I’m Listening to The Moral Maze, Get Me Out of Here …

Radio 4’s The Moral Maze is usually interesting, despite its confrontational format. The panel of ‘interrogators’ constantly interrupt the guests as they struggle to complete a single sentence. In the 1990s the historian David Starkey used his appearances on The Moral Maze to his own advantage. After the tabloids labelled him “the rudest man in Britain” he was delighted and stated: “It’s worth at least £100,000 a year.” Even worse than Starkey is the long-standing chairman Michael Buerk, as he is accountable for several heinous crimes against good taste and decency. Firstly, he’s directly responsible for creating Saint Bob Geldof the humanitarian campaigner. Buerk’s BBC TV news report (23/10/84) about the Ethiopian famine instigated the Band Aid record, and the 1985 Live Aid concerts. Buerk’s bombastic commentary (“a Biblical famine”) is celebrated as a landmark broadcast, but this and most of the subsequent media reports about Ethiopia made little or absolutely no attempt to understand the politics of famine. Crucially, it was rarely mentioned that a substantial amount of grain was still being produced in the horn of Africa, but most of it was being exported to the West for animal feed.

Live Aid (the first global pop charity event) established the idea of huge portentous charity concerts as a panacea for all the world’s problems. Buying the crappy Band Aid record or sending donations to Live Aid allowed people to feel very good about themselves, and then they could instantly forget about starving Africans. Any proposal for eating less meat, or going veggie as an effective method of alleviating hunger, would have been laughable in 1985. Today there is more awareness about the unsustainability of meat production, but global demand for meat is still increasing and about 45% of the global grain harvest is wasted as animal feed. It’s over 30 years since Live Aid, and nothing much has changed in Ethiopia, although Bob Geldof is now very rich (he avoids paying any UK tax).

The edition of The Moral Maze (17/2/16) tackled the subject of boycotts. In his introduction Buerk employed his trademark sneering tone as he dismissed various campaigns, including one against the use of kangaroo skin for football boots. Subsequently, Claire Fox (from the very unpretentiously titled Institute of Ideas) made this semi-literate statement: “A lot of animal rights activists boycott pharmaceutical companies, etc, because they believe in animal rights. You could say that [for] the overall good of society it’s that actually animal experimentation is what’s needed [sic] for medicine. So if those boycotts are successful, if they cause enough trouble for the firms that they actually stop doing something, then society is going to be damaged. What’s ethical about that?”

It’s ironic that she poses the ethical question, because of

course ethics is the key issue in any debate about vivisection. But for Claire Fox, apparently, ethics is a purely human affair, its function being to provide “what’s needed” by human society. Unfortunately, her speciesist viewpoint probably reflects what most people think about animal testing. It certainly reflects the thinking of chairman Buerk, an intemperate enemy of the animal rights movement.

Meanwhile, Michael Buerk is attempting to emulate the greed and hubris of Sir Bob. He does voice-overs for TV adverts (a very lucrative business). In 2014 he “went into the jungle” as a contestant on the reality TV show I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here. This involves a bunch of so-called celebrities being stranded in the Springbok National Park in Australia. They compete against each other to avoid an early exit, and have to endure various unpleasant trials, some of which involve eating live insects. Buerk was paid £150,000 for taking part, and conceded that he only did it for the money (well, he had to admit that didn’t he?). It all sounds like the lowest level of worthless and demeaning entertainment (but obviously I’ve never watched it). It’s a TV show which manages to exploit both humans and animals. The ‘celebs’ themselves are there for the publicity and a fat fee, even though they are exposed to 24 hour scrutiny and potential ridicule. But why does anybody want to watch this distasteful voyeurism? They must enjoy seeing these individuals going through a humiliating experience, and perhaps this echoes the pleasure that some humans derive from hunting and shooting wild animals in similar settings. Anyway, this TV show typifies the sort of thing that Buerk himself would usually regard with contempt. After all he is a highly respected journalist and broadcaster, but then (as they say) everybody has their price.


[References: for an account of the effectiveness of the Live Aid campaign, see http://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/jun/24/g8.debtrelief ]

                                                                                                                                Paul Freestone