The LGBT Nazis now ban pronouns he and she

Did ze really?

Melanie Phillips, writing in The Times, has aired information about a new anti-prejudice law in Canada.  This law (passed in June 2017) dictates that people must use gender-free pronouns (ze and zir) rather than he, she, his, hers, if talking about someone who has a preference for being referred to by such terms. Transgender people, perhaps; or anyway, those who don't want to be identified as male or female. A professor at the University of Toronto has declared that he will not use such terms. He has thus drawn down on his head an amazing (but perhaps predictable) amount of vilification, most recently during an interview with Cathy Newman on Channel 4 News.

Not having a television, I didn't see the interview, but apparently it can be seen via YouTube; there is a link within Melanie Phillips's article, which can itself be read at

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/comment/defenders-of-free-speech-have-a-new-prophet-7kk9mnvnl

The Times online has a paywall, but you can sign up to receive up to two articles per week free of charge. In case you don't want to do that, and for those who prefer to avoid the internet altogether, the main points made by Melanie Phillips are as follows:

This would be funny if it wasn't evil

Professor Jordan Peterson is not especially concerned with transgender issues as such. The point he is making is that freedom in the use of language is essential for the discussion and exploration of ideas, a foundation stone at the basis of the teaching and research carried on within universities. Ms Phillips says that Peterson's “own use of words is so precise because, as he believes, words are integral to our ability to think and thus our freedom to make sense of the world. That’s the way we arrive at the truth as we see it, and for him truth trumps everything else”.  When he made his stand against being obliged to use ze and zir, the response was such that he was unable to continue lecturing, as his lectures were drowned out by white noise. His grant application to continue his academic research was rejected, and he has been able to pursue his research only by relying on crowdfunding. Nevertheless, he has said that if he is imprisoned for his

We are turning humans into monsters?

refusal to obey the new law he will go on hunger strike rather than submit to being told what personal pronouns he must use.

The Channel 4 interview itself comes in for severe criticism by Ms Phillips.  The interviewer, Cathy Newman, appears to have been so determined to impose her own interpretation of the situation on professor Peterson that she was quite unable to grasp what he was trying to say. As Ms Phillps concludes: “The encounter was a notable demonstration of rationality versus cognitive dissonance, of an open mind versus one that was sealed shut. It cast Channel 4’s editorial standards in an extremely poor light”. 

By Prayer Crusader St Theresa of Avila

Also please see this link to how peaceful pro-family demonstrations and being attacked violently by LGBT mobs and their supporters https://www.tfpstudentaction.org/get-involved/street-campaigns/gender-ideology-is-opposed

LGBT Nazis want to brainwash young children at school, please take part in the government consultation "Changes to the teaching of sex and Relationship education & PSHE" by clicking the link https://consult.education.gov.uk/life-skills/pshe-rse-call-for-evidence/

Future of British Broadcasting 3

The Review of the Royal Charter for the BBC should talk place over the Current Charter term

Charter term

Beyond the mid-term funding review H.M. Government needs to be realistic about the BBC's long-term sustainability. A thorough review of the purposes of public sector broadcasting cannot be delayed indefinitely; CUT would suggest that that review should take place over the course of the current Charter period so that transition from the present model may begin at the end of this Charter term.

Flattening the Media landscape

We are all aware that the BBC describes its public purposes as being “to inform, to educate and to entertain”; the question now is whether a public sector broadcaster is necessary or desirable for these purposes. If it is not, is there any purpose for which such a broadcaster might be desirable? The BBC was constituted as a public corporation (i.e. what would later become known as a quango) because it was believed that broadcasting could only develop if it were developed by a monopoly supplier with some means of deriving an income from its work. The truth of this claim was always questionable, but it is of more than historic interest as it is the basis for the notion that the BBC should have public purposes befitting its status as a public body and for the idea of universality (something for everybody). Within a decade of incorporation the original purpose of that incorporation had ceased to be relevant, if it ever was, and the BBC's public status and guaranteed income would have been recognised as obsolete were it not for a political campaign in its favour centred on the absence of alternatives, its possible usefulness in the event of war, the growing number of state broadcasters abroad, and the claim that a free market would not fulfil the stated public purposes. Even then all the claims made in favour of the BBC were highly questionable, and they can have no possible relevance now, yet this created the context in which this issue is being debated today. Our contention is that it is time to relegate all such claims, and any inferences drawn from them in the past to history and to rethink public sector broadcasting under today's conditions. Please note that in referring to the Arts Council below we do not intend to comment on the future of the Arts Council, we simply judge it likely that approximately the same functions will be carried out by a public or charitable body or network for the foreseeable future; we also use the term in the singular to refer to the Arts Council structures taken together in their totality in accordance with the original usage of the name.  

Incorporation brought monopoly status with it, enabling the BBC to use the machinery of government to destroy its UK rivals. It prevented the development of other companies based in this country and strenuously opposed all attempts to remedy the situation for as long as it could. Within a decade of incorporation, however, British listeners were able to enjoy sponsorship- or advertising-funded programmes transmitted from the Continent, and audiences demonstrated a clear preference for plural rather than monopoly provision. The BBC has never ceased to act in its own interests to retard development as far as possible, to catch up by reluctantly providing more popular programmes when rivals emerged, to lobby against any rivals, and to assert a claim (now unspoken) that, being itself a provider of a comprehensive service, no alternative to it is necessary or desirable. We would never claim that the BBC has not achieved a great deal, but would seek to remind interested parties that its achievements have all been matched elsewhere, either by commercial or advertising-funded broadcasters, or else, in the educational sphere, by Government agencies and charities. The 2015–16 consultation exercise appeared to presuppose the continuation of a large-scale, comprehensive BBC when that should be brought very much into question.

Universality is a legacy of the monopoly the BBC persuaded Mr. Baldwin's administration to grant, and is today an obligation arising from the BBC's current funding model. There are two aspects to universality, namely production and content. If all viewers (formerly listeners) are obliged to pay for the BBC, it must be obliged to provide 'something for everyone'; alternatively, it might be obliged to provide programmes of universal relevance whether or not they appeal to the audience e.g. programmes on recent or proposed legislation. On the technical side there is an obligation to maintain the infrastructure to broadcast to all parts of this country and anywhere identified as providing an appropriate audience for the World Service. There is also the associated matter of the geographical distribution of places from which the BBC broadcasts. It should be made explicit that all property held by the BBC is public property; title to any property that is owned rather than leased should be vested in a Government Department. Use of these assets should be available to other broadcasters subject to arrangements administered by the DCLG's Local Government and Public Services Group, use of all broadcasting studios (owned or leased) should be subject to similar arrangements. We would envisage a variation of terms to discriminate between commercial and community broadcasters. The sale of properties and privatisation of broadcasting infrastructure may be considered at a later date when H.M. Government finds it convenient to do so.

Public purposes: Re-evaluation and reform

Several attempts have been made to define the 'public purposes' of the BBC, beginning with Lord Reith's historic formula, but what is necessary now is not a new statement of purposes or values amplifying or clarifying that formulation, but an objective re-evaluation of what should continue to be produced and broadcast by the public sector broadcaster. A brief look at the historic formula reveals how deep that re-evaluation needs to be.

By Prayer Crusader St Philip Howard

Future of British Broadcasting 2

• Following on from last weeks introduction we continue with our proposals to abolish the TV licence.

The Mid-term Funding Review

HM Government has provided that the current Charter period should include a mid-term funding review to take place between 2022 and 2024. We may safely conjecture that the BBC would wish the review to be limited to the simple matter of its requesting an increase in the licence fee and providing a variety of specious claims as to the likely results of a failure to accede to that request. There is, however, no reason why the review should not take the form of a thoroughgoing examination of the current funding model, although no change can be made to that model until after the expiry of the Charter now in force (Charter 57 (5) (c)).

It is CUT's contention that the licence fee should be phased out irrespective of whether or not our other proposals are adopted, and that non-payment of the fee should be decriminalised at the earliest opportunity. The judicial process is brought into disrepute, and public understanding of the gravity of genuine frauds upon the revenue is undermined, when the courts are used to prosecute trivial matters that are not generally regarded as criminal. It should also be noted that H.M. Government has committed itself to consider any differential impact policies might have on men and women. Failure to pay the BBC licence fee now accounts for 10% of prosecutions with 133,000 out of 189,000 of those prosecutions having been of women in 2015.  Needless to say, many of those prosecuted are unemployed people whose employability is then reduced by having to declare a conviction. It must be noted that many families regard television as indispensable irrespective of their level of household income. Those who fail to pay the fine imposed on conviction are imprisoned for a short period; if they have children this is likely to result in extensive intervention in the family on the part of their local authority's social services department. Every week about 3,000 people are prosecuted and fined up to £1,000; and one person on average is sent to prison for non-payment of the fine.

Proposals for reform

The public sector status of the BBC provides the rationale for criminalisation of non-payment of the licence fee as an instance of defrauding the Treasury. The fee is, however, paid to the BBC in its entirety (with payments being made by it to S4C), and it takes responsibility for collection of the fee and prosecution of defaulters.   

The BBC service charge should be formally designated as such; and defined in terms of a contractual relationship between it and its customers rather than, as at present, as a licence fee payable to the Treasury. Default should therefore be decriminalised with the removal of the notional element of defrauding the revenue. The large lump licence fee was devised because radio, later television, was consumed in an unquantifiable manner using equipment that allowed use of the BBC's services without indicating whether people were actually listening to the Home Service or Hilversum. The radio licence was abolished due to the proliferation of small (i.e. readily concealable) transistor radios the use of which could not be detected. The situation today has changed and is in a process of transition to a very different model of media consumption. As a matter of principle the BBC's domestic audience should be obliged to pay for its services and those who do not use the BBC should not be charged for its upkeep. There is a general move away from unquantifiable use of BBC services to measurable use accessed via internet-enabled devices. The BBC should charge directly for services received in this way; whether it does so on a pro rata basis or devises offers and packages like those given by utilities companies should be a matter for its own commercial judgement. The service charge should be phased out as the transition proceeds, being made proportionate to the amount of television accessed via television sets with abolition coming when under 20% of content is received that way. Any claim that the service charge should be payable for use of non-BBC services accessed via the internet would be completely unjustifiable.

The BBC should use sponsorship and advertising to the extent it finds commercially desirable in both domestic and international broadcasts as funding from the service charge is reduced. Responsibility for the funding of S4C should be devolved immediately to the Welsh administration which should eventually take responsibility for all subsidised broadcasting in the Welsh language. The issue of payments from H.M. Government and the devolved administrations to the BBC should be addressed in the context of radical restructuring, as discussed below, rather than at the mid-term funding review, although the review does provide a suitable opportunity to transfer funding for the BBC World Service from the FCO to the DfID.

If these proposals are adopted at the mid-term review they will leave the BBC as a functionally independent entity with its internal structures, scope and relation to H.M. Government largely unchanged. They may be adopted without reference to our further proposals for radical reforms to public sector broadcasting, or else they might initiate the transitionary process we describe below. To be continued. by Prayer Crusader St Philip Howard.

Future of British Broadcasting No 1

• We serialise a proposal for the future of British Broadcasting.
• Please send links to your MPs and media outlets or printout and send.

Part 1 - Introduction

A Clear Vision for the Future of British Broadcasting

Catholics Unplug your Televisions is an organisation that promotes religious, family and social activities within the Catholic community in preference to passive use of the broadcast media. Our membership includes clergy and laity, academics, writers and media professionals. Through our Clear Vision blog and other outreach projects we engage with society at large, commenting on the social effects of these media and the culture of the broadcasting industry. Whether acting in a religious or secular context we uphold the rights of individuals and families to maintain the standards of traditional morality in their own homes and private lives.

Introduction

All interested parties are aware of the outcome of the debate over renewal of the BBC Charter. That outcome appeared to have been largely predetermined by the terms of debate set out in the preceding Green Paper. In effect, the public was denied a debate because the questions given in the Green Paper were predicated on the assumption that the BBC Charter would be renewed and that, while some slight modifications might be made, the Corporation would continue to operate under the same terms of reference as beforehand and would conduct 'business as usual' for the foreseeable future. In this report CUT sets out a framework for transition, challenging the assumptions underlying the Green Paper, and indicating the ways in which a future replacement for the BBC might operate.

Proposal composed by Prayer Crusader St Philip Howard