The Fox and the hounds

UK news is currently full of the story of Defence Secretary Liam Fox. Doctor Fox, as he is all too frequently called (wasn't that the name of a DJ?), is in the middle of a storm of accusation because of allowing a close friend, Adam Werritty to act as if he were an official advisor and accompany Fox on a range of official visits. This doesn't look too good, especially as it's possible Werritty could benefit financially from it - something that he may not have done, but certainly could have done.

What I find fascinating is the way that those who speak up on Fox's behalf - bluff Tories one and all - are producing the most irrelevent arguments. They seem to fall into two camps:

Liam Fox is a nice guy - well, yes, so are quite a lot criminals. This doesn't signify anything.
They are saying this about Liam Fox because they want to do him down

Let's look at that second accusation in a bit more detail. Notice that it is an argument about motive, not substance. Just transfer the argument to a mass murderer for a moment to show how useless it is. Imagine someone has very clearly committed a mass murder. There is absolutely solid evidence that he did it. No question. But his defence team argue that we should ignore it, because the people who are putting forward the evidence don't like the murderer. Yes, that's a fine argument, folks. That will get him off.

The facts seem to be that Werritty presented himself as an offical advisor, including having a business card saying this, embossed with the trademark portcullis of the government. There is good evidence that Werritty accompanied Fox on 18 of his 48 overseas trips (not spin from his enemies, data from the Ministry of Defence). It really doesn't matter why people are saying this, the facts are clear.

This was unacceptable behaviour for someone in Liam Fox's position and he must have known that. This makes it rather pathetic when those defending Fox say 'I'm sure he has learned from this.' A 15-year-old would know this isn't a good idea. If he needed to learn from this, he shouldn't be doing a serious political job. Send him back to the surgery.

I genuinely don't want the government destablized. I think it is bad for the country in the current difficult climate, and it's a shame. But this is a fox that should be given to hounds and dispatched immediately.

Image from Wikipedia

Comments

Why I hate opera

If I'm honest, the title of this post is an exaggeration to make a point. I don't really hate opera. There are a couple of operas - notably Monteverdi's Incoranazione di Poppea and Purcell's Dido & Aeneas - that I quite like. But what I do find truly sickening is the reverence with which opera is treated, as if it were some particularly great art form. Nowhere was this more obvious than in ITV's 2010 gut-wrenchingly awful series Pop Star to Opera Star , where the likes of Alan Tichmarsh treated the real opera singers as if they were fragile pieces on Antiques Roadshow, and the music as if it were a gift of the gods. In my opinion - and I know not everyone agrees - opera is: Mediocre music Melodramatic plots Amateurishly hammy acting A forced and unpleasant singing style Ridiculously over-supported by public funds I won't even bother to go into any detail on the plots and the acting - this is just self-evident. But the other aspects need some exp...

Murder by Candlelight - Ed. Cecily Gayford ***

Nothing seems to suit Christmas reading better than either ghost stories or Christmas-set novels. For some this means a fluffy romance in the snow, but for those of us with darker preferences, it's hard to beat a good Christmas murder. An annual event for me over the last few years has been getting the excellent series of classic murderous Christmas short stories pulled together by Cecily Gayford, starting with the 2016 Murder under the Christmas Tree . This featured seasonal output from the likes of Margery Allingham, Arthur Conan Doyle, Ellis Peters and Dorothy L. Sayers, laced with a few more modern authors such as Ian Rankin and Val McDermid, in some shiny Christmassy twisty tales. I actually thought while purchasing this year's addition 'Surely she is going to run out of classic stories soon' - and sadly, to a degree, Gayford has. The first half of Murder by Candlelight is up to the usual standard with some good seasonal tales from the likes of Catherine Aird, Car...

Why backgammon is a better game than chess

I freely admit that chess, for those who enjoy it, is a wonderful game, but I honestly believe that as a game , backgammon is better (and this isn't just because I'm a lot better at playing backgammon than chess). Having relatively recently written a book on game theory, I have given quite a lot of thought to the nature of games, and from that I'd say that chess has two significant weaknesses compared with backgammon. One is the lack of randomness. Because backgammon includes the roll of the dice, it introduces a random factor into the play. Of course, a game that is totally random provides very little enjoyment. Tossing a coin isn't at all entertaining. But the clever thing about backgammon is that the randomness is contributory without dominating - there is still plenty of room for skill (apart from very flukey dice throws, I can always be beaten by a really good backgammon player), but the introduction of a random factor makes it more life-like, with more of a sense...

Search This Blog