think though that she has built up inside her a quite astonishing reservoir of anger and we need to understand that anger.

If you look at the comments thread on the piece I quote you’ll see that MP is far from alone in her views.

I agree with Nick. She’s an idiot, but this is not the issue to show her as such.

Countryside access has to be balanced against the burden on farmers. This can be considerable. I remember a few years ago I spent a weekend helping to lay down a boardwalk for wheelchair access to a nature reserve. I went back last year, and it had been torn to pieces in a storm. In ordering a farmer to replace a stile with a wide gate, which can be more prone to damage, you are also requiring him to maintain it for perpuity.

Please don’t forget that every single day a farmer blows his brains out or hangs himself in this country. It’s a fair bet that every time we place additional burdens and costs on farmers, we are in danger of raising the suicide rate.

Farmers are not a majority community either, and deserve consideration of their needs just as much as disabled hikers.

It’s perfectly legitimate for somebody’s hackles to be raised by this level of intrusive legislation.

I don’t think that MP’s piece was motivated by a concern for farmers. I think it was motivated by scorn for any kind of attempt at inclusivenesses for disadvantaged minorities.

Nick also makes an interesting point about the ambiguous situation people are placed in by being in breach of various laws…

It raises the prospect of public morality style offences being used punitively against people for political reasons.

Imagine that there’s a farmer who is a ring-leader in an anti-establishment political movement. Is it too hard to imagine a call from the ministry…
“ah, good morning Mr Giles. Lovely weather isn’t it. But I couldn’t help noticing that you have thirty stiles on your land. Surely you are aware of DDA legislation which has been in place for ten years now. I’m afraid that could cost you £30,000.”

Suffolk is working to remove stiles through a body which includes farmers. And again, look at the reality of DDA cases. “Reasonable adjustments” are not being unreasonably interpreted by the courts, there’s no way a farmer would be successfully prosecuted for not replacing stiles with gates. The county has a duty to act in the interests of disabled residents, so far as is practicable. No more than that.

This is on a par with all those “you’re not allowed to call it a blackboard any more” stories from years ago, which usually turned out to have been invented by a Sun or Mail journalist on a quiet afternoon, and which got a grip on people fearful of standing up for themselves. It’s interesting, when someone ticks you off for asking for a “black coffee” or something similar, to ask them who exactly they think has banned this, and what they think the penalty might be. The answer is usually “the race relations”, or “the government social services”, or some other figment of their imagination.

Again a reminder, this blog post was never about the rights and wrongs of political moves to remove stiles, but the way in which this woman approaches disability as if they should learn their limits or something…ultimately a very disrespectful stance to take regardless of the subject matter that spawns such ramblings.

I also agree that it can’t help if this site is going to target individuals for not being on the liberal left, though in defense of this article I’d say that what it is trying to achieve is not to necessarily alienate people like Melanie but to understand what it is that drives her so far away from what some of us believe.

To add to what Lee said, I think we really need to take Melanie Phillips seriously as I don’t think that the left can avoid taking some kind of responsibility for the path she has followed. The left seems to be adept at producing bitter ex and even current members (look at Nick Cohen for another example). It gave the article the title ‘what did we do to you?’ not as a reproach but as a genuine question.

Keith:

Melanie Phillips may consort with Christian fundamentalists, however the synagogue she actually belongs to New North London (http://www.nnls-masorti.org.uk/) is not an orthodox one.

That’s hardly a comforting thought considering the extent to which MP has come to openly espouse some of the worst aspects of right-wing Jewish ‘blood and sand’ nationalism in recent years. A retreat in hard-line religious orthodoxy would at least give that some sort of philosophical basis but without it one is left to conclude that she really doesn’t give a damn about Western liberal democratic traditions and would happily sell us all in the hands of a hard-line Christian theocracy in pursuit of a narrow set of nationalistic interests.

Why is Mel so vehemently against this?

Because it’s capitalised Culture War she’s waging, in the American sense, and absolutely anything associated with the hated enemy must be destroyed utterly.

If anyone has ever been alarmed by the loonybin that is American politics, with its Terri Schiavo cases and ten commandment tablets in the courts, cutting people like Melanie slack is a damn fine way to bring it to the UK. She’d be in her element in a world where the top three political issues are gun control, foetuscide and religion in schools.

So, no sympathy for Mel – she knows exactly what she’s doing when she’s bashing Darwin, abortion or anyone who opposes the indiscriminate bombing of the Middle East, and she deserves the mockery it earns her.

MP does still see herself as a liberal. For example her website bio says: ‘Styled a conservative by her opponents, she prefers to think of herself as defending authentic liberal values against the attempt to destroy western culture from within’.

Her relationship to what you call ‘right-wing Jewish ‘blood and sand’ nationalism’ is perhaps less clear-cut than you give her credit for. She has at times leaned towards the position that the settlements should go, albeit in a never-never land future when Palestinian terrorism is permanently defeated.

Her membership of a synagogue headed by a liberal rabbi is perhaps a sign that she still hasn’t summoned up the courage to completely leave the left-liberal world behind.

It may be that at some point in the future she will embrace theocratic fundamentalism more fully (her defense of intelligent design seems to be pointing this way) but I don’t think she is there quite yet.

Keith:

I think you need to catch up with some of her more recent material, in which she’s fairly consistently trotting out the line that Palestinians don’t exist and that the solution to the current problems lies in re-designating them as either Egyptian or Jordanians.

Whatever she might have toyed with in the past, she’s becoming more and more hard-line as things progress, sometimes with disturbing results.

As for being liberal, I suspect you’ll find that she’s misusing the term in the ‘classical liberal’ sense as a bit of transitional crutch.

Unity: yes she certainly is getting more extreme, but she is still broadly of the Netenyahu right. There is a long way to go to the most extreme voices on the Israeli right. She hasn’t as far as I know advocated the ‘transfer’ of the Palestinians or the imposition of loyalty tests to Palestinian residents of Israel.

In short her Zionism still resides within the broad perimeters of debate within Israel and the Jewish diaspora. In contrast, her global warming denial, criticism of Darwinism and indeed her piece of stiles, all place her right on the fringes of British political debate at least.

I’m delighted by her recent recruitment to Intelligent Design – plenty of people who might otherwise be sympathetic to her views may well raise their eyebrows at her now – I think it’s a serious own goal.

Otherwise the Rodent’s spot on, and there’s no point playing nicely with her: her views on all subjects are utterly uncompromising and hateful, and based on crude political tribalism more than anything more thoughtful: she really does believe in a huge Liberal Conspiracy. As Jamie K put it:

Liberals, atheists, environmentalists, Muslims, the “main stream media” and so on… your starting point is that these people are enemies – and you know that they’re enemies because they plot and you know that they plot because that’s what enemies do

Keith – I’m not sure if anything can be done to understand her or ‘bring her back’ in any sense of the phrase. She panders to a different audience now and will stick with that.

People move from left to right and vice versa all the time. I suspect the reason why many make a big deal of chastising the left when they make the move to the right is that there’s money to be made in it.

I don’t think the left is aggressive enough anymore. I think its too obsessed with balance and hearing both sides of the story.

As I say in my CIF piece today, rather than pandering to those reactionary sentiments, we should ignore them…. why not, they certainly ignore lefty sentiments.

A constant theme of Mel’s pieces over the years is that she will never concede that people who disagree with her may possibly have noble motives. They are always involved in some kind of heinous conspiracy, whether it is to destroy our education system, undermine “the family” etc etc.
The paragraph quoted by Larry Teabag above sums it up nicely.

Please forgive me, but this discussion underlines the weakness of the left/right analysis of the political divide.

Melanie Phillips has clearly undertaken a developmental stage in her intellectual life by doubting her previously held assumptions, thus is leading her to reach alternative conclusions. Having questioned one idea, it is easy to then become scathing about all ideas.
I feel is would be more helpful if onlookers offered her some patience and enabled her to rediscover her spiritual bearings by which she wishes to guide her way through her life.
Currently I would characterise her writings as Deuteronomist in nature, as though she is placing more emphasis on the lessons of that book in particular. So my recommendation would be for her to go back and study in more detail the other books of her scripture.

For Sunny, I’d say that the left was never interested in balanced debate, only rebalancing debate, so he still seems to be confusing necessary corrections with ‘correct’ and ‘final’ answers. However, please continue opening access to debate, it’s interesting and instructional to view your shifts in position too.

Both Sunny and Melanie can both be included within the transepts of liberal thought, were they liable to choose to have a productive discussion to investigate the areas of shared agreement they hold and using this to lead them to develop their ideas, but it seems difference and division continues to retain a stronger hold on the identity of both.

Sunny: ‘I don’t think the left is aggressive enough anymore. I think its too obsessed with balance and hearing both sides of the story.’
I don’t think that aggression is what is called for. Passion yes, but aggression simply creates a poisonous atmosphere of debate.

Keith, I think passion is useful in expressing a side of the debate, but in formulating your own opinion and in judging the outcome of a debate one must be strongly dispassionate.

I’m trying to figure this whole issue out – I have a personal commitment both to politics and also to dialogue and community. I wrote about it in my first Liberal Conspiracy post here:

http://www.liberalconspiracy.org/2007/11/16/dialogue-debate-and-political-commitment/

Keith, I hate to disagree, but if you offer Mel the hand of friendship, you’ll soon find yourself looking at a bloody stump.

There are people on all sides of the political arena with whom you can make common cause and plenty whose minds are open to ideas. To imagine that Melanie is one of them is to fatally misunderstand what culture war is.

See, you’re looking for a debate or a civil discussion. The culture warrior wants an argument, the more bitter and ferocious the better, because that’s the whole point. It’s’ all they’re after – start an argument, then keep it going indefinitley.

A raging argument gets people angry and tribal, causes them to close ranks against your designated enemy and opens them up to accepting more extreme ideas than they otherwise would.

That’s why Mel accuses “the Left” of hungering for genocide and pimps intelligent design – it’s not supposed to foster discussion, because the argument is all there is to it. It doesn’t matter what Mel’s readers are angry about, so long as they stay furious – in fact, it’s better</em if her arguments are patently ridiculous, because it guarantees her a fight.

There’s no reaching out to the Melanies of this world. All they want from you are a few quotes they can use to prove that “the Left” wears swastika pants and bathes in the blood of unborn children.

The search for truth and objectivity is neverending.

My personal view is to try to avoid prejudicing any conclusions I (or others) might reach, not because my preconceptions might be wrong, but because I’d never be able to be certain whether those preconcieved ideas were right or wrong.

Not that I’m apolitical, but it does help to try to preserve the appearance of it, in order to obviate the threat of being characterised as one thing or another, when the reality is somewhere in between or somewhere else entirely, open, and not unsympathetic to the potential to be convinced by logic.

I certainly think it is important to be able to draw fine distinctions in order to seperate the idiotic from the absurd and the wildly unrealistic, but sometimes it is just wiser to say nothing!

Flying Rodent,

I’d like to hear you further on the subject of ‘arguement for the sake of it’ and how it ties into creating a tribalistic gestalt. ‘Cause that’s the way I’m seeing it too.

to prove that “the Left” wears swastika pants and bathes in the blood of unborn children

Not to mention using stem cells as face cream.

Flying Rodent,

Anyone who ‘pimps’ or believes in intelligent design should be put in a fucking ducking stool. That morons such as this are given space in national newspapers is a complete disgrace to any concept of genuine free speech, or rational journalism. It is idiocy as ‘balance’.

You and I might rail against it here, but we’ll be lucky to get ten readers. She is guaranteed a million.

That this lunatic could claim, for the sake of controversy, that ID has the slightest merit, is of the same measure as newspapers publishing astrology. It is shite, most readers know it is shite, but still they buy their shite opinion of choice.

It is all very sad.

…to prove that “the Left” wears swastika pants and bathes in the blood of unborn children

I could simply send her a photo and save everyone a lot of time and effort.

douglas clark, ‘intelligent’ design is flawed because it confuses result with intent, but that isn’t to say the insight it provides is meaningless. If you want to see a ghost the chances are you will see a ghost, just like if you want to believe in a conspiracy you will see one at every opportunity.
From the opposite point of view those who denounce belief in ‘God’ are also missing the point of the lessons that could be learned by paying attention to the wisdom of the ancients – these people tend to be the ones who hold a similarly dogmatic approach to the ‘invisible hand’ that controls international diplomacy or market economies.

Could you argue that she is pro-diversity, or pro-equality, I wonder?

I for one don’t want to be prohibited from doing things I enjoy and that harm no-one, just because some other people can’t do them. Which is one potential corrollary of the argument against stiles.

Personally, I like and enjoy stiles. Taking them away is to put the “rights” of one lot of people above those of another. And that doesn’t seem fair to me.