David Bailey, film and socialism

Found this today on the Nick Robinson political blog on the BBC website..


'My favourite story of the week comes from the studios of David Bailey where the daddy of all photographers was taking pictures of the PM [prime minister] for the magazine GQ. "Do you use ever use digital instead of film?" asked Brown's right hand woman Sue Nye. "Nah" drawled Bailey "digital's like socialism - it flattens everything out and makes everything the same". Bailey's laughter at his own joke was met, I'm told, by an explanation that that's not really what socialism was… '

Les

That's great! I'd love to know how Mr. Brown (or his handler) defines socialism.

I think Mr. Bailey was spot-on.

Someone will have to explain it to Brown first.

Whatever it means (and, like most "ism"s, as a Humpty Dumpty word it generally means whatever the speaker chooses it to mean, "neither more nor less"...) it has nothing whatsoever to do with the current Labour Party (if it ever did).

Nice to see the old boy is still sticking two fingers up

Cheers, Bob.

Made me smile too when I read it. I'd loved to have seen the look on Broon's face.

Broon wouldn't know socialism if it slapped him in the face, since the resignation of the idiot Blair he's the biggest conservative in Westminster. :rolleyes:

On the subject of David Bailey, a friend of mine was a reporter on our local rag, the Tavistock Times. He went to interview Bailey a few years back shortly after Bailey had bought a large property in the area. One of my pal's questions was along the lines of "So how do you like living in this area?" The slightly frosty reply was "I don't live here - I've just got a place here."

Steve

MikeSeb said:

That's great! I'd love to know how Mr. Brown (or his handler) defines socialism.

I think Mr. Bailey was spot-on.

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Sorry to all others, but I can't just pass this.

Socialism is when you don't have to be afraid do you have money to get good health care or good education. Being rich or poor, you have access to these two fundamental things.

Socialism is when you can't tell your worker to work like slave or you will fire him/her. That is in socialism, worker has right to fair salary AND free time to spend with his/hers familly, or for whatever he or she wants, and you can't underpay him/her or fire him/her because you have "power". If you need more working hours, hire more workers, those you alredy have must have time for families, education, hobbies, lazyness or whatever. And if you try to blackmail workers, either you will by punished by government or your workers will go from you and government will take care of them untill they find another job. In short, you can't treat your workers as slaves, no matter how "low" you think their jobs are.

Socialism DOES NOT mean banning private ownership or demokracy, socialism mean not allowing to treat people like slaves just by having money or political power.

But, as everything else (Religion, demokracy, etc...) all those ideas are good in theory, but because people implementing them, they are destroyed by people...

Haris, we know what socialism is. But our Prime Minister, who claims to be a socialist, is not a socialist. His 'socialist' party has presided over, and is responsible for, the dismantling of free health care, the privatisation of the railways and public utilities. These things are now a joke in Britain, they are expensive and inefficient. It costs more to travel from London to Manchester by train, than it does to fly from London to Paris. Next on Bastard Brown's list is the postal service, gradually being starved of funds until he can say it is not working so he can sell it off to the private sector.

Andy K said:

our Prime Minister ... has presided over, and is responsible for ... the privatisation of the railways and public utilities.

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Eh? I can join in with Brown bashing with the best of them, but isn't this a little revisionist? Twas the Tories who privatised the railways and public utilities. I'd agree that Brown is no socialist, but don't hang him for someone else's crimes...

You are quite right (after ten years of NuLab I find them and the conservatives barely distinguishable on policy), I should have said he, his predecessor and their party as a whole, have done nothing in the last ten years to reverse this decline in public services, and have actively continued the Conservative's policies. Their latest proposal is to do away with police stations and have the police operating from small 'offices' in supermarkets, schools and libraries!

Andy K said:

Haris, we know what socialism is. But our Prime Minister, who claims to be a socialist, is not a socialist. His 'socialist' party has presided over, and is responsible for, the dismantling of free health care, the privatisation of the railways and public utilities. These things are now a joke in Britain, they are expensive and inefficient. It costs more to travel from London to Manchester by train, than it does to fly from London to Paris. Next on Bastard Brown's list is the postal service, gradually being starved of funds until he can say it is not working so he can sell it off to the private sector.

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I know Andy that you know what socialism is, what I reffering to was next

OP: "Nah" drawled Bailey "digital's like socialism - it flattens everything out and makes everything the same".

MikeSeb: I think Mr. Bailey was spot-on.

That was why I posted, not that people here don't know what socialism is, I am sure you know...

Oh, and about your Prime Minister, I think I saw Monty Pythons around the corner... I remember British commedy series, I think it was titled "Yes Minister" and when Cheaf of stuff (or whatever is name of that function) of Ministry angry said "He (Minister) will not run this ministry, I am running this ministry..."

Deja vu or what

Regards

Haris, many of our politicians have said that Yes, Minister was an extremely accurate portrayal of the way British government operates.