What Roger Scruton actually said in an interview with George Eaton, Deputy Editor of the New Statesman:
“I think there are difficulties around the corner that we are ignoring, like the rise of China. There is something quite frightening about the Chinese sort of mass politics and the regimentation of the ordinary being. I think that the… We invent robots, and they are in a sense creating robots out of their own people, by so constraining what can be done that each Chinese person is a kind of replica of the next one and that’s a very frightening thing. Maybe I don’t know enough about it to be confident in making that judgment but the politics is like that, and the foreign policy is like that. And the concentration camps have come back, largely there to “re-educate” the Muslims and so on.”
What George Eaton said that Roger Scruton had said:
“I think there are difficulties around the corner that we are ignoring, like the rise of China. There is something quite frightening about the Chinese sort of mass politics and the regimentation of the ordinary being. I think that the… We invent robots, and they are in a sense creating robots out of their own people, by so constraining what can be done thateach Chinese person is a kind of replica of the next one and that’s a very frightening thing.Maybe I don’t know enough about it to be confident in making that judgment but the politics is like that, and the foreign policy is like that. And the concentration camps have come back, largely there to “re-educate” the Muslims and so on.”
What George Eaton did after this and other lies forensically detailed by Douglas Murray in the Spectator got Roger Scruton fired from his unpaid job advising the government on architecture:
Caption written to a now-deleted picture posted on Instagram by George Eaton,
Deputy Editor of the New Statesman, showing himself drinking champagne from the bottle:
“The feeling when you get right wing racist and homophobe Roger Scruton sacked as a Tory government adviser”
“Which office do I go to to get my reputation back?”.
Eaton should be the one forced to ask that, substituting “job” for “reputation” since he no longer has a reputation, not Mr. Scruton.
But … but … for the left, the ends justify the means, surely?
Just another example of that principle.
Scruton’s response is well worth reading.
In spite of his attempts at apology, Eaton’s name is now Mudd.
Of course the New Statesmen were going to be shits. Well duh.
The issue is, why are the Conservatives so bloody weak. I’m really struggling to see much difference between the SJW twitter mob and the Tories at this point.
@Flubber – there’s nothing to see. The Tories are no more than a New Labour tribute act.
I am confused. Chinese people are mostly smart & hard-working, which makes them “White”. Slagging “White” people is doubleplus good, especially when it is done by other “White” people. So why does the New Statesman not consider Mr. Scruton to be a hero, given the quote they assigned to him?
Just listened to Roger Scruton being interviewed on the R4 Today programme and I’m absolutely raging. He was being asked to justify the comments in context – they even played the audio of the full text quoted above. I was just shouting at the radio “Why are you interviewing Scruton? Why is George Eaton not being hauled over the coals? Why does he even still have a job?”
The right is just too timid – it’s staggering to see.
The rule of thumb should be: don’t ever talk to the media. If you feel you must, record the entire session and let the interviewer know you are doing so, and be prepared to fight back with all the tools available to you. Also, don’t believe what any journalist says, especially when he promises to be fair and non-judgemental. (I was a journalist for 30 some years–worked at dailies, weeklies and freelanced. The profession wasn’t great back then but. boy, has it deteriorated.)
They’ve done the “we’ll get him on tax evasion” trick, I think.
Given the content of Eaton’s tweet, it’s not about the remarks he’s made about China, it’s about other remarks he’s made.
Gritting my teeth (because I don’t like the man myself), but I’ll defend not only his right to comment on the Chinese, but the substance of what he’s said as well. I used to spend one month of every year in the Far East touring round factories and show-rooms, and what he’s said rings very true; the younger, more cosmopolitan Chinese (think Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, as opposed to inner China) that I knew were very fearful of Chinese politics (and of speaking too openly about it), for the reasons that Scruton identifies above.
Other countries (mainly Vietnam, Taiwan, Singapore, and indeed Hong Kong at the time) in the Far East that I’ve worked in were very, very different.
I suspect, strongly, that if you presented a young Taiwanese or Hong Kong-ese person with Scruton’s comments, then they would be in vehement agreement. But they might be scared to say so.
” it’s not about the remarks he’s made about China, ”
Who cares? The point is that the China remark gives us actual genuine proof of a lefty journalist deliberately stripping a quote of its context to entirely invert its meaning. The instagram post then shows that this was done with malicious intent. This was not a harmless mistake. That has to be grounds for libel and with punitive damages to boot.
Avi Yemini did this recently to Jim Jeffries with an interview at Comedy Central. Jeffries and Comedy Central are busy doubling down at the moment – but they cannot deny that they selectively edited the interview as it’s all over the interwebs. You have to assume bad faith from the outset and go in prepared to fight dirty.
I was raised – in my left-leaning family – on lefty-rag “The New Statesman” and similar sources of ‘news’. I suppose one of my earliest consciously off-narrative thoughts was noticing the hilarious contrast between its ultra-working-class-oriented first half (its ‘news’ coverage) and its ultra-artyfarty-class-oriented second half (its ‘arts’ coverage – entirely the kind of modernist arts the working class have to be taxed to support because they do not patronise them and which, unlike the classics, the working class do not even respect).
One of many things I did not expect to see back then was “evil Tory MPs” (their words – evil “Tory” MPs as I’d put it) treating the New Statesman as news. That is evil indeed. Brokenshire et al. seem to keep their minds in small PC boxes.
I suppose it all helps any deselection arguments that may be arising.
Sure, but in the context of Gavin’s question, my comment was relevant. So he might care?
They haven’t sacked Scruton because of a remark about China, anymore than Al Capone was arrested on tax evasion because they truly thought that tax evasion was the most evil, immoral and illegal thing that he did – it’s just that was all they could prove.
Eaton’s tweet only proves my point, in this regard.
In Al Capone’s case, they could indeed prove it. In Roger Scruton’s case, you are of course right that it was a set-up – the architecture establishment alone hates any non-PC intrusions into their state-funded racket. Roger’s appointment must have annoyed many.
But I also agree with The Pedant-General (April 26, 2019 at 8:47 am). In their minds, it was never about a China remark, but in ours it – in a sense – should be. This disprovable story collapsed with almost the speed of Covington, faster than Smollett. It was noted of some North Korean enacted lies that their very insolence was their point, to humiliate those forced to endure them. Eaton was not just celebrating Roger’s sacking. He was celebrating his power to make a lie be treated as truth.
That is more important than whether the guidance of UK state architecture has a drop of wisdom mingled with the folly.
What Niall said.
We don’t care what point the lefty is trying to make. Our point is that we have more than enough absolute cast iron proof not just to get New Statesman to do a walk of shame but to permanently and utterly discredit anything any lefty paper ever says ever again anywhere about anything.
And another thing! This should be the immediate answer to any righty person thinking of trying to apologise their way out of a twitter storm.
I’m not saying that; I’m not sure either that we’re totally disagreeing, chaps.
My point (particularly in regard to Gavin’s question, but also in general) – is that Eaton celebrated the sacking of the “racist and homophobe”. In the four tweets that Eaton issued, he accused Scruton of anti-semitism and Islamophobia. Whilst you could conflate those two with racism if you really, really wanted to, neither of them are homophobic.
So then, Eaton misrepresented (indeed, to such an egregious extent that he’s practically lied about what was said) many statements in the interview in order to stitch him up, because he hasn’t been able to get him sacked on either racist or homophobic grounds – which is what really bothers him.
If you find the “misrepresentation” the bigger sin, then I won’t argue with that, certainly.
I’m very much troubled by the apparent motivation that if they haven’t been able to get him on racism or homophobia, then they’ll get him on, well, “tax evasion”. Justified in Capone’s case, not in this one. (I’m not aware of Scruton being racist, and whilst I don’t like some of his comments on homosexuality, I’m not at all convinced that such views would hinder his desire to give council tenants more attractive places to live.)
You might not see Eaton’s motivation as being as big a sin, compared to the way he executed the hatchet job, fair enough.
I didn’t even notice it before (I had assumed it was taken as a cultural insult), but people were actually accusing Scruton of saying that Chinese people all *looked* the same.
https://twitter.com/Adrewzz/status/1115974921224630274
Was that what Eaton was intending?
Scruton should be suing both the New Statesman and Eaton personally for vast sums in punitive damages.
The sane side of the political divide needs to adopt this strategy in every case like this… hammer them financially… put the evil bastards out of business for good.
They’ve been getting away scott free with their lies for way too long. There needs to be consequences for their behaviour.
Arkus is right: Scruton should sue, and sue hard. The damage done was not casual, it was premeditated and its completion publicly celebrated. If you don’t sue Eaton and his editors out of the business, there will be no improvement. Hitting them in the wallet, hard, is the only thing that they will recognize.
Agreed. These people should be attacked mercilessly.
And the Tory creep who fired Sir Roger should lose his seat. These fake Tories need to have their butts kicked.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p077hzdj
The BBC podcast of the Today interview
Strikes me, Sir Roger Scruton is a wise gentle soul in a vicious world.
@Nathalie. Masterful presentation of the issue. It looks so much worse shown with the words crossed out than it would presented merely as the full quote followed by the selected quote.
I’ll use that technique in the future.
Here is the full interview recording.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCYqhfc1wn4
As Flubber said – why would you expect anythng else from a lefty journalist ? The “sting” was not on Scruton but on Brokenshire, the “Conservative” Minister who fired him with a panicked rabbit reflex that would have put Piers Fletcher-Dervish to shame.
All the episode has done is add another few hundred thousand people to the growing list of people who think – why would you expect anything else from a Conservative Minister ?
That Soubry may be a loathsome witch, but at least she’s got a couple of testicles.
Just to echo what Niall Kilmartin said (April 26), I recall a lefty writer once saying that what the working class needed in Sheffield was not going to the city’s Crucible Theatre to watch snooker (though I think it was inaccurately described as billiards) and instead, going to the theatre to watch plays about the working-class struggle and, one supposes, the subsequent ‘revolution’
The trouble with this glorious idea was that the working-class in Sheffield (and outlying areas) really wanted to watch the drama of snooker far more than being lectured by intellectuals. No, I can’t work out why either.
It is what happens to those that don’t consider the Marxist Media the enemy.
“Eaton was not just celebrating Roger’s sacking. He was celebrating his power to make a lie be treated as truth.”
Well said Niall Kilmartin
We’re certainly not disagreeing, just focussing on (and speculating on) the relative priority of Eaton’s motivations. I’m suggesting Eaton’s deep motivation may be to exercise, and so enjoy, his power to lie, with his overt motivation (to hurt ‘prejudiced’ people like Scruton) very superficial in his mind – like a bully who wants victims and is not that invested in the excuses by which they are chosen. You may of course be right (if I’m understanding you) that Eaton’s desire to hurt people like Scruton may be more deep-seated, and his enjoyment of his ability to hurt them less central.
Yes the left are dishonest – and water is wet. Talking to the “Guardian” or the “New Statesman” (and so on) is not sensible, indeed it is terrible folly to talk to any “mainstream” journalist.
But, as others have pointed out, look at the so called “Conservative” minister – one of Mrs May’s supporters, and OF COURSE a puppet of the left (the same James Brokenshire is trying to destroy CONTRACT LAW in the area of residential leases).
With “Conservatives” like this, the left do not have to try very hard.
As for the People’s Republic of China project – it is called the Social Credit system it is to be finished by 2021. James Eaton, being a totalitarian, would love it – till he finds out what happens to people who engage in such things as posing for pictures drinking expensive booze from a bottle.
Roger Scruton was warning about the Social Credit system – its crushing of individuality. And both the Marxists in the West and much of Big Business (such as the Social Media companies) essentially SUPPORT the Social Credit system. The banks love it – crushing freedom (rather than investing Real Savings) is what really matters to the Credit Bubble financial system these days, they are “Woke” banks part of “Woke” Big Business.
And why not – after all they went to the same sort of university as James Eaton.
I believe you have understood me. I think he’s a bully, and has found a “hah ha gotcha”.
Mr. Marks — I yield to no-one in my contempt for Big Intrusive Government types, whether they call themselves Conservatives or Marxists. But should we be so quick to condemn the potential of a Social Credit system? IF done right (which is a very big IF), it could be a much more effective system for trying to reform ordinary law-breakers than the prison/probation system used in most Western countries.
Think about what happens when someone breaks the law. In the US, if that person is an important Democrat (We are looking at you, Hillary!), she gets a book deal and a very large non-refundable advance. If it is an ordinary citizen, he gets sent to jail where he gets free accommodation, meals, TV, medical care, and a law library — all paid for by working stiffs. And when the felon gets out of jail, in some places he even gets preferential hiring over those working stiffs. Does our current system for treating law-breakers make sense?
The visitor to China soon gets tired of showing his passport — to get on a plane (same as the US!), to get on a train, to get a Metro pass, to get into an amusement park; and the Chinese citizen is doing the same thing, using his identity card. China is well on the way to a cashless society; credit cards don’t work, debit cards don’t work, in many places cash does not work — even street vendors get paid through smart phones.
It is easy to see how a Chinese Social Credit system could punish law-breakers much more cost-effectively by more-or-less sending them to Coventry, making them wear a scarlet letter. To make this work as a system of correction, there would need to be a mechanism for the law-breaker to get back into the Social Credit system. The Paul Marks concern is probably not so much with non-violent criminals as it would be with law-abiding critics of the regime, where there is obvious room for abuse. We should talk with Tommy Robinson about how to prevent that kind of governmental abuse.
There you go, Gavin! (I was waiting for the punchline.) 😆
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Paul, April 28, 2019 at 7:35 pm — Very well said.