Daily Mail wage war on BBFC for Dark Knight 12A rating

Maybe the BBFC were wrong to give Dark Knight a 12A rating as much of the content is unsuitable for children. But this article by Alison Pearson is writen with the Daily Mail’s agenda against the BBFC firmly in mind.

From the Daily Mail:

Holy cretins, Batman, this is no family film

You’d be forgiven for thinking it’s a perfect outing for the school holidays.

Kids across the country will be clamouring to see The Dark Knight, the new Batman film.

Parents nostalgic for the Caped Crusader of their childhood might be looking forward to a superhero spoof in which the most painful thing is one of Robin’s awful alliterations: ‘Holy hounds of hell, Batman!’ 

Cartoon capers: The Batman of the 1960s was tongue-in-cheek…

But the days in which a punch was thrown in jest and accompanied by a cartoon Kerpow! seem as distant as Bagpuss. Nothing in this new Batman is in jest. Not even the Joker. This film is doing serious business  -  and, make no mistake, its business is violence.

I saw The Dark Knight on Monday; or at least I saw the bits that I could bear to watch from behind my giant Diet Coke.

Within the first five minutes, the body count was in double figures  -  and that was before a detonator was shoved down the throat of a dying bank manager.

Scroll down for more

… But The Dark Knight, starring Heath Ledger as The Joker, is anything but a light-hearted romp

Soon afterwards, the Joker, played with diabolical brilliance by the late Heath Ledger, explained how he got that permanent blood-red clown’s grin.

His father had been attacking his mother’s face with a knife when he caught his young son watching with a serious expression. Dad slashed the boy’s cheeks to make sure that the kid would never look down-in-the-mouth again. 

Horrifying? You bet. But, believe me, that counts as a quiet, reflective moment in a symphony of sadism. 

And who can see this film? Anybody can. The Dark Knight is classified as a 12A. That means a child of any age can see it so long as they’re accompanied by an adult. For crying out loud  -  and I certainly did a couple of times during this film  -  how could such a remorselessly brutal movie get a family-friendly rating? 

It’s the job of the British Board of Film Classification to protect audiences from grossly unsuitable material. Yet in its advice to consumers, the board says The Dark Knight ‘contains moderate violence and sustained threat’. 

Holy critical cretins, Batman! If this is moderate violence, what the hell does the extreme kind look like? 

Any board which can deem this film suitable viewing for children lacks the moral faculties to be any kind of judge at all.

The BBFC is, in effect, conspiring with a Hollywood system that spends millions of advertising dollars to pull in an audience for a film that is simply too young to see its horrors, let alone revel in them. 

In 2005, when the guidelines for the 12A classification were reviewed, Sir Quentin Thomas, the president of the BBFC, said: ‘The protection of children remains at the heart of the guidelines.’

Knife victim: Brooke Kinsella and friend at the scene of her brother’s murder in Islington, North London

 

Having seen The Dark Knight, I simply don’t believe him.

Consider this. If Batman had climbed out of bed and walked across the room to find his rubber boxers, thus showing his Batbum, the film would have been rated a 15  -  nudity being deemed far more shocking than cutting people’s throats, obviously. 

Personally, I would be far happier for my children to glimpse Batman’s buttocks than to see a pencil skewered into a man’s eye, but what do I know? I’m just a mother.

To complain about violence in film these days is to mark yourself out as a sad old spoilsport who is hopelessly out of touch with what children are watching. 

Then again, maybe it’s parents who are dodging the responsibility, not wanting to seem like spoilsports and letting younger siblings play with their brother’s forbidden video games.

We avert our eyes from the problem, just as I couldn’t bring myself to watch the Joker and his knife.

Yes, The Dark Knight is an exhilarating ride for those with the stomach for it; but the vision it presents is for adults only. And even that is made dangerously stylish and seductive. 

The day I went to see the film, I happened to drive past the spot where 16-year-old Ben Kinsella was stabbed 11 times. He was the 21st teenager to die of knife wounds in London this year.

His killers may have thought they were some kind of cartoon masters of the universe, meting out a perverse justice, but the scruffy street corner with its altar of rotting bouquets tells a different story. 

No stirring music bestowed a thrilling poetic grandeur on Ben’s last seconds. No giant shadow of a cape flitted across the sky. Nobody could save him. Especially not this Batman. 

 

Notice how a picture of a distraught Brooke Kinsella (who’s brother was killed in a knife attack) and her friends is included to imply that films like the Dark Knight are responsible for knife crime.

This follows on nicely from newspaper reports of a mother who’s son was killed in a violent knife attack claiming the Dark Knight could fuel knife crime.

The Daily Mail is certainly taking that view further.

This article is part of the wider agenda by the Mail against the “librels” at the BFFC who “corrupt our children’s minds” by permitting them to see brutal sadistic violence.

“Consider this. If Batman had climbed out of bed and walked across the room to find his rubber boxers, thus showing his Batbum, the film would have been rated a 15  -  nudity being deemed far more shocking than cutting people’s throats, obviously.”

Oh chances are the Daily Mail would get one of their hacks to write an condemnation of the BBFC for allowing children to see nudity and thus destroying their minds.

Games get cinema style warnings

Notice how the Daily Mail puts a “these are the sick video games
corrupting your children” spin on the story.

From the Daily Mail:

New cinema-style warnings for disturbing video games
By James Chapman

Computer games are to get new cinema-style age warnings to protect
children from graphic images of sex and violence.

Ministers will tomorrow give the go-ahead to the first strict and
legally binding classification system for video games.

The move follows growing concern about the desensitising influence
of unsuitable digital material on a generation of youngsters.

Culture Minister Margaret Hodge is understood to be ready to accept
recommendations from television psychologist Dr Tanya Byron, who
conducted a review for the Government.

Ministers believe too little is currently being done to regulate
games.

At present, only those containing scenes of ‘gross’ violence to
humans or animals, explicit depictions of sex, or material that may
help criminals commit a crime require an age classification rating
from the British Board of Film Classification.

But fewer than 2 per cent carry an 18 rating. Confusingly, the
overwhelming majority of computer games are rated under a voluntary
European system known as PEGI (Pan European Game Information)
ratings.

The proposed changes would mean all games coming under a system of
statutory labelling, backed up by heavy penalties for underage sale.

Research suggests children are illegally buying violent video games
over the internet because traders fail to check their age.

Youngsters are using online auction sites such as eBay to buy games
intended for adults, including Manhunt, Grand Theft Auto, Godfather
and Hitman, which are all rated 18.

Dr Byron found that many children outwit their parents about
confusing and badly-signalled information on games packaging.

She warned the Government that allowing children to play on
computers unsupervised is as dangerous as letting them play outside
on their own.

Mrs Hodge is expected to give the go-ahead to a compulsory age
classification system set down in law, expected to include 18, 15,
12, PG (parental guidance) and U (universal), the same as the system
used for films.

The BBFC is likely to have to certify all games attracting a 12
certificate and above. The ratings will have to be displayed
prominently on the front of the games.

Retailers who sell video games to underage children in defiance of
the new ratings are likely to face heavy fines or up to five years
in prison.

Tory MP John Whittingdale, chairman of the Commons Culture, Media
and Sport select committee, said: ‘Computer games, like films,
provide entertainment, but some content is quite plainly unsuitable
for children.

‘There needs to be a clear classification system which makes it
plain to purchasers, particularly parents, what age range is
suitable.

‘And it should be an offence to sell an 18-rated game to somebody
who’s underage.

‘There’s enough evidence to suggest that there could be harmful
effects that we should act along a precautionary principle, and the
Government is right to be doing so.’

A report from Mr Whittingdale’s committee is tomorrow expected to
back moves to give
the BBFC responsibility for legally-enforceable ratings for video
games.

It will also point to risks to children from the Internet,
particularly from social networking sites.

A spokesman for NCH, the children’s charity, said
yesterday: ‘Ratings on video games must be made compulsory, with
tough penalties enforced when they are ignored.

Retailers must share this responsibility and ID individuals buying
games.’

Norman Wells, of the charity Family and Youth Concern, said: ‘There
is no substitute for parents making sure they are familiar with the
games their children want to play and personally satisfying
themselves that it is suitable for their children.’

The moves to enforce cinema- style ratings are likely to anger games
manufacturers.

The world’s largest games developer, Electronic Arts, said the new
scheme would be confusing for parents and would lead to games being
released later in Britain than in the rest of the world.

Fantasy world of violence and death
The move to legally-enforceable classifications was prompted by the
shocking levels of violence in today’s video games. Here are some of
the worst examples:

Grand Theft Auto IV : Billed as the most violent and realistic in
the notorious series, players have an almost inexhaustible arsenal
to hand.

They assume the identity of an Eastern European immigrant who goes
on the rampage through ‘Liberty City’ as a gangland novice and makes
his way up the ranks by killing people to order, dealing in drugs
and robbing banks.

Manhunt 2:This was almost refused a certificate because of claims
that it featured ‘casual sadism’ and had an ‘unrelenting focus on
stalking and brutal slaying’.

Players progress through the game by performing three different
kinds of execution – ‘hasty’, ‘violent’ and ‘gruesome’ – and can use
a range of weapons, including guns.

The game was banned in June 2007, but went on sale this year after
the maker, Rockstar, released an edited version.

Hitman – Blood Money: Players are transported into the mind of Agent
47, a ruthless contract killer. They have a number of weapons with
which to commit their crimes, including kitchen knives and
stilettoes.

The series of games has also inspired a blood-thirsty film.

Mortal Kombat: A fighting game where players were encouraged to
dispatch each other with a series of ultra-violent moves
called ‘fatalities’.

These include ripping an opponent’s heart out, tearing off their
head with the spinal column still attached, and setting them on
fire.

All in all preety much what was expected. It won’t stop the rantings
of the likes of Kieth Vaz, Julian Brazier and John Beyer though.
Parents should be given information as to the content of video games
their children play. Giving parents that information empowers them
with the knowledge when it comes to buying suitable games for their
kids.

Beyer and The Sun plug Wire In The Blood cannibel storyline

“A GRISLY cannibal sex plot is set to spark outrage over the new series of Wire In The Blood.”

Outrage engineered by The Sun with the help of our favourite rent-a-quote John C Beyer.
Thanks to The Sun and Beyer more people will tune in to find out what the “outrage” is all about.

And why does The Sun believe the views of John Beyer and Mediawatch UK (which they go looking for everytime something remotly controversial happens or is going to happen on TV) represent the outrage of the general public? It does not!

From The Sun:

WIRE IN THE BLOODBATH

By DEREK ROBINS

A GRISLY cannibal sex plot is set to spark outrage over the new series of Wire In The Blood.

The drama, starring Robson Green, will show a Hannibal Lecter-type serial killer who eats his victims while they are still alive.

TV watchdogs last night condemned the storyline featuring the bondage-loving cannibal.

Realistic scenes of severed hands, fingers and body parts will be shown after the 9pm watershed.

The storyline has echoes of the Lecter movies and the 2003 case of German cannibal Armin Meiwes who ate his male lover’s private parts while he was alive.

Graphic scenes set in a FETISH club will show a leather-clad dominatrix played by former Doctor Who actress Mary Tamm.

Ex-Footballers’ Wives hunk Cristian Solimeno plays a kinky cop who is strung up with ropes by the killer.

Green, 43, plays clinical psychologist Dr Tony Hill who hunts the cannibal throughout the eight-part series, beginning in September 4.

Defending the scenes, Solimeno, 33, said: “It’s fictitious and you have to suspend disbelief.”

But John Beyer, of Mediawatch UK, said: “If this is what ITV thinks is acceptable, they are mistaken.

“I wish they would reconsider showing it.

“People are longing for family viewing.”

Sir Anthony Hopkins played Lecter, who fed a victim part of his own brain in the movie Hannibal.
“If this is what ITV thinks is acceptable, they are mistaken.”

Audiences will be the judge of that Mr Beyer! If viewers don’t think it’s acceptable they won’t watch it.

“I wish they would reconsider showing it.”

Ok Beyer. They will reconsider showing it just because you say so.

“People are longing for family viewing.”

As per usual Beyer claims to speek for what every TV viewer up and down the country want. If people want family viewing they don’t have to watch this do they?

Knife crime: Nothing much happening? Let’s all have a go at Facebook!

Yes because a silly game in poor taste is really the cause of kids knifing one another.
Notice how The Sun claims it got the “shank” icon from the game removed. How what wonderful bastions of decent moral society they are!
We can all sleep safely in our beds knowing The Sun newspaper has stopped knife crime by getting one of those wicked and corrupting social networking websites to take off an icon.
Fuck trying to sort out the problems of the empty lives of many of our young people all we need is to stop Facebook having games where people “shank” each other and knife crime will be a thing of the past!

From The Sun:

A SICK game on Facebook has been removed from the website after The
Sun revealed how kids were able to STAB each other.
Members of the internet social network could “SHANK” – street slang for knifing – other users by clicking on a blade icon in the popular SuperPoke! application.

The revelation comes at a time when the UK is gripped by a knife-crime epidemic with 21 teenagers dying violently in London alone this year.

But responding to calls from The Sun to remove it, US makers Slide admitted the icon was in bad taste and have taken it off.

Their spokesman said: “Slide does not condone violence whatsoever, and our SuperPoke! application is meant to foster fun, virtual communications between friends. We have removed this particular action as it misrepresents the SuperPoke! brand.”

The uncle of murdered Harry Potter actor Rob Knox last night said Facebook bosses should be arrested for allowing the vile game.

The country has been blighted by an epidemic of stabbings, with tragic Rob, 18, among the victims.

Uncle John, 57, branded the website “disgusting” and said the game targeted teen thugs who carry blades.

He said: “Why the hell would a social networking site for teenagers put something like this forward?

“If the authorities really want to get tough on knife crime, the CEO or directors of Facebook should be arrested for inciting violence.”

John, whose actor nephew died in May while trying to protect his younger brother in Sidcup, Kent, added: “They will just say it’s a laugh and that it doesn’t mean anything.

“But wait until one of their family members is a victim of knife crime and then see what they say.

“The stupidity of having this on their site is unbelievable. And they deliberately use the street term ‘shanked’, which is even worse. They are targeting the kids who are on street corners carrying knives.”

Facebook allowed the virtual knife threat as part of its SuperPoke! application.

Members could use the blade icon to deliver the “attack” to any friend or stranger who has a profile. The victim then received a chilling message saying they had been “shanked”. The SuperPoke! system is a favourite among teens, with more than a BILLION virtual actions sent – including kisses, hugs and slaps.

A Scotland Yard spokesman said no offence was committed when users sent the “shank” message.

The software tells users: “Use SuperPoke to do stuff to your friends. If you get lucky, they might just do it back to you.”

News of the game is certain to horrify millions of parents whose children spend hours on the site.

Raymond Stevenson, a spokesman for anti-knife campaign group Urban Concepts, said: “It’s appalling. We completely condemn it.”

Twenty-one teenagers have been murdered in London alone so far this year. The majority of the attacks have involved knives.

In Bradford, West Yorks, a man died of stab wounds on Saturday after a street fight, thought to be between rival black and Asian gangs He was named as 22-year-old Rashid Elahi.

And in Streatham, South London, a man in his 40s was knifed to death yesterday after a row. He had not been named last night.
The icon has been removed. Apologies have been made. But still The Sun has stired up anti-knife crime campaigners into screaming for blood!
Making a story out of nothing is what all good trash rags like The Sun do best. And when not a lot is happening in their panic and fearmongering over knife crime and youth violence they have to stir up moral outrage over stupid things like some little icon in a game in order to keep the panic and the fearmongering going in order to keep their readers attention.
It’s all designed to press home further to readers the line that knife crime is everywhere and they or their kids could be the next to have a blade plugned into their cheasts in order to keep their readers shit scared and circulation figures up.
This is a lot like the Madeline McCann saga where when the press didn’t have anything worthwhile to report in the hunt to find her they started making stories out of nothing and grabbing hold of anything in order to keep readers’ interest.
It’s all a load of bollox!

Beyer loves Lord Attenborough blaming films for knife crime

Well dur!

Preety much what we expected.

From Mediawatch UK:

Speaking today, John Beyer, director of mediawatch-uk, said: “We very
much welcome Lord Attenborough’s remarks which accord with what we
have been saying for many years. We hope that everyone involved in
film and TV production will take note and make a real effort to
promote non-violent solutions to conflict rather than perpetuate the
lie that violence is the only answer. Coming from him, a giant of
the film making world, these comments will not be easy to dismiss.”

“We hope that everyone involved in film and TV production will take
note and make a real effort to promote non-violent solutions to
conflict rather than perpetuate the lie that violence is the only
answer.”

Oh yeah. Never mind trying to deal with and solve the problems that
causes conflict and violence amongst young people. No if people who
make TV programmes and films start showing people resolving conflicts by sitting down and having a nice cup of tea and a chat the problem of
knife crime and youth violence will just go away overnight!

Oh look there goes a pig! Wooooooooosh!

Lord Attenborough blames films for knife crime

Predictably the tabloid press have jumped all over this. It’s just
yet more knee jerk reactionism amidst a sensationalist hysterical
panic about knife crime and violent youth which will do sweet fa to
deal with the real life problems that many young people face which
leads them down the road of knives, violence and eventually death.

From the Daily Mail:

‘Violent movies are to blame for knife crime wave,’ blasts Sir
Richard Attenborough

By Liz Thomas

His portrayal of the sadistic, razor-wielding Pinkie in Brighton Rock
was a breakthrough role for the young Richard Attenborough.

But 61 years since audiences were shocked by Britain’s answer to
American gangster films, its star has seen enough of violence on the
screen.

Lord Attenborough, 84, said such scenes were to blame for making guns
and knives seem normal.

He added that viewers are now desensitised to real life crime because
they are so used to seeing graphic images on screen.

The Oscar-winning director revealed that he ‘abhorred the pornography
of violence’ that proliferates modern cinema and warned it has
created a culture where people are no longer shocked when weapons are
used.

‘Thirty years ago if Gary Cooper pulled out a gun the audience would
give a sharp intake of breath,’ he said.

‘Now the act of violence with a gun or a knife is the norm and we in
the entertainment industry are partly responsible in making the
presence of weapons such as knives almost an acceptable commonplace.

‘So now knife crime is not thought of as something that is horrific
and to be abhorred. It is part of normal existence.’

Lord Attenborough, whose acting career moved on from Pinkie to
considerably softer roles in family hits such as Jurassic Park and
Jack and the Beanstalk: The Real Story, made his remarks at Sussex
University where he is stepping down as chancellor.

Sir Richard as the razor-wielding Pinkie in the 1947 film Brighton
Rock

He is the latest figure to voice concerns about the impact of
violence in films, following the wave of knife and gun crimes that is
sweeping Britain.

Figures from the annual British Crime Survey show that a knife crime
is committed every four minutes.

The survey’s figure of 130,000 knife attacks a year is substantially
higher than police statistics – largely because it is thought many
victims do not report being threatened with a knife, while even some
assaults needing hospital treatment go unrecorded.

Last year, Conservative leader David Cameron said that a Tory
government would review the role of the British Board of Film
Classification and video game watchdogs.

Earlier this year, Gordon Brown also suggested he supported a
crackdown on films containing appalling scenes of violence.

The move came after Tory MP Julian Brazier attacked the censors’
decision to pass for general release the film SS Experiment Camp,
which was banned 20 years ago by the Director of Public Prosecutions.

The BBFC insisted there was no evidence the film caused harm to
viewers, but its decision prompted calls to make the body directly
answerable to Parliament.

Critics fear that such violent scenes not only normalise violence in
society, but also lead to copycat attacks by impressionable youths.

There have been a string of murders and attacks in recent years by
youngsters with an unhealthy obsession with gruesome films.

The worst case was last year when U.S. student Cho Seung-Hui
massacred 32 students and teachers at the Virginia Tech university
before killing himself.

Cho was said to have been repeatedly watching the Korean slasher film
Oldboy.

Last month, the Pope spoke out against violence on television, the
internet and film warning it was causing ‘great harm’ to society.

Pope Benedict, 81, said: ‘I ask myself, could anyone standing face-to-
face with people who actually do suffer from violence and sexual
exploitation explain that these tragedies, portrayed in virtual form,
are considered to be merely entertainment?’

“Now the act of violence with a gun or a knife is the norm and we in
the entertainment industry are partly responsible in making the
presence of weapons such as knives almost an acceptable commonplace.

‘So now knife crime is not thought of as something that is horrific
and to be abhorred. It is part of normal existence.”

Absoloute tripe. Knife crime is certainly not something that is part
of normal existence and niether is it thought of as that. Ordinary
people of all races, creeds, classes and political views abhore knife
crime and want something done to stop it.
For young people who have not much of an existance with no jobs,
education or prospects maybe knife crime is seen as something part of
normal existance and that’s what we have to deal with and sort out.
Blaming and banning films isn’t going to do that.

We are surprised such a well respected film man as Sir Richard
Attenborough has taken to the kind of knee jerk reactionist bollox
that will do nothing to deal with and solve the very real problems
that youngsters deal with day in day which leaves them suseptable to
knife crime and other violence.
It won’t do anything to tackle the problem and will just lead to
pointless censorship and heavy regulation to the film and
entertainments industry.

Lord Attenborough may believe that he and the film industry have
created the so called knife crime “epidemic” that we apparently are
dealing with but only a society which leaves many young people with
empty baron and meaningless lives have created the problems which
lead them to become violent criminals.

No doubt Lord Attenborough’s words will be picked up on by the likes
of Mediawatch UK who will believe that because a well respect film
director sympathises with their views that films are to blame and
they will exploit it for all it’s worth. That’s good for them but the
violence and killings will go on.

Crusading Mum blames Batman for knife crime

It’s always odd how parents of victims of violent crime lash out and
blame easy scapegoats like films for their loss. They become
campaigners against knife crime but instead of trying to campaign to
tackle the route causes of young people turning to knife and violent
crime they blame films.
Surely they must know that unless society deals with the real
problems that lead youngsters down the road of crime and violence the
killings and tragedies that befall families will not stop and blaming
films won’t change that.

From thisisleceistershire:

Dark Knight ‘encourages knife crime’

Although it is going for gold in the box office, latest Batman movie
The Dark Knight has apparently been criticised by anti-knife
campaigners.

Barbara Dunne, whose son Robert was killed in a knife attack, plans
to confront studio bosses about the violence in the film, the Sun
reports.

The grieving mother apparently believes that the Joker’s love of
knives and his violent maiming of victims – as well as the 12A
rating – will encourage young people to do the same.

“It’s encouraging children to buy the same knife and actually end up
using it. The next day somebody’s dead,” Barbara is reported to have
said.

Cinema director Sir Richard Attenborough apparently said recently he
thought violent films had made weapons a “part of normal existence”.

“Now the act of violence with a gun or a knife is the norm and we in
the entertainment industry are partly responsible in making the
presence of weapons such as knives almost an acceptable commonplace,”
he is reported to have said.
“The grieving mother apparently believes that the Joker’s love of
knives and his violent maiming of victims – as well as the 12A
rating – will encourage young people to do the same.”

But young people arn’t going round using knives because some
fictional character in a superhero movie is shown using them. It’s
mostly because they have fuck all else to do, no prospects and no
meaning in their lives other than to indulge themselves in violence.

“It’s encouraging children to buy the same knife and actually end up
using it. The next day somebody’s dead,”

Most children are buying knives for protection because they are
frightened they will become victims themselves.

Such emotive language blaming films like Dark Knight will go down with the sensationalism seeking tabloid press but it does fuck all to deal with the underlying causes of knife crime and youth violence which are way way way more complex than what is depicted in fantasy summer blockbuster movies which most young people are perfectly intelligent enough to see as nothing more than entertainment

Green wades into knife crime debate

“There are some areas, and they include the human heart, which the law is powerless to reach.”

The same “human heart” who says the following?….

“Homosexuality and sexual immorality is all on a continuum with paedophilia, bestiality, adultery, child-sacrifice. You are saying it is all OK.”

That’s right Stephen Green believes homosexuality is on a par with peadeophlia. So if you are a gay you must be, in his eyes, a peadeophile.

He’s just all heart isn’t he!

From Christian Voice:
POLITICIANS ‘CLUELESS’ ABOUT KNIFE CRIME
13th July 2008 15.00 hrs

The leader of a Christian prayer and lobby group has accused politicians of being ‘clueless’ about stopping knife and gun crime.

The accusation comes as Home Secretary Jacqui Smith proposes to march offenders around Accident and Emergency wards. The Sunday Telegraph has revealed that 56 people were stabbed or robbed at knifepoint every day last year, with the problem accelerating as knives become ‘cool’ to carry and use.

Six people died in knife attacks in 24 hours last week, forcing an embarrassing message of reassurance from Scotland Yard. The head of the Metropolitan Police, Sir Ian Blair, was summoned to Chequers over the weekend for a meeting with Gordon Brown. 42 teenagers have been murdered in Britain this year, 20 of them in London .

Politicians are urging more use of metal detectors in clubs, whilst Jacqui Smith’s plan includes pushing the victims of knife crime and their relatives to meet knife thugs.

But critics of the plan have said there is no quick fix. Harry Fletcher of the National Association of Probation Officers, called the plan ‘a damp squib’ while broadcaster June Sarpong told Andrew Marr this morning that the problem was a lack of morality.

Stephen Green, National Director of Christian Voice, said today:

‘There are some areas, and they include the human heart, which the law is powerless to reach. A lack of an internal moral compass, which stems from a lack of the fear of God, means the criminal law only comes along afterwards, when the damage has been done. But if the law does not then administer true restorative justice, no-one will fear the law either. On top of that, society and the individuals within it can be further corrupted over generations by bad social legislation.

‘There are no quick fixes to solve the problem of increasing crime. Britain is becoming daily more brutal because for the last forty years, a godless elite have been destroying the Christian foundations of our society. Rebuilding that will not happen overnight, and only then if the Church rediscovers some courage in Christ’s statements of righteousness.

‘If we track back the roots of knife and gun crime, we have to confront the government-inspired collapse of family life, Parliament’s abolition of a proportionate penalty for murder, and the coarsening of our society, for which politicians and celebrities alike share responsibility.

‘The collapse of family life is down to the legalisation of divorce on demand in the 60s coupled with the state encouraging teenagers to have sex. These two anti-Christian measures taken together mean only around half of children are now growing up with their father.

‘Schools are also working behind parents’ backs, handing our contraceptives and arranging abortions to children for whom they would need the parents’ permission to give an aspirin. Parliament has said fathers aren’t even needed in families. How is a mother on her own supposed to restrain an adolescent son?

‘The absence of a father in today’s families is why young people look to the gang not the family for their sense of identity, as Barbara Wilding, Chief Constable of South Wales Police, said just two weeks ago. In addition, legislators have confused parents about how far they can discipline their children, while social services are only too keen to pounce and disrupt loving families if a child for some reason denounces its parents for the odd smack.

‘With the abolition of the death penalty in 1965 and the Abortion Act 1967, Parliament removed the death penalty from the guilty, by the state, where it belongs, and imposed it on the innocent within the family, where it does not. With those two measures, our politicians said innocent human life, made in the image of God, had no value. Restorative justice is God’s idea, but only the death penalty, for those found guilty on the evidence of eyewitnesses, can do justice for the victim of murder. Being locked up for 10 or 11 years is not justice. Our lack of compassion for the victims of crime is generating more of them.

‘And the more you increase penalties for those carrying knives or guns, the more you decrease the differential between that and murder itself, if the penalty for the latter is just a spell in prison. Having draconian penalties for carrying weapons can increase the use of them. On top of that, our ban on handguns has resulted in more of them on the streets, in the hands of criminals who are only too ready to use them.

‘Certainly our culture, especially in film or video games, is glorifying violence and the use of weapons. Drunkenness and the use of foul language coarsen and demean us all. Celebrities and royalty bear a huge responsibility for the growing lack of respect in our increasingly dysfunctional society. Recently, Parliament, thinking there was not quite enough disrespect already, and knowing that regard for man begins with the fear of God, abolished our laws against blasphemy.

‘We live in a society where all moral boundaries have been or are being overturned. Those at the top, politicians, celebrities, even chief police officers, set lamentable standards of honesty and decency. The irony of Gordon Brown demanding action from Sir Ian Blair is that Sir Ian himself has such a low regard for innocent human life that he refused to take responsibility for the death of an innocent man shot by his force at Stockwell Tube. Gordon Brown himself was part of a government which sent our troops to die in two illegal wars and is keeping them in Basra , according to the Colonel there, so Iraqi children can play football.

‘The Opposition in Parliament is part of the problem. Whilst David Cameron has argued for society to maintain standards of right and wrong, the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, showed that he has no idea of right and wrong by parading at the head of the London ‘Gay Pride’ march of perversion last Saturday week.

‘You cannot pick and mix morality. There is an American bishop arguing in Putney tonight for the full acceptance of an activity Almighty God considers an abomination. A church which sets God’s law and His institution of marriage at naught has forfeited its right to uphold any other Christian principle.

‘Both Church and State in our broken land must return to seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, as the Lord Jesus said (Matt 6:33). Only then will everything else fall into place. We call that ‘national repentance’ and in Christian Voice we are praying for it to happen, by God’s grace. In the absence of repentance, from top to bottom in this United Kingdom , we can expect violent crime to keep increasing and the murder count to keep notching up. In short, without Christ, our politicians are clueless.’
For a man who enjoys nothing more than stiring up hatred and nastyness towards people who do not share his religious beliefs and views Stephen Green is a fine one to talk about violent knife crime.
One could argue with some justification that’s it’s extremist nutters like him who make a living out of increasing tension and divides between people of different religions, cultures and sexualities who contribute to the culture of hatred and nastyness which lead young people down the road of violence and knife crime.

“Certainly our culture, especially in film or video games, is glorifying violence and the use of weapons. Drunkenness and the use of foul language coarsen and demean us all. Celebrities and royalty bear a huge responsibility for the growing lack of respect in our increasingly dysfunctional society.”

All the usual bollox that will appeal to Green’s band of right-wing Christian fellow nutjobs. But don’t do anything to go towards tackling the problems which lead young people to knife crime.

Like Mediawatch UK Christian Voice is just using the panic over knife crime to further their own agenda and garner more paying support.

Daily Mail try to stir up storm over “Donkey Punch”

Amanda Platell uses her review of Donkey Punch to take potshots at
some of the Daily Mail’s favourite targets. Librels, the Lottery
funding council etc.

From the Daily Mail:

‘Donkey Punch is the vilest film I’ve ever seen,’ says AMANDA PLATELL

Already the buzz around Donkey Punch is building. After a rave
reception at the Sundance film festival earlier this year, it’s
rapidly emerging as the must-see movie of the summer – ‘a gravely
serious psychological horror thriller’ according to one critic,’
frighteningly plausible’ says another.

British director and co-writer Oliver Blackburn describes this, his
debut feature film, as ‘provocative’. Well, I suppose that’s one way
to describe a morally bankrupt tale of teenage group sex, violence,
drugs and sadism which left me sickened to the core.

But Donkey Punch is no ordinary softporn slasher flick. Blackburn
claims the characters in his tale are ’socially realistic’ -
typical of many young men and women of his generation. ‘Everything in
the film is rooted in reality,’ says the 36-year-old director. ‘We
just took the stuff that’s out there and made it into a story.’

In which case, I despair for the future of Britain.

‘Typical of his generation’: Olly Blackburn, director of Donkey Punch

The key thing to know about Donkey Punch is that the film takes its
name from a potentially lethal and possibly mythical sado-masochistic
act involving anal sex.

I apologise for being so explicit, but unless you understand the
central premise of the film you cannot comprehend what a vile
production it is.

The plot, if it can be dignified as such, goes as follows: three
girls from Leeds travel to Majorca for a weekend’s fun as an antidote
to a cheating boyfriend. They meet four posh British boys who are
crewing a 76-foot yacht during their summer holidays. And while the
owner is away, they decide to play. And play hard.

Within hours of meeting, they all sail off into the sunset and are
soon so out of it on a cocktail of drink and drugs they lose all
inhibitions and start having group sex, taking it in turns to film
the assorted couplings.

Egged on by his friends, one of the men then attempts to perform the
notorious ‘Donkey Punch’ on a girl, with fatal consequences. What
follows is as absurd as it is disturbing, with the remaining
characters subjecting one another to increasingly vile acts of
cruelty until there’s no one left to maim or murder.

It is, quite simply, the most distasteful, depraved and nihilistic
film I have ever had the misfortune to sit through. I freely confess
that there were times I felt physically ill simply watching it.
Certainly, I would have walked out long before the end had I not had
to write about it.

It’s not that I can’t stomach any horror movie. Gory as it was, I
adored Silence Of The Lambs for the psychological brilliance of its
storyline and the Oscar-winning acting of Anthony Hopkins.

The Blair Witch Project showed how the horror genre can still
reinvent itself, even on a shoestring budget.

But Donkey Punch has no such merits. Indeed, it has no redeeming
features whatsoever. There is not a single shred of humanity,
imagination or creativity detectable anywhere among its 99 long
minutes.

Its sole purpose seems to be to suggest that, as far as British youth
is concerned, all women are sluts, all men are sadists, everyone
takes drugs, group sex with strangers is par for the course and sado-
masochism’s the norm.

But that’s not the worst of it. No, the most depressing thing about
Donkey Punch is that we paid for it. It received half of its
£1million funding from the government backed UK Film Council and
could not have been made without National Lottery funding.

What possible justification can there be for almost half a million
pounds of lottery money being spent on this tripe? Lottery money is
supposed to help create a better Britain – not coarsen it.

Because that’s what Donkey Punch is all about – the coarsening of
society to the point where films that revel in sadism, savagery and
deviant sex are somehow hailed as authentic social commentary
deserving of public funding.

For the sad truth about films like Donkey Punch is that they not only
apparently glorify the worst of human behaviour, they also serve to
normalise it. They desensitise a society where young people are
unsure of the rules any more, where children can be led to think it’s
not cool to say ‘No’ to anything – not to drugs, to knives, to sex,
to violence.

Thus the old liberal mantra that ‘anything is acceptable between
consenting adults’ has been extended to encompass behaviour that is
not just distasteful but dangerous. And we wonder why violent sex
acts are on the increase!

It’s not just a criminal underclass who get sucked into this amoral
orbit, either. Take the case of Jessica Davies.

Nice middle-class Jessica – the niece of a former Tory MP – was
just 28 when she reportedly confessed to slitting her lover’s throat
after a knife she was holding allegedly slipped during a sex game at
her Paris apartment last year. You have to read that sentence again
to realise how utterly horrific it is.

Needless to say, she was out of her mind on drugs and alcohol at the
time, so cannot remember the precise details of what took place.

French Police suspect Jessica may have been ‘inspired’ by the
Meredith Kercher case, in which the pretty English student was
murdered as part of what police believe to have been a warped sex
game involving Meredith’s female flatmate and two men. Again, drink
and drugs were involved.

This is the warped world that Donkey Punch inhabits. It portrays a
world in which group sex, violence and drugs are part of a typical
night out for British youth. In which working-class tarts are there
to be abused by posh bastards. In which all traditional codes of
behaviour are to be mocked as meaningless.

Which brings me back to the director’s assertions that his film
simply reflects ‘what’s out there in society’. Really? Or is society
shaped by what’s out there on the screen?

I’m not suggesting that all those who go to see Donkey Punch will
somehow emerge as sexual sadists or mass murderers. That would be
absurd. But I do believe that such ‘torture porn’ films, as they have
been dubbed, contribute towards a society in which sexual savagery is
no longer perceived as extreme or exceptional, but increasingly
regarded as acceptable and commonplace.

I’m thinking here of the footballers and rugby players who ‘roast’
girls in group sex sessions. Of the teenagers who film themselves
having sex then post it on the internet. Of the dramatic rise in
sexually transmitted diseases among 16 to 24-year-olds whose laissez-
faire attitude to sex now accounts for half of all such infections in
Britain.

And yet as a society we not only fail to condemn casual sex – and
the drink and drug culture that fuels it. We actually pay puerile
first-time directors like Oliver Blackburn – the Oxford educated
son of a lawyer and an art curator – hundreds of thousands of
pounds to make films that apparently actively revel in it. Now that
really is scary.

In truth, this film is the sort of low-grade, low-intelligence sewage
that we expect to seep out of Hollywood’s ’straight to video’
gutters. The fact that its director is now being hailed as one of our
most promising young talents speaks volumes about the liberal
establishment that controls Britain’s arts subsidies.

Every charity whose genuine attempts to improve British society have
been denied Lottery funding will have every right to feel Donkey
Punch is a kick in the face.

“For the sad truth about films like Donkey Punch is that they not
only apparently glorify the worst of human behaviour, they also serve
to normalise it. They desensitise a society where young people are
unsure of the rules any more, where children can be led to think it’s
not cool to say ‘No’ to anything – not to drugs, to knives, to sex,
to violence.

Thus the old liberal mantra that ‘anything is acceptable between
consenting adults’ has been extended to encompass behaviour that is
not just distasteful but dangerous. And we wonder why violent sex
acts are on the increase!”

In other words we can blame films like Donkey Punch and the “corrupt
PC librels” who make them for violent sex attacks. Nothing to do with
people who commit acts of sexual violence being screwed up. Oh no
it’s films like this and our apparently “anything is acceptable
between consenting adults” (ohh what like being gay???) society which
causes people to commit sex acts. Oh how simple and obvious. Hey if
only we could go back to being a more sexually repressed society
where sex was just something dirty we did to procreate everything
would be hunky dory and there would be no more rape and sexual
assaults. Oh of course!

We can expect a suitably similar moral outraged review from the Daily
Mail’s ever so informed and wise Christopher Tookey tommorow with his
obligatory spewing about how such “filth” being allowed to be
released to the general public proves the BBFC are run by “wet
Guardian reading PC lefty librels who want to fill our children with
sex, violence and corruption”.

No doubt John Beyer will soon be wheeled out by the Mail and all
other tabloid newspapers to call for everyone at the BBFC, the
cleaner and the tea maker an all to be boiled alive for allowing
such “corrupting filth” to be released.

Oh and Julian barmy Brazier will come wading in crowing on about how
films like these prove why Daily Mail reading middle Englanders who
vote for the Conservative Party should have a greater say as to what
the BBFC should pass for release and what other people (who don’t
vote Conservative and read the Daily Mail of course) should and
should not be allowed to watch.

Beyer uses knife crime panic to push Mediawatch UK campaign

The current spate of knife related violent killings around the
country (and in particular in London) has given the tabloid press the
perfect chance to whip up a panic of knife wielding youngsters going
around stabbing people to death.
This has in turn given John Beyer and Mediawatch UK the perfect
bandwagon with which to jump on to boost their own agenda and push
their campaign to garner more support.

From Mediawatch UK:

BROWN TARGETS ‘PROBLEM FAMILIES’
More than 110,000 “problem families” with disruptive youngsters will
be targeted as part of a crackdown on knife crime, Gordon Brown has
said. They will get parenting supervision, with the worst 20,000
families facing eviction if they do not respond. He aimed to make
it “unacceptable” to carry a knife, with “prevention, enforcement and
punishment” the focus. The prime minister also urged more councils
to impose 90-day teenage curfews “where there is a problem”.

The comments came as he used his monthly news conference to defend
the government’s plans for tackling knife crime, which have been
derided as “half-baked” by the Liberal Democrats.
BBC News online 14/7/2008
Read more… Prime Minister’s comments

Speaking today, John Beyer, director of mediawatch-uk, said that the
Prime Minister’s wide ranging solution to the current knife crime
crisis lacked one essential component: the media. “In his briefing
today there was no mention of the harmful influence of violence in
entertainment which, over the years, has done a great deal to
glamorise and normalise gun and knife use. We believe that the
problem of knife crime will never be solved until the culture of
violence and killing, aggressive and anti-social behaviour portrayed
in entertainment is stopped”, he said.

“We believe the Prime Minister should initiate urgent talks with the
top executives of the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Five, BSKYB, Virgin Media,
the British Board of Film Classification and the Computer Games
Industry to discover exactly what they intend to do to stop
portraying violent gun and knife use in the entertainment that they
think is acceptable. It is in the public interest for them to
declare what part they intend to play in the overall effort, that
must involve everyone, to reverse the culture of violence they have
created. It is no longer credible for the Government, despite its
long-standing principle of non-interference, to exclude the influence
of the media from the “root causes” of this most serious and urgent
problem.”

“We believe that the problem of knife crime will never be solved
until the culture of violence and killing, aggressive and anti-social
behaviour portrayed in entertainment is stopped.”

Yes because we all know the problem of knife crime will never be
solved until media show life through rose tinted glasses and fluffy
bunnyrabbits dance around in every film, TV programme and computer
game made.

“In his briefing today there was no mention of the harmful influence
of violence in entertainment which, over the years, has done a great
deal to glamorise and normalise gun and knife use.”

Maybe that’s because Gordon Brown believes that violence in
entertainment is not the cause of gun and knife violence and that
there are other more important and complex causes to consider.

“We believe the Prime Minister should initiate urgent talks with the
top executives of the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Five, BSKYB, Virgin Media,
the British Board of Film Classification and the Computer Games
Industry to discover exactly what they intend to do to stop
portraying violent gun and knife use in the entertainment that they
think is acceptable.”

Yes because all these companies can be blamed for the knife crime on
our streets. What could these companies do that would possibly please
Mediawatch UK? Hold their hands up, admit they are to blame and
promise never to show any kind of violence ever again and only show
life as sweet, nice and fluffy!

“It is no longer credible for the Government, despite its long-
standing principle of non-interference, to exclude the influence of
the media from the “root causes” of this most serious and urgent
problem.”

But the media is not one of the “root causes” of the problem. Bored
kids hanging around with fuck all to do, parents who show little or
no interest in their kids, lack of teaching of right from wrong,
young people having no direction in life and a society that views
young people as the scum of the earth are the root causes of the
problem.

To suggest it’s because the media show violence is way way to
simplistic. But then again such a simplistic argument sits well with
Mediawatch UK because it helps them push their campaign and get more
paying supporters doesn’t it!