The Press and the Establishment. Part Four.

Part Four of The Press and the Establishment.

I feel that the time has come for the whole question of the title before a person's name to be re-appraised. Several broad considerations need to be thought through initially, these will differentiate, for example, between civilian and defence services as well as along religious lines.

I suggest that the initials Dr should continue to be used in advance of a name for medical doctors only. For all other instances they should occur after the holder's name with a suitable and therefore recognised way of indicating what the doctorate relates to. Examples being: Mr, Mrs, Ms A N Other Dr [Eng] or A N Other Dr [Phy] for physics etc etc.

Similarly the prefixes Sir or Dame should be abolished and replaced by A N Other Kt [PS] where the PS indicates that the honour was awarded for Public Service, A N Other Dm [E] for Education, Kt [D] or Dm [D] for Defence, [S] for Sport, etc etc.

Members of the defence/security forces should continue to be referred to by their rank but this only applies while they are still serving members, the use of such ranking falls away on retirement, if their service was outstanding they could be honoured with, for example, Kt [D] or Dm [D] after their name.

The title Lord should be abolished completely and the word should only be used in its religious context in the particular religion to which it applies. Here is a suitable place to consider the pomp, ceremony and associated robes worn by members of the House of Lords. I feel that such a display, in the UK today, is truly ostentatious and archaic and serves to reinforce the position of "The Establishment".

It would be extremely interesting to study and debate what effect "The Establishment" has had on every facet of life in the UK through the centuries. How good has the "them and us" syndrome been for making us what we are? Of course the syndrome could well be "us and them". From whatever stand point it is viewed I feel that if the "us and them" or "them and us" fact and feeling is truly no longer a reality we should be able to reach our true potential as a nation, both in wealth and moral righteousness.

This blog will be continued in part five of "The Press and The Establishment".

Frederick W Gilling Monday 02 November 2009.

The Press and the Establishment. Part Three.

Part three of The Press and the Establishment

My feelings about "The Establishment" were born as I realised that I had developed an in built sense of respectful awe, this being on account of the honour and implication earned by the right to use the title SIR in front of one's name. I wish to stress that point, I most decidedly felt that starting a letter with Dear Sir, when the "Sir" meant that I was writing to a Knight of the Realm was rather a daunting and awe inspiring challenge.

This sense of awe faded as deep feelings of injustice took very firm root in my mind. As I felt that Knights of the Realm were automatically linked with "The Establishment" I came to think harder and harder as to what degree a person's thinking is affected, consciously or not, by their perception of "The Establishment".

As I pondered as to what is "The Establishment" I felt that somewhere and somehow a person
or group of people could define, in point form, what distinguished a person as a member of the "true" Establishment". Could one of these points be that the person was a member of the traditional "ruling class"? This raises a question as to whether a person not "born" into it can ever become a member of the traditional ruling class. Note that ruling class does not imply that MPs, on account of their role, are automatically members though, of course, some of them may qualify on account of being "born" into it.

In defining"The Establishment", that I am concerned with, care has to be taken that one is referring to to the ruling class establishment. This because there are many mini and/or specified establishments linked with various callings or professions. Some that spring easily to mind are medicine, education, law, publishing, science, engineering,art, finance, international politics and religion. Many of the persons who qualify as top members of a mini establishment may also be members of the true or ruling class "Establishment"

I consider it rather an anomaly that political parties, in the House of Commons, can create Life Peers to serve in the House of Lords, and that the titles of Lord or Baroness so awarded tend to assure that the person so honoured is well on the way to becoming a member of "The Establishment". This facet disturbs me and I would like to see a different system created, to ensure that brilliant minds, tuned in and trusted by virtue of experience and exposure to the public, can be called on to advise MPs on any matter.

This blog about "The Press and the Establishment" will be continued in part four.

Frederick W Gilling. Sunday 01 November 2009.

The Press and the Establishment. Part Two.

Part two of The Press and the Establishment.

A few of the reasons for my deep sense of injustice with regard to a decision by the Press Complaints Commission are given below.
A Press Complaints official informed me , in a letter, that there would be no further correspondence from the PCC to me.
This same officer had "amalgamated" two emails from the Editor into one for "the sake of convenience", one of the emails from the Editor was not even addressed to her. There was no indication on the "amalgamated" email that it was anything other than what it appeared to be.
That " amalgamated" email may have been presented to the Commission Members, by the complaints officer, in support of a draft ruling to help them come to a decision regarding my complaint.
If I had not seen a reference to "emails" [inferring more than one] I would not have known that two emails from the Editor had been sent to the PCC on that particular day.
I wrote to both the Chairman and the Independent Charter Commissioner of the PCC and expressed my feelings of injustice, I did not expect and did not get a reply.
As a result I wrote, individually, to the 17 members of the PCC and explained my feeling of injustice, among other things. Three of them replied and stated that they were no longer Members of the Commission, a fourth replied that he felt sure normal channels for a complaint were in place , he had completely missed the point of my writing to him directly.
Comparatively recently a new Chairperson of the PCC been appointed, I wrote to her and asked her to review my complaint, I did not receive a reply.

As far as I am aware there is no method of appealing against a decision by the PCC and they are not subject to the Freedom of Information Act. I understand that a Chairman at the time did not favour the appointment of an Ombudsman in connection with the PCC.

For a body that sings the praises of Self Regulation and of Fairness they are extremely autocratic.

This blog about "The Press and the Establishment" will be continued in Part Three.

Frederick W Gilling Friday 30 October 2009.

The Press and the Establishment. Part One.

Part One of "The Press and the Establishment"

The first thing that I must make very clear is that I have an axe to grind. When it is ground to a very fine edge I wish to use it, figuratively, to cut through the defensive wall that surrounds the Press Complaints Commission. [PCC]

The second thing that I must, hand on heart proclaim, is that until three years or so ago I never, even lightheartedly, thought about "The Establishment".

Strangely the growing need for a sharp axe to attack the wall around the PCC fostered and directed my thoughts about "The Establishment". The reason being, that at that time, two of the top men in the PCC were "Knights of the Realm" and, trustingly naive that I was, through my rose tinted spectacles I could see them charging, on snow white steeds, to the aid of a common man. How wrong I was.

Very briefly:
I "self" published "An Adult Stocking Filler", a book of short stories.
A local paper in West Sussex reviewed it.
There was a major inaccuracy in the review.
Played for or not the inaccuracy supported a sarcastic theme of the review
I delivered a letter by hand to the office of the paper. In the letter I pointed out the inaccuracy to the Editor.
Two weeks later, by the same method, I again pointed out the inaccuracy to the Editor.
The next day I received a reply, from the Editor, to my first letter. It stated, simply, that my remarks had been noted.

Purely by chance, in a free local paper, I saw a notice informing readers about the PCC. I wrote to the PCC and complained about the inaccuracy.

A very long and protracted correspondence then followed, I must shoulder some of the blame for this. Initially I was very impressed with the modus operandi of the PCC and their proclaimed aims, I commented along those lines to them. When, eventually, the Commission came to a decision I was totally amazed with it and, consequently and subsequently, developed a very deep sense of injustice about several aspects of how my complaint had been handled.

This blog about "The Press and the Establishment" will be continued in Part Two.

Frederick W Gilling. Thursday 29 October 2009.

Moved to Dorset

I am sorry for long delay but we have moved to Dorset and met all sorts of communication problems. The first was getting a phone line re-coupled and the second was getting connected to broadband. For reasons which I am never likely to know it took over a month to reconnect to broadband. One phone call to the provider lasted over 100 minutes!! There are times when, as one goes around and around in circles, one could subscribe to thinking "Can a system be so efficient that it is inefficient"?

I hope to get part one of "The Press and the Establishment" on line within a couple of days

Frederick W Gilling 23:50hrs Tuesday 27th October 2009.

Security, Human Rights and Religion. Part eight.

In part eight of Security, Human Rights and Religion I will attempt to condense my thinking, on these specific matters, as I feel that it is vital for members of different religions, and indeed for those who do not have any religion, to have a broad knowledge of the different beliefs held by billions of people throughout the world.

I feel this knowledge and apreciation of the salient points is vital, for the world appears, to me, to be slowly but inexorably building up to what surely would be WW3. This may be brought about by conflict between the major religions; this could be hastened, even disguised, by economic forces, particularly in respect of power supplies both from oil and nuclear sources.

The leaders of the world's religions should, in my opinion, be asked many very important questions regarding, for example, their attitude to suicide "bombers" and other actions that fall under "terrorist" attacks. These attitudes should be stated very clearly and should be given maximum publicity. This authentic information should enable those people, who care and worry about such matters, to better appreciate the true position.

The same leaders of the world's religions should also be asked many questions in regard to their attitude to Human Rights as advocated in the European Union. I know that the EU has deliberated long and hard on their views on Human Rights but profess to being completely in the dark as to whether the United Nations have spelled out the whole "World's" view of these rights. There are, for example, glaring differences in the way women are treated in different countries and cultures, and, as I have previously advanced, some of these ways are deeply reprehensible to some people's consciences but do not bother others at all.

In my opinion, the world's population should have specific and common universal total belief and uniformly clear consciences in regard to instances when an individual may kill or injure, or attempt to kill or injure, any other person or persons. In respect of this vitally important matter all Religions should, in very firm and concise statements, make their position crystal clear.

I have explained why I think Security, Human Rights and Religion are so very closely linked; religion should be a calming force but, regrettably, in many cases that does not seem to pertain, some may argue that the reverse applies. A sustained effort, vigorously prompted and promoted by the acclaimed leaders of all religions, should be mounted to ensure that World peace is maintained.

My next blog will start to deal with "The Press and the Establishment".

Frederick W Gilling Friday 18th September 2009

Security, Human Rights and Religion. Part seven continued.

Part seven continued of Security, Human Rights and Religion. Sorry about the need to continue Part seven folks, I needed to leave the blog for an hour or so but made a bad mistake and clicked on Post instead of Save. I immediately realised it and went back to Edit. Later I typed in the rest of the blog but for some reason the "machine" did a wheels up and the connection to the server was broken. When, twenty hours later, normal service was resumed there was not a trace of some twenty five lines of script. An indicative straw in the wind may have been that the Spell Check was not working, oh to be an expert on IT and computers. I was not copying from a draft but I will try to continue where I left off.
Getting back to reality I must believe that through the centuries, as suggested previously, great scholars have attempted to clarify or prove how religions developed. Speaking just for myself I believe that Jesus Christ was a man who preached and practised a religion that many people could relate to, he was a leader and an inspiration. However the more that I think about a life hereafter the harder I find it to accept that there will be one, I well may be in a decided minority group. Thinking as I do, it makes it even harder to visualise that, depending on how one is judged, life hereafter will be wonderful or horrific.

Where did the nineteen young men, some off them married with families, think they were going as a result of killing close to 2000 people in the Twin Towers attack. The same can be asked of suicide bombers. Religious leaders should speak out very clearly as to the stance of their religion in relation to suicide attacks. The same leaders should state where the suicide attacker's spirit will go. In a more earthly context it should also be ascertained as to whether the suicide attacker's family benefited financially from his or her actions, and if so, by how much and who provided the money.

In my opinion the whole question regarding suicide attacks should be debated at length in the United Nations so that, as far as is possible, every one knows exactly what the position is.

In Part eight of Security, Human Rights and Religion I will sum up my reasons as to why I think those three subjects are closely linked.

Frederick W Gilling 23:42 hrs Thursday 10th September 2009.