The Spectator listens to Lily Allen

The Spectator, trying to make things easier for the Establishment, isn't going to let Lily Allen try and land a blow on David Cameron:

Making clear her opposition to Cameron, Allen claimed on Twitter that he has been ‘stealing’ from the public and needs to resign:

Our Prime Minister has been stealing from us. It's very important that he resigns.

Alas Allen has failed to offer up any evidence to back up her claim. Given that offshore does not automatically equal tax avoidance, Blairmore itself does not appear to have been used specifically to reduce Cameron’s tax bill. In fact, when he sold his shares, he paid income tax on the dividends.

Except the prospectus for Blairmore did explicitly state it was being set up in such a way to minimise tax payments for the company in the UK; and obviously, if a company sits out of the country to avoid paying tax in the UK, it means that the Camerons are cashing in from profits inflated at the expense of UK taxpayers. All legal, of course, but the very fact that Dave has struggled to keep the pile of cash out of sight suggests that even he knows it's not entirely moral.

The Spectator thinks it has a winning argument, though:

Still, given that Allen is taking such an avid interest in Cameron’s family’s tax affairs, perhaps it’s worth reminding readers of some her father Keith Allen’s comments on tax avoidance. In 2011, the comedian came to U2’s defence after the Irish band were accused of tax evasion over their offshore affairs:

‘That whole thing about getting U2 to pay their tax and whatever… I don’t actually hold with the argument.’

What ever would Lily say?

Ah, yes. You should be judged based on the standards of your fathers' behaviour. Although, oddly, when people try to suggest that Cameron senior's tax avoidance somehow throws his shade on Dave's behaviour, that's wrong.

Eurovision 2013: You'll have been wondering what The Spectator thought

It must be so hard for the Spectator: do you attack Eurovision because it's Europe, or do you attack Eurovision because it's the BBC?

They've gone with a go at the BBC, presumably because the swivel-eyed loons are doing a good enough job of destroying the EU elsewhere at the moment. Fraser Nelson - yes, the editor, no less - contributes his thoughts as to why the UK doesn't win:

Rather than defend the BBC, Mr Bishop confirmed our suspicions. The corporation is useless at entertainment, he said, and no longer has anyone in its hierarchy who understands it. This is a self-reinforcing problem, warned Mr Stockselius, because the BBC decides how Eurovision is presented in Britain. If it sends dreadful acts to compete, and then holds the entire contest up to ridicule, then our successful singers will not be seen dead on a Eurovision stage. Katrina [out the Waves] wanted to know the name of whoever chooses the BBC’s Eurovision entries, ‘so we can slap him’.

It's a plausible point, except it relies on Nelson's view of the BBC rather than fact, history and evidence, to stack it up.

How can we hope to win if people don't take the contest seriously?

Sorry, did you see Lordi? Who won it? Or any number of other more-successful-than-us entries which seize the opportunity for a jolly romp? Or Ireland, constantly sending Jedward, presumably in the hope that they won't come back.

It's a song contest, and people watch it because it's a big old stage of stupid. Fraser Nelson thinks that it'd benefit from a hushed Dimbleby voiceover in place of Graham Norton.

How can we hope to win if our song is chosen by a faceless BBC bureaucrat?

Good point. Let's go back to having a popular vote. Hang on, though, that method ended up with us sending Scooch to Helsinki. We came last-but-one.

In the end, Nelson suggests that maybe ITV or Sky gets the contest instead. (Not Channel 4, you'll note, because this is really yet another Spectator attack on public services disguised as 'giving a shit about a song contest'.)

Preusmably Nelson hasn't seen how terrible the Brits have become since they moved to ITV. Or maybe he really doesn't care.

[Tonight: Eurovision live bloggage. I'm not sure if Huw Edwards will also be doing a more reverential one for the Spectator, but I hope so.]

Dylan keeps Chinese government happy at worst possible time

The decision of Bob Dylan to play only those songs that the Beijing government approved of always looked a bit weak.

Playing that approved list of songs while the same government had Ai Weiwei spirited away? That seems somewhat less than heroic.

The Spectator's David Blackburn is quite laid back about Dylan's silence:

Given that it’s nearly 50 years since Dylan purposefully stopped being the ‘voice of conscience’, his reticence does not come as a shock.

Except, of course, Dylan hasn't done any such thing, never missing a chance to turn up at the White House to hook himself up to the achievements of the Civil Rights Movement.

And, as David Aaronovitch observes in today’s Times, why should Dylan do what we are too timid and politic to do?

Here's a suggestion, David and David - because we haven't been invited to play a gig approved by the people who have locked Weiwei up. I can say, fairly certainly, that even if I attempted to interest people in the news that I wasn't going to play the Beijing Academy, nobody would turn up.

Yes, our governments have been as grubby and spineless as normal, but whoever thought that "Bob Dylan is no more useless and unprincipled than William Hague" would be a phrase that he would ever aspire to?

Besides, what could he achieve?

A small amount of media focus on the wrongdoings of the Chinese state? A small crowd of the rich Chinese who'd paid for the tickets realising that they can't expect to enjoy visits from Bob Dylan and similar artists while dissidents disappear? A bit more than doing bugger all would?

Dylan’s words might be welcome to some Western ears...

Well, that would be a start - not looking like a self-obsessed, amoral, money-grubbing chimp dancing to whims of Beijing might be a positive move.

... but he’s just one man selling records.

And when did simply having a massive audience and a global platform ever count for anything, eh?

He does not command divisions, even in the metaphorical sense. Human rights violations in China are for governments to challenge. Perhaps Dylan's silence expresses that.

Perhaps. You don't really believe that, though, do you, David? If Dylan wanted to say 'look, I'm just a humble singer of songs, I'm not going to get involved in politics as that's for governments to do', he could have said that. But he'd presumably not bother, as it would sound like a weaselly statement trying to smudge over the grisly spectacle of having to turn up his amp to drown out the cries of tortured dissidents (no wonder Dylan went electric - can you imagine trying to drown that out with an acoustic guitar?).

Even if Dylan had stepped down from being the voice of a generation's conscience when it stopped being convenient, are we supposed to accept that he also detached his personal conscience as well?

Bookmarks - Internet stuff: Rolling Stones

Ian Rankin pops in to The Spectator to celebrate the 50th anniversary of The Rolling Stones:

When I first heard the Rolling Stones, I hated them. The album was Let It Bleed. It belonged to my sister’s boyfriend. He had paid one pound-nineteen-and-eleven for it at a record shop in Kirkcaldy. It came with a poster, and the sleeve was interesting. I’d no idea who Delia Smith was, but she’d done a good job of that cake. I was a bit of a poster fanatic – my tiny bedroom was plastered with them, including the ceiling. I got them from the weekly music paper Sounds. There was a free colour poster in the middle pages of every issue. I didn’t know who half the bands were, but the posters went on the wall. Not the Let It Bleed poster though – that was already adorning my sister’s boyfriend’s bedroom.

Ridicule is nothing to be scared of

Somewhat bemusingly, Mary Wakefield on the Spectator's Blog suggests that Alistair Darling should have, erm, read his speech over an Alan Ant album:

Who else reckons that Mr Darling's plodding budget could have used a lively soundtrack? Well, here's my recommendation: Goody Two Shoes by Adam and the Ants. The lyrics pretty much sum up the whole sorry affair!

"Put on a little makeup makeup
Make sure they get your good side good side

If the words unspoken
Get stuck in your throat
Send a treasure token token
Write it on a pound note pound note

Goody two goody two goody goody two shoes Goody two goody two goody goody two shoes Don't drink don't smoke - what do you do Don't drink don't smoke - what do you do

Subtle innuendos follow.

There must be something he's hiding"

Mary, we presume, is unaware that the song is written about the way the press attacked Adam for his (then) straight-edge habits. So, yes, Darling probably would feel justified in playing the track in response to the press attacking him for a straight-edge budget by publishing the lyrics of a song about being attacked for a... and so on.

The Spectator really shouldn't try engaging with popular music, should it?

Alex James: The Boris Johnson of bass

While Dave Rowntree is off trying to interest Labour constituency parties in giving him a go on their hustings, Alex James has just signed a deal to become an associate editor at The Spectator.

Yes, The Spectator.

The Spectator's editor, Matthew d'Ancona, hired James in part because of his autobiography, which he said was "outstandingly good".

"What is really exciting about him is that he's someone who in his life has covered the waterfront - the metropolitan and rural life. There's something hugely appealing for the magazine in someone who was a denizen of Soho who is now having cups of tea in the country," Mr d'Ancona said.

We love the idea that, as far as The Spectator is concerned living in a nice house in London and living in a nice house in the country is "covering the waterfront". Oh, the sides of life he's seen.

Is Gore running?

John Gibson will be watching Live Earth very carefully indeed on Saturday, with a stopwatch and a notepad, waiting to see any evidence at all of political airtime being given to Al Gore and a presidential campaign.

Gibson, it's fair to say, would feel vindicated by the headline in the latest Spectator:

Live Earth is Al Gore’s campaign launch

That would seem to be a bit of a cynical misuse of what is meant to be a politically neutral campaign, using all these people's goodwill and time, which they believed to be being put towards a green future, as a launchpad for a run at the White House.

But hold on - James Forsyth's article under the eye-popping headline actually says the complete opposite:

So, is this all a prelude to a Gore presidential run? This would certainly be in keeping with the new politics. Barack Obama made himself a serious contender for the Democratic nomination not by doing the traditional rubber-chicken circuit and glad-handing local power brokers, but by going on a book tour. Fred Thompson, the latest candidate to enter the race on the Republican side, is running not on his Senatorial record but his performances in the TV drama Law and Order and various B movies. The stage seems set for Gore to scoop up the Nobel Peace Prize in October, and run as an Oscar winner and Nobel laureate rather than as a former vice-president.

But political insiders don’t think he will. They point out that even now Gore only comes in third in the Democratic field, trailing both Obama and his long-time rival Hillary Clinton. Larry Sabato, professor of political science at the University of Virginia and the pre-eminent poll-watcher in America, points out that still almost half of voters would not vote for Gore in any circumstances. Most importantly if Gore shed his cloak of celebrity and became a politician again, the normal rules would once more apply. He would be savaged for not practising what he preached. His earnestness would once again be the favourite butt of late-night comedians’ jokes.

So, erm, if he's not running, how can he be launching a campaign?

Boris against the porn world

The Spectator's leader column has weighed in with a typically confused piece on Pete Townshend.

"It may turn out that he has not committed an offence" (erm, except he's admitted that he has) "but his reputation has been destroyed forever" (we're not quite sure how The Spectator are able to look into the future.)

But just in case there's a danger of them being thought of as being sympathetic, the paper rushes to make clear they're here to have a bit of a gawp at Ceaser, then to bury him, then point out that they never liked him. Townshend's explanation - who, remember, the Spectator just said might not have done anything wrong - is suddenly making "pathetic excuses."

Perhaps the problem is that Boris Johnson isn't sure if he's got any opinions here, and so he quickly scampers off from simultaneously saying how its a bit of a shame that the people who get arrested on Operation Ore will never be able to rebuild their reputation (funny how 'Oh yes, you're the chap who looked at the kids being raped' is one of those things you can't shake off) and damning the people on the list as "warped and pathetic" to consider the actual nature of the crime.

The problem is, reckons the paper, not that Townshend looked at pictures of children, but that he paid for them. It wouldn't be a problem if he hadn't. So is Johnson's paper suggesting that, providing no money changes hand, the swapping of pictures of small boys being fucked is fine?

Just in case we run away with the idea they know what they're thinking about, they suddenly change tack and say how much better off we'd all be if there was no porn at all, anywhere. Ever.

So, let's just get this straight:

Pete Townshend perhaps hasn't done anything wrong.
It's terrible that people accused of child porn offences can never leave the stigma behind.
People accused of child porn offences are twisted and sick, but don't deserve to be punished unless they actually pay for the images.
We'd be better off if there was no porn at all. But, presumably, if there must be porn, it should be free.
All clear?