Muck Spreading

This comment seems typical of the ones I've read today about the BBC's (and Robert Peston's in particular) response to the news that George Osbourne may have been more interested than he should have been in receiving donations for the Conservative Party from Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska.

I am more than a little dismayed at the public's response. To me it seems important that all politicians are investigated for their probity, especially if they are seeking to become Chancellor of the Exchequor, as George Osbourne is. However, what dismays me most of all is the idea that the BBC is launching its own campaign to smear George Osbourne because they are naturally left-wing.

It seems to me that the BBC is quite right in pursuing the direction that they are. The BBC has shown that it is not adverse to making life difficult for the government. Many heavyweight Labour politicians have had to resign because of investigations by the press (Peter Mandelson twice); nor did the BBC show any favour towards the government over decisions to invade Iraq, much to its own cost.

And now, people are saying that the BBC is biased towards the government because it dares to suggest that George Osbourne has some very serious questions to answer.

It is important to recognise this as a sign that there may be something in these accusations after all. Rubbishing the reporter of a piece of news is a good way to suggest that the news has no substance without having to prove it. Hopefully the BBC will re-double its efforts to show one way or another whether George Osbourne has a serious case to answer.

Well, he does. At the very least, George Osbourne has shown a huge error of judgement. It is clear that he has seriously annoyed Nat Rothschild, who is not known as a supporter of New Labour and who, therefore, must have his own reasons for wanting to accuse George Osbourne. According to Robert Peston, it is because he feels that George Osbourne took advantage of his (Nat's) hospitality by encouraging newspaper reports that embarrass two other of Nat's friends, Oleg Deripaska and Peter Mandelson. In other words, George Osbourne has politicked amongst friends and has been rebuked in a very public forum.

Bizarrely, most people seem to blame Peter Mandelson for this. It seems that Peter can be blamed for everything.

It should be noted that George Osbourne is not immune from making unfounded accusations of his own.

Maybe George Osbourne has simply been naïve. The Tories maybe need to learn that they cannot continually throw mud at the government without two things happening: firstly, people will get fed up with the amount of mud that sticks to politicians - and not just Labour ones; and secondly, some of the mud will splatter themselves too. What's more, for those of us who are not affiliated with the right or the left, the Tories' constant barrage of some founded and some unfounded criticisms of Gordon Brown undermine the very good points that they do occasionally make, such as that the government borrowed too much when times were good; and that they allowed debt levels to get too high. (The one thing I do not believe is that the Tories would have been any different, since it was under Thatcherism that the seed of unregulated credit markets was sown, and further regulating markets is not a Tory policy).

People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

Can humanity be redeemed?

I have changed.

In the very heart of my being, I am a different person.

The way I define myself; the way I define humanity: it is all changed utterly; but there is no beauty sufficient to redeem humanity for me. I can see no hope for humanity.

Yesterday on the radio I heard the account of Zawadi Mongane, a young woman from the Congo, who was forced to hang her own baby by rebel soldiers after watching them butcher other villagers, including her brother and her two oldest children.

No person living or dead can do enough to assuage that crime. I feel guilt and utter shame that fellow human beings could perpetrate such a crime.

Reckless, thoughtless selfishness seems to be the norm for people. I have known this for a long time. Never before now have I understood the depths of depravity that human beings can sink to. Despite the vast works of art, literature and history that exist dedicated to the holocaust, it somehow never quite struck home. Maybe because it was an historical act - an act outside my lifetime - and also maybe because of the political manipulation that so often goes hand-in-hand with holocaust accounts; and maybe also because the descendants of the victims of that holocaust are intent on becoming aggressors and criminals in their own right in the way they treat the Palestinian people inside and outside Israel. For them, it was not a crime against humanity, but a crime against Judaism.

Can anything redeem humanity from this crime against Zawadi Mongane? It seems to me that if every human being alive and yet to come were to do nothing but good, selfless acts for all eternity, it would be insufficient.

We are men of filth.