It Could Be Said Newsletter #1
Vaccines & EU, What MASTER means for Trans Equality, Video Games As Content, & Justin Hawkins Is Fit!
Ultimately the plan is to get into a rhythm where if we get enough email subscribers, I will break these newsletters up into seperate posts and then the email will be a digest of the weeks blogs. But as we have no email subscribers nor any blog posts, I guess I’m gonna have to do it live…
In Politics - EU Do You Think Your Kidding Mr New European?
Wednesday brought good news about Britain being the first country to approve a Covid-19 vaccine. Naturally the prompt approval of a German-designed, Belgian-produced medicine got snared up in the neverending Brexit culture war.
Most would blame this on Jacob Rees-Mogg and Matt Hancock saying that Britain could move quickly to approve the vaccine due to having left the European Union. But that’s not true, because before they spoke, I was already arguing with people saying the Government had only rushed approval to avoid the vaccine being caught up in the logistical chaos that will follow us leaving the Customs Union and Single Market. Of course that conspiracy theory also disproves what government ministers were claiming because, practically, we have yet to leave the European Union. Inevitably, Rejoiners jumped on this fact, as proof the Government was lying.
But fundamentally I think the Government was telling the truth, and Rejoiners should be somewhat ashamed for having once again shirked a chance to argue their cause. Because yes the Government used an element of EU law to evade the European Medicines Agency approval process, something that Hungary may ultimately use to distribute a Russian-produced vaccine. But that’s the key point. Hungary is an estranged member of the European project, and if it follows us down this route, it will be to deviate from the collective vaccine purchasing programme.
The odd assumption in the non-Brexiter discourse is that even if we weren’t about to fulfil our depature from the European Union in less than a month, we would still have complete freedom of action. But that’s clearly nonsense. In that hypothetical we would still be the host of the EMA! How on earth could Britain refuse to participate in collective vaccine purchasing or approval process, whilst hosting the agency that is coordinating it!?! The legion of European bureacrats and health ministers coming out to criticise the British Government’s decision, underlines how impossible a position that would be.
But more importantly, what is the point of Britain being in the European Union, is if the best thing its most ardent British admirers can say is that it has no actual role in the greatest health emergency of recent time? This of course is the mistake that pro-Europeans have often made, making obtuse legalistic arguments to pretend that there isn’t significant pressure for members to work towards greater integration and cooperation in an organisation whose founding principle is ever closer union.
It’s not a new point, but one would think that British people who are so despeate to rejoin the European Union, would actually be able to articulate the practical benefits of European cooperation/coordination, rather than just pretending it never happens. Because they Rejoiners don’t just need to convince British people to go back on Brexit, they need to convince the Europeans to take us back. And I can’t see why any European would conclude that’s a good idea, when no public figure dares argue that maybe we should wait for the vaccine until everyone in Europe is happy with it.
In Equality - What MASTER tells us?
I think this corner of the newsletter will often be explaining about why I feel some people working in Equality and Diversity are going to far but I want to start by giving an example of where I’ve recently moved to the “woke”.
A friend of mine who is transitioning once said that they thought everyone should have to declare their pronouns as part of everyday life. I dismissed this as something that would inconvenience 95% of people, and so create a backlash against trans and non-binary people that would ultimately harm them.
But whilst working on amending some student records, I was struck by the fact that actually it used to be the case that people declared their gender to strangers, they just did it through titles such as “Mr” and “Mrs” rather than pronouns. What has been lost to time is that people also used to be able to tell far more about someone from their title than just their gender.
Everyone knows that traditionally “Mrs” is the title for married women, and “Miss” the title for those who haven’t married. But whilst those titles endure in today’s society, the equivalent dichotomy for men has faded away except for NHS presciption labels. Because traditionally, “Mr” was reserved only for men over 18 years old, with those younger called “Master”.
When you understand this you see how much information used to be conveyed in someone’s title, especially in the context of a society which expected women to marry young. If you were called Mr you were an adult man, if you were called Master you were a boy, if you were called Mrs you were an adult woman, if you were called Miss you were a girl. Not for nothing, did a norm emerge of calling older unmarried women “Mrs”, even if that goes against the strict definition. Remarkably, you could actually tell even more based on how a person styled themselves, with different stylings conveying what place somebody had in the family hierarchy.
You may be wondering what does all this have to do with Equality and Diversity? Well, the most obvious is that if the Victorians could ask people to clearly state their gender, age and position in the family then its hardly unreasonable to ask people today to state their pronouns. More than that that, it raises the questions about whether the informality that progressives have championed since the 1960s is actually making it harder to navigate a more diverse word. You see a similar dynamic with arguments about whether a foul mouthed christmas song can be played unedited when children might be listening. Maybe we as progressives can get better traction for our measures, if we root them in past practice rather than trying to pretend we’re not enforcing social confirmity like the social conservatives of old.
In Pop Culture - Films vs Video Game Streaming
Today saw the news that Warner Bros will be releasing all their films next year on their HBO MAX streaming service on the same day as they are released in cinemas. That is clearly ridiculous - only the most hardcore cinephiles will attend a cinema when they could watch the film in the comfort of their own for less money.
Whilst we will go into more detail about the destruction that this and other pivots to streaming services will cause to films, today I want to talk about why I think video games embrace of the same concept may be uniquely successful.
The most obvious reason is that video games are currently not abandoning the exclusive release window, with them still releasing most blockbuster games for in excess of $60 before gradually releasing them to subscription services. Even Microsoft, who with their XBOX Game Pass have been the most aggressive with moving things onto a streaming service, are still releasing some titles at full price.
But as a new X BOX Series S owner even those Game Pass come with strings attached. I’ve been having a lot of fun playing Forza Horizon 4, but every now and again you’ll come to a part of the game where to access it you need to pay for it. That may be to buy a particular car for your collection or ride on an exclusive track. Now obviously I didn’t pay for them because I’m a cheapskate, but its easier to see how somebody could.
A trap I have fallen into is nursing a game through a subscription srvice whereas it may be more economical to buy it outright. I wasn’t using my PS4 much last year, only to stumble upon the fact that Playstation NOW included my favourite PS3 game - Don Bradman Cricket ‘13. So began over twelve months of subscribing to a subscription service, where the main I thing I was playing was a game that would cost no more than two months subscription to buy outright. But look at the games I could have played…
That experience also underlines two other advantages of video games. Firstly, that the average video game just provides much more content than the average television series, let alone a single film. I’ve played Forza Horizon 4 solid for almost a month, and I’m still having plenty of fun. That means they simply need to release less content each month, to jusify the subscription. Secondly, there’s all sorts of old games that would otherwise become inaccessible that can be used to pad out a subscription service’s offer. Indeed one of the attraction of the Series S, was the opportunity that Game Pass provided me to cheaply sample games from previous X Box consoles I had never owned.
Which may lead us to the biggest advantage that video games have - the proprietary platform. I have invested £300 into my XBOX and a second controller, and that just makes me far less likely to give up subscribing to Game Pass than something like Netflix, because I need Game Pass to make that investment worthwhile. Likewise as Microsoft becomes more efficient at making the console they’ll hit a point when they are actually making money off producing the console, and they’ll certainly make money off the accessories and full-priced games I bought.
So it may well be the last medium to embrace subscription services, stands to utilise them the best. Last mover advantage is a hell of a drug….
Song of the Week
We finish with something of an oddity. I stopped watching Top Gear when the anti-Gordon Brown shtick and fake fires got a bit much, but after recently watching the (genuinely) excellent Vietnam special the presenters put together for Amazon I’ve gone back and enjoyed a lot of their Tens work. This video was from a Red Nose Day special, and not only is it a fun cover, but Justin Hawkins looks stunning.