Robert Sharp

Pupil Barrister

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The Kitschies and Progressive Fiction

28 February 2013 / / 1 Comment

Nick Harkaway with his Red Tentacle. Photo by Sarah McIntyre

Nick Harkaway with his Red Tentacle. Photo by Sarah McIntyre


This week I was at The Kitschies, a set of awards for “progressive, intelligent and entertaining genre literature.”  Its creators, Jared and Anne of the Pornokitsch website and Pandaemonium Fiction (my publishers, no less) rightly eschew the word ‘best’ when giving the awards.  ‘Best’ is a devalued term in when it comes to awards, as implies an objectivity that a judging panel cannot possibly hope to achieve.
I compiled a Storify summary of the event, pulling photos and comments from social media.
The winner of the Red Tentacle award for a novel was Nick Harkaway for his book Angelmaker.  On his blog, Nick has posted a long article on what he thinks ‘progressive’ might mean in terms of fiction in general, and sci-fi/fantasy genre literature in particular. He says that such progressive fiction “It is a fiction which connects the inner human future with everything it must have around it, and recognises that the two develop together.”
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The soundbite stats we need to win the argument on welfare

22 February 2013 / / 0 Comments

I enjoyed these tweets from Laurie Penny, tweeting as @BBCExtraGuest during Question Tim tonight.

The tabloids regularly publish their deceptive anecdata, building over time the impression of welfare abuse.
The result is that the public’s understanding of welfare is warped beyond what is democratically healthy:

The British public believe benefit fraud is a big problem. A recent poll by the TUC showed people believe 27% of the welfare budget is fraudulently claimed.
The reality is very different. Last year, 0.7% of total benefit expenditure was overpaid due to fraud, according to the DWP’s official estimates.

I think that simple, tweetable statistics that put the extent of the welfare ‘problem’ into perspective are the essential weapon the Left needs in its quest to protect the welfare state. Every labour activist needs to be prepped to reel off the facts when they knock on doors and make calls. Every left-leaner should have these figures on the tip of their tongue, ready to rebut the casual myths that their friends, family and colleagues might casually drop into the conversation. (Of course the professional politicians can already do this, but it is rare that Liam Byrne MP is available to stand in the petrol station forecourt, personally explaining to those filling up their tanks that the big stacks of Mail and Express over there are peddling propaganda).
What might the statistics be? In addition to the figures above about welfare fraud vs tax evasion, we need to know the figures for JSA and disability benefits as a proportion of the total welfare bill. Comparisons should be made with defence spending and corporate tax breaks.
One might say that the reason that the myths and misinformation persists is that human interest stories work better than figures. But I think that is a received wisdom that may not be quite true. Figures like those above are easy to remember and repeat.
Moreover, it is not a given that the human interest angle will always be persuasive. ‘Benefit Scroungers’ stories work because You The Taxpayer are the victim of the piece. On the other side of the debate, when we hear the horror stories of welfare cuts or denial, someone else is the victim. There is a world of difference between these different types of stories, and it gives those seeking to divide and obfuscate the upper hand. Perhaps succinct figures, soundbite stats, could give us an edge?

Why blame the press for sexism in our society?

20 February 2013 / / 1 Comment

Many of the people who attacked the author Hilary Mantel on Twitter yesterday made derogatory remarks about her appearance. This was unwittingly ironic, given that Mantel’s speech to the London Review of Books concerned the objectification of women, and our media’s obsession with looks.

If we believe in free speech, then insult becomes unavoidable. But that does not mean that objectification and misogyny should go unchallenged. I felt it was particularly important to challenge people’s language in this case, because Mantel’s speech dealt directly with the problem of sexism in the media. I spent some time yesterday evening collecting examples, which I made into a Storify.
My conclusions? The recent phone hacking scandal and the subsequent Leveson Inquiry has given us an opportunity to scrutinise the press. The conclusion is usually that the media is shallow and nasty. However, I think these tweets, from ordinary members of the public, suggest that society can also be spiteful and sexist. Why blame the press, when they reflect the public?

Hilary Mantel's comments on the Duchess of Cambridge are brave and necessary

19 February 2013 / / 0 Comments

The double-Booker winning author Hilary Mantel has caused controversy, after delivering an uncompromising critique of the Duchess of Cambridge. The lecture she gave to the London Review of Books is now online: audio and text.
The Daily Mail and the Metro seem to have misinterpreted Mantel, reporting the speech as a ‘scathing’ and ‘venomous’ attack on the Duchess. But that is not the author’s sentiment at all. Instead, Mantel is critiquing the way in which the illusion of Royalty turns women into objects, vessels, and wombs. I am sure that Kate herself would find the analysis uncomfortable, but the attack is on the Monarchy as a whole, and on media outlets like the Mail and the Metro that feed off the images of Royal consorts.
The backlash towards Mantel puts me in the mind of the Orwell (or was it Hearst) quote: “Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed: everything else is public relations.” The speech is a form of social and cultural criticism rather than journalism, but I think the Orwell/Hearst sentiment applies equally. Mantel’s negative comments about Royalty are precsiely the sort of thing that other people – call them Monarchists, or ‘The Establishment’, or social conservatives – would prefer had been left unsaid. That fact is, in itself, a reason to applaud Hilary Mantel for saying it alound and in public. This speech should shock us into reconsidering the role of Royalty in our society. It should make us revise our stratospheric expectations of the Duchess of Cambridge, too.
It is worth noting that this kind of speech act is precisely the sort of thing that gets censored in other countries. Thailand has strict lèse-majesté laws and many, if not most, other countries, have criminal defamation or ‘scandalising’ laws that would have seen Mantel down at the police station for an interview, or on trial, or in prison. In the UK, we finally abolished our dead-letter analogues in 2009. It should be a source of pride that one of our most celebrated novelists is able to make such controversial statements, unfettered.
This is precisely the kind of social leadership that we need from our authors. I wonder what would have happened if a politician had said the same thing?

Astronauts Do The Coolest Things

19 February 2013 / / 1 Comment

Is there any organisation out there leveraging the Internet as effectively as NASA? Despite the loss of the Space Shuttle programme in 2011, the agency seems to be winning hearts and minds through its confident and open use of social media.
Of course, NASA’s PR department is assisted by expensive, state funded machinery and the spectacular images it creates. But this does not tell the whole story. I think a large part of the organisation’s communications success is down to the creativity and personality of the astronauts themselves… and NASA’s comfort at letting their personnel broadcast to their earth-shackled audience directly. Continue reading

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