The Lives of Others: a plea to Labour

Posted on 25 November 2014 by Dominic Minghella

I was going to write something about the need to for Labour to avoid the politics of envy. But I see Polly Toynbee has done it for me here. A very well-put and well-timed piece.

Medina High – my school on the Isle of Wight

Just today Labour has fallen again into the trap of talking the right’s language. It has announced a policy to make private schools ‘earn their £700m subsidy’ by forcing them to run summer schools and sponsor academies – or lose their business rate exemption. They will not be allowed to remain as ‘finishing schools for the children of oligarchs.’

Whether you like private schools or not (on balance, I do) and whether you like Tristram Hunt or not (on balance, I really do) this attacking approach is wrong-headed. And not just because private schools save the state sector £5000 per pupil, per year. If the argument were about the mathematics of subsidy, the state should be on its knees with gratitude.

But it isn’t about the maths. It’s about them and us. And that’s why Labour’s making a mistake. Because the class divide is poisonous. It is poisonous to our nation. And it is poisonous, above all, to Labour.

Because when it comes to meanness of spirit, the Tories are masters. They thrive on it. They do not believe in collective provision, or shared responsibility, or, fundamentally, community. They believe in small state and small government. They believe in every man for himself (and really, who cares about the women, the children, the disabled, the disadvantaged, the foreign, the uninsured sick?).

The more they succeed in sowing fear and resentment – the more they suggest that the state cannot and should not and will not provide – the more inclined we are to look after ourselves, and not others. And with good reason; if we can’t rely on our community and our state to support us, we must make our own provision. We must put up barriers of protection. We must, in short, be mean.

Tristram Hunt, in his article here talks about “the Berlin Wall in our education system.” But a Berlin Wall is a function of politicians talking the right’s talk of selfishness, class resentment and division. Demonising the lives of others requires, creates and reinforces walls; it does not break them down.

And in an atmosphere where this divisive talk prevails, the Tories will always, always win. Because you can’t out-do the Tories on meanness of spirit. Please, Labour, do not try.

Tell Me The Story

Posted on 31 July 2014 by Dominic Minghella

Really sorry to hear of the death of Robert Halmi, Sr, the man behind Hallmark Entertainment, for whom I worked (and with whom I briefly shared offices) in 2000/2001.

He was a charming, irascible, impatient, twinkle-in-the-eye, can-do personality, who’d seen a lot – including, if the internet is to be believed, not one but two death sentences – but didn’t want to dwell on it. He only cared about the next project.

I first met him after he had effectively hired me without meeting me. I was to write a modern take on Sleeping Beauty for TV. I went to meet him and take my briefing in his offices in Soho and was late. I ran in, puffing, and literally before my bottom hit the seat in front of his desk, he said in his once-Hungarian accent, “So? Tell me the story.” I thought there must be a mistake – I had not yet met anybody to hear what the brief was. He said, “You’re the writer. You decide. Use your imagination. We can do anything you can think of. Fairies. Any fucking thing.”

So I went away, came up with a “take” and returned. This time I was ready. As my rear hit the seat, he fired me the same question. I started to tell him my story, and he waved me away. “Just write the fucking thing.” He liked to move fast. Six weeks later, I delivered a script to his offices. It was faxed to New York. By the time I got home, it had already been read (and admired) and he wanted to know how soon I could write another project.

We lost touch in the last few years, but he called me recently out of the blue, announcing he was “ninety and not dead”. He said for his 90th birthday he had given himself a new career – in films – and pitched me an idea. Now I wish I had taken it on. They don’t build ’em like that anymore.

Chris Jarrett

Posted on 28 July 2014 by Dominic Minghella

You know that dream in which you open a door in your house and go through and discover more rooms you never knew about?

Well, round the corner in Giove last night, after 30 years of admiring Keith Jarrett, I discovered there’s a whole ‘nother Jarrett to fall in love with. Who knew he had a brother, tucked away in Germany?

And what a brother. Jarrett is like Jarrett. He looks identical and his keyboard ‘voice’ is pretty close too. If he turned up and played a Keith Jarrett concert, nobody would notice. But he is perhaps freer, less anxious, than his sibling. He puts his stool to the left of centre and seems happy to concentrate his hands there – sometimes he hardly seemed to play a note right of the M in Yamaha – and there is a corresponding lack of melody, with the right hand preferring occasionally to splash out on the higher notes, rather than lingering to pick out a tune there.

In Giove he played with violinist Luca Ciarla. Together they were wild, dazzling, gleefully thunderous, fleetingly sweet. It was at times a soaring battle of the virtuosi, with a band to match – including an astonishing man, Vince Abbraciante, who did things with an accordion which are probably not legal.

I’d love to hear Chris Jarrett being quieter, more thoughtful and melodic – but all in all, as new-wing discoveries go, amazing.