Showtime! with John Phillpott is a site dedicated to the Arts – mainly theatre and music - and I’m happy to say that it celebrates its fourth birthday this month. Showtime! came about in late March 2021, after I had been ‘cancelled’ by the Worcester News following posts on Facebook in which I was critical of newspaper managements in general over their role in the decline of print media. Yes folks, that’s all it takes these days. It’s not just universities that ‘no platform’. Since that time, the screws on free expression have been relentlessly turning right across Britain, as can now be witnessed daily. The following blog looks at how a fearful and neurotic Establishment – meekly supported by a compliant, unquestioning populace – have, down the years, succeeded in shutting down any views that challenge the official orthodoxy.
EVERYWHERE you look, free speech is in retreat. Yes, in Britain of all places, where increasingly it seems as if we are living in some tinpot, dictator-ruled basket case republic, rather than the country which - within living memory - sacrificed so much for the cause of democracy.
Quite astonishing, really. We seem to have gone from the Age of Aquarius – the era of my youth - to a new Dark Age. And all within the span of just a few decades. Yes, truly remarkable. And utterly disappointing, too.
Of course, this should be the cause of major concern. And once would have been, without a doubt. But sadly, in my estimation, most people nowadays don’t give a tinker’s cuss about the growth of the toxic, oppressive one-dimensionality now afflicting all spheres of national life.
Where is the opposition to the cancerous ideology that results in the ‘no-platforming’ of potential speakers who don’t toe a particular party line?
Who could have thought - only a short while ago - that celebrated, feminist trailblazers would be vilified and banned from speaking?
Why are so many people apparently ambivalent as plurality of opinion slowly dies, thanks to the ‘no platforming’ that is now endemic in many British universities?
Why is there so little resistance to the Labour government’s weakening of data protection and its planned ‘reform’ of copyright laws that, if enacted, would allow their capitalist friends in artificial intelligence companies steal creatives’ work?
And on a more personal level, why do friendships and associations end because someone ‘doesn’t share my values’? Whatever happened to having an opinion that differed, that once well-worn cliche ‘agreeing to disagree?’
Elsewhere, and in many of our major national institutions, it is a similar story. From the bloated, overflowing ranks of a self-governing Civil Service, to what is effectively now the propaganda arm of the State - the BBC – free, unfettered expression is well and truly on the back foot.
So, it is therefore no surprise that the world of entertainment is now infected with the same malaise. Whether high and low culture, it’s all rapidly going the same way, as the Arts cower like a rabbit caught in the headlights.
For artistic endeavour is now terrified of offending, anxiously looking over its metaphorical shoulder to make sure the hymn book is open on the right page.
Being signed up to shouty-groupthink doesn’t help either, because more and more, I don’t think it’s possible to be a true creative while at the same time actively uncritical of a political ideology or established religion.
Before anyone jumps to conclusions, I’m talking about all belief systems here, political or otherwise, Left, Right, Christian, Muslim, this, that… whatever.
Worryingly, there are many people who, because of a growing Orwellian mindset, wish to shut down, ignore or vilify any opinion that doesn’t slot into their officially sanctioned pigeonhole.
This is now a major problem, and one that has been highlighted in recent times by a growing band of veteran entertainers, John Cleese in particular, who has pointed out that comedy is now being diluted because of the growth in audiences with a rigidly literal mindset, people who fail to understand irony, metaphor or nuance.
My attitude as a writer has always been to barge full-sail ahead, Nelson-style. Fire that broadside and then reload. Publish… and be marginalised. So, if you’re feeling uncomfortable about what you think might follow, better stop reading now and take up whelk-farming or something similar instead.
This being the Showtime! anniversary year, let’s get going with a little bit of history that perfectly demonstrates how there’s nothing new regarding the urge to censor or shut down anything we don’t like. Or rather ‘they’ don’t like.
It’s a morality tale that demonstrates how the roots of repressive, tunnel-vision political interest - which we now see wielding its power on a massive scale today - have echoes from the more local recent past.
Back in May 2018, my column in the Worcester Evening News (as was, now minus the Evening bit) was shut down after 22 years continuous publication following a sustained and cowardly campaign by local politicians.
After all that time, The Phillpott File was finally silenced, following years of slow drip-drip editor-nobbling attempts by Worcester Labour Party. Yes, you heard it right.
Ah, how can I possibly know this, one might ask? Well, as you know, in addition to not being all that bright, most politicians are also by their very nature sly, disloyal and devious. And crucially, also naïve.
In fact, only recently, I finally received confirmation from an anonymous source of what I had suspected all along. For it seems there is a mole within Labour’s ranks and I’m not talking Wind in the Willows characters here, either.
At the time, I foolishly thought it was just the bean counters at work. Thanks to recent information, it appears that this was only part of the story.
However, the events of that 2018 spring were just a portent of things to come. For three years later, I offended some very important passengers on the promenade deck, and I was at last - once and for all, never to return – metaphorically booted out of the Berrow’s steerage.
But let’s look at the issue of self-censorship. For example, is it possible to, say, be a comedian, and at the same time be a member or supporter of a political party? I would say no. But why?
Well, I take this view because I believe by supporting, and therefore by extension, ruling out any implied present or future criticism of a given organisation, this inevitably and drastically reduces one’s ability to function as a professionally amusing person i.e. that of being a comedian. You are self-limiting your sources of supply.
For you’re only drawing a meagre few cups from that well of inspiration when you could be hauling up buckets overflowing with jests and japery. So why on earth limit the subjects that you could lampoon? It doesn’t make sense.
The same applies to following a religion. Rigidly adhering to a belief system means that an entire swathe of potential material must logically be off-limits.
Similarly, neither can a history be written by the politically or religiously biased. How can future generations learn the truth about the past if it is only viewed through the moral lens of the present?
Nevertheless, the problem of repressive state control – and what amounts to the effective quashing of artistic endeavour – has a very long history in Britain. So, let’s now examine the world of live rock, pop, jazz, folk music… and a classic bit of sabotage from wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing politicians.
During the Blair-Brown government of the early 2000s, the public performance laws were tightened up. Being as tax ravenous as ever and always alert to the prospect of taking as much of your money as possible - short of the police taking an interest - the then Labour government realised that a little-known ‘more than two’ entertainment rule was being ignored on an industrial scale by pubs, clubs and other venues.
The original law was that if just, say, a duo played in a pub backroom, there was no problem. But if any more musicians were involved i.e. a band, then the landlord or owners of the premises would be liable to pay for a full music licence, which even back then was in the region of an eye-watering couple of thousand quid.
By custom and practice, this law had for years tended not to be strictly enforced. But all that was about to change. And so, the government closed a loophole through which an existing law was being technically flouted across the country every day of the week.
In fact, such was Labour’s zeal to ensure as much taxation was raised as possible – does this sound familiar? - it was even proposed that churches should pay the full whack for a music licence, as congregations tended to have this potentially revenue-generating habit of singing hymns and the suchlike. Well, it’s still music innit?
The reasoning? Because church congregations usually comprised more than two people. Yes, even in this Godless age. Therefore, a full licence was required.
Thankfully, in a rare burst of sanity, that idea was eventually junked. Vicars across the land must have loosened their dog collars en masse and breathed easy once again. The Lord certainly moves in mysterious ways.
However, live music in the smaller venues soon started to fall off, especially as the government quickly and predictably employed a whole host of jobsworths to make checks on premises to ensure that the rules were being strictly followed.
Typically - and cynically - wide-screen sport in pubs and clubs was not subject to the law, this anomaly thereby further reducing the availability and variety of live music to be heard in the smaller pub venues.
Meanwhile, during a debate in the Houses of Parliament, a West Country Conservative MP expressed fears that under this new diktat, even the spontaneous singing of a Somerset folk song in a pub would no longer be possible without the premises’ owners being in possession of a music licence.
A Labour MP then sneeringly retorted by asking why ‘anyone in their right mind would want to sing a Somerset folk song’. Yes, another champion of ‘ordinary hard-working people.’
And around this time, I received a panicky phone call from a well-known Midlands rocker, who had become very concerned about the proposals. He said, and I quote: “Please write something in your column, John. If the ‘more than two’ rule is rigidly enforced, it will have a disastrous effect on live music.”
There was a certain sense of deja vu about all this. Going even further back in time, some of us readily recall 1960s Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson’s war on “psychedelic anarchists”. The quoted words being his, not mine.
Birmingham’s The Move was an early casualty of state persecution when, in the summer of 1967, Wilson sued the band for libel over a cartoon that appeared on a postcard promoting their latest record Flowers in the Rain.
At the time, band member Carl Wayne sent me a personally signed copy of that infamous postcard. Heavens above, I wish I’d hung on to that, as at last count it’s been valued at being worth several hundred smackers.
The Wilson War on Rock ‘n’ Roll started in earnest during the summer of the same year when he and his creepy mates brought in the Marine Offences Bill, which overnight shut down the offshore ‘pirate’ radio stations.
The pirate stations played an integral part in the 1960s rock revolution, but no matter. Their replacement was BBC’s Radio One, to this day a laughable and hopelessly inferior substitute. Once again, the Establishment had triumphed.
There then followed the campaign against several other prominent rock musicians, the most appalling example of state-inspired victimisation being the case of Rolling Stones guitarist Brian Jones, callously fitted up by bent coppers who planted cannabis at his London home.
By this time, Jones was already on the brink of nervous collapse. And after the 1968 frame-up, he would finally fall into the abyss, a mental cripple soon to lose the only thing he ever really loved, the band he’d founded in 1962. A year later he was dead, murdered by a gang of thugs at his Sussex home.
Bearing in mind that the rock and pop music industries are the very personification of hedonistic, devil-take-the-hindmost, ruthless capitalism, why is it that so many musicians still fall over themselves to proclaim their liberal credentials? Do the contradictions not occur? Clearly not.
So, let’s move on to the world of verse. Poetry doesn’t always need to be about well-crafted words of sylvan beauty, rejoicing in the writer’s personal paradise. It can - and should be - angry, too.
I think many poets would do well to listen to some mid-1960s Bob Dylan, specifically his It’s All Right, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding) a gloriously apolitical track that well and truly places him far apart from the doctrinaire straitjackets of opposing philosophies.
It’s All Right Ma is, in my view, the greatest, ultimate rebel rock lyric of all time, and by a long shot. No one before or since comes remotely near the genius of that track. See this link for your interest. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CJHbfkROow
Yes, Joan Baez and Pete Seeger did their level best to welcome him aboard, but Mr Zimmerman was no one’s stooge, and nailed his colours – or lack of them, rather – to the mast. To thine own self be true…
For politics, religion and art just don’t mix. They’re chalk and cheese, water and oil, and there will inevitably be a conflict of interest at some stage. It’s just a matter of time.
All right, have your sympathies, beliefs, prejudices, whatever. We all have those. Nevertheless, human creativity should be unrestrained by elements that would impose their rules, whether they are political, religious… or worse, a combination of both.
Unfortunately, Establishments, governments and their repressive instincts plainly never change, as demonstrated by just this handful of sorry case histories, clear proof that the urge to censor, ban, attack and smother is alive and unhealthily well.
But why worry. Because in the end, we are all dust, are we not? And in the meantime, Showtime! with John Phillpott continues to attract a small, but loyal audience. So, while that remains the case, I’m happy to keep on tapping away… entertaining and – hopefully - infuriating certain people in equal measure.
PS: Thanks for staying the course on this blog, folks. You will have noticed that it’s a bit longer than usual, but we are celebrating an anniversary!
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