Youtube

Thursday

Hugo Rifkind

Google vs governments – let the new battle for free speech begin

[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_27_Nov_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Hugo Rifkind and James Forsyth debate the clash between geeks and spooks” startat=37] Listen [/audioplayer]Imagine there was one newspaper that landed all the scoops. Literally all of them. Big news, silly news, the lot. When those girlfriendless, finger-wagging freaks in Syria and Iraq opted to behead another aid worker, it would be reported here first. Likewise when nude photographs of a Hollywood actress were stolen by a different bunch of girlfriendless freaks. Hell of a newspaper, this one. Imagine it. After a while, imagine that western governments began to realise that this newspaper had sources that their own security services just couldn’t rival. So imagine that the editors

Thursday

The Spectator

Podcast: Britain’s ambulance crisis, Cameron’s European way and the cultural generation gap

999, what’s your emergency? This time, it’s one right at the heart of the ambulance service, as Mary Wakefield reveals in this week’s Spectator. Paramedics are fleeing and needless calls are mounting. But why is the government refusing to take notice? And why are paramedics being denied the respect they deserve? Mary discusses her findings in this week’s podcast with Fraser Nelson and Julia Manning, chief executive of 2020Health. The Prime Minister heads off on Saturday to Brussels for one of his least favourite events: the European Union summit. In her column, Isabel Hardman suggests that EU summits haven’t been kind to Cameron, and that things aren’t about to change.

Tuesday

Digby Warde-Aldam

I’d like to share my favourite violent pop video with you

This week has seen the Prime Minister playing Mary Whitehouse again. On Monday he announced that, as of October, music videos on sites like YouTube and Vevo are to carry age classifications similar to those already in place for feature films. You can read the subtext on his ‘deeply concerned’ brow: ‘if this is what it takes to get a majority…’ In principle, it’s hard to object too much. CDs (if anyone still buys them) carry parental guidance stickers, and a lot of comic books have a ratings system. Video games and DVDs follow the same British film classification board traffic-light system as cinema releases. Unless you take particular issue

Thursday

Douglas Murray

No, I haven’t seen that beheading video. And it’s not right to share it

I am sure we’re all in agreement that watching videos of adults abusing children is wrong. At least outside the halls of BBC light entertainment (historically speaking) such a consensus must exist. So how has it become not just right, but seemingly virtuous, to watch and then promote pictures of big bearded men chopping off children’s heads? The proliferation of torture and beheading porn is one of the social media horrors of our day. Every minute millions of people around the world send links to videos and photographs. And as world news gets darker, even if you don’t seek them out, such images find their way to you. Of course

Thursday

Matthew Parris

Elliot Rodger and the Hollywood ending

I’ve found myself strangely drawn to the videos made by the 22-year-old assassin Elliot Rodger just before he went on his killing spree in his university town of Santa Barbara, California, last week. In a series of stabbings and drive-by shootings Rodger killed seven people, including finally himself, and wounded 13 more. The son of a film director, he had spent the first few years of his life in England, moving to America at the age of four. Rodger had been preparing for his murderous spree and made a series of videos, many of which are accessible on the internet as I write. The last was recorded by himself the

Thursday

Jeremy Clarke

Watching car crash compliations with my grandson

My boy was downstairs cooking Sunday roast. Earlier, I had been clambering about on a woodpile, stepped awkwardly, and twisted my knee. So I was upstairs lying on my bed stinking of Deep Heat. Then my grandson appeared in the doorway to report that lunch would be ready in an hour. I held out my arms to him. The lad dutifully removed his shoes and came and lay next to me. I cuddled him passionately until he’d had enough of it, then I reached for the iPad and asked him what he would like to watch on YouTube. ‘Car crashes,’ he said. Apart from making Batman attack vehicles out of

Tuesday

Sebastian Payne

Can Silicon Valley ever be replicated in London?

Trying to clone Silicon Valley has been a cornerstone of this coalition’s business policy. Rohan Silva, until recently the PM’s policy guru, spent several years in government and opposition creating the ‘Silicon Roundabout’, an attempt to provide a new leg for the UK’s economy in East London. Depending on who you believe, the East London Tech City project has either been a roaring success or a waste of time. Despite all the encouragement from the government, the main challenge is recreating the enticement of Silicon Valley in Shoreditch — something that may be impossible. Brent Hurley, a founder of YouTube, spoke on the Today programme this morning about the ethos

Thursday

Marcus Berkmann

Has music died? If not, where are the new decent pop tunes?

I am suffering, as we all do from time to time, from a shortage of decent new tunes. Of course, ‘suffering’ may be a slight exaggeration here. Very little physical pain has been involved. But research has shown that music obsessives need a constant upgrade of their personal tunebanks in order to perform at full capacity. It’s all very well going back and playing the Electric Light Orchestra’s Out of the Blue at top volume and singing along to every vocal harmony, as I might have done once or twice this past week, but a long-term solution it is not. It’s where to find these new tunes that has become

Thursday

Mark Mason

Men who propose in public should be shot

Never mind all this gay stuff — when is parliament going to get on with the marriage legislation we really need? I’m talking about the law banning men from proposing to their girlfriends in public. It’s been happening for years. Local radio was always the worst offender. ‘Gareth, I think you’ve got something you want to say to Julie, haven’t you?’ the vapid Simon Bates wannabe would leer. In fact I blame Simon Bates for the whole phenomenon: he legitimised this mawkish sharing of supposedly private emotion. Those of you old enough to remember his ‘Our Tune’ feature on Radio 1 will know what I mean. To the rest of you