Monday 17 January 2011

Postlethwaite


Gazza is suing the News of the World newspaper over allegations his voicemail was hacked. Why would anyone be even vaguely interested in his bulk phone order from Thresher?

Six MPs who are facing a fraud enquiry can’t be named for ‘legal reasons’, yet anyone taken in for questioning in the Jo Yeates murder had their names splashed all over the media and their most intimate details published. It strikes me that there’s something not quite fair in this.

I was watching a tribute to the late actor Pete Postlethwaite on TV the other night. It showed him in the film ‘Brassed Off’, which is about a Yorkshire colliery band during the closure of numerous coal mines in the north. Apparently Postlethwaite was himself a fervent supporter of the miners and abhorred the manner in which their communities were being destroyed. However, Postlethwaite (a fervent climate campaigner) was later shown threatening to hand his OBE back to Ed Miliband if the then Labour government went ahead with the construction of a coal-fired power station. I wonder what his position would have been had climate change been recognised as an issue in the 80s.




6 comments:

Steve Borthwick said...

I don't think it's fair to hold people to old opinions as new data comes in, it's the people that stick to their old beliefs in spite of new evidence that are the problem.

Chairman Bill said...

Steve: As an ardent socialist, he would have had to come down on one side of the fence or t'other. The question is, could he have held the two opinions simultaneously? Many people do hold diametrically opposed opinions simultaneously and erect walls between the two, never daring to investigate the middle. I guess we'll never know.

Chairman Bill said...

...not that being a climate protester necessarily makes one socialist.

Steve Borthwick said...

I agree, anyone would suffer a serious dose of Cognitive dissonance to hold to both ideals simultaneously; a "Morton's fork" as they say..

Alan Burnett said...

To hell with his politics, to hell with his acting abilities, and to hell with his potential double standards - what a name.

Chairman Bill said...

Alan: My first mem-sahib, who passed away a few years ago, had the maiden surname of Horrocks. Her parents had a brainstorm when they christened her, somewhat alliteratively, Hilary.

Pete's parents must have had the same brainstorm.