Tim Haydon
Jeremy Paxman, the BBC and the British Empire. Sneerer without a Cause
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Written by Tim Heydon
When Jeremy Paxman, the typically liberal/leftish, non-nationalist, non-patriotic political-class BBC person appeared on ‘The One Show’on BBC TV recently, he sprawled on the studio couch as if he owned it like some lordling finding himself obliged to visit his social inferiors.
He gave the distinct impression of not feeling the need or having the manners to bother to conceal his boredom at this vexatious necessity, or his lofty contempt for his interlocutors and the studio goings-on.
The Empire was a Bad Thing, Paxman thinks. No Surprise there, then
Paxman was in ‘The One Show’ studio to publicise his book on the British Empire. Entirely in keeping with what we expect of the BBC and those who contribute to it, the Empire was not, he assured us, a good thing.
Your writer begs to differ. The Empire undoubtedly had its blemishes, especially in its early stages. But in the context of its times, it was the best thing that could have happened to vast areas of the world. As Robert Mugabe remarked about his own country, 'We had the great good fortune to be colonised by the British with all that implies.'
Sub Saharan Africa, for example, never invented the wheel, never managed to produce an alphabet and with only tiny exceptions never constructed any kind of society, culture or technology beyond the most primitive. It practiced incessant tribal warfare and slavery. Had it not been for colonial rule, it would have had little chance of progressing beyond this state, at least for many centuries, if ever.
As it is, deprived of such rule, while many African countries have become bandit states with entrenched elites robbing their own poverty-stricken peoples in a welter of corruption and oppression, large areas of the continent have slipped back into a state of actual pre-colonial barbarism. In the little-reported wars in the Eastern Congo for example, some 6 million people are estimated to have died and there are said to be widespread rapes and cannibalism. According to a recent issue of The National Geographic Magazine, pygmies are said to be the favoured meat.
Refuting Paxman and the BBC: An alternative View from a Colonial
This what one colonial, the Canadian Mark Steyn has to say on the matter:-
‘What are we to make of the British? They were on the right side of all the great conflicts of the last century; and they have been in the scales of history a force for good in the world – perhaps the single greatest force for good. In the second half of the twentieth century, even as their colonies advanced to independence, dozens of new-born states retained the English language, English parliamentary structures, English legal system, English notions of liberty, not to mention cricket and all manner of other cultural ties. Insofar as the world functions at all, one can easily make the case that it is largely due to the Britannic inheritance. Today, from South Africa to India to Australia, the regional heavyweights across the map are of British descent, as are three-fifths of the G7, and two-fifths of the permanent members of the Security Council – and in a just world it would be three-fifths….’
‘The transition from Pax Britannica to Pax Americana, from the old lion to its transatlantic progeny, was one of the smoothest transfers in history - and the practical demonstration of what Winston Churchill called the ‘English – Speaking Peoples': a Britannic family with America as the prodigal son, but a son nevertheless and the greatest of all.’
Mark Steyn, After America, pp190. 191 Regnery 2011
One is tempted to say: ‘Stuff that in your pipe and smoke it, Paxman’. Instead, let’s look at Paxman the man.
Who or What is Paxman?
Who or what is Paxman that he thinks himself so grand? Sure, he was a television Journalist. But that’s no great shakes. Yes, you are in front of a microphone and describe or interpret events. But there are umpteen other educated people with an actor’s capacity to look authoritative who could do the same, and as well or better. Yes you are informing according to your prejudices but it's just entertainment, that's all. You don’t actually do anything really useful for people. You don't make something that enables them to live, like creating jobs, running a company, saving lives or anything else truly important for that matter.
Nothing much
The same could be said of Paxman’s other role as an interviewer. It’s easy to ask questions of people, especially when you have a team of researchers in the background who feed you ideas about what to ask in the first place. What’s really difficult is answering questions, not asking them. But Paxman has never been in the position of having to find answers to really important questions which he can then put into effect in a practical way.
I get £1 Million a year ergo I am a better Person than you?
Perhaps Paxman thinks that because he is asking questions of important people, he is himself important - a non-sequitur, surely. Or perhaps he thinks that because he is earning, or rather getting, an income from the BBC said to be not unadjacent to £1 million a year, that he is actually worth it and values himself accordingly in comparison other people.
It’s Luck Actually
The truth is that Paxman is a performer in a form of showbusiness and like other media stars who have made it, has been very lucky, that’s all. Lucky to be in the right place at the right time, lucky to have the right looks (He has kept his hair, so important in the telly age. How many bald presenters or politicians are there? Winston Churchill or Attlee wouldn't stand a chance today), lucky to have the right public-school accent.
And lucky to have the right, BBC- approved politics.
