Football - the problem

You know when you take an unreasonable dislike to a public personality? Well it's that way with me with John Terry, it's a dislike that was founded for no particular rational reasons but stoked by apocrypha and rumour, circulated amongst football enthusiasts, surrounding his personal conduct off the pitch . So why does his persecution by the media, the law and the game's governing body bother me, after all I hate the guy. Well it comes down to principles, you know those things you have to defend even if doing so contradicts you own personal interests. There's no getting away from it really, if they can nail someone to the wall to make an example of them  then they can do the same to you. These affronts to civil liberty are invariably accompanied by calculated invocation of moral panic to quell any disquiet amongst reasonable people. Anyone daring to point out the irrational or unreasonable nature of the accusations gets immediately tarred with some label, you know: racist, paedo, communist, practitioner of witchcraft, same old story, same culprits.

Terry's predicament is similar in some ways to that of Glenn Hoddle, the unloved and deeply useless one-time England manager. Hoddle was ambushed by an unscrupulous journo who recycled material from Hoddle's known but relatively unpublicised barmy notions on reincarnation. The journalist claimed several damaging quotes regarding disabled people from an interview with Hoddle, ostensibly recorded shorthand, all mechanical recording devices being conveniently absent. Even though the journalist's claims were barely credible, especially amongst anyone with awareness of the habits of media professionals and robustly denied by Hoddle, the media circus embraced the story with a furious glee, lustfully relishing the opportunity to impale a personality on the rusty spike of Political Correctness. The comparison isn't perfect though because Terry actually is guilty of behaving unpleasantly, while Hoddle was more a victim of circumstance and perfidious journalism. It's just that behaving in an unpleasant manner is not a good reason to exercise your personal hatred or deluded sense of self righteousness by assaulting another person's personal liberty.

I've been to Salem, venue for the proverbial witch hunts and it's was interesting to see how the notoriety of that episode is celebrated locally more than vilified. I suppose revenue from the tourist trade might explain that but I can't help the niggling suspicion that as a culture we've regressed. The Salem trials quickly drew condemnation and horror at such hysteria and irrational behaviour. Of course we don't string people up by the neck, just ruin their careers and lives but no such moderating influences are to be witnessed in the contemporary equivalent of a witch hunt, not from folk of any influence at least, fear of having the finger of accusation pointed at you sees to that.

It's also interesting to compare Terry's treatment to that of Diane Abbott, I'm not sure I could say with any confidence from his outburst that Terry held any racist convictions. With Abbot's though, any reasonable person could safely assume her to be a committed racist but the difference in the manner in which they've been treated by authority contrasts as sharply as chalk on a blackboard. Which illustrates the principle that it's not what you say or do that counts, it's who you are and what status you hold. A beggar will be held to account for standing in plain sight a prince can get away with murder, is this where I mention Teddy Kennedy?

Wrong side of the curtain

If your old enough you'll recall the days when British people used to regard the lot of those unfortunate enough to dwell outside these shores with more than a small degree of pity. Sure we weren't the wealthiest, most powerful of even the most content nation on earth but there was a certain degree of satisfaction to drawn from the knowledge that we were the least barmy and that, for the most part, enjoyed an unparallelled degree of personal liberty.

I recall many occasions from my adolescence when I'd witness news from abroad. Things like, civil unrest in the US, the antics of paramilitaries in France, food shortages in the Soviet Union or just the general petty injustices that foreigners seemed to endure, firm in my assurance that these things couldn't happen here.

Yes, that was a long time ago and in truth perhaps a rather a too rose tinted view of the past. But times have changes because, back then, we didn't put people away for saying the wrong thing or throw them out of work for their politics or impose summery fines or arbitrarily persecute motorists to raise revenue.

So when did the apple turn into a pear? Wish I could pin it down, things started to go wrong in 68 with the Irish thing but that was localised and had little impact on daily life in the rest of the country. How about The Common Market? as it was then called, well that certainly opened British culture up to the European method of non-de jure enforcement that we see in things like the way Customs an Excise enforce alcohol and tobacco limits, even though there aren't supposed to be any. In truth though, I don't think it's possible to pin it down to a particular event, it's more a case of the simmering frog. A liberty here an injustice there, chipped away in gradual process that we barely noticed. One thing I do know though, it's only going to get worse and no better.

It's not all bad though, remember those foreigners that we used to view with such pity? Yeah I know the US and Europe are in suicide mode but further afield things look more promising. The successor state to the Soviet Union, Russia, has been called The New America, the population already enjoys a greater degree of civil liberty than we do, now there's a sobering thought. China is the major prospect though the population is still relatively impoverished, largely because western economies are in dept to them for so much.

Personally I've given up trying to counter the ubiquitous disinformation and moral panics spawned by my culture's decline. Much better to just go with the flow and make best of it then perhaps I'll be able to retire abroad.