Mick Hartley

Politics and Culture

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Groundhog Day

On Friday, Melanie Phillips reported on the reaction to Obama's decision to scrap that East European missile defense shield, under the heading Groundhog day in central Europe:

Q: Who in 2009 is playing the role of the Czechs at Munich in 1938?

A: The Czechs….

Yesterday she had a post entitled Back to Basics:

A set of must-reads that shed light on both Britain today and what to do about some of the worst effects. In the Daily Mail, a blistering series of pieces by Harriet Sergeant has painted a devastating picture of the extent to which civilised norms of behaviour have been extinguished amongst teenage boys at the bottom of the social heap, and why….

Today she has a post entitled Back to Basics:

A set of must-reads that shed light on both Britain today and what to do about some of the worst effects. In the Daily Mail, a blistering series of pieces by Harriet Sergeant has painted a devastating picture of the extent to which civilised norms of behaviour have been extinguished amongst teenage boys at the bottom of the social heap, and why….

Update: yesterday's post now, sadly, removed.

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2 responses to “Groundhog Day”

  1. Dave Weeden Avatar
    Dave Weeden

    I think that’s the Spectator online publishing system playing up. The RSS feed does that all the time – shows the same post with different timestamps. Often the links don’t work too, slashes or directory names get missed out.
    It can’t be because the subeds are going over the copy. If they had, someone should have noticed that the “blistering series of pieces” has not painted anything, the author has. Melanie Phillips has an English degree, but she can’t construct a coherent sentence. “… extinguished amongst…” The lack of clarity is probably a sort of virtue; her writing is purely an appeal to the emotions, which is why she simply concatenates cliches.
    Still at least Alex Massie and Clive Davis are willing to point out that there have been other wars besides WWII and other historical figures besides Chamberlain.

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  2. Laban Tall Avatar
    Laban Tall

    Be fair. Some of the stuff she writes about the education/cultural disaster does ring a bell.
    One of the biggest discussion threads on the TES site at the moment started with the question “I can never think of any snappy comebacks/putdowns when the children swear at me. Has anyone got any ?”

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