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This evening's programme was the best one so far this week.
Good pause Eddie...
... *very* good pause.
I think there’s an ‘O’ in p’lice...
I'm so glad you played the pause.
Wonderful.
Fifi ;o)
well! all those times eddie tried so hard to get a straight answer from somebody - and when he finally gets one - he's speechless. love it!
An excellent piece of silence to great effect.
Great pause. Bolton's always entertaining - you can hear his blood-pressure rise and fall with the questions.
When all went silent, I could hear my heart beating - then it continued so long that I was sure RealPlayer had dropped out.
Much to my delight - it hadn't.
What a rare gem!
I thought the pause was due to the interviewer fainting. Who would have believed that a so called defender of democracy would dismiss other peoples rights with one word
I love Bolton's "British Empire" Parthian shot. It just goes to show that America needs Britain as a 'Stalking horse' or a scape goat. By that I mean the Hollywood vision of Britain.
Thank heavens we have nuclear capabilities, if only to keep our 'friends' in check!
So the long boat was found at Liverpool? I doubt it. The Railway Inn on Birkenhead Road is at Meols. that's Norse for sand dunes. and it's near Hoylake. You'll have heard of Hoylake;it's the home of RLGC where the Open was held last summer.
Meols Station is just up the road. You can get a train from there to Liverpool. But it's quite a long way.
Can that pause (just the pause) be made available as a podcast? Maybe it could form the start of a collection..
There is far too little pause for thought in today's fast paced media. There was a time when the pause would have been cut out for 'technical reasons' - with a razor blade! Remember those and their part in the history of radio? I used to have great fun sticking together all the bits of tape from the floor.. "...ummm *pop* err *cough* sigh err *hic-* *sniff* umm *cough* err err *-up*..." etc...
Well done PM - sometimes silence really does speak volumes!
PM, where the question is more important than the answer.
Now apparently the silence is more important than a question.
My 7 priors were as below:
'And when I say
Why not tonight..'
1. Gordon at Brighton:
People on benefit live at world average income. (Stern Report)
Who is it who has the selfish audcaity to get themselves paid more than that?
Who is outrageous enough to pay someone less than that.
Whether in Asia, Africa, America or Europe. Its one world.
2. Housing should be treated like the internet is run.
There's 60 million people who need housing here.
Whether they or their families have been here 1,000 years or a thousand hours.
Our job is to provide the 60 million units of dwelling. Who occupies it is not our concern, whether Norman French, Ugandans (Ed!) or 'English'. Our job is just to provide the right number of units to the right standard and under common ownership.
3. In large part it's the increasing Americanisation of our society since 1945 that stops us holdinng all things in common.
4. Does America plan war on Pakistan (its academics and Nobel Prize winners make it impossible for the U.S. to ARGUE for democracy) or is it giving the Pakistani dictator the implicit nod?
5. All repect to it, but the US anti war movement was puny wasn't it? Anti - Vietnam American bands sang
'C'mon all you big strong man
Uncle Sam needs a helping hand
He's got himself in a hell of a jam
And you're wanted in Iraq land
And its one two three,
What are we fighting for?
Don't ask me
Cos I don't give a damn
Next stop is Iraq land
And its five six seven
Open up the pearly G8's
Be the first one on your block
To have your boy back home in a box.
(Words changed to indict the guilty)
So despite PM's ruthless teasing of Rumsfeld I think you'll find the American war is going to continue until the bitter end.
I think in part its 'cos the anti-Iraq war has put a quarter of a million Amrican soldiers within shouting Help! distance of Israel. That's made pro-Israeli young Americans think twice.
Many Europeans (the Angry Brigade, the Bader Meinhof group the Red Brigades in Italy) saw themselves as at war with America.
We have more or less got our troops out (one more PUSH) but our anti Americanism seems at low wattage. Europe suggests we may not rev up 'America go Home' sentiments even after we withdraw.
6. In the Midnight Hours (and even into the Wee Smalls (If DIY can keep his nuts to himself for a moment)) Feef and I were told (this is wholly MY version of it) by a Portuguese speaker that the category that Kate and Gerry McCann come under is 'Interrogatee'. 'Suspect' is a different word entirely. So an 'Interrogatee' might be just a hostile witness (protecting friends), or indeed a suspect, or people (you probably won't understand this Eddie) who have to be asked lousy questions (to make the questioning complete) but whose informal status (loving relatives of a victim) might make the questions very difficult to put, without that formal status of being one who must (regretfully sometimes) be questioned.
7 I'll post separately 'cos you'll have a tissy fit about defamation, But I'd go to the stake for the truth of every word.
Things are exacly as I've been telling you.
America internally and externally does not beleive in democracy. Her strategic interests over ride it externally and those powerful enough over ride it internally.
A major part of the problem is that American academia sees democrqcy as suffering fro mimperfectiojns that dictatorship cures.
If you have that veiw of democracy you are willing to disregard it in your own country and destroy it in countries abroad.
Most crucially here, because the Americans don't believe in democracy they don't believe it can solve Pakistan's problems.
For them if a friendly dictator gives way, Pakistan's nuclear arsenal will fall into Bin Ladin's hands, nuclear war will break out with India and Pakistan will join Al Qieda in driving America out of Afghanistan.
You see, you think free speech guarantees a certain sort of cultural liberation.
Democrats believe majority voting brings with it majority responsibility and the liberation of whole peoples.
Bolton believes neither. Pakistan civil rights abuses and its violation of majority voting is necessary to protect US strategic interests.
For people like him democracy does not work and so never guarantees a good polity -- whether in Pakistan or Bolivia or Venezuela.
And American academics and Nobel Prize winners can prove it to you.
The more America violates Islamicist majority rights (in Egypt, Pakistan, Palestine, Iran) the less America will see the benefits of democracy in those countries and the more America will see the advantages of illegal wars and both sides will see the advantages of violence.
The silence wasn't wonderful at all. It should have been filled with the same question you asked on AQ. (If 'feet off' can be ignored, what else can be? What other reasons are there for violating majority voting? How low can Bolton go?)
Still, one out of seven isn't bad. It WAS the big one. (See the link again!)
I tell you. Eddie's method works with small fry but not with real politicos. If only John Bolton were like Thomas Sellick.
'Cos Eddie's rhetorical style would have produced the following question (instead of the pause):
'So in avoiding a nuclear attack on New York, a nuclear war between Pakistan and India and driving America out of Afganistan is worth destroybg democracy in PAkistan for?'
To which
'Yes'
Then you tackle the justice or otherwise of the third possibility. (Shouldn't America go home?)Then point out the political wisdom of the Indians and Pakistanis themselves in avoiding precisely that war to tackle his second point. Then ask Bolton what he expects from the rest of the world when America behaves as she does. 9/11 didn't come out of a clear blue sky.
As I say Mair is a natural bully who can smash small fry (calling them cloth eared baboons etc) but even when equipped with the rhetoric to deal with them cannot tackle the genuinely tough.
The silence was a victory for the appalling Bolton.
I thought one or both had fainted because Mr. Bin Laden had popped into the studio, a la Alaister Campbell,to give his considered judgement on events in Pakistan.It scared the life out of me.
I tell you. Eddie's method works with small fry but not with real politicos. If only John Bolton were like Thomas Sellick.
'Cos Eddie's rhetorical style would have produced the following question (instead of the pause):
'So in avoiding a nuclear attack on New York, a nuclear war between Pakistan and India and driving America out of Afganistan is worth destroybg democracy in PAkistan for?'
To which
'Yes'
Then you tackle the justice or otherwise of the third possibility. (Shouldn't America go home?)Then point out the political wisdom of the Indians and Pakistanis themselves in avoiding precisely that war to tackle his second point. Then ask Bolton what he expects from the rest of the world when America behaves as she does. 9/11 didn't come out of a clear blue sky.
As I say Mair is a natural bully who can smash small fry (calling them cloth eared baboons etc) but even when equipped with the rhetoric to deal with them cannot tackle the genuinely tough.
The silence was a victory for the appalling Bolton.
Dear PM: sorry it is a bit long, I hope you read to the end. I have an experience re ASBOs as Camden council managed to get one against me in Nov 05 (now spent) because of a 'community politics' situation.
Briefly, I had always been keen to start a genuine community project 'For all' in our area - Somers Town in Camden, London as most projects were earmarked as 'only for (various) ethnic groups', which some of us felt kept 'our community' separated!
*Camilla Batmanghella's kids company project inspired me.
*But I felt a need to do something for my elderly neighbours as well.
* I started Cafe Basil (for all) so named as we started out in the 'Basil Jellico Hall' - one night a week - for the teenagers.
*At the time 5 million pounds came into the area via a 5 year government 'regeneration' budget. The committee formed to run it was not neutral but made up of local people with their own agendas.
* A few of us had 'made nuicances' of ourselves by complaining to the housing committee about the way our local tenants halls were being run by a handful of (in effect) self appointed tenants.
*Various of these refused us access to local halls for our project because they could make a lot of money (£30 per hour) by hiring them out to all kinds of odd churches and similar 'outside' projects. Our community halls evidentaly are popular because we are so central.
*Matters at St Pancras housing association's Basil Jellico hall, came to a head when some kids messing around with condoms (which they had been given by a sexual healh clinic project in our area) had left some in the Basil jellico hall toilet.
*St pancras housing association then evicted our project using the excuse that we must have been encouraging under age sex!!!
*We tried again to get access to one or other of our four local tenant halls but could not.
*We were told by some local people in the know that it was because of petty corruption in tenants' committees, apparently those holding the keys were depositing money from lettings into secret accounts showing false accounts to the council each year. We were told that the housing office knew this but would not tackle it for reasons of local politics.
*Our cafe Basil project was now homeless so giving up the fight to use community halls, I found an abandoned local shop and with my own money opened it as a full time charitable Cafe Basil For all.
*The Cafe Bsil 'For All' tag became the sticking point. We could not get proper funding becuase we did not tick the right boxes - the regeneration money favoured separate groups of ethnic minorities.
*Unfortunately, the old shop belonged to the commercial letting dept of Camden council and was situated on housing land (Amthill Square) and was on the housing estate of one of the 'tenant leader' people we had made enemies with because of not being able to gain access to the tenants hall there. This tenant 'leader' was also chair of the 5 million pound regeneration money committee!
*So we plodded on regardless. It was poplar with everyone.
We began to be harassed by various people including one individual who had taken to pouring hot tea and coffee from his balcony onto the heads of those entering Cafe Basil, - his blacony overlooked our entrance.
*I made a formal complaint about this and other similar harrasments to the housing dept as the culprits lived in the adjoining Council flats.
* I had credible witnesses who eventually came to the asbo court to testify for me.
HOW DID IT GET TO ASBO COURT?
*a nice neighbour who was on that particular tenants committee came in to Cafe Basil to forwarn me that a meeting was in progress in the tenant hall - about how to go about evicting our project.
*After many weeks of serious harrasment and the housing dept's local chief taking sides with the people I had made formal complaints about, I lost my cool and went in and had a bit of a shout at them all, I admit I became a touch hysterical when I saw them all sitting there looking very smug.
*My regretted my confrontation but I was working 14 hours per day 7 days per week on the project so the stress of their undermining it proved too much. my outburst was swiftly regarded as 'violence'!
I had given them the excuse they wanted so that they could say I was a violent and dangerous person (their words), so they now had a reason to evict Cafe Basil from this abandonded shop for which we were paying full commercial rent!
*I was summoned to the county court. A ten minute hearing had been booked for an ASBO on me to protect tenant leaders and council officials! It was laughable.
*But the judge on seeing a barrister and so many council officials and tenants (the very same ones who had harassed us for reasons of previous arguments about there being no access to local tenant halls - AND becuase of their petty corrupt running of them), the judge said that "it seemed wrong that someone "like me" should be given an ASBO. So he deferred it and booked a 3 day hearing to get to the bottom of it.
Eventually another judge took the case and was seemingly so confused by 3 and half days of internicine hellish stories and cross examinations that he seemed to throw his hands in the air, half side with the council saying that I seemed to him to be a feisty person yet utting it on the record that their chief witness' evidence was wholly unreliable. (I was defending myself and had to cross examine them all myself).
*But he did refuse to award costs against me a full £28,000 that Camden spent on my asbo. For they had had the nerve to try to get it from me!
*instead of appealing - as I should have, I had a serious nervous breakdown (I had never had one before) which involved my stopping eating and losing 3 stone in a month! Doctors records have recorded it.
*I somehow , with the help of friends and family recovered and am now back to normal. It was the shock of witnessing the professional council officers lying on oath about events and typing up collected false witness statements (from these old enemies of whom I had had good reason to make formal complaints about) statements that were garbled, in bad handwriting and so retyped by the housing office. they were literally made up. I Have since heard from others who have been threatened similarly for political reasons with an ASBO including one community activist who was threatened for putting a community notice (against a council policy) in a bus shelter . I wonder if your programme can discover how common it is that ASBOs are used in this way?
kind regards Sandi
ps I have since given up community activities and there is no community cafe for the kids and others to enjoy in our area. the building remains empty with our pretty sign still written large above the shutters.
Such a long pause, I was expecting the bongs to follow.
;o)
H.
Talking of pauses, how about playing an extract of 4'33" before the pips? :)
Now to Listen Again (i.e. for the first time) to hear the pause in all its glory...
mac - disagree entirely about whose victory the gap was. To me it amplified Bolton's arrogance - 'I don't have to justify anything'.
I listened to the prog from 5:11 on my way from Steeple Bumpstead to Rayleigh. The best PM for a long time.
Sid
mac - I'm not a psychotherapist or anything, but I'd say you had a lot of anger ...
Sid
That was a lovely Sound of Summer last night.
Very calming after the stress of the 'pause' incident.
I was frantically cooking the family supper whilst waiting for the pause to happen...and when it did my son thought it was some bizarre cooking game as I was stood poised with wooden spoon in hand listening intently for the radio to start again!
To Eddie and PM,
I think the the policeman is right. Asbos are fundamentally flawed. Far from making a virtue about the latest increase in anti-social behaviour orders, Home Office Ministers should be questioning whether this measure is the most effective way of tackling nuisance crime.
The facts speak for themselves. Nearly 12,500 Asbos have now been issued since the scheme – one of the centrepieces of New Labour's crime agenda – was introduced in 1998. However, this figure remains a tiny fraction of the number of petty offences actually committed each year.
But, rather than hailing this statistic as evidence that the Government is winning the fight against crime, the Home Office Ministers should be asking whether the public feel safer since the introduction of Asbos. And the answer, in the overwhelming majority of cases, will I think be a resounding "no".
The reason is straight-forward. Reams of paperwork must be obtained before the courts can impose Asbos. They are also only deployed when there is clear-cut evidence of habitual offending. The awarding of an Asbo still does not automatically mean that the culprit is "named and shamed", even though this is fundamental to ensure that the offender does not breach the order. And, to compound matters, many courts follow contradictory approaches.
From the public's perspective, this is simply unacceptable. They witness criminal acts, of varying degrees of severity, being committed, and they expect the police to act swiftly. And here is the rub. For, while the perpetrators can be brought swiftly to justice for the original offence under existing laws, it takes many weeks, if not months, before Asbos are imposed.
Yet, in the meantime, the offenders could have still continued terrorising local communities and probably graduated to more serious crimes such as drugs, simply because the difference between right and wrong was not instilled into them when they first came to the attention of the courts.
This remains the fundamental flaw in the approach adopted by New Labour's Home Office front bench. Asbos are now breached in 42 per cent of cases. And, until the police and courts have the powers, and resources, to tackle the culture of reoffending that Ministers have allowed to become so endemic, then a lawless minority will continue to cause mayhem on Britain's streets, with the Government's famous promise to be "tough on the causes of crime" rendered meaningless.
I think the time, therefore, has come for the Home Office to review its approach – in particular their misguided obsession with Asbos – if public confidence is to be restored.
Howdi do Everyone...
I was editing yesterday. Sorry this is a bit late.
Many thanks for all your postings... especially about the pause.
I was in one of the small workshop studios recording the interview - with my back to both Eddie and John Bolton. I thought Eddie had finished the interview and almost hit the stop button. A great pause would have been lost to posterity.
Squirrel (11), you make a good point about the lack of pauses in a lot of pre-recorded interviewees. We do cut a lot of gaps and pauses out of pre-recs, basically to fit more words in, but sometimes the baby can be thrown out with the bathwater and you lose the meaning that can be conveyed in a pause. But if there are good ones, we try to leave them in.
Whatever you think about John Bolton, it is refreshing to hear from someone who does not seek to duck the issue. Ask him a question and he'll give you an answer, so you don't have to waste time repeating questions or trying to force an answer. You may not like what he has to say, but at last you know where you are.
There was another interviewee who surprised me with his willingness to answer things head on and that was the Crown Prosecution Service Man on the Michael Barrymore case. So often that kind of interview can lead into a cul de sac, but he was great.
Toodle pip
Rog
I agree John Bolton never ducks the question. Pretty difficult I would say, knowing you're on the receiving end of groupthink.
Please no pedatory.
Every silence on the radio causes fear and alarm.
The real gap was in failing to question the Ugly American himself on his view of the theory of democracy.
Nuclear war on America or with India Bolton-justify supporting dictatorships.
Even driving the US out of Afganistan with the help of Al Qieda justifies support for tyrants.
So how low can Bolton go? Oil in Saudi Arabia, the 'threat' of socialism in Latin America, maybe a Republican not getting elected (ask Gore about that). All sufficent to abolish democracy?
So was it all three of his reasons or just any one that for Bolton justifies dictatorship? I suspect 'any one'.
Personally I think America is in the hands of people who only support democracy when the popular will coincides with what they want.
And they have academic and Nobel Prize support for their view that their dictatorship is an improvement on democracy. (As per usual, see Link and Discussion 25 there)
Incidently these Impossibility Theorists dominated the English economics department at Essex and were prominent at Warwick and Oxford as a prelude to Thatcher in the late 80s.
These Impossibility Theorems are a tragedy waiting to happen in America and here, just like Friedmannite economics was when Keynsianism ruled in the 60's here and in the US.
And look how Thatcher took to Friedman and Hayek and Kirzner et al just 25 later.
Now is the time to defeat this 'Impossibilty Theorem' nonsense, not when a dictator has already taken over!
The theory says in effect that for a society to be rational, for it cerainly to be honest and for anyone at all to have a coherent set of rights, then that society must be a dictatorship. (The theorems of Arrow, Gibbard and Sen begin the nightmare).
I am surprised that a has been like John bolton is on the PM books an an interviewee. He is s right wing Neo-con. A thug. He resigned in December 2006, when it was apparent that he would not be confirmed (he was sacked). Bolton is a senior fellow at the Right wing American Enterprise Institute (The chief planners of the Iraq war)
These brain dead moron should should be ignored by the ´óÏó´«Ã½. Why is ´óÏó´«Ã½ sucking to a right wing fanatic like Bolton beggars belief!!!". Its a deliberate policy. ´óÏó´«Ã½ is acting as the 51st state of the US foreign policy
Shame on ´óÏó´«Ã½
I had always doubted this "kidnapping" from day one
The McCanns have done a runner. They thought theirs was the only child kidnapped in the entire world. Look at Iraq 100s of children have been kidnapping and murdered. I bet ´óÏó´«Ã½ can NOT name one.
Reminds me of the brilliant G Galloway who wiped the floor with Mss Bottings knickers on the Lebanon war. She could not name one Palestinian child shot by IDF!!!!!!!!!!!!
Madeleine search: How did it come to this?
By Olga Craig, Sunday Telegraph
She states
"Was their carefully orchestrated and sophisticated campaign, that included jetting across the world on fact-finding missions and high-profile press events, merely a smoke screen for what could be one of the most audacious and clever cover-ups?
When I (Olga Craig) asked why they left the patio doors and windows unlocked, she stood up and walked off. Understandably, they were distressing questions. Nevertheless, she was unwilling to address them.
The doubts are creeping in!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I had always doubted this "kidnapping" from day one
The McCanns have done a runner. They thought theirs was the only child kidnapped in the entire world. Look at Iraq 100s of children have been kidnapping and murdered. I bet ´óÏó´«Ã½ can NOT name one.
Reminds me of the brilliant G Galloway who wiped the floor with Mss Bottings knickers on the Lebanon war. She could not name one Palestinian child shot by IDF!!!!!!!!!!!!
Madeleine search: How did it come to this?
By Olga Craig, Sunday Telegraph
She states
"Was their carefully orchestrated and sophisticated campaign, that included jetting across the world on fact-finding missions and high-profile press events, merely a smoke screen for what could be one of the most audacious and clever cover-ups?
When Olga Craig asked why they left the patio doors and windows unlocked, she stood up and walked off. Understandably, they were distressing questions. Nevertheless, she was unwilling to address them.
The doubts are creeping in!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!