Cultural dictatorship, then and now

I wonder. Did Evan Davies blush?

On the Today programme (starts at 2.22'38") this morning, Davies interviewed a leading member of Britain's cultural ruling class, a film-maker who, in 1977, scorned the Labour government's offer of the OBE on grounds of high principle ('... despicable: patronage, deferring to the monarchy and the name of the British Empire, which is a monument of exploitation and conquest'). His refined sensibility did not render despicable his award of the World Culture Prize in Memory of His Imperial Highness Prince Takamatsu. His Imperial Highness, by the way, was the brother of His Majesty Emperor (sic) Showa (Hirohito) of Japan. Still, the Imperial Japanese air forces did attack the Pearl Harbour naval base of the hated United States, so I suppose the Japanese Empire must have been much less noxious than the British Empire, give or take the odd health and safety oversight.

Can you see who it is, yet? A couple more clues, then.

An aging, Oxford-educated Honorary Doctor of Civil Laws (Oxon.), die-hard Trotskyist and former EU parliamentary candidate in the Respect interest, supporter of Socialist Resistance, activist for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of the State of Israel, campaigning signatory of Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism, defender of Irish Republican terrorism and supporter of the rebel movement in Chechnya aka the Caucasian Emirate.

Ah, you guessed. Here he is, wearing the regulation revolutionary-socialist keffiyeh. Oh, wait - sorry. I can't find that picture for the moment. Perhaps this one of him in Cannes will do instead:

First, we heard a 'little taste' of the sound-track of a Loach film commissioned in 1969 by the (now fake-) charity, Save the Children (STC) whose then bosses objected to Loach's 'documentary'and strangled it at birth. The news angle is that the film is to be shown (where else?) at the BFI as part of its Loach hommage-fest, thanks to the Loach apologist admirer who is now CEO of Save The Children. He was invited along to purr affirmingly at Loach's every Loach-ism but he went above and beyond, enthusiastically asserting his admiration for the grand old man of our great British film industry.

In the 'little taste' which we were allowed, we heard nothing but, in Davies's words, 'voices of disapproval' of Save the Children's (then) cruel, 'cultural-imperialist' behaviour in Manchester and Nairobi. 

Davies:

You just went out [to Nairobi] and you saw what you saw and you thought, This is the time... this is the way to expose it all.

Loach:

Yes. I was shocked at what I saw. ... it was about providing a western middle class to run industry and the government on behalf of western interests.

Davies, repeating himself to make sure that we all got his point:

You didn't know you were going to make an exposé on the failings of STC when you started. It was only when you got out and saw what you saw that you said, you thought this is outrageous and I'm just going to document it as I see it.

Loach:

Yes.

After hearing Davies's repeated-for-emphasis paean to Loach's wholly objective, innocent, agenda-free and a-political film-making, strongly supported by the top banana of one of our most beloved chiiiiildren's charities, who could doubt that Britain is blessed having Mr Loach among us to open our eyes to the evils of western capitalist cultural dictatorship, along with the roach-like Loach-like faux-nobility of our Gramscian cultural dictatorship elite?

So, the Evan-blush thing. I merely ask, musing on the BBC's renowned objectivity and lack of political bias in the afterglow of an eye-popping interview by the economic genius and entrepreneur-wrangler of Who Wants to Be A Western Capitalist Millionaire  Dragons' Den. 

But why on earth would Davies blush? Everyone around him in the Today studio was audibly nodding and smiling. It was a beautiful moment of unanimous camaraderie. Brought tears to the eyes.

- Something like this is submitted to Orphans of Liberty.