Richard Ingrams is my favourite topical columnist. He can be charming contankerous, sometimes leftish, other times starteling right-wing, but he won't tolerate hypocrisy in any form.
    In past weeks, in the Observer, he has been commenting on the spate of drug endorsements by pop stars. The real problem, as he put it, "is the casual attitude of society as a whole towards the taking of dangerous drugs." He took the rather unusual step of attacking Charlotte Raven. According to Ingrams, her sin was to suggest that Ecstasy is no more harmful than whisky.
    This "comparable effect" argument has raged on for generations without really getting us anywhere. Every few years someone compares smoking dope to drinking tea, and outraged MPs ask questions in the House.
    Surely our paramount concern in the debate about drug use is that we want everyone to understand the risks involved. However, in seeking to achieve this, it is important that we do not overreact. Evidence suggests that reducing the argument to slogans such as "Drugs Can Kill" will have little effect. Witness these statements, written as large as headlines, from the same copy of the Observer as Ingrams' anti-drugs column: "Protect Children: Don't Make Them Breathe Your Smoke" and "Smoking When Pregnant Harms Your Baby."
    These are clear warnings, yet as a society we continue to condone the open sale of an agent which we know to be harmful to our children. The tragic case of Leah Betts should be a lesson to us all, but if young people are prepared to accept what could happen to them in similar circumstances, do we have the moral authority to tell them that they must stop? Perhaps the real problem is the casual attitiude of society as a whole to the danger of smoking tobacco.

    What do you think the relationship is between the chinless wonder who drives the vintage racing car in the current Equitable Life television advertisement and the child to whom he delivers his spiel? Is it his young nephew out for a Sunday treat? It can't be his son, the ages don't lookright. Perhaps Fangio is mum's boyfriend, desperately trying to impress (what, with investment advice?). Does the look of the boy offer us a clue? Well-scrubbed, confidently expressive—well, facially at least—no sporty fashion labels visible, it all smacks of a private education. Are we perhaps witnessing a teacher/pupil relationship? I mean where else but at a public school is a 12-year-old boy going to get to drive a vintage sports car and receive sound financial advice at the same time? Whatever the answer, something has been bugging me about this advert since Christmas—and I don't mean the obvious tyre-in-the-groin joke either. It is in the subtext. The ruling class are upright and spotless. They are as bold and dashing as their racing-green sports car. They standa round chatting about money, unconcerned with the Stakhanovite effort going on around them.
    The workers, by contrast, are on their knees, unwashed and greasy, toiling in the darkening pits. A crouching woman, a working mother perhaps, gives the Chinless One a look filled with disdain before returning to some arduous task. Due, no doubt, to cost-cutting and chronic understaffing, a spare wheel accidently rolls free. Chinless carries on chatting, oblivious to the drama unfolding about him.
    The boy watches silently as the wheel sails past, heading towards its victim. A squatting mechanic gets the full force of the wheel between his legs.
    The message here is clear. In order for the ruling class to hang on to their wealth, the workers have to take it in the bollocks. And how do Chinless and the boy react, having witnessed an employee suffer a severe industrial injury? They laugh. Heartily. It's an inequitable life, Henry.

    It was Hanns Jobst who said, "Whenever I hear the word culture, I reach for my pistol"? Nowadays in Britain we are more likely to reach for our prejudices. Culture for its own sake seems to be regarded as somehow alien to our shores, something we snigger at the French for being proud of, or are inclined to write with a hard K, implying a Teutonic miserabilism. Let's be honest, we are not even comfortable with the word "arts". It smacks of a softening of moral tone, perhaps best exemplified by the luvvies—a distinguised group of professionals who have suddenly found themselves as unpopular with new Labour mods as they are with right-wing greasers. Culture has become an un-word. We are no longer encouraged to use it in its sense as something that defines our national identity. Like society and community, it no longer exists officially.
    The word that has replaced it says much about how we view our place in the world: "heritage". There is something deeply comforting about the notion of Our National Heritage. It lets us know that all the things we hold dear have been handed down to us through the generations. Our heritage is not for us to create, but merely to accept.
    However, like a lot of inherited things, under close inspection much of our heritage is rather dusty and often can no longer be used in the manner for which it was originally intended. Its funny smell, that's nostalgia. We are attracted to the idea of heritage because, as a nation, we have a tendency to dwell on the past.
    The concept of Our National Heritage offers a comfy old armchair to the reactionary. It allows the people who abolished the GLC to justify their defence of the House of Lords. To their ears, the word culture sounds just too chalenging, too contemporary and, damn it, too bloody European. Personally, whenever I hear the word heritage, I yearn for monetary union. So how about it, Tony? Here's a manifesto promise that won't cost you an arm and a leg. Get Gordon's calculator out and tell us if there is any chance of a Ministry of Culture under the next Labour government.

Source:

New Statesman. — London : New Statesman.
ISSN: 1364-7431
126. 1997, 4321: 14.02.1997, p6