Mr Right Wing

Are you now, or have you ever been, a racist?

2012-01-24T09:31:00.001-08:00

The issue of racism has been in the news in recent weeks. There have been the comments of black MP Diane Abbott, the England football team captain is facing a charge of alleged racially insulting comments against a black player, and there has been the outcome of the Stephen Lawrence trial. Racism is an issue that liberals and lefties obsess about more than any other. They compete with one another to demonstrate how anti racist they are themselves, and how vigilant they are in detecting this supposed vice in others.

Starting with Diane Abbott, who on Twitter claimed that “white people love playing divide and rule”. This comment is clearly a crass simplistic generalisation. If it had been made by a white politician about black people it would have resulted in an immediate sacking. However, because she is black, and for no other reason, she keeps her job. This is because racism is a one way street. In the minds of liberals (nearly all of whom are white) it is only white people who are capable of racism since, in their warped mindset, black people are perpetual victims of supposed white oppression. In short, racism is a white liberal guilt trip for the fact that white societies are more successful, stable and prosperous than black societies, and as a relic of colonialism and slavery. It is only white liberals who have this guilt complex, other races are completely free of it, considering it to be completely natural and normal to identify and associate with their own race.

The comment on divide and rule is clearly nonsensical since for nearly half a century whites in power have bent over backwards to accommodate black fears on prejudice and discrimination. There has been a raft of legislation relating to housing, services, employment and more recently so called “hate” speech, as well as unofficial clandestine codes on how blacks can be portrayed in the media, and their over representation in advertising, particularly for the public sector and charities. In contrast the views of ordinary whites have been suppressed and denigrated, most notably on issues such as open ended immigration, which has transformed their communities (without their consent), and the high level of black crime, for which the police refuse to provide accurate statistics.

The Stephen Lawrence case demonstrates the double standard. The liberal obsession with this murder has made it about the most expensive criminal trial in British history. It has ended the centuries old principle against double jeopardy, has placed police forces in a straight jacket over the accusation of “institutional racism”, it has created the absurd and insulting concept of “unwitting racism” (a thought crime if ever there was one) and has led to the introduction of so called hate crimes which now make freedom of speech a criminal offence.

Since 2005 over 100 black teenagers (and several white teenagers) have been killed in violent incidents in London. But there has been no interest shown by the liberal elite on these cases, as the perpetrators or suspects are themselves black. From a trawl of the internet there appears to have been no instance of any white person being responsible for the killing of a black teenager in London since Stephen Lawrence in 1993, with just a single incident in the whole of England since 2005. The liberal elite’s double standard and hypocrisy on this issue is patently obvious, but you would never guess it from the media coverage, which gives the impression that racist murders by white youths are routine, when in reality they are extremely rare.

Marriage and how to restore it

2011-12-26T09:31:00.001-08:00

Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg has recently outlined his views on marriage. He believes that “there is a limit on what the state should seek to do in organising people's private relationships". He goes on “We should not take a particular version of the family institution, such as the 1950s model of suit-wearing, breadwinning dad and aproned, homemaking mother, and try and preserve it in aspic.” He dismissed the idea of tax breaks for married couples as wrong, and claimed that it would not work.

Mr Clegg has clearly set out the views and principles held by the liberal establishment, which is that they consider the institution of marriage (at least between people of the opposite sex) to be outmoded. For nearly half a century they have carried out a systematic campaign to undermine it. It is worth examining how this came about.

One of the most disturbing features of British society since the 1960s has been the huge rise in family breakdown. This has not happened by accident, or chance, but has been the inevitable consequence of decisions taken by successive governments, both Labour and Conservative. Although both have paid lip service to the principle of supporting the family, the policies they pursued have served to comprehensively undermine family cohesion and the institution of marriage. As a result, Britain has changed from a country noted for the stability of its family life to one in which our society has become fragmented and dysfunctional. Although the 1950s are seen today as a model of family stability compared with more recent years, it is nevertheless the case that divorce during this decade was about five times higher than in the 1930s.

The Wilson government of 1964-70 is often quoted with pride by liberals for facilitating “progressive” legislation on personal “lifestyle” issues, such as abortion and homosexuality. As part of the liberalisation agenda, this period also saw the introduction of the 1969 Divorce Reform Act which was to have the most far reaching implications for family life in Britain. By the time of the Act divorce levels had climbed to over 50,000 a year, twice what they had been a decade earlier. The 1969 Act retained the existing grounds of adultery and desertion but crucially replaced “cruelty” with the much less harsh term “unreasonable behaviour”, which has been interpreted broadly by the courts, thus allowing many couples a quick divorce. In addition the Act introduced new “no-fault” grounds for divorce when the parties had lived apart for five years, or two years if both agreed to a divorce. Thus the basis for divorce became, in the wording of the Act, “the irretrievable breakdown of the marriage”. As a result of the 1969 Act the level of divorces increased to nearly 120,000 in 1972, over four times higher than in 1962..

As the self declared party of the family one might have thought that the Conservatives under Margaret Thatcher would have relished the opportunity to demonstrate their firm commitment to marriage. Unsurprisingly, given the nature of modern Conservatism, they did nothing of the kind. By 1980 the number of divorces had reached 150,000 a year and it has stayed roughly at this level ever since. The Tories’ Matrimonial and Family Proceedings Act 1984 allowed couples to divorce after only twelve months of marriage. It might more accurately have been called the Abolition of Marriage Act 1984 since, in practice, that was the outcome. The Family Law Act 1996, also introduced under the Conservatives, facilitated still further the ease with which divorce could be obtained. It dispensed with the principle of “fault based divorce”, which effectively meant that no grounds needed to be shown as to why a divorce should not be granted.

A search through the party manifestos since the war reveals a near complete failure to mention marriage. There are many references to support for families, but these are invariably couched in terms of better health or education provision, or more generous benefits. But strangely, there is nothing in any Labour or Conservative manifesto which even hints that easier divorce should be allowed. Thus there has never been any electoral mandate for this far reaching change.

In our liberal controlled society, fixated on “diversity” and “inclusivity”, a family is defined not only as the traditional married couple comprising husband, wife and children, but now also includes those who cohabit. To the clear detriment of children’s needs the definition has been further expanded to embrace so-called “one-parent families”, which mostly consist of single women with children who became pregnant either through their own choice, or through the folly of entering into transitory relationships with feckless or selfish men who have abandoned them. In the liberal mindset all these categories are “families” and as such, so it is claimed, all have equal validity.

However, behind the agenda for promoting alternative lifestyles the statistics clearly show the foolhardiness of such an approach, since they demonstrate that much the best foundation for bringing up children is through the institution of marriage, in which couples give a clear public commitment to each other. Relationships between couples who merely cohabit are generally of much shorter duration and thus fail to provide the stability which children need in their upbringing. Cohabiting relationships are fragile. They are more likely to break up than marriages entered into at the same time, regardless of age or income. On average, cohabitations last less than two years, and less than four per cent of cohabitations last for ten years or more. Cohabitating couples with children are even more likely to break up than childless ones. Children born to cohabiting parents are more likely to face disruptions in their family life, with harmful consequences for their emotional and educational development.

A significant proportion of one-parent families are created through the break-up of cohabiting unions. The statistics also show that children brought up without fathers are the most likely to be disruptive, have lower educational attainment, greater probability of unemployment, are more likely to turn to crime and to perpetuate this cycle of deprivation. This is not to say that all single mothers necessarily make poor parents, indeed some succeed in very difficult circumstances, but the odds are usually stacked against them. So it is very much in the interests of society to insist that firm measures are taken to ensure that children are brought up within marriage.

Marriage, if taken seriously, demonstrates a clear responsibility and commitment by both husband and wife to the upbringing of children. The acceptance of a much broader definitions of “family” has allowed the institution of marriage to become downgraded to one of a series of supposed equally valid “lifestyles”. There is now an increasing likelihood that marriage might wither away altogether since the number of marriages continues to fall year by year. The Office of National Statistics has reported, that unmarried people in Britain may outnumber the married in the not too distant future. Family law no longer makes any attempt to buttress the stability of marriage. It has adopted principles for the “protection” of children that are equally applicable to the unmarried, leading to the piecemeal erosion of the distinction between marriage and co-habitation. As a result, the breakdown of the traditional family has lead to a society in which adults increasingly place their own personal self interest, happiness, pleasure and desire for new relationships, above the interests and needs of their children.

Perhaps the most alarming consequence of the undermining of marriage, and the promotion of casual sexual relations, has been the huge increase in single parenting. During the first half of the last century the percentage of births outside marriage remained at around 4-5%, except during the war years. Thus, in the early 1950s, the percentage of births to unmarried mothers was still only slightly higher than it had been fifty years earlier. But, by the early 1970s, the figure had increased to 8% and, by the early 1980s, there was a further increase to 13%, almost three times higher than it had been twenty years earlier. In the 1980s, during the high point of Thatcherism, children were born with ever-increasing frequency outside of marriage, accounting by 1991 to over 30% of all births. This figure had increased again to over 40% in the early years of the new century. Between 1986 and 1990 the number of never married lone mothers almost doubled. In 1961, where the mother was under the age of 20, 26% of births were outside marriage, but by 2004 the number had increased to an amazing 91%.

The difficulties of single parenting are not confined to the raising of children, since in the majority of cases there are likely also to be financial problems. Families that stay together are much more likely to be self supporting but single mothers, particularly those with young children, are disproportionately dependent on state funded income support, since they are less likely to be in work. Thus the breakdown of marriage also places burdens on those who stay together, since they have to pay for the benefits through increased taxation.

The institution of marriage, and support for the traditional family, has been consistently undermined by an unholy alliance of politicians, lawyers and children’s charities. The question must therefore be asked if anything can be done to return to the level of family stability which previous generations took for granted. Certainly the current level of family breakdown, with its attendant social disorder, is clearly unsustainable, and should be completely unacceptable in any civilised society. But such is the extent of the current problem that firm and determined measures will be unavoidable if family cohesion in our society is to be restored.

The first step to be taken to remedy matters is to recognise that the overriding purpose of marriage is to secure the raising of children in a stable and loving environment, and that all marriage and divorce legislation should reflect this principle. In so doing the emphasis will then shift from the concerns of the two adults in the marriage to the overriding interests of the children. Thus the law will need to consider two types of marriage, those with children under 18, and those without. If there are no children in a marriage, or they are now adults themselves, the state should have little or no interest in whether or not a couple choose to stay together. Any legal separation should be a civil matter between the parties concerned. However, if there are children under 18, then the sole criterion when considering whether a divorce should be granted is if it would be in the best interests of the children. There should be a strong presumption that divorce, in principle, is unlikely to be in the best interests of the children. Therefore, the grounds for divorce will need to be drawn fairly tightly, where the behaviour of one of the parents has become so unacceptable that divorce would be less damaging to the children than would be the continuation of the family unit.

To further bolster marriage, measures will need to be taken to reduce considerably the level of cohabitation for couples with children. Currently, there are few incentives for such couples to get married. The institution of marriage has almost been destroyed since divorce is now so easy and the distinction between marriage and cohabitation has become blurred. Marriage is an institution which provides benefits, not only to the couples themselves, but also to society as a whole. Marriage should be redefined as a public commitment by a couple to bring up children, the responsibility and obligations for which are recognised by wider society through the granting of certain rights and privileges, which would not be available to those who merely cohabit.

Marriage should, of course, be only between people of the opposite sex. So-called “gay marriage” is a complete nonsense since it has nothing to do with the upbringing of children. It is an odd fact that liberals, who show the least concern over marriage breakdown, are usually the most enthusiastic advocates of “gay marriage”. Same sex civil partnerships have only been introduced as a sop to a highly vocal and privileged minority group as part of the New Labour’s extremist “equality” agenda

To ensure that there are no financial penalties against entering marriage it will be essential that the tax and benefit system never makes cohabitation or single parenting, more financially advantageous than marriage. Child Benefit and Child Tax Credits should continue to be paid as now but married couples should in future receive more generous payments than those who cohabit. This differential will need to be sufficiently large to encourage cohabiting couples to marry. Such a change should only apply to new births, and not apply retrospectively to the existing children of cohabiting couples or lone parents. Also, any parent who walks out of a marriage without good reason, taking the children with them, will be deemed to have forfeited any financial claim on the other partner. Those who break up a marriage for their own personal selfish ends should never profit from their actions.

Society is now at a crossroads. If it continues along its current path leading to greater family breakdown it could be terminally destructive. Alternatively, it could come to its senses and take the difficult decisions to bolster marriage and thus provide the best protection for raising children. Patricia Morgan, a sociologist specialising in family policy, accurately observed that “all societies that have survived have been built on marriage, and children have always been raised in traditional families. A home with two married parents is unquestionably the best place in which to bring up children, who need both a father and a mother. It is also the best way to pass on traditional principles and beliefs from one generation to another”. Research shows that being married is, by far, the most effective way of making young men law-abiding and giving them a sense of purpose and self-worth. So for all these reasons we need to reinstate the primacy of marriage in the raising of children and the stability of family life.

Britain in Europe – Where Now?

2011-12-12T10:43:00.001-08:00

As a result of David Cameron’s veto at the Brussels summit, Britain’s future in the European Union is now being seriously questioned. Public disillusionment with the European Project is now at an all time high. So where do we go from here?

It should be remembered that the desire for ever closer union is ideologically driven, and that the political, trade, financial and monetary consequences of EU membership are subordinate to the main objective which is the abolition of European nation states. The motivation for the creation of a United Europe was the reaction by liberals to the atrocities carried out by the Nazis. These were deemed to have been caused by “nationalism”, the chosen remedy being the abolition of nation states. So for the past sixty years there has been a gradual erosion of the powers exercised by nation states, which have been transferred “little by little, bit by bit” to the institutions of the European Union. At times this has been done by stealth, but it is now more or less out in the open for all to see.

Any individual or political party opposed to this project was branded an extremist, nationalist (considered to be a term of abuse), “Little Englander” or similar pejorative expressions. For decades unwavering support for the European Union agenda was the hallmark of all self respecting “progressive” forward looking politicians. The Conservative Party was proud to call itself the “Party of Europe”. The turning point for the Right on this outlook came with Margaret Thatcher’s Bruges speech in which she raised some slight doubts over the loss of sovereignty that would arise if the quest for ever closer union continued to be pursued. Since then the Tories have become mildly Eurosceptic although official policy has always been to strongly support EU membership.

The European Project for ever closer union was always ultimately doomed to failure since it involved the eventual replacement of democratically elected governments with EU sponsored puppet regimes controlled by technocrats such as those that have recently taken power in Italy and Greece. If the latest proposals for fiscal union were ever carried out each member state would become a puppet of the European Union, and democracy in any meaningful sense would be extinguished. Fortunately this will not happen. Since the symptoms and not the causes are the focus of current attention, it cannot be long before the Euro collapses, and when it does the European Union will not long survive the fall out. We can thank our lucky stars that Britain is outside the Eurozone, but the pain for us will nevertheless still be severe.

Teenagers – children or adults?

2011-12-05T10:18:00.000-08:00

Children and parents in South London can now sleep a little easier in the knowledge that a “sick disgusting paedophile” is behind bars. This “sad dirty old pervert” is 51 year old former Labour Southwark councillor John Friary who received a 15 months sentence for attempting to arrange to meet a child following sexual grooming. Friary was “excited” by this “gorgeous” 15 year old girl, from whom he requested some “sexy” pictures. He told her “I bet you look hot naked” and offered to “meet her anywhere and bring you back here”. Friary resembles the fat one in Laurel & Hardy and his idiotic actions have certainly got him into a fine mess.

Friary’s intentions are certainly disgraceful. Introducing sexually explicit language of this kind towards a woman of any age whom you hardly know is contemptible, but doubly so in the case of a 15 year old. It is also hypocritical since he would never have become a councillor in a borough such as Southwark without paying lip service to an ultra feminist agenda on the “objectification” of women, which is now clear he never believed in. Friary boasted in his blog that “it is the case that we (have to) behave to a higher standard as we have a representative role every minute of every day whether we like it or not, it goes with the territory”. So he has spectacularly failed to meet the standards he set for himself. Friary would also have remained silent when New Labour introduced the oppressive and unnecessary laws which ensnared him.

In the current paranoia over paedophiles it is easy to grasp why the overwhelming majority of Daily Mail readers commenting on this individual were disgusted by his behaviour and considered he had got his just desserts. However, they should think again as this case has serious implications for the fairness of British justice and moreover illustrates the dangers when paranoia and hysteria replace sound judgment, fairness and common sense. It has always been a principle of British justice that the sentence should fit the crime. This most certainly has not happened here, nor is this the first instance that sexual behaviour has resulted in serious travesties of justice.

The first thing that is unacceptable about this case is that no child was involved. The person with whom Friary was communicating was an adult male blackmailer. Friary pleaded guilty to the charge, presumably because he was advised that he would receive a substantially higher sentence if found guilty after a trial. However, this decision appears shortsighted as, in cases such as this, it should be for the prosecution to produce the child alleged to have been “groomed”. As one blogger put it “what really worries me about this case is that when the police do these stings, there are certain legal limits on what they can do (e.g. never claim to be legal age, don't bring up sex first.). But I wouldn't expect an extortionist to operate with any semblance of fairness whatsoever”. In fact we can safely assume that the blackmailer would have used far more explicit language to entice his victim than would a real life 15 year old.

Let us imagine now what would have happened had Friary been communicating with a genuine fifteen year old. He claimed that he wanted to be a “father figure” to the girl which suggests that he did not try to conceal his age. In real life it is difficult to imagine that any teenage girl would want to enter into intimate conversations with an overweight fifty something male, particularly one making crude sexual advances. They would find such an individual seriously creepy, and immediately terminate the “relationship” once the true facts became known. If Friary had concealed his age he would quickly have been found out by his ignorance of teen jargon and culture. So the threat to teenagers from online sexual predators is greatly exaggerated. This is not to say that many teenagers do not receive unwelcome online communications from these sex pests, but they should have no difficulty in discovering what they are about and rebuff their advances. Unfortunately, it is the case that some men importune women for sexual favours on minimal acquaintance. Teenage girls need to develop the skill to deal with these predators as early as possible. Attempting to keep them sheltered through laws on “grooming” does not assist this process.

The blackmailer knew his business when he impersonated a fifteen year old girl. If he had pretended to be a nine year old, that is a genuine child, it is extremely unlikely that Friary would have made any attempt to strike up a relationship, since he was looking for a “hot” and “sexy” adolescent girl. The blackmailer knew that such men vastly outnumber real paedophiles, thus making a successful sting considerably more likely. The police do the same. Those men caught on the ITV programme To Catch A Paedophile had all been “grooming” police officers masquerading as teenage girls. It is worth remembering that many European counties have an age of consent lower than sixteen.

The two comments in quotations at the top of this blog are from Daily Mail readers. It is worth assessing whether Friary is indeed a paedophile. The International Classification of Diseases(ICD) defines pedophilia as a "disorder of adult personality and behaviour in which there is a sexual preference for children of prepubertal or early pubertal age.” It is clear that the girl whom Friary visualised was above this age so by definition he is not a paedophile. But such is the hysteria surrounding this issue, many people have been brainwashed into thinking that it must be right for men attracted to fifteen year olds to be publicly branded as paedophiles. In fact, let’s face it, all men are likely to be attracted to good looking fifteen year olds - it is perfectly natural. So some of the more deranged male commentators on this subject should be a little more careful, since turkeys should never vote for Christmas. If he is not a paedophile, then is Friary a pervert? Since it is natural for men to be attracted to adult women over the age of puberty Friary cannot be a pervert either. Fifteen year old girls can be very attractive, and like it or not, since they are over the age of puberty, they are biologically adult. Nevertheless, despite all this, Friary is certainly a delusional chancer and he should be thoroughly ashamed of himself.

Chav Aesthetics

2011-12-05T03:00:00.000-08:00

An interesting book from the Daily Mail parliamentary sketch writer Quentin Letts is Bog Standard Britain published in 2008. With wit and panache he lays into the vulgarity, charmlessness, conformity, self-righteousness and idiocy which now characterises much of British society through the pursuit of equality and egalitarianism, carried out through an all pervasive stultifying political correct ideology handed down from on high. It is a book that can be strongly recommended for those jaded by the more unwelcome social changes of recent decades.

One chapter deals with the strange change in appearance that has come over many British men. In Quentin Letts words “British blokes – and this is a strangely British fashion – have been emerging from barber shops like golf balls”. He is referring to the new army of shaven headed men who ape the Neanderthal appearance and sullen character of the Mitchell brothers in the grotesque BBC soap Eastenders. According to Letts, this pair glory in being “aggressively ugly, brazen, naked in their nastiness – and Britain has followed suit.” Letts has hit the nail on the head with this description of these repulsive role models to the ubiquitous dumbed down surly chav males, who inhabit every shopping mall and pub in Britain with their air of barely suppressed menace.

Another target which Letts has a deserved pop at is the dominant musical taste of today’s chav youth, namely rap or hip-hop. At its best this “music” can demonstrate a certain degree of verbal dexterity. But for the most part it is a wholly degenerate form of expression which, because of its origin in black American ghettos, has received little political criticism. Letts focuses on the violence of its lyrics, particularly the contempt shown towards women and homosexuals, and questions why it has had such an easy ride with the liberal political establishment and its self appointed arbiters of popular cultural taste. One of the more commonplace and dispiriting auditory experiences heard on British streets during the summer months is the deadbeat white hoodie youth, stuck in a traffic jam in his clapped out motor, windows fully wound down, with this garbage spewing full blast out of the speakers.

How many in the British working class have moved from seeking self betterment to risking self destruction in little more than a generation, is one of several cultural and social developments explored in Quentin Letts’ amusing yet instructive book.

Euroland endgame approaching

2011-11-11T10:35:00.001-08:00

The utopian mission of the liberal political elite to bind the people and countries of Europe into a single anti-democratic federalist superstate is now approaching its endgame. We are now only months, perhaps even weeks, away from the collapse of the Euro currency. Monetary union was always an integral part of the European project. Without a currency union the remaining EU federalist apparatus will lose all sense of direction and purpose. The vision of an “ever closer union”, which has kept the show on the road, will be recognised as unachievable, and the house of cards that is the European Union will disintegrate, as the individual nations reclaim their sovereignty, regain control of their economic and political destiny and go their separate ways.

The economic consequences will be severe in the short term, but it will be the price we will have to pay to regain our national independence. The pipedream of the liberals and “progressives” will be discredited for all time, as the gigantic folly that the European project has always been, will be exposed for all to see.

Paedophile scare – paranoia deepens

2011-10-10T16:33:00.001-07:00

One of the more enduring delusions subscribed to by many in society is that liberals are more understanding, open minded, progressive, caring, thoughtful, enlightened, sensitive and broad minded etc, than those nasty, reactionary, knuckle dragging right wingers. This belief is particularly strong amongst the younger generation yet to be mugged by reality. In practice liberals are totally opposed to any dissent from their orthodoxies and use many tried and tested methods to maintain control over society to achieve their ends. Sometimes they do it openly through legislation and regulation. This is at least an honest way of achieving their objectives but it does have one drawback in that it risks opponents repealing these measures in the event that they gain power. A much better method is to create a climate of hostility towards those they wish to marginalise or demonise.

One tactic used by feminists is to portray all men as potential sexual or violent predators. For some time now, since the early seventies, their main focus has been on exaggerating the numbers of rapes and domestic violence they have suffered at the hands of brutish males. Alas, some men do live up to this stereotype but the numbers are far smaller than the feminist agitators would have us believe. But in the past decade or so they have discovered a new stratagem which has much broader appeal than amongst the usual feminist/agitprop activists. This is to brand all men as possible paedophiles. By using this scare they can recruit a much wider support base embracing tabloid newspapers and the more neanderthal elements amongst the “chav” population, which in this country is now a quite a sizeable category of persons. In addition they have the active support of so called children’s charities whose primary purpose these days is to devise ever ingenious methods to combat the supposedly widespread and wholesale sexual abuse of children, which only they can be trusted to provide protection against.

A recent case demonstrates the success the feminist/children’s charities axis has had in inciting a climate of paranoia over the paedophile scare. A male teacher in a primary school in Hampshire was accused of playing with a pupil by swinging her around by her arms. Following complaints from colleagues, he was told that he had "failed to maintain physical boundaries with female pupils". He was condemned for the heinous crime of “failing to disengage immediately when girls ran up to him and put their arms around his legs". Although there was no suggestion of any sexual motive, he was dismissed from the school where he had worked for eight years. Acording to press reports, parents campaigned to overturn the decision, saying he was an excellent teacher who had been unfairly treated because he is a man.

It is worth noting that he was the only male teacher in the school. Indeed over 25% of primary schools have no male teachers and men comprise less than 15% of all primary school teachers. Before very long the feminists will have achieved their objective of not only removing all men from primary schools, but also in creating a climate in which it would be inconceivable that they should ever be allowed to teach in one.

What Is To Be Done With The BBC?

2011-09-05T15:56:00.001-07:00

Since the 1960s, many from the Right have come to regard the BBC with increasing disaffection. There are a number of reasons for this. It is argued that the BBC is bloated and bureaucratic, that it is unrepresentative and unaccountable and that it displays a persistent liberal bias. The licence fee as a method of funding has been likened to a form of taxation. Much concern has been expressed that it has been responsible for the coarsening of our society and for "dumbing down" in the chase for ratings.

Each of these criticisms are valid to a greater or lesser degree and remedial action to counter the more malign effects of the current BBC regime is long overdue. Unfortunately, rooting out the source of the malaise in this crucially important public body will be controversial, difficult and, if not handled carefully, could risk much unpopularity with the general public.

From its creation in 1922 to the early 1960s the BBC was an organisation that maintained and propagated traditional values and beliefs leavened with a high-minded cultural mission. But it suffered the first blow to its self esteem with the creation of ITV in 1955. This was supported by the Conservative government of the time who wished to see an end to the BBC's television monopoly whilst at the same time exploiting an opportunity to conciliate its own business supporters and backers. Not all Conservatives supported this approach as they feared that private TV companies targeting a mass audience would trigger a fall in broadcasting standards, a view shared by the Labour Party and church leaders, amongst others. As we all now know ITV was massively popular, as the independent broadcasting companies shamelessly wooed a predominantly working-class audience with, by the standards of the time, down-market programmes. Within a few years the BBC's audience share had fallen to below 30%, provoking a major crisis of confidence within the Corporation.

The BBC responded by skillfully tailoring its programmes to reflect more popular tastes, with the result that its TV audience share began to rise and by the mid-1960s it had reached a rough parity of viewers with ITV. This was a golden age of television and the best programmes from both the BBC and ITV managed to combine popularity with standards that were acceptable to all but the most prim. Unfortunately, this was also a time when the seeds that were to destroy the BBC's high reputation were first sown.

The first manifestation of this trend was That Was The Week That Was (TW3). a satirical political programme, presented between 1962-64 by a youthful team led by David Frost. By today's standards it would be considered rather tame, and its dated undergraduate style of humour would probably appeal to only a very limited audience. But at the time TW3 was widely seen as revolutionary, as it punctured the ludicrously deferential attitude to politicians which had prevailed until then. Fortuitously, it also coincided with a period of vibrant social change typified by Beatniks, Angry Young Men, Lady Chatterley, Beatlemania, Carnaby Street, James Bond and other such meretricious icons of a society that was becoming increasingly fixated with the cult of youth, modernity and sexual freedom. Newly-elected Labour leader, Harold Wilson, could call forth images of the "white heat of the technological revolution" and be greeted with uncritical admiration by the self-appointed apostles of progress. By comparison, the governments of Macmillan and Douglas-Home, with their 'grouse moor' image, were redolent of privilege and widely seen as irrelevant or out of touch. They were an easy target for the self-confident debunkers of TW3. If this programme had been an isolated example of irreverence it would have caused no real harm and maybe some good. However, in retrospect it can be seen as the opening shot in the liberal takeover of our society.

Liberalism has not only political objectives but also a wide-ranging social agenda, the latter being reflected in a new approach epitomized by the "kitchen sink" television drama that emerged in the early 1960s. The "anti-heroes" of these programmes were presented as the potential saviours of our supposedly class-ridden, stultifying, bourgeois society, personifying a kind of home grown version of Rousseau's "noble savage". The Wednesday Play, the most notable example of this genre, with its focus on previously ignored social issues was heavily praised by increasingly vocal and influential Left-leaning critics and pundits. During this period, documentaries began to tackle issues such as unmarried mothers and sexual behaviour with an increased boldness.

These changes did not go unnoticed and, by 1965, a "clean up TV campaign" headed by a hitherto unknown middle-aged Midlands schoolteacher, Mary Whitehouse, began to register in the nation's consciousness. For the next thirty years Mrs Whitehouse, almost single-handedly, was to fight a doughty campaign against 'permissiveness', a catch-all word with which she will forever be identified. Her campaign failed completely because of two major flaws. First, as a committed Christian she assumed that her religious beliefs gave her a self-evident right to intervene in the nation's viewing habits. In reality, we live in a post-Christian age in which the overwhelming majority do not accept that the dogma of a minority religion should underpin the personal morality of society as a whole. A second weakness was that once the genie was let out of the bottle, permissiveness proved to be a tricky concept to argue against. Younger people began to question why they should be prevented from doing what they thought best in their private lives, just because some older people in authority expressed their disapproval. The Right appeared to have no credible response and by the early 1970s, the 'permissive society' was firmly established, and the commercial exploitation of sex quickly became the dominating focus of the media.

By the mid-1970s liberals were firmly in control of the BBC and they could now use its authority to promote a new 'politically correct' agenda. The main planks of this agenda are well known - a contempt or distaste for tradition, family values, Western cultural heritage, marriage, the nation state, artistic and cultural excellence. They encouraged forces that would undermine or antagonise the Right, such as multi-culturalism, the promotion of homosexuality and sexual promiscuity, proletarianism, internationalism, egalitarianism, "gender" politics and - more recent obsessions - "diversity" and "inclusivity". TV programmes began to increasingly reflect this new agenda, and the values and lifestyle of what is now, rather loosely, known as "middle England" became largely marginalised. This liberal hegemony has continued until the present time, reinforced by established custom. The Conservative governments of Margaret Thatcher and John Major proved to have no appetite for storming this citadel of liberalism. The one sop to their supporters' concerns, the Broadcasting Standards watchdog, proved to be completely toothless as it was packed with compliant members of the liberal establishment of a mindset indistinguishable from those running the BBC.

So what should be done with the BBC? Some argue that it should be privatised and allowed to sink or swim as just one more player in a lightly-regulated market and with no special privileges. Such a policy would be in accord with the free market economic doctrines embraced by many on the Right. However, to take this path would be disastrous. One only needs to look at the satellite and cable companies with their unremitting diet of tacky programming concentrating on chat shows, quizzes, cartoons, sport, videos, soaps, repeats and the like, to realise that such a course of action would be cultural vandalism of the highest order. Instead, the licence fee system at roughly its current level should be maintained. It offers excellent value for money considering the amount of original programming and the number of TV and radio channels that are provided.

However, one drawback of the licensing system is that the BBC is unaccountable to its audience or to anyone else for that matter. In reality it is answerable only to itself. To leave the present arrangement and liberal ethos unchanged is not an option. A government seriously committed to right wing values will need to adopt a rather more interventionist approach. To begin with, there will have to be a clear out of those on the present BBC supervisory body and top management. They will need to be replaced mostly by people known to be sympathetic to traditional values, although the inclusion of some liberals to sharpen debate should cause no harm. This may seem drastic but liberals have had their way with this organization for far too long and it is now time for change.

The first action of the new management must be the speedy removal of all the more deleterious programmes. Eastenders, with its repulsive cocktail of politically correct themes and “chav” lifestyle, should be the first to go. Its portrayal of dysfunctional, criminal, degraded, uncouth and gratuitously aggressive and confrontational behaviour, all masquerading as normal social conduct, sends out the wrong signals, particularly to children. This is not to suggest that all TV drama should be sanitized, just that a better balance should be struck. Very special care will need to be taken with children’s television, both in presentation and content. On the other hand, programmes aimed specifically at teenagers and young adults should be dropped altogether. They are invariably infantile and hinder rather than help young people make the transition into adulthood, a process that appears to take rather too long these days. Current affairs programmes will need to become more balanced, ie they will need to include a clear right of centre perspective rather than just the current left/liberal outlook. TV programmes generally should move significantly upmarket, particularly BBC2, and there should be less sport as this can easily be catered for elsewhere. Advertisements for recruitment to the BBC should be placed in a range of newspapers, not just The Guardian, to stem the liberal bias, since no society can survive if its core values are consistently subverted from within.

These proposed changes are radical but long overdue. They will inevitably cause outrage within the BBC and could well provoke industrial action. This must be faced down with determination. However, it will be necessary to tread with care the thin line between legitimate government intervention as outlined above, and state control, particularly in news and current affairs reporting, which would be unacceptable. The changes proposed will return the BBC to the high ideals under which it was founded. It will then again become a much valued British institution, deserving of respect, not just by the Right, but by the majority of British people.

What caused the riots in English cities?

2011-08-19T02:26:00.001-07:00

The British political establishment is in a state of shock and anger following the recent riots, looting, torching of property and civil unrest. The question being asked is how this could have happened, particularly in London which has prided itself on its multicultural tolerance. Unfortunately, political leaders still appear unwilling to address the underlying causes behind the disturbances, and until they do the scenes we witnessed last week will inevitably be repeated.

Some have argued that because of the bad examples they set, MPs and bankers are somehow responsible. This is complete nonsense. If there had been any linkage the riots would have occurred a couple of years ago when these nefarious and deleterious activities were headline news. Others have suggested that it is due to cuts in government spending, particularly in education and services for young people. Except for a relatively small number of political agitators, there is no evidence that these concerns were in the minds of youngsters when they were rioting.

One theory that has gained widespread traction is that we live in an acquisitive society, and that this must be the motivation for looting. However, we have always lived in a materialistic age. Harold Macmillan boasted in the late fifties that most people "had never had it so good" a factor which undoubtedly contributed to his re-election with a large majority shortly afterwards. In those days people of all classes worked hard to acquire cars, consumer goods and foreign holidays, all symbols of the increased prosperity that took place during that period.

Another much touted theory is that the riots were caused by poverty and a sense of hopelessness. Unfortunately, these factors have always existed for large numbers of people, the response being resigned acceptance, not civil disorder. In any event, vast amounts of public money have already been channelled into areas where the worst rioting took place, which still remain locked in poverty. Some have suggested that the cause is due to the high level of youth unemployment at over 20%, and for young black males, over 50%. These statistics are certainly very disturbing and the causes need to be addressed. There is no doubt that governments have been culpable in allowing vast numbers of foreign workers into the country, detrimental to the interests of the indigenous population by depressing wages, increasing unemployment and acting as a deterrent for training. Whilst it is the case that unemployment cannot be ruled out as a contributory factor, it is not in itself sufficient to have caused the rioting.

David Cameron has mentioned the "broken society". However this is an exaggeration, since the overwhelming majority of people still work hard for a living, are law abiding, seek to improve themselves educationally and culturally, do not take illegal drugs or behave in an anti social manner. There is however a significant underclass whose dysfunctional behaviour, criminality, violence, and general fecklessness and tastelessness cause immense problems for the rest of society. They "chavs" as they are now helpfully described, undoubtedly constituted a significant proportion of those involved in the looting.

Which beings us to the real cause. This is not the first time that rioting has taken place in English cities, and most of the worst disturbances this time took place in areas where they had previously occurred. David Cameron was asked by an ethnic MP in parliament to rule out there being any racial element to the disturbances. The prime minister dutifully agreed to this proposition. In doing so he was ignoring the evidence. The rioting can be separated into two phases, the original rioting in Tottenham, and the “copycat” rioting that took place in the following three days. It is reasonable to assume that the later riots would not have occurred when they did if it had not been for the events in Tottenham.

The spark that caused the Tottenham riot was the shooting dead by police of a young black male. The full circumstances of the shooting are not at this stage known, but a loaded gun was found at the scene, the dead man had links to the criminal underworld, he was at one time a leading member of a local gang, and his best buddy was recently killed in a gang related shooting. When a white villain is shot dead by police the general response is a shrug of the shoulders and maybe the thought "good riddance to bad rubbish" crosses the minds of many people. It should be remembered that a few years ago a completely innocent white man was shot dead by police in Hackney. There was a campaign for justice by his family but no rioting or other disturbances ensued.

The response taken by the black protesters in Tottenham was very different. They appear to have concluded that the shooting was an attack on their community by the police. To some extent one can understand their outlook since for decades the British political establishment has been hyper sensitive to the grievances of black people, however unreasonable or unjustified. They have come to expect that their complaints will be given special consideration, not given to white people, and that assumption has been reinforced by the fear that the authorities now have of the accusation of “institutionalised racism”. Instead of asking themselves why so many black males are involved in violent criminality, the black community took to the streets to protest at the police action. Although originally peaceful in intention, the protest was soon hijacked by violent thugs confronting the police. This quickly developed into an orgy of rioting, looting and arson, the overwhelming majority of perpetrators being black males.

So the inescapable conclusion on the underlying cause of the riots is the presence in our cities of a large disaffected black population, who see themselves as culturally separate from white society, and are seen as such by the wider indigenous population. Add to this the much higher levels of crime within and by this community (the establishment of the Met Police Operation Trident is clear evidence of this), the anti-learning culture displayed by black male pupils in school, absent fathers (over 80% of black Tottenham children are brought up separate from their fathers), the debased patois that has replaced correct English, degenerate hip hop "gangsta" nihilism, and most serious of all, as we have recently witnessed, a risk that they may resort to rioting, followed by looting and arson, when their anger is aroused. As a result we have big social, cultural and law and order problems for British society which are not going to go away anytime soon.

Norwegian atrocities

2011-08-02T08:43:00.001-07:00

Since this is a right wing blog it is necessary to offer some thoughts on the shootings and bombing that have recently taken place in Norway. First, to state the obvious, there can be absolutely no justification for the cold blooded murder of nearly seventy, mostly young, people. These horrendous acts must be condemned unequivocally. Second, it must be recognised that these acts of terrorism were politically motivated. There is no escaping this conclusion.

Questions have been raised over the sanity of the terrorist. Since these actions required considerable skill in planning and implementation it is clear that he is not insane. But equally clearly the terrorist must be severely and deeply psychologically damaged to believe that this bloody rampage would help achieve his political objectives.

Because his actions are so completely extreme the politically correct media is putting it about that his political views must also be extreme. His rambling “manifesto”, cut and pasted from a number of sources, shows some political confusion. But other parts are more perceptive and sensible. His main concerns appear to be the large increase in the Muslim population in his country, the promotion of multiculturalism, and the cultural Marxist hegemony amongst the governing elite. His concerns on these issues are in no way extreme since, as these factors apply equally to Britain and other European countries, tens of millions of ordinary people also share these concerns, as does this blog. We are not extreme just rational.

The danger to the Right is that the politically correct elite is now arguing that because the Norwegian terrorist was motivated by these right wing views, the expression of such views is in itself inherently dangerous, and therefore consideration should now be given to the introduction of measures to challenge and curb the expression of such views. By this means cultural Marxists will exploit the revulsion to these terrorist acts to further ratchet up their own power and suppress those on the Right who seek to challenge them.

A window into our soul

2011-07-14T02:02:00.001-07:00

The big news story in Britain over the past ten days has been the phone hacking and other scandals involving Rupert Murdoch’s media empire News International, resulting in the closure of the News of the World. The behaviour of journalists working for this company has clearly been outrageous, disgraceful and unacceptable, but concentrating on these kind of activities has clouded consideration of the major sins of tabloid journalism for which this newspaper was the main culprit.

The News of the World has been a British institution for as long as anyone can remember. It had a fine record of exposing the hypocrisy of those prominent in public life. However, it is impossible to lament the loss of this title due to the ever increasing degradation of its content. Back in the more staid and puritanical 1950s it enjoyed a huge circulation based primarily on the salacious details of court cases. It pandered to the prurient interests of its readership whilst at the same time taking a moralistic high ground in denouncing the depravity of the activities it reported. It was a double standard then shared by a large proportion of the readership.

With the coming of greater sexual permissiveness from the 1960’s onwards the newspaper had to change tack since its denunciation of “smut” no longer struck such a responsive chord, particularly amongst its younger readers. It began to report sexual behaviour in a much less judgemental way, and quickly transformed itself into a mouthpiece for promoting unrestrained sexual activity as a quite normal recreational experience for which there were no adverse consequences. The reporting of the sensationalised behaviour of footballers, show business celebrities and other dubious role models normalized casual promiscuity, a position which the newspaper had formerly condemned. This explicit sexual content was reflected in the lifestyle of its working class readership and has resulted in a huge increase in (unwed) teenage pregnancies, single parenthood and broken families.

There have been several reports recently on the sexualisation of children. Instead of the idiotic paranoia over padded bras the authorities would do far better to focus their minds on whether the impact of the daily exposure of children to the normalisation of sexual promiscuity, as promoted in the tabloids, is not a matter of much more concern in shaping young people’s attitudes on acceptable sexual behaviour.

The News of the World and other tabloid titles are very professionally run organisations. They know intimately the interests and mindset of their “chav” readership, which is now an almost completely debased diet of celebrities, gossip and sex. The red top tabloids are thus a window into the soul of their readers, reflecting the extent to which the British working class has become increasing degraded over recent decades.

Greek Tragedy

2011-06-25T08:39:00.001-07:00

The current unrest in Greece could potentially have the most serious consequences for Britain. Although Greek governments have spent public money recklessly the roots of the present crisis lies with the political objective of achieving ever greater union between the countries of the European Union. Greece never met the qualifying criteria for membership of the Euro, but was allowed to join for political reasons despite the likely financial consequences.

It is to the credit of Gordon Brown, both as Chancellor and Prime Minister, that he kept Britain out of the Euro. He did so despite considerable pressure from so called “progressives” and “moderates” who were desperate for Britain to join. It is worth examining the reasons given for their enthusiasm.

The Liberal Democrat manifesto in 2001 stated that “membership of the euro at a competitive and sustainable rate would offer Britain considerable benefits. It would end the exchange rate instability which has destroyed many thousands of jobs, safeguard the investment in hundreds of thousands of further jobs by overseas firms, and reduce the costs of trade with the rest of the EU”.

Michael Heseltine, about the same time, opined that "we cannot remain competitive outside the euro for much longer. We have lived through a decade of warnings and with those predictions we have always been offered choices. Now is the time for Britain to make a choice. For business the choice is clear."

In practice there was no evidence for this alarmism. Unemployment in Britain continued to fall for over seven years until the recent financial crisis. We had much lower levels of unemployment than many countries in the Eurozone. The claims of the Euro fanatics, not for the first or last time, were wholly without foundation, and this was most probably known at the time by those “moderates” making these claims. Instead their motivation was to further the political objective of ever closer union which, more accurately, can be interpreted as ever decreasing democracy.

Countries such as Greece, Ireland and Portugal have lost control of their economic destiny, and are now supplicants to the European Central Bank. They are caught in a vicious circle of bailouts, conditional on austerity and deflationary measures, which contract their economies still further thus requiring more bailouts, and so it goes on. There can be no doubt than these countries will eventually default and be forced out of the Euro with disastrous consequences not just for the countries themselves but for the global financial and banking system. This is what happens when ideology triumphs reason.

Moral panic – Cameron acts

2011-06-19T10:47:00.001-07:00

One of the strangest documents ever released by a government department is the Bailey Review Letting Children be Children recently issued by the Department for Education. It covers the alleged “sexualisation” of children and is motivated by the paedophile hysteria. The title is misleading as it only concerns itself with girls; any references to boys are in the context of their attitude towards girls. It conflates two issues, the supposed sexualisation of girls with the impact that the sexual depiction of adult women has on the behaviour and appearance of girls. Neither boys nor adult men are assumed to possess any sexual appeal despite research showing that at least a third of all child molestation cases involve boys. It is worth noting that no definition of “sexualisation” is given in the report, and that there is likely to be a wide range of views on what this, if anything, actually constitutes in practice.

The report claims to be independent. In reality it is nothing of the kind. It has been commissioned to provide recommendations and conclusions which the government has already pre-agreed in advance, through meetings between departmental officials, children’s charities and other parties. This review has not, of course, come out of the blue, the Labour government commissioned a similar report and there has been the recent TV programme Stop Pimping Our Kids. In other words an agenda has been building up promoted by children’s charities with support from feminists, the Mumsnet brigade and some journalists. The objective is to fabricate child protection scares as a battering ram to control or curb male sexuality, outlook and attitudes that are now regarded as “inappropriate” by those behind this agenda.

The premise underpinning the report that we are living in an “increasingly sexualised and sexual culture” is completely bogus. There is no evidence that children today are more sexualised than the previous generations who now comprise most of today’s adults. If anything the reverse is true as a consequence of feminist pressure to control the depiction of women in advertising. This review also covers commercialisation affecting children, but again the panic is misplaced since advertising directed at children has never been as tightly regulated as it already is today.

The report also treats young girls in a monolithic way which defies common sense. What is clearly unsuitable for a seven year old may be perfectly normal for a teenager but the review makes no distinction between the two. The review is mysteriously concerned about a new phenomenon termed “gender-stereotyped clothing”. Do dresses and skirts fall into this category? Since these garments have been worn by girls and women since time immemorial, this bizarre phrase, and the thinking behind it, appears incomprehensible. The issue of “sexualised” images on the covers of magazines is also raised, but again there is no definition merely a suggestion that offending images should be covered by modesty sleeves. So called “adult” magazines are already subject to this requirement, a relatively recent innovation. We appear to be moving to a situation where any display of women’s bodies is forbidden.

The government is threatening to introduce legislation in eighteen months if satisfactory progress on a voluntary basis has not been made. It will be interesting to see how this legislation will be framed. One thing we can be sure of is that the paedophile hysteria has yet to run its course. So there will be still more repressive and paranoid measures to curb individual freedoms, using child protection as a pretext.

Should we ban the burka?

2011-05-28T05:37:00.001-07:00

The French parliament has recently passed legislation banning the wearing of the burka in public places. UKIP is advocating that a similar law should be introduced in the UK, considering burkas to be a symbol of an "increasingly divided Britain", which oppresses women and which are a potential security threat. UKIP leader Nigel Farage considers that “we are heading towards a situation where many of our cities are ghettoised. UKIP does not believe in the multicultural separation that Islamic extremists wish to pursue through the gradual imposition of Sharia law. We believe in a single British culture and values shared by all British people”.

There is no doubt that the wearing of the burka is an affront to British cultural values. It is a provocation by the wearer and her religious community backers that demonstrates their unwillingness to make even the most rudimentary attempt to integrate into our society. It also defiles women by requiring their physical features to be concealed. It is of course right that banks and shopping centres can ban individuals from entering their premises if their identity is concealed. Nevertheless, it is wrong for the state to dictate by law what people can and cannot wear when in a public place. To do so would make us no different from countries such as Iran, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan, none of which have a particularly proud record on human rights.

The number of women wearing burkas and similar garments appears to be increasing. Whether they are doing it of their own free will from some kind of religious piety or “modesty”, or whether they are forced into it by their men folk is neither here nor there. Their community by its very nature is an alien intrusion into British life. Since they are not properly part of British society they should be regarded as guests in this country. Out of natural courtesy they should be free to express their own values undisturbed, provided they do not cause direct damage to the host society. In this respect, the main effect of the increasing numbers of burka clad women will be to remind the indigenous British people just how much of their country has been colonised by outsiders with alien cultural values. This can only be a good thing as it might help to rouse the electorate from their torpor so that they start voting for political parties that might take action to address the problem. Unfortunately UKIP’s position on this is rather naïve as it presupposes that the communities concerned are likely to change their ways and adopt “a single British culture”. This is not going to happen and we need as a country to face up to this fact.

NSPCC – The ultimate bogus charity

2011-05-17T14:48:00.001-07:00

The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) was once a highly regarded and worthwhile charity which protected vulnerable children from cruelty. However with the rise in council run children’s services it found itself struggling to find a credible role to play in these changed circumstances. It responded by gradually adopting a highly charged feminist politically correct agenda which sought to ferret out instances of “abuse” against children, a wide ranging term which has had the effect of demonising men. Many honourable and decent people still give generously to this “charity” believing that it must still be a force for good, unaware of its true agenda. At the present time nearly £20 million of its annual income is funded by the state. In addition, vast sums received from donations are used for its highly emotive advertising and paying the inflated salaries of its staff.

It is because of the activities of the NSPCC and other similar organisations that the paedophile hysteria has taken such a hold, although the gutter press is equally culpable in fanning the flames. In spreading suspicion against men the NSPCC creates a climate which is destroying the social fabric of the nation. As a consequence most men now keep well clear of children so as to avoid the accusation that they are intent on “abusing” them. Even the most innocent of contacts is seen as suspicious, which risks interpretation as an attempt to “groom” a child for a sexual purpose.

The stated objective of the NSPCC is to stop all cruelty and “abuse” against children. However, if this goal were to be achieved the NSPCC would no longer serve any purpose and the vast amount of money currently generated for it would dry up. To prevent this outcome the NSPCC devotes an inordinate amount of energy into conveying the message that children are continually at risk from “abuse”. The more this fear is stoked up then the more society will conclude that it needs the NSPCC to combat this evil. Although not openly stated the implicit message is that men are the cause of this threat to children because potentially they could all be “abusers”. To strengthen the message the definition of “abuse” becomes ever wider.

In its attempt to highlight abuse the NSPCC has in the past promoted claims which have subsequently proved to be groundless. For example, in the early 1990s the NSPCC was responsible for the publication Satanic Indicators which gave rise to the “satanic abuse” panic that caused some social workers, most notably in Rochdale and the Orkneys to take large number of children from their families. Recordings of the interviews made by NSPCC social workers revealed that flawed techniques and leading questions were used to gain “evidence” of abuse from the children. The NSPCC are still heavily involved in the controversial recovered memory syndrome in which many women, after months of "therapy", claim that they were abused in childhood. Virtually all of these claims are eventually proved to be baseless or exaggerated but in the meantime the lives of the accused, invariably men, have been destroyed.

The most high profile activity currently being promoted by the NSPCC is the Full Stop campaign against child abuse, a definition which has become increasingly wide. This campaign is nothing more than a racket to mint money for the organisation which it does on a colossal scale. The income raised by this campaign is quite considerable, since £250 million is needed to fund the initial stage of the programme. None of the gigantic sums raised actually helps any child, since the NSPCC has no control over what goes on in people’s homes. There is no way that it can enforce this objective, and in any case it undermines the rights of parents to disciple their children in the manner they consider most appropriate within the law. Needless to say the NSPCC wants the law changed to make smacking by parents a criminal offence. If such a law is ever introduced it will give children enormous power to blackmail parents, with the inevitable result that they will be even more indiciplined than they are currently.

As part of the Full Stop campaign the NSPCC sent out nine million survey forms designed to “educate people on things they may not know and (to) find out their attitudes towards abuse”. This is known in the trade as “advocacy research”, the main aim of which is not to elicit information about public opinion, but to trawl for support to reinforce an already agreed policy position. The survey questions are loaded to “educate people” about the rightness of the NSPCC’s own mindset and priorities, namely the supposed massive incidence of child abuse which, it is suggested, is still occurring despite all the safeguards, warnings and campaigns on the matter. It also lumps together, under the definition of child “abuse”, some of the more harrowing incidents of child cruelty, with reasonable and necessary parental discipline such as shouting, smacking or criticising children. The letter accompanying the survey explains that “we just want to know if our message is getting across”.

The implicit message here is that families are dangerous since they can harm children, and that it is only charities such as the NSPCC who can be trusted to provide protection. There is no evidence that such campaigns do anything very much to reduce the relatively infrequent incidents of genuine child cruelty, but they do manage to spread a poisonous message of mistrust that is conveyed in insulting slogans such as “stop parents getting away with murder”. As such they undermine the family as the best means of bringing up children and insinuate that only child protection professionals can be trusted, not parents. Children are not best served by being brought up in such a climate of fear and suspicion. The continuing expansion of the child protection industry, with its modern alarmist orthodoxies and high public profile, is likely to further fuel the damaging obsession with child “abuse”. Child protection workers risk overlooking serious cases of cruelty that warrant intervention, because of their preoccupation with rooting out generalised child “abuse” that they have persuaded themselves is widespread amongst ordinary families. The best protection for children is when their parents are married. Needless to say the NSPCC has nothing to say on this believing that all parenting arrangements, including single motherhood, are equally valid.

Despite its high ideals the NSPCC does very little to protect children from what most concerns them which is bullying and family breakdown. It has become a money making machine creating fear amongst children that men are all predatory child molesters, and maligning men as potential paedophiles. Its advertisements and begging letters show a wholly distorted image of child/adult relationships and are often nauseatingly offensive. This is one "charity" we can all do without.

Stop Pimping Our Kids

2011-04-29T06:11:00.001-07:00

One of the more pernicious aspects of the media is how it can sometimes create a climate of paranoia over nothing more than froth and hot air. An example is the campaign Stop Pimping Our Kids promoted in the Channel Four programme The Sex Education Show. The motivation for this campaign is the paedophile hysteria, the objective of which is not the protection of children, but the demonisation of men. Unfortunately, it is not confined to its source, feminists and children’s charities, but also includes the gutter press. The latter, when its attention is momentarily distracted from the salacious activities of celebrities, plays a pivotal role in fanning the flames of this hysteria.

The title of the campaign would more accurately have been “Stop Pimping Our Little Girls” since there was no mention of boys. It conflated two issues, the supposed sexualisation of girls with the sexual depiction of adult women. With regard to the former the show condemned various items of “inappropriate” clothing sold for young girls. On the latter it attacked W H Smith for displaying mostly “lads mags” at children’s eye level.

Some of the clothing seemed unexceptional such as high heeled boots. Others were underwear which would not be seen in public. One item which provoked particular ire, which has become a symbol of this dubious campaign, is padded bras. It is unclear why any kind of bra is considered necessary for pre-pubescent girls since there is nothing to cover. Their purpose can only be to instil prudishness and body guilt in young girls. As one young girl commentator put it “it is completely normal for girls as young as nine to start developing breasts - the padding is for modesty, not to sexualise”.

As previously mentioned the motivation for this campaign is the paedophile hysteria. Child molesters (as they should more properly be termed) are unlikely to be influenced by girls wearing adult clothing since they are attracted to children as children, not as mini adults. The vast majority of men are not physically attracted to pre-pubescent girls and their wearing of more adult clothes is unlikely to fool them. The clothing stores vilified in the programme pointed out that they had received no complaints. So there is really no problem, just contrived outrage.

With regard to magazine displays, magazines these days are heavily censored for the amount of anatomical detail they can show on their covers. Such censorship does not extend to good taste, and some of the” lads mags” featured the depiction of women in degrading poses. However, it makes no difference which level of shelf they are displayed on, since children can still see them all, not just those at their eye level. Bizarrely, one magazine that was condemned showed a woman in a “revealing” bikini, a garment seen by children on any beach or swimming pool. Is this article of clothing now to be banned when children are present? Remember the paedophile hysteria is incremental.

Do we need to change the voting system?

2011-04-27T06:06:00.001-07:00

Britain will face its first national referendum for over 35 years on 5th May when the electorate will decide whether to keep the present “first past the post” system, or move to the Alternative Vote (AV) system in which candidates are listed in order of preference, the winner being the first to achieve 50% of the votes after second and higher preference votes of eliminated candidates are counted.

The present system has the benefit of being easily understood - voters only need to place a cross against the name of their chosen candidate. It is also more likely to deliver a government with an overall majority, without the need for a coalition. The AV system will disproportionately benefit the centre party, the Liberal Democrats who are the strongest supporters of the AV system. AV is also slightly more complex.

From the perspective of the Right the most important objective is the destruction of the useless sham Conservative Party and its replacement by a real party of the Right. The Conservative Party is strongly in favour of retaining the present system and it is easy to see why since it has served the Tories well over the years. In this respect the major advantage of the AV system is that it will allow the electorate to vote for the smaller right wing parties without the fear that they are wasting their vote and letting in a candidate from a left wing party. This should result in them gaining significantly more votes mostly at the expense of the Tories. For this clinching reason this blog supports the yes vote for a change to the AV system.

More Tory dishonesty on immigration

2011-04-27T06:02:00.001-07:00

With local elections looming the Tories have predictably played the race card in an attempt to delude the British public that they are serious about addressing the immigration problem, or as one blog commentator more accurately put it, the colonisation problem. In his recent speech Prime Minister David Cameron stated that immigration has led to “discomfort and disjointednes”. In some parts of Britain local residents would describe the problem in much starker terms.

Needless to say Cameron made the obligatory obeisance to the joys of diversity. He claimed that “our country has benefitted immeasurably from immigration” and that “immigrants make a huge contribution to Britain. We recognise that - and we welcome it”. In fact the benefits from immigration have been minimal. There have been undoubted benefits to our cuisine, and some Asian shopkeepers provide longer opening hours than might have occurred under an entirely indigenous ownership. And that is about it as far as the benefits are concerned.

The downside has been much more comprehensive. There has been racial conflict, gang warfare, local communites have become divided, social cohesion destroyed, wages kept down, criminality has increased, the threat from religious terrorism introduced, and on top of all this there is the raft of equality legislation empowering the state to control what we can do and say. The disadvantages of uncontrolled third world immigration are overwhelming, The British public can see this but the politicians of the major parties are blind to the problem.

If politicans are serious about ending the immigration problem they will need to do the following. Pull out of the European Union so that we can control our borders. Withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights which consistently puts the rights of immigrants above those of the indigenous population. Limit asylum claims to European countries only which was the original intention. Ban all immigration from the third world, in particular the arranged marriages scam in which spouses enter the country from abroad. If Asians here want to continue with this cultural practice they are free to leave this country and settle in their ancestral homelands instead.

If the above necessary measures are all taken the immigration problem can be sorted out relatively quickly. It however does not solve the colonisation problem, which will take much longer to bring under control. Since this is a problem that is fundamentally about race it will require a specifically racial solution. This can only be achieved by offering generous financial inducements to legally resident ethnic minorites to leave the country. Those who are here illegally will need to be removed as at present but with rather more vigour. These measures are necessary since the alternative of national disintegration towards which we are heading is too awful to contemplate. The Tories have consistently failed to address this challenge and David Cameron's recent speech makes no real attempt to do so.

Midsomer Murders

2011-04-19T04:13:00.000-07:00

The small village of Midsomer is the murder capital of Britain, worse even than St Mary's Mead. For a long time ITV has very helpfully staged dramatic reconstructions of these murders to provide us all with an insight into their causes, and the motives of their perpetrators. Unfortunately, the residents of this village, like many others, are entirely white. Naturally this has been reflected in the choice of actors appearing in these reconstructions.

The producer of this series was recently unwise enough to comment that his programme was “the last bastion of Englishness” and that it “wouldn’t work” with racial diversity. For this obvious truth he was suspended since he appeared to be suggesting that this was the reason for its appeal to an overwhelmingly white audience. It would seem that ethnic minorities are not much interested in watching these murder reconstructions, since none of their own kind ever appear in them.

The liberal elite which runs this country has many obsessions but the greatest of them all is on the subject of race. Liberals are consumed with a mind numbing guilt about being white, a masochistic trait which other races most definitely do not share. For this reason, when seen through the distorted prism of political correctness, blacks can do no wrong and whites can do no right, whenever conflict arises between the two. It thus follows that in the liberals’ view a multiracial society most be inherently morally superior to a white only society. This is why the last Labour government had a deliberate but unstated policy of encouraging ethnic immigration, regardless of the consequences for social cohesion.

Viewers can hardly have avoided noticing that virtually all drama programmes these days include a sprinkling of ethnic minority actors, often in scarcely credible situations. They are largely used in positive role models whereas the villains are mostly white. The unstated propaganda message here is to demonstrate how we are all supposedly dependent of non whites for the better functioning of our communities, and how natural and normal it is to live in a multiracial society.

The producer of Midsomer Murders was disciplined because he openly transgressed this unwritten code. However, he has provided a service to us all as his suspension confirms that TV bosses have been deliberately using their drama productions as a means of social engineering, and as a vehicle for their politically correct vision of a multiracial society.

Cigarette & tobacco restrictions

2011-03-17T06:54:00.001-07:00

The government has recently issued proposals to curb further the display and marketing of tobacco products. This is the latest stage in a campaign to control tobacco which began in 1965 with the banning of cigarette adverts on TV. Questions have been raised as to whether the measures which have been taken cumulatively since then constitute an attack on individual freedom, and whether the final objective is the criminalisation of tobacco users.

Firstly, tobacco is clearly an addictive drug, and the inhalation of cigarette smoke day in day out by individuals shows a contempt for their own bodies, which the widespread practice of this deleterious activity does not nullify. Smoking also affects other people if they have to inhale recycled cigarette smoke, although the dangers from passive smoking have probably been greatly exaggerated. Nevertheless, smoking is an activity which goes back many centuries and has become part of our culture. Any attempt by the authorities to interfere with this freedom needs to be carefully thought through.

Many people justly complain that society is far too over regulated these days. The period when the advertising, sale and use of cigarettes was accepted as completely normal, is looked back to nostalgically by many as a more innocent and easy going age to which they would like to return. Although this is a tempting viewpoint it is no longer possible. Most people today would find it completely unacceptable to have to work or travel in an environment where smokers are present. Although of fairly recent origin, and very controversial, the same principles must apply to smoking in pubs. In these instances the rights of the public not to be affected by tobacco smoke must override the rights of smokers to smoke wherever they please.

Control over the sale, display and marketing of tobacco is however another matter. Since this is a perfectly legal product it could be argued that there should be no restrictions. Governments of all persuasions have been keen to see a reduction in the number of people who smoke, but the question must be asked whether this should really be any of their business. The easiest way of curbing consumption is by raising tobacco duty, but as tobacco is an addictive substance, this measure disproportionately impacts on the poor and it also encourages smuggling. It is however a very effective way of raising tax, thereby allowing other taxes to be kept lower than they would otherwise be. The protection of children is given as a reason to curb advertising but this is a complete red herring since children can see adults smoking all the time.

The government's proposals to place tobacco products "under the counter" and in plain packets are clearly a step too far down the road to an over regulated society. All restriction on cigarette advertising should be lifted as in a free society people should be allowed to make up their own mind on what they can legally purchase.

More Homosexual Privilege

2011-03-11T02:52:00.001-08:00

Over the past four decades or so we have moved from the criminalization of homosexuality to a position where the criticism of homosexuals can be deemed a "hate" crime. The promotion of "gay" rights has been a fundamental component of the cultural Marxist agenda to transform and subvert a once well ordered society. This blog attempts to explore the extent to which rights for homosexuals should override the rights of others, in particular Christians, who find the practice of homosexuality sinful.

This blog is not a defender of Christian belief, which to a significant extent is based on superstition. Nor does it share the view of Christians that the practice of homosexuality is in itself sinful. The Christian churches have a history of denouncing any overt interest in sex of any kind as encouraging lust and thus sinful. In the not so distant past this outlook condemned millions of normal people to sexual guilt, for the quite natural desire of finding another person physically attractive. The Christian churches also have a history of attempting to impose their views on this subject onto a wider society which does not share their faith. So it could be argued that the recent judicial decisions outlined below have given Christians a taste of their own medicine.

Two legal ruling relating to homosexuality and Christian belief have recently gained wide publicity. The first relates to the owners of a guest house who were fined for refusing a room to a homosexual couple. The second relates to a couple who were refused consent to adopt a child because of their expressed belief on the sinful nature of homosexuality. With regard to the guest house case it is unclear why the owners assumed that two men sharing a room together should be sexual partners. It is in any case none of their business, and potential guests have a right not to be quizzed on the matter. Ironically, in the pre permissive past, it was unmarried persons of the opposite sex who encountered problems with moralistic guest house owners. It could be argued that guest houses should comply with the law in the same way as hotel chains. However, this outlook demonstrates unacceptable inflexibility, since the guest house is the owners' home, and in a free society they should be free to decide whom they invite into it without having to give their reasons.

With regard to the adoption case, things have come to a pretty pass if couples are now to be subject to a test on their political beliefs before they can adopt a child. Such behaviour is the hallmark of the actions of totalitarian states, a position to which this country is now rapidly heading. Totalitarianism can be defined as centralized and dictatorial system of government which requires complete subservience by citizens to the demands of the state. This ruling demonstrates the extent to which ordinary people have been cowed and intimidated by the politically correct juggernaut which now controls us all.

Some Good News From Barnsley

2011-03-05T08:52:00.000-08:00

One swallow does not make a summer, and one by-election result is not necessarily a guide to the next general election, particularly when it is likely to be a long way off. Nevertheless, there is some good news from the Barnsley Central by-election.

The most encouraging feature is that for the first time in a Westminster election UKIP came second beating the Tories into third place. Moreover, the combined vote of the parties perceived as being to the right of the phoney Conservative Party received three times the Tory vote. Given the tribal nature of much party support this is a solid achievement. Another plus is the complete collapse of the Liberal Democrat vote. It is to be hoped that UKIP, or other minority right wing parties, will be the beneficiary of the protest vote which this discredited party has traditionally received.

UKIP has been seen as a party that does best when contesting Tory held seats. This is a viewpoint that will now need to be re-examined given that Barnsley is about as far from the Conservative heartlands as it is possible to be. It is to be hoped that the many Tory voters disillusioned with the liberal direction taken by the Conservatives under David Cameron will jump ship and start giving their vote to candidates which better represent their political viewpoint.

Feminism - some right wing thoughts

2011-03-01T01:57:00.000-08:00

Prompted by recently reading a book containing a collection of feminist articles published over the last forty years, some thought has been given to the nature of the feminist agenda. Feminism is treated with some considerable suspicion by those on the Right as it is a cornerstone of the cultural Marxist attempt to undermine the traditional structures of society as well as the demonization of men.
The new feminism started in the late 1960s, reached a peak in the mid 1980s and to some extent has waned since then, but it has not gone away. Some of the feminist demands were quite reasonable such as equal pay for equal work, or better child care facilities. Others are more dubious such as equal pay for work of "equal value", and demands for equal opportunity which very quickly morphed into demands for equality of outcome.

Feminists are aware that they form only a very small proportion of women, and many of the articles lamented this fact. But because they are backed by the liberal establishment they have an influence far exceeding their numerical strength. One striking feature running through the majority of articles is the sense of insecurity these women feel about themselves. They seem to suffer form a collective persecution complex which they then blame on "patriarchal" society which supposedly oppresses them.

Some of the articles made valid points about the behaviour of men, notably their predilection for aggression, belittling insults and even violence over relatively trivial issues, and their judging of women through the prism of their sexual appeal. It is to be hoped that this assessment does not cover the majority of men, but alas it is likely to include a sizeable minority, particularly younger men. In this respect men do need to get their house in order and try to become true gentlemen, a concept that is in danger of becoming obsolete in our society's increasingly macho vision of masculinity.

Of particular concern to the feminists are the issues of pornography, rape and domestic violence, which to some extent they consider to be intertwined. Pornography is a much misused word, which covers anything from the depiction of scantily clad women to the most demeaning and degrading of sexual images, little distinction being made by feminists (and some others) between the two extremes. Feminists hold the eccentric view that an appreciation of feminine physical beauty "objectifies" all women. No distinction is made either between the violent rape by a stranger and "date rape" where the two parties know one another and may already be intimate. On domestic violence the statistics show that a significant proportion of the perpetrators are women themselves. With regard to the latter two concerns women have to some extent themselves to blame by their poor choice of men. It is unfortunate that the more loutish men seem to have the least trouble in pulling women, too many of whom dismiss more considerate and sensitive men as wimps.

Judges v Politicians

2011-02-21T10:26:00.000-08:00

Two recent judicial decisions have raised alarm amongst Westminster politicians. The first is the decision of the European Court of Human Rights requiring British prisoners to be given the vote. The second is the decision of the recently created British Supreme Court that persons on the Sex Offenders Register should have the right to appeal against their continued inclusion on the register. It has taken politicians a long time to wake up to the anti-democratic agenda of the courts.

With regard to the prisoner voting issue, we know from the recent past that not all prisoners actually committed the offence for which they were convicted, that some prisoners should not be there because their offence does not warrant a prison sentence, and that some prisoners are there for actions which should not be criminal at all. With these caveats in place there can be no grounds whatsoever for allowing prisoners the vote. They should not be granted an input into the law making process, since they have shown contempt for the law by actions which in most cases are seriously criminal. In short these people are outlaws, and it is perfectly reasonable that they are treated as such.

On the matter of the Sex Offenders Register it is unclear why this is needed in the first place. It is a relatively recent creation and breaches the traditional principle that once a sentence has been served, the guilty have paid their debt to society. They should not have to continue paying it. We do not have registers for murderers, for violent offenders, for muggers or for burglars, all regarded by most people as serious or very serious offences.

The Sex Offenders Register includes those convicted of very serious offences such as the violent rape of a stranger, or the sexual molestation of children under the age of puberty, for which the perpetrators can rightly expect a long prison sentence when caught. It also includes people who should never have come before the courts, such as older youths having physical relations with a younger teenage girlfriend. Both categories are lumped together, and in some deranged minds are treated as equally wrong.

The reason we have a Sex Offenders Register is because, unlike other serious criminal offences, some sex crimes such as rape have been politicised, and others have become the focus of mass hysteria caused by the paedophile scare. Virtually everyone on the register is male and it is very difficult to believe that a register that included the same proportion of females would be tolerated. Sex crimes can change over time, for example until relatively recently a male engaging in what was quaintly termed a "gross indecency" with a fifteen year old girl committed no offence, but he did if it was with a seventeen year old youth. Now the positions have been reversed. It is difficult to understand why such harmless activity should be a matter for the courts, or the self righteous pontificating of zealous officialdom.

Multiculturalism - is it really dead?

2011-02-13T09:19:00.000-08:00

David Cameron has recently denounced the concept of "state multiculturalism" as practiced by the last Labour government. In one sense this is a brave move as normally anyone criticising this concept could be sure to be denounced as an odious "racist". by the vociferous and self-righteous PC brigade. It is a strange fact that if, for instance, the BNP raises legitimate concerns about this matter they are deemed to be "spreading hatred", but if David Cameron decides to speak out then he is being statesmanlike and responding to peoples' legitimate concerns.

David Cameron has only raised this subject because the British establishment is petrified that there might be another jihadist attack with heavy loss of life. Sadly, such an outrage is almost inevitable before too long given the large numbers of disaffected Muslin youths in the country. This number is being continually swelled as a result of arranged marriages from Pakistan a practice which, for the past fifty years, British governments have done nothing to stem.

David Cameron is certainly right to condemn the idiocy of encouraging separateness along lines of culture and religion as this clearly undermines social cohesion and national identity. But the cessation of this pernicious practice is not in itself going to end the reality that our society is gradually becoming fragmented along ethnic lines, since most ethic minorities are quite content to continue to identify with their own culture, as this is what they are most comfortable with.

The only way to restore social cohesion, as Enoch Powell identified decades ago, is to stop the inflow and encourage the outflow of those who are unable or unwilling to assimilate into our way of life. There is no other solution. Until we bite this bullet the tragedy of multiculturalism will continue to unfold. Multiculturalism is thus alive and kicking and will continue to be so for the foreseeable future.

Another Global Warming Winter

2010-12-19T09:52:00.000-08:00

Here we go again. Gatwick and Heathrow shut down, thousands of motorists stranded, schools closed, record low temperatures in Glasgow and the Midlands, many places experiencing their heaviest snowfalls, and so far the coldest December on record. Sounds familiar? Yes, another global warming winter is upon us.

During a heavy snowfall three winters ago global warming alarmist George Monbiot of the Guardian advised his children to make the most of such wintry weather because it was likely to be the last time they would experience it in their lifetime. We have now had four winters in succession noted for long periods of cold weather, heavy snowfalls and very low temperatures. Global warming zealots rightly point out that this is just weather, which can sometimes be extreme. However, when we had a succession of mild winters, they argued that this was "evidence" of "climate change" as the global warming hoax is now invariably described. Similar views were expressed about the higher than normal number who died in the heatwave of 2003, but less concern is shown about the much larger numbers who die from the consequences of cold weather.

The global warming alarmists repeatedly claim that the debate on global warming (caused by human activity) is over. The science is proven and only cranks and those with a vested interest in the oil industry are still in denial. In reality there is no scientific consensus on the matter. The supposed link between increased CO2 and temperature was first postulated in the late Victorian era. For over a century, scientists disregarded this theory, for the simple reason that there was no discernable change in temperature over that period, despite increasing amounts of CO2 entering the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels. It was only in the late 1980s that a highly vocal group of "experts" created the current alarm.

The motivation behind the global warming hoax is not scientific but political. It allows the anti capitalist Leftists to achieve their ends by other means, now that their economic theories have been largely discredited. As a consequence we have the recent global agreement in Cancun where guilt ridden western countries are committed to hand over billion of dollars annually to "developing" countries. The leaders of these nations must scarcely believe their good fortune that such a milch cow has been presented to them.

In Britain the new coalition government has agreed to a rigged domestic fuel market that will require huge rises in consumer's fuel bills. Vast numbers of useless wind turbines, at immense cost, are to be constructed, nobody apparently noticing how wonderfully still it can be in very cold weather. Most barmy of all is the requirement for coal power stations to install “carbon capture" facilities, which involves the madcap policy of storing their CO2 emissions underground, supposedly a "clean" solution. In fact CO2 is completely harmless, it is not a pollutant like sulphur dioxide, but is essential for life on earth.

More PC Madness

2010-12-11T10:31:00.000-08:00

Some recent news items demonstrate the extent to which Britain is now in thrall to the extremities of political correctness.

Nativity plays used to be occasions of innocence, enjoyed by parents and children alike. But not any more, as a consequence of the paranoia over paedophiles that has take such a grip over those in authority. One parent at a school in Leicestershire made it clear to the head that he intended to take photographs of his child's appearance in such a play, regardless of the school's policy on the matter. The school responded by calling in the police and the parent was threatened with a breach of the peace.

Another victim of the same hysteria is a group of middle aged and elderly lady volunteers who are responsible for the flower arrangements at Gloucester cathedral. Because they share the same toilet facilities as some choir boys, the cathedral authorities deemed it necessary that the lady volunteers should all undergo CRB checks. Five of the ladies quite rightly refused to comply with this gratuitously insulting requirement, and the cathedral has now dispensed with their services.

A teacher in Birmingham, showing a sense of civic responsibly, intervened in a dispute between two groups of children, which took place some distance away from her own school. In the heat of the moment, when she was attempting to separate the two factions, she described one group as "white trash". She was overheard and reported to the authorities, and has now been convicted of a "hate crime". It is not clear from the press report what the race of the teacher is, but it must be assumed she is non white, given that it is presumably not yet a criminal act to make disparaging comments (which is what occurred here) about other people of one's own race.

Until relatively recently all the above situations would have been considered by most normal people as being wholly unremarkable, and certainly not requiring the intervention of the law. It was assumed that people could be trusted to act responsibly in how they conducted themselves, and institutions had confidence that the chances of anything untoward occurring were so slim as not to give rise to any concern. Today a culture of suspicion is all pervasive, the authorities assuming that people must be acting from the basest of motives, however harmless their activities, unless they can provide hard evidence to the contrary. As a result we have lost our freedom and quite literally have become a police state, with the public informers and collaborators in their own oppression.

Mr Right Wing Is Back

2010-12-07T10:48:00.000-08:00

This is the first blog since the general election over six months ago, which resulted in the first peacetime coalition since the 1930s. It is hoped that future blogs will be issued more frequently.

The result of the election is of course very disappointing, but alas predicable, in that the old guard "major parties" still captured well over 90% of the votes, winning all but one of the English constituencies. No nationalist minded candidate managed to achieve higher than third place in any constituency. So there is plenty of work still to do if a breakthrough is to be achieved before further damage is done to the fabric of our country.

The main concern of the coalition will be to eliminate, or at least severely reduce, the huge fiscal deficit before the next general election. Ministers have the difficult task of achieving this without increasing unemployment or stifling economic growth. In the wider sphere, two ministers have shown some promise, Iain Duncan Smith with his ideas for social security reform, and Eric Pickles with his measures against unnecessary bureaucracy.

Some thought has been given to changing the title of the blog on the grounds that it is seriously uncool and unfashionable in today's modern and "progressive" world. After some reflection this viewpoint has been rejected since the current title quickly tells anyone interested what they might expect. There should be no shame in being right wing - it is invariably just common sense in a mixed up, shook up, world.

The blog will continue to focus mainly on the dangers, stupidity and malignity of contemporary politically correct orthodoxies. In no particular order these include, the surrender of national sovereignty to supranational bodies (such as the European Union & European Court of Human Rights), the attack on the traditional family, the madness of multiculturalism and open ended immigration, the global warming hoax, the demonization and infantilization of men, the indiscipline and lack of academic rigour in schools, the nefarious equality and diversity agenda, the paedophile hysteria and the campaign of degradation and destruction of tradition culture and notions of beauty.

General Election 2010 - Some thoughts

2010-05-03T16:20:00.000-07:00

We are now close to polling day in the British general election. The campaign has been notable for the three party leader debates, the subsequent "Cleggmania" and Gordon Brown's gaffe in Rochdale dubbed by the media as "bigotgate". The three main parties have predictably failed to properly address the main issues, namely our national subservience to the European Union, open ended mass immigration, family breakdown and the failed education system exacerbated by lack of discipline both in the home and at school.

All the main parties are committed to a suffocating political correctness, promote the ludicrous global warming hoax and consider that managerialism is a substitute for political principle. None of them are worth voting for, yet most regrettably well over 90% of the voting electorate will do so on Thursday.

Both the Labour and Liberal Democrat parties are ideologically committed to cultural Marxism, and at least it can be said that these two parties are openly and honestly sailing under their true colours. The Conservative Party under David Cameron has now also been captured by the cultural Marxists, but a large proportion of those considering voting for it appear to be under the delusional belief that it is still "right-wing", in comparison with the other main parties. In reality there is virtually no meaningful difference between any of them.

It is crucially important in this election that any voter who values British traditions, independence and values does not vote for the bogus and traitorous Conservative Party. This will only reinforce David Cameron's view that the party needs to "modernise", which is code for surrendering to the political correctness and social engineering which is gradually wrecking our social fabric.

There are a number of smaller parties that are committed to withdrawing from the European Union, to ending the madness of multiculturalism and mass immigration, to supporting marriage and family values, to restoring the education system and to upholding our national traditions. These parties should be supported in the vote on Thursday. But above all the best advice is to NOT vote Conservative.

General Election 2010

2010-04-19T16:24:00.000-07:00

The British general election has finally been called for 6th May. On present evidence the three major political parties (plus the sham "nationalist" parties of Wales and Scotland) will be fighting on a near identical political platform, whilst avoiding any meaningful discussion, let alone providing solutions, to the pressing problems which face the country. The current polling evidence suggests that over 90% of those casting a vote will give it to these discredited parties, despite the opportunity to vote for smaller parties which are offering a radical opportunity to deliver much needed change in the right direction. This is most disheartening at it will mean that five more years will be wasted during which time problems will increase thus making the task of addressing them more difficult and painful.

So what are the important issues which the major political parties are failing to address? Firstly, and most importantly, there is the issue of our national subordination to the European Union, which means that we are no longer in control of our own affairs. All the major parties are in favour of remaining in the EU, the Labour and Liberal Democrats enthusiastically so. Although the Conservatives claim to be more sceptical, in practice there is little they can, or will, do to restore our national sovereignty and democracy.

A second issue is immigration. There has been some very slight progress on this as the major parties have very generously conceded that the electorate may now discuss this matter without necessarily being branded as "racist". This is in contrast to the pact the parties signed in earlier elections, with the former racial equality commission, not to discuss the subject at all as it was considered to be too divisive. It is crystal clear that none of the major parties will do anything to halt the current open ended immigration which is destroying the cohesion of communities, holding down the wages of the lowest paid, and undermining our national character, culture and identity.

A third issue is education. Both Labour and the Liberal Democrats are committed to maintaining the current system of top down, centrally controlled, comprehensive education. This places a huge emphasis on politically correct indoctrination, social engineering and egalitarianism, at the expense of a sound and rigorous education which values and supports our cultural traditions and heritage. The Tories are proposing more local parental control, which is to be welcomed. However, they have still not properly bit the bullet of either reintroducing selective grammar schools or, preferably, moving to a voucher system which puts parents in the driving seat.

Finally, none of the major parties are addressing the issue of family breakdown in any meaningful way. This is caused by easy divorce and benefit support for never married single mothers. The Tories are proposing a derisory tax break for married couples. However this will make no distinction between those with, and those without, children. Ludicrously and insultingly it will include homosexual civil partnerships, but exclude those who are widowed with children.

Copenhagen Global Hot Air Summit

2009-12-24T14:26:00.000-08:00

Two items dominated the news last weekend. Firstly, the apparent failure of the Copenhagen Climate Change summit, and secondly the severe winter weather which closed down airports, motorways, schools and the Eurostar train service. The two events neatly juxtapose the absurdity of the Copenhagen gathering, based on what must be the greatest "scientific" hoax of all time.

Science is supposed to be based on evidence. In truth there is no evidence that man made global warming is occuring. There was a very slight increase in global tempoeratures in the final quarter of the 20th century. This followed a slight cooling in the previous quarter which in the 1970s prompted scientific "experts" to proclaim the start of a new ice age. During the first decade of the 21st century global temperatures have been stable, although there is no evidence yet of a cooling trend as some climate change sceptics have suggested. During the 20th century CO2 emissions steadily increased and the rate of increase also steadily increased. In the 21st century the rate of increase increased still further despite the Kyoto Protocol which was intended to curb the growth of CO2 emissions. Thus there is no correlation between man made CO2 emissions and global temperature. During the past century the former has grown significantly, the latter has fluctuated only very slightly. CO2 is only a trace gas in the atmosphere in quantities far to small to have any impact on global temperatures.

The global warming hoax is not scientifically driven but politically driven by a relatively small number of scientists with their own leftist agenda. They are aided and abetted by jounalists and political fellow travellers. The name of their game is political control and globalism. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union they accept that currently they are unlikely to achieve their ends by traditional economic means. But they realise that they can achieve them through a global green agenda for which the global warming hoax is a front. The rag bag army of "climate change" protestors at Copenhagen are the very same anti-capitalist demonstrators of a decade earlier.

The Copenhagen summit has been portrayed as an abject failure. In fact it delivered a major advance for the global warming hoaxers as the developed nations agreed to hand over a billion dollars per annum to "developing" countries to help them combat an non existent threat from non existent "climate change". The British Government was in the vanguard of this sell out, and needless to say was supported by the useless Conservative Party leadership.

The global warming monster is now seriously out of control. It will lead to a massive hike in energy costs to consumers, risk another global financial crisis as result of the corrupt carbon trading scam, and the introduction of the crazy, and potentially geologically dangerous "carbon capture", involving the storage underground of the harmless gas CO2 without which all plant life would die, and which all animals, including humans, are dependant upon.

More State Control

2009-10-16T10:32:00.001-07:00

Three recent events demonstrate the extent to which the State now intrudes into the private activity of its citizens. There is the dinner lady sacked for informing the parents whose daughter had been attacked by fellow pupils, the two policewomen who had an arrangement to look after one another's children, and the Foreign Office official who was convicted after an intemperate outburst at a gym. The pretext in the first two cases is child protection, the third is "hate" crime legislation. In the latter two cases state informers would have "shopped "the individuals to the authorities, the favoured method which the Communist East German Stasi used to secure a docile population.

The name of the game is State Control, where ordinary citizens cannot be trusted to organise their own lives without the say so of the State's apparatchiks. In each of the above cases the rules are rigidly enforced without any regard for common sense, leaving no room for discretion in the light of individual circumstances.

In the case of the dinner lady, she should be commended for bringing to the attention of the parents the deceit in the accident record of the school. It is to be hoped that she is successful in any unfair dismissal hearing.

With regard to the two policewomen the current arrangement places the care of their children with someone whom they trust. It is a purely private arrangement, which is the business of nobody else, and which avoids unnecessary expenses, excessive bureaucratic procedures and faith in an unknown carer about whom nothing may be known. The relevant Government Minister has now changed the guidelines on this kind of arrangement. However, this would not have happened without the media furore. The episode demonstrates the zeal with which state bureaucrats are expected to enforce regulations without any regard to fairness, common sense or individual circumstances.

The case of the Foreign Office official in the gym is most disturbing. The gym manager would have been perfectly entitled to eject and ban him after overhearing his disgusting language. However, the outburst took place in what he thought was an empty gym, and his opinions were not aimed at any individual. So there was no "victim" for this "crime".

Regrettably, a significant proportion of the British electorate still seems to be under the delusional belief that voting for the Conservatives or Liberal Democrats will sweep away this control freakery. This will not happen as all the major parties are committed to the same agenda, despite David Cameron's bogus and deceptive claims to the contrary.

State Control

2009-10-16T10:32:00.000-07:00

It is considered to be a fundamental principle of the British Justice system that the punishment should fit the crime. The current national paedophile hysteria has resulted in a significant undermining of this principle. A case in point is the 15 month prison sentence given to a 26 year old female music teacher for "sexual activities" with a 15 year old girl pupil. The majority of readers commenting on the Daily Mail website considered this sentence to be excessive. However, a significant minority supported it because of the breach of trust involved, that a man in a similar situation would have received an even longer sentence, and that children of this age are too emotionally immature to consent to sexual relations.

On the breach of trust this should be a matter between the school as employer and the employee. It should not be a matter for the State or its agencies since employers should be trusted to use their judgement, which should not be usurped by state bureaucrats and certainly not by the courts. In the event the school dismissed the teacher for breach of trust and this decision is proportionate to the offence given that the rules on this behaviour would have been well known beforehand. Nevertheless, in taking this decision the school has lost an otherwise excellent music teacher, which will be to the detriment of pupils.

The critics are undoubtedly right that a man in the same circumstances would have received a longer sentence. However, the issue is whether it is appropriate for the State to regulate the private and personal conduct of its citizens in this way and then impose a punitive and disproportionate sentence without any evidence of harm caused, as has happened here.

The question of whether younger teenagers are too emotionally immature to consent to sexual relations gets to the crux of the matter. They seem to have made their views on this fairly clear. According to recent surveys over a third of teenagers under the age of consent are "sexually active" amounting to some 500,000 individuals. Given that it takes two to tango, this potentially amounts to nearly one million "paedophiles" in our midst, as defined by some of the more hard line commentators. Regrettably their views coincide with the current orthodoxies of the criminal justice system and child protection industry. However, the authorities are happy to provide contraception to these same teenagers, and to compel them to attend explicit sex "education" lessons.

One of the more puzzling fictions promoted by the tabloid media is that sexual relations for those over 16 are a fulfilling, liberating recreational activity, but for teenagers below that age it becomes a traumatic experience, requiring extensive counselling. Many European countries have an age of consent of 14 (or below) and we should follow suit, enabling the authorities to concentrate on the protection of children, and allow young adults to take responsibility for their personal lives. As Helen Shapiro once said "Don't treat me like a child".

Afghanistan

2009-08-04T14:23:00.000-07:00

Since the start of British military operations in Afghanistan, nearly 200 service personnel have died. It is worth considering what it is that our armed forces have been sent there to achieve. According to Gordon Brown it is "to break that chain of terror that links the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan to the streets of Britain".

There is no doubt that the ideology of the Taliban, the enemy our forces are fighting, is one that is as oppressive and repulsive as it is possible to imagine. However, in this respect its aims are little different to the religious primitivism and suppression of human rights which already exists in Saudi Arabia, a regime that we have rewarded with billions of pounds worth of arms sales. When the Taliban controlled Afghanistan they harboured the Al-Qaeda jihadist training camps. It was clearly necessary to take these out after the terrorist attacks on America in September 2001. Unfortunately, and perhaps predictably, Al-Qaeda moved over the border into Pakistan, a country with far stronger links to Britain.

As a result of the air strikes against the training camps, Al- Qaeda is now probably beyond our reach, and our forces are left fighting an endless conflict with enemy "insurgents" who are often indistinguishable from civilians. Although we know how many of our service personnel have been killed we have no real idea how many Afghan civilians have died as a result of coalition activity, but we can be sure that it is very considerably higher than our own military losses.
Gordon Brown's stated reasons for continuing this unwinnable war are a mendacious deception. Whatever the outcome it will have no effect on the threat Britain faces from jihadist terrorism. All the men behind the recent terrorist plots in Britain, both successful and failed, were either born here or were legally resident here. More to the point, virtually all were here as a result of the immigration policies pursued and supported by all the main political parties. The numbers of such people are continuing to increase, mainly but not exclusively as a result of arranged marriages. Thus the sea in which these potential fifth columnists swim is continuing to expand, and the threat they pose increases accordingly. Consequently, the lives of British soldiers are being lost needlessly whilst the real threat to our security is being ignored.

Enoch Powell long ago warned that "we must be mad, literally mad "to allow open ended immigration on this scale from such a source. But even he failed to foresee the deadly nature of such crazy policies. The war in Afghanistan is the unintended but direct consequence of past and present British governments' reckless encouragement of third world immigration, since without it we would be immune to global jihadism.

Political Change

2009-07-12T10:42:00.000-07:00

As explained in a previous post the good news from the European Elections was the significant loss of support by the Conservative and Labour parties. Unfortunately, past experience has shown that such results are not necessarily an accurate guide to the outcome of the subsequent British parliamentary elections. For example, in the 2004 Euro elections UKIP achieved 15% of the vote, but this slumped dramatically to only about 2% in the 2005 general election. Alas, UKIP is seen by many as a single issue party.

If meaningful political change is to occur it is absolutely essential that the Conservative Party is destroyed as a political force. However, a significant proportion of the electorate still vote for this redundant and tainted brand, oblivious or indifferent to the fact that there is no longer anything remotely conservative about it. This tribal loyalty needs to be comprehensively undermined. We only need to look at how David Cameron and Boris Johnson recently chose to pander to those who openly parade their minority sexual identity, in a pathetic, most probably insincere, attempt to appear “progressive” and non-judgemental. It is to be hoped that actions such as this will drive home to the electorate the extent to which the Tory leadership is now pursuing a cultural Marxist agenda.

Labour support currently looks rather fragile. A significant number of its traditional voters appear to have woken up to the reality that its politically correct agenda is inimical to their interests and well being. Many are staying at home and others, in some areas, are turning to the BNP. The support for the latter appears to be more deep rooted than that of UKIP, as demonstrated in council by election results. UKIP attracts former Tory supporters; the BNP former Labour supporters. In this situation there would be some logic in the two parties forming a loose alliance, by agreeing not to stand in areas where the other has more appeal. However, this has been firmly rejected by the UKIP leadership, fearful of being seen to have any association with the “untouchable” BNP. This is unfortunate since both parties want to leave the European Union, support firm controls on immigration and advocate other important areas of reform - essential polices which the major parties continue to reject, despite their popularity with the electorate.

It is to be hoped that the genuine parties of the right, particularly UKIP, can settle their differences, end their internal squabbles, and work to bring down the politically correct cartel that has betrayed the interests of the British electorate for decades.

Architectural Philistines - An Update

2009-07-02T14:10:00.000-07:00

There is some good news on the architectural front, with the abandonment of the modernist housing scheme at Chelsea Barracks. The Prince of Wales’s intervention has borne fruit, and better still has provoked the ire of its designer Lord Rogers. In a Radio 4 interview he demanded a public inquiry into the constitutional validity of the Prince’s intervention in this project, and on wider architectural matters. He fulminated "this sort of situation is totally unconstitutional and should never happen again…..the Prince does not debate and in a democracy that is unacceptable and in fact is non-constitutional”.

The Prince’s intervention came just a few days before the planning application was due to be considered by the Council’s planning committee. There is no evidence that the Prince attempted to influence Council members or officers, and so he cannot be accused of any impropriety. The Prince has been expressing his views on architecture for more than a quarter of a century. Anyone with an interest in the subject knows where he stands, and he is happy to debate his opinions as shown by his recent speech to the Royal Institute of British Architects (ironically boycotted by some modernists). There is clearly nothing unconstitutional about the Prince commenting on the Chelsea Barrack’s scheme, or any other proposal about which he may have concerns. The overwhelming majority of those who commented on newspaper websites share the Prince’s viewpoint, as do a similar proportion of local residents.

If the Rogers scheme had come before the planning committee there is little doubt that it would have been approved. The opposition of local residents would have carried no weight since the proposal conformed to national and local planning policies on new housing development. So the "democratic" process, championed by Rogers supporters, would not have delivered what the majority clearly wanted. Although planning guidelines encourage “good” architectural design, there is no guidance, let alone agreement, on what constitutes “good” design, which to some degree remains subjective. As a result most larger scale housing developments are built in a modernist or post-modernist style since these are the only designs which most architects are willing, or capable, of producing. They also allow a developer to keep costs down, an important factor when a large part of the development must include affordable housing. It should be remembered that affordable housing does not deliver any additional housing.

It is to be hoped that the Quinlan Terry scheme which the Prince favours can overcome the cost obstacle caused by the requirement to provide affordable housing. For the future there should be national planning guidance which compels all new housing, and town centre development of any kind, to be constructed in traditional styles (other than in exceptional circumstances), omitting of course the affordable housing requirement which is nothing more than a racket. Only by this means can we remove the blight to our towns and cities caused by decades of Marxist inspired brutalist development.

European Union Elections 2009 – Some Thoughts

2009-06-13T10:52:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately, the results of the EU elections were somewhat disappointing to those hoping for a major breakthrough by the nationalist and patriotic parties. The most notable feature was the collapse of the Labour vote, below that of UKIP which came a distant second to the Tories.

No party can take strong satisfaction from the result. Clearly Labour was the biggest loser - its vote collapsed from an already low base to only 15%. Although the Tories had the highest vote by a wide margin, they nevertheless still only managed to gain the support of 28% of the electorate, the same as that of Michael Foot when he was trounced in the 1983 election. The Liberal Democrats are the traditional repository of protest votes, but they stayed in fourth place, the same as last time. Regrettably an extremist party had the biggest increased share of the vote - but this rise in support for the Greens did not result in any additional MEPs.

This leaves UKIP and the BNP. In both case their vote was roughly the same as in 2004, the BNP showing a slight increase to just over 6%. Luckily this resulted in the election of two MEPs, narrowly missing a further two. UKIP increased the party’s tally by one to 13, making a total of 15 British MEPs opposed to British EU membership out of a total of 69 (excluding Northern Ireland). It has to be faced that this is not the breakthrough that might have been hoped for given the general disillusionment with British politics. On the other hand it is not a setback. Coming second was a good physiological boost for UKIP, as having their first MEPs elected was for the BNP. The turnout was only 34% but this is little different from previous EU elections.

The Labour and Tory Parties have only themselves to blame for the rise in support for UKIP & the BNP, since both have treated their natural supporters with contempt. Both have encouraged wholly unsustainable levels of immigration, and have incrementally transferred powers from the British Parliament to the European Union and to an unelected judiciary. It is worth noting that in the Tory heartlands UKIP received two thirds of the Conservative vote, and in traditional Labour areas the BNP polled nearly half that of Labour. Back in 2001, when New Labour enjoyed its second landslide general election victory, the Labour/BNP ratio was as wide as twenty to one.

The most distasteful and disgraceful feature of the election was the orchestrated campaign of lies, insults, denigration and distortion targeted at the BNP, which totally undermined the British tradition of fair play. This misnamed “hope not hate” strategy, which clearly flopped, was organised by hard left Marxists. It is an odd fact that those supposedly protesting against “hate” seem to be the very people who most need to drive out hatred from themselves, if the attacks on the BNP leader are any guide.

Political Reform

2009-06-03T11:04:00.000-07:00

The MP expenses scandal has embolden the self styled “progressive” elements in British politics to advance their “modernising” agenda for political change, claiming that their ideas are the only way of restoring public confidence in the political system. So it is worth examining some of the proposals that are being floated.

Easily dismissed is the notion that an electorate should be empowered to demand the removal of an MP who misbehaves. This would have the effect of reducing still further the independence and judgement of MPs who would be forever looking over their shoulder fearful that they may have offended that section of their electorate most opposed to their political standpoint. In practice, this power would most likely be used by hard left activists to undermine MPs, particularly the very few who openly dissent from politically correct orthodoxies.

A second nonsensical idea is that there should be fixed term parliaments of four or five years. Under current arrangements a Government which loses a vote of confidence in parliament would have to hold a general election. In a fixed term parliament, in such a situation, the opposition would take over without any democratic mandate for change. Reducing the number of MPs is another dubious idea, since it would increase the proportion of MPs on the government payroll, making parliament less, not more, independent of government. Proportional representation has for a long time been put forward as a panacea for all conceivable political ills. However, it would have the result of entrenching in power a New Labour/Liberal Democrat coalition indefinitely, since the two parties are virtually indistinguishable in political outlook.

Nevertheless, political reform is essential. The first step is the restoration of parliamentary democracy. This can only be achieved by withdrawing from the European Union and restoring sovereignty to the Westminster parliament. Secondly, there should be an end to the judiciary (particularly foreign judges) usurping powers that more properly belong to the legislature. This would be achieved by withdrawing from the European Convention of Human Rights, and repealing the so called Human Rights Act. Human rights are important but they are best decided by a sovereign democratically accountable parliament that can judge the appropriate balance between individual and collective rights. A further necessary reform is the abolition of all regional government bodies, which have no popular support, and which meddle in the affairs of more democratically accountable authorities. There should also be an end to devolution for Scotland and Wales, which should be treated the same as England. Referendums should be held in both countries offering a choice between complete independence, or integration on the same basis as England. Finally, the hereditary peers should be restored to the House of Lords. They bring independence to the parliamentary system, and have been part of our constitution for centuries, which should not be lightly cast aside as a sacrifice to modish opinion.

Taken together these reforms will end the current malaise, reduce voter apathy and restore faith in the political system.

EU Elections 2009

2009-05-23T11:19:00.000-07:00

The EU elections will allow the public a golden opportunity to send a much needed message to the politically correct elite that their game is finally up. This can be done by voting for political parties committed to British withdrawal from the European Union, which is an essential pre-condition if much needed political reform and the restoration of national independence are to be achieved.

So where do the political parties stand in removing Britain from the stranglehold of this gargantuan bureaucracy? First and easiest to dismiss are the Liberal Democrats. They have always slavishly supported the EU and the extension of its powers. And this from a party that is supposedly progressive and moderate, trumpeting that it belongs in the centre ground of British politics. Next to be rejected are New Labour, with its unprincipled decision to deny the electorate a vote on the Lisbon Treaty. New Labour is indistinguishable from the Liberals in its unqualified support for the EU, and willingness to gold-plate EU directives.

The most cynical approach to Europe is taken by the Conservatives. They parade their supposedly euro-sceptic credentials, but when push comes to shove they always cravenly capitulate to any extension of EU power. It is absolutely essential, if meaningful political reform in Britain is to be achieved, that the traitorous Tory Party is destroyed. Turning to the Green Party, its current policy is to remain in the EU. Although protecting the environment is clearly important, surely no rational person could possibly vote for these obsessive global warming hoaxers, motivated by Green Marxism not scientific evidence.

This leaves two parties with any chance of winning seats, UKIP and the BNP. Both are committed to leaving the EU. With the continuing furore over MP’s expenses, and general disillusionment with the main political parties, it is to be hoped the electorate can finally cast aside their traditional tribal loyalties, come to their senses and vote for a political party that can rebuild our country.

Gently does it

2009-05-19T14:52:00.000-07:00

The extent to which Cultural Marxists will go to propagate their ideology should never be underestimated. As case in point is the way they have hijacked TV drama, particularly the output of the BBC, to help achieve their objectives. A good example of this is the new series of Inspector George Gently, about the criminal investigations of a detective inspector set in Northumberland in 1964.

The choice of year is a good one since it is at the threshold of the cultural revolution in which the then traditional conservative establishment was destroyed and supplanted by the politically correct regime of our time. This allows the BBC to focus on the “enlightened” attitudes of today, and to contrast them with the supposedly uncaring response of previous generations.

The first programme featured the murder of an elderly man, who ran a children’s home which closed in 1947. During investigations, evidence was uncovered that child sexual abuse had occurred at the home. It emerged that the murdered care home owner, and a local police inspector on the management board of the home, were together responsible for sexually abusing ten year old children. The local doctor was also implicated by covering up the injuries. The underlying message is that the authorities connived at this abuse and that the children were silenced because no one would believe them.

Despite the underlying propaganda message the programme is intelligently scripted and acted. However, there are a many serious flaws. The dialogue refers to “paedophiles” and “child abuse”. Both these terms are of relatively recent origin. In the period in which the programme was set the reference would have been to “child molesters” and “child molestation”, used by professionals and the public alike. Contrary to the impression given, child molestation was as serious a crime then as it is now. Although it is clearly the case that the murdered care home owner would have had the opportunity to molest young girls, it is stretching the bounds of credibility that he could have entered into an arrangement with the police inspector, whose preference was for young boys. The police Inspector (who is married) adopted the boy he was abusing, an unlikely scenario since boys soon become adults. The elderly care home owner tried to resume his relationship with the girl as an adult woman in a ludicrous manner – again highly unlikely as he is supposed to be a paedophile. There are a number of other actions which do not ring true.

The best protection against child abuse is support for marriage. Statistics show that children are more than 30 times more at risk in homes with a live-in boyfriend or step-father. This is one factor that today’s politically correct regime refuses to consider given their crass ideological support for the notion that families “come in all shapes and sizes” - code for feckless single mothers with a succession of deadbeat boyfriends. In 1964 support for marriage was very strong and there was far less child abuse.

Architectural Philistines

2009-05-01T15:22:00.000-07:00

The Prince of Wales has raised a new architectural controversy over a large scale housing development at Chelsea Barracks. He has written to the site’s owner, the Emir of Quatar, expressing his concerns over the modernist design of architect Richard Rogers, considering it to be “unsympathetic” and “unsuitable” for the area. The Prince prefers an alternative scheme put forward by the traditional architect Quinlan Terry. Supporters of the Roger’s design claim that the Prince is using his privileged position in order to circumvent the normal planning process.

Sir John Sorrell, chairman of the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE), the advisory body to the Government on building design, "applauds the strength and overarching principles of the scheme and the high quality design of the individual blocks and fully supports the planning application". In contrast, the London Assembly member for the area, Kit Malthouse denounces the Rogers design as "urban vandalism…the pavilions of steel and glass would not look out of place in Frankfurt or Shanghai, but in the heart of Chelsea they are monstrous”.

It could be argued that the Emir should be allowed to enjoy the right to build a housing scheme in whatever style he pleases, since it is his own land. Such a right existed until planning controls were introduced in the immediate post war years. This earlier freedom consistently produced housing that was aesthetically pleasing, whereas under planning controls the results have mostly been dire.

The Prince may encounter problems in trying to get the Quinlan Terry design adopted. Firstly, the Rogers scheme has been fully worked up and costed, with detailed plans. Moreover, large fees would have been incurred, which will be lost if there is a change of architect. In contrast, the Terry proposal seems to be based on sketches, and a lot more work appears necessary before it can come before the planning committee. Another problem is that residential schemes in London are required to include 50% “affordable housing”. This seriously increases costs for the developer, and reduces the sale value of the remaining market housing. So costs have to be kept down which explains in part the tower blocks of the Rogers design. In comparison, the Terry design looks rather grandiose, and may well be unviable given the affordable housing hurdle.

Nevertheless, the Prince is clearly right. The Rogers scheme is sheer philistinism, just like rest of the bland characterless modernist output of recent decades. The time is long overdue for the slavish supporters of this rubbish, such as the egregious CABE chairman, to be removed from their positions of influence.

Gutter Politics

2009-04-16T15:40:00.000-07:00

One of the more enduring delusions of our time, particularly amongst the young, is the notion that people with left wing views are inherently more virtuous than those who hold right wing opinions. It is assumed that Leftists are self evidently “progressive” or “enlightened” whereas those on the Right must by definition be “reactionary” or “bigoted”. No amount of evidence to the contrary ever seems to dispel this ideological fantasy.

This is the context in which we should consider the e-mails in which a close aide to the Prime Minister proposed the creation of a web blog to smear senior Tories with unfounded allegations. Many commentators have contrasted the often touted “moral crusade” which is supposed to drive the Labour Party, with the sordid reality of sinking to the level of the gutter in an attempt to cling to power. Some have claimed that the latest revelations will finally bring down the liberal establishment house of cards.

Alas, such hopes may be a little premature. Currently Labour has about a 30% level of support in the polls. Although in recent decades political allegiance has become more fluid than in the 1950s or 1960s, politics nevertheless still remains largely tribal. Large swathes of voters still believe that the Labour Party represents the interests of ordinary working people. In fact it ceased to do so quite so time ago. Economically, what New Labour now represents is the interests of global capitalism, a cornerstone of which is the free movement of workers across national boundaries. This allows the wages of working people in developed countries such a Britain to be kept artificially low, as supply outstrips demand. Which is why Gordon Brown’s slogan “British jobs for British workers” is so completely hollow.

On social policy, Labour long ago also abandoned supporting ordinary working families. In addition to the destruction of communities through open ended immigration, it has systematically campaigned to weaken family cohesion, by undermining marriage and promoting single parenthood. It has removed effective discipline in schools, under the guise of protecting children. It has transferred power from an elected parliament to an unaccountable European super-state. It has put the interests of sexual and racial minorities above that of indigenous families. It has promoted bogus scams such as “global warming” and "diversity" above real threats such as community fragmentation and family breakdown.

One of the consequences of the belief in left wing virtue is that the Tories, in a desperate and pathetic attempt to appear cool and modern, are now almost indistinguishable from New Labour. David Cameron’s touchy-feely values are little different to those of Ken Livingstone’s “loony left” GLC of the 1980s. This convergence of policies, and loss of power to the European Union, explains why politicians resort to personal invective, since there is little else left to debate. The British public need to wake up to this state of affairs and start voting for a political party that genuinely represents their views and interests.

Liberal Establishment Jitters

2009-02-28T10:45:00.000-08:00

The recent local election win of the BNP in Sevenoaks seems to have spooked the politically correct establishment which controls our country. It was headline news in the Independent which also carried a double page spread demonising and distorting this “far right” party. The concern of the newspaper at this turn of events was predictable, since it is a shameless and open cheerleader for Cultural Marxism. What is more interesting is the reaction of two well known columnists at the Daily Mail, Peter Hitchens and Melanie Phillips.

Hitchens and Phillips are a curious pair, they espouse views clearly well to the right of anything today’s Conservative Party would ever consider adopting. In fact, on most cultural and social issues, there is very little that separates their views from official BNP policy. However, in recent articles, in response to the Sevenoaks result, both have denounced the BNP in the same unequivocal terms as those of the Marxists. There has been some speculation as to why this should be. Some have suggested that they are a harmless “safety valve”, licensed by the politically correct establishment to offer dissenting views to dissipate the frustrations of the more conservatively inclined members of the electorate, who might otherwise be tempted to take more direct political action. Others consider that if they openly supported the BNP they would be sacked from their lucrative and influential posts and banned from BBC appearances, since they would be in breach of an NUJ journalistic code to always show the BNP in a hostile light.

Whatever the reasons, they both appear to have suffered a severe jolt to their credibility, if the comments of readers on the Daily Mail website are any guide. The overwhelming majority of readers were hostile to their denunciation of the BNP, considering it to be hypocritical and out of tune with the emerging public mood. Evidence of this changing attitude is the consistent showing of the BNP in other recent local by-elections, were they regularly achieved upwards of 20% of the vote. The Daily Mail readers stressed the point that the three main parties are now virtually indistinguishable from one another, since all peddle the same politically correct line. Thus people are driven to support the BNP because they are the only party listening to peoples' concerns. Both columnists appear unrealistic about the alternatives to the BNP. Hitchens believes that the current Tory Party will self destruct, resulting in a new “genuine” Conservative Party arising phoenix like from the ashes and sweeping to victory. Melanie Phillips is less specific, presumably thinking that the Tories will eventually come to their senses, prompted by articles such as her own.

The Establishment is now very concerned that the BNP will win a seat in the forthcoming European election, carried out under proportional voting. Under this system everyone has the opportunity to vote BNP, and with the apparent collapse in support for UKIP, it is by no means inconceivable that a BNP MEP could be elected.

Good and bad offence

2009-02-14T10:28:00.000-08:00

There has been quite a furore over the comments of Carol Thatcher who in a private conversation in a BBC hospitality suite described a black tennis player as a “golliwog”. It is claimed that this remark caused great offence to her colleagues and she was reported to the BBC management who demanded that she apologise. Miss Thatcher regretted any offence caused but said that the comments were jocular and she refused to apologise further. The BBC did not consider her apology to be sufficiently fulsome and she was sacked from the programme. This incident highlights the extent to which cultural Marxists will go to impose their agenda on the British people.

It is clearly the case that the use of the word golliwog can be offensive when used to describe black people. The word is now somewhat dated, and historically its only pejorative use was likely to have been in the school playground, since adults given to this kind of abusive and insulting language tend to use stronger epithets. Until this incident its use, even by children, would have been much diminished since golliwogs have now been all but airbrushed from our national consciousness. However, in Carol Thatcher’s early childhood, during the late 1950s, golliwogs were almost as commonplace in children’s bedrooms as teddy bears. All Robertson jam jars has a paper golliwog which millions of children collected to obtain an enamel golliwog badge. Golliwogs also appeared prominently in Enid Blyton’s Noddy books, read by virtually every child at this time.

Very few people, adults and children alike, would then have regarded golliwogs as anything other than completely innocuous. In the same way, millions of them watched the BBC’s Black and White Minstrel Show, considered wholesome and harmless entertainment, except by teenagers who rejected it as hopelessly and irredeemably “square”. However, cultural Marxists had other ideas, so under increasing pressure the BBC was forced to drop the Minstrels Show, the Noddy stories were posthumously rewritten, Robertsons dropped the golly from their jars, and the police warned shop owners that they faced “hate crime” charges if they displayed golliwogs in their windows.

One of the people alleged to have been offended by Carol Thatcher was a well known “comedienne” appearing with her on the TV show. She is one of a number of so called “alternative comedians” who arrived on our screens in the 1980s and have been omnipresent ever since. They have a number of characteristics - they are completely unfunny, they are nauseatingly self righteous and politically correct, they are uncouth and they viciously lampoon the traditional values of the middle classes. It is of course completely pointless to complain to the BBC about the offence they cause, since it will be wholly disregarded. The BBC, in the vanguard of the Cultural Marxist revolution, considers some kinds of offence to be good and other kinds of offence, such as Miss Thatcher’s, to be bad, according to its warped and subversive political outlook.

British Jobs for British Workers

2009-02-05T12:57:00.000-08:00

A recent interesting and welcome development has been the series of wildcat strikes throughout the country in support of workers at the Lindsey oil refinery in Lincolnshire who, as a result of an EU Court ruling, are prevented from applying for work on a contract that has been awarded to an Italian company which has brought in its own workers from Italy and Portugal. Many placards carried the slogan “British Jobs for British Workers” quoting from Gordon Brown’s conference speech.

The strikers have been condemned by the Business Secretary Lord Mandleson for being “protectionist” and others have hinted that their motives might be “xenophobic”. It is an article of faith amongst our ruling class that the free trade in goods, services and workers is always beneficial. It is certainly true that British consumers have gained from free trade in goods, as items such as electricals and clothing are far cheaper now than when they were largely manufactured in Britain. However, there can also be a downside as countries, instead of investing in a broad range of industries, concentrate on those sectors in which they have the maximum relative advantage. During the good times this presents few problems, but in a downturn countries can become seriously exposed as Ireland and Iceland have recently discovered.

However, one area in which free trade is undisputedly bad is the free movement of workers, and it is unclear what benefits Britain gains from this practice. A large proportion of the workers coming to Britain will be filling low paid jobs, which it is falsely claimed British people refuse to do. It is false because the immigrant workers are not evenly distributed throughout the country but are heavily concentrated in certain areas. In the areas with relatively few immigrants British born workers still do the low paid jobs as they always have done. In areas with a large immigrant workforce already low wages are kept lower than they would otherwise be, and many indigenous Britons conclude that it is more profitable to live on benefits than to seek work. The only beneficiaries from this free movement of workers are employers who can keep wages low.

Conversely, if the immigrants are skilled, their presence diminishes the incentive of employers to improve the skills base of British workers, and if they come from the third world those countries’ own skills base will be damaged disproportionately. Here again the benefits accrue to employers who are saved the costs of training their workers. If the skilled workers are British, and they move abroad to work we, as a country, lose their skills. There should of course be no Iron Curtain around Britain, but the benefits are confined to the expatriate workers who earn more money by working overseas. For all these reasons, encouraging the international movement of labour is bad, particularly for the most vulnerable, and that ignores the costs in social cohesion and extra pressure on health services, housing and education.

Homosexual Privilege

2009-01-31T04:08:00.000-08:00

Nothing illustrates the capture of our society by Cultural Marxists more than the issue of homosexuality. Until 1967 homosexual relations between men were illegal. The justification for decriminalization was the removal of the threat of blackmail and the belief that the state had no business in policing the sexual behaviour of its adult citizens. All those who spoke in favour of this reform in parliament made clear their repugnance at the practice of homosexuality, and many MPs opposed this change. For many years governments were reluctant to act on the recommendation of the 1957 Wolfenden Report to decriminalize homosexual relations between adult males because of the perceived public hostility.

The issue has been brought into focus recently by the decision of Edinburgh’s social services to remove two young children from their grandparents and place them for adoption with two homosexual men. The reasons given are that the grandparents, at 59 and 46, are too old, and both suffer from health problems, namely angina and diabetes. Social services rejected several heterosexual couples, declaring that the two homosexual men would provide a caring and loving home for the children. Current legislation makes no distinction between homosexual and heterosexual adopters, and so similar decisions could be taken by any local authority regardless of political control. This decision raises two important issues, the rights of grandparents and other close kin on adoption, and the suitability of homosexuals to adopt.

It should be said that the grandparents do not appear to have been wholly successful in their child rearing. The mother of the children is a 26 year old former heroin addict now on methadone. The children are from two different fathers, one committed suicide and the other has abandoned his child. Nevertheless, the fecklessness and stupidity of the mother is not something that the grandparents can necessarily be blamed for, given that the full circumstances are not known. The reasons given by social services for not allowing the grandparents to adopt are clearly bogus, since many couples of this age and with health problems make good parents. There should be a strong presumption that grandparents, and other close kin, should adopt, unless there are very clear reasons to the contrary. In the current case the children have bonded with the grandparents, and allowing them to adopt would also enable the mother to remain in contact and perhaps resume her parenting if she overcomes her addiction.

It is clear that social services have chosen these two homosexual men for Cultural Marxist ideological reasons, and probably also to meet government targets for adoption by homosexual couples. During consultations, over 90% of respondents opposed homosexual adoption, and a similar proportion of those commenting on newspaper websites share this view. A future government should legislate to ensure that all adoptions are to married heterosexual couples as the evidence overwhelmingly shows that they will provide the best guarantee of stability and security, as well a being consistent with what nature intended namely providing a mother and father.

Helen Suzman

2009-01-17T06:20:00.000-08:00

The veteran anti apartheid campaigner Helen Suzman died recently. The British media and political class united to praise her opposition to the apartheid system. The Guardian considers that she “single-handedly carried the anti-racism banner in South Africa’s apartheid parliament, her star the brightest in the liberal firmament”. Peter Hain, the Labour MP who led a number of anti-apartheid campaigns in Britain, declared that Mrs Suzman “kept up her calls of protest when all others had been extinguished…..she was a doughty champion of human rights and a thorn in the side of the apartheid government in some of the most difficult, darkest times”. Is this unanimity of opinion justified, or are there rarely voiced arguments on the other side?

Between 1961 and 1974 she was the sole Progressive Party MP, opposed to the apartheid system.The other 164 MPs supported apartheid. In addition she was the only woman MP, so in fairness she must have demonstrated considerable courage in standing up for what she believed, in this clearly hostile environment. During this time voting was confined to the white electorate and the large black majority was completely disfranchised. However, historically this situation was no different to the rest of sub Saharan Africa, which until the 1960s had been almost wholly under European colonial rule.

Clearly disenfranchising people on the basis of race cannot be endorsed uncritically, since it gives the vote to semi literate white louts, but denies it to a professional lawyer such as Nelson Mandela. However, such a viewpoint in the South African situation would be crassly simplistic, since the overwhelming majority of whites were opposed to extending voting rights to the black population because they feared the consequences, namely the destruction and impovershiment of the country which they and their ancestors had created. It is very easy for armchair liberals several thousand miles away to denounce the evils of apartheid, safe in the knowledge that they will remain unaffected by what they advocate.

The consequences of majority rule in Black African countries are clear for all to see, the most glaring example being Zimbabwe, now a collapsed state but which under white rule was the most prosperous and crime free in Africa. Since the end of apartheid South Africa has become the murder, rape and robbery capital of the world. Whites are leaving in record numbers. Mrs Suzman represented the very prosperous Houghton constituency in Johannesburg. It now has to be policed and extensively patrolled by private security firms, paid at great expense by the local residents whose movements are now severely constrained, following a spate of shootings in the area. The local electorate, which idealistically kept re-electing Mrs Suzman, has seen its utopian dream come true.

Baby P

2008-12-30T12:32:00.000-08:00

The nation was shocked by the circumstances surrounding the death of the 17 month old known as Baby P. He was killed by his mother, her boyfriend and lodger, and had been visited innumerable times by social workers. Much of the press attention has focussed on the performance of Haringey Council, in particular the head of children’s services, who has since been dismissed. Clearly the performance of the Council is unacceptable, but social workers, particularly in this part of London, have a heavy caseload, and it is inevitable that mistakes will sometimes occur. It should be remembered that the baby was killed by those found guilty of the crime. It is quite impossible for any council to prevent a similar tragedy again, since behaviour which cannot be predicted is by definition ultimately outside the control of social workers despite their best endeavours.

Nevertheless, this case does raise serious issues relating to the upbringing of children and the role of the state and its agencies. These concern the power of the state to remove children from the parental home. Unfortunately, there will be occasions when it will be necessary to intervene, as should have happened in the case of Baby P. However, this is very much the exception. What is more disturbing is the default position of many social workers to remove children from an established family when there is no real threat. As a result of the Baby P furore it is almost inevitable that Councils will err very much on the side of intervention in the future to protect themselves from criticism. There is plenty of anecdotal evidence that many miscarriages of justice have occurred through unnecessary intervention, and this has been made much easier through the secrecy surrounding Family Courts, which appears to be based more on protecting the reputations of social workers than the privacy of children and families. The perversity and injustice of the system is highlighted by the recent case of a grandfather given a one year prison sentence for making contact with his grandchild. It is to the credit of Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, that he has agreed to the lifting of reporting restrictions on Family Court proceedings from next year.

Another factor that should be noted in the Baby P case is the never married single parent status of the mother. Although many single mothers bring up children creditably under difficult circumstances, nevertheless the statistics show that the life chances of such children are significantly worse than those brought up by married couples. To end the cycle of dependency arising from single parenthood, there should be a return to the system operated until the early 1970s whereby such children were taken from the mother and adopted by a married couple. Adoption rates have fallen from 20,000 a year during this period to under 5,000 in recent years. A Government drive to significantly increase the number of adoptions would be the best way to guarantee an improvement in child protection.

BBC in the sewer

2008-12-17T10:56:00.000-08:00

Nothing exemplifies the deterioration of our society more than the transformation of the BBC from a highly respected British institution into its current position as national cheerleader for political correctness spiced with large helpings of chav degeneracy. An example of the latter is the self indulgent behaviour of two of its ludicrously overpaid presenters who left an obscene message on the voicemail of the Fawlty Towers actor Andrew Sachs. A clearly half witted senior manager approved this material as suitable for broadcasting. Fortunately, the manager and one of the presenters have resigned, and the other presenter suspended for three months, without pay. Over 30,000 members of the public complained to the BBC about this tasteless prank.

The reason that this material could be broadcast is because the BBC now has an absolute contempt for what until recently the overwhelming majority of viewers considered were civilised values and good taste. The BBC has been in the vanguard of undermining such values and replacing them with a diet of crude and uncouth trash under the delusional belief that it is progressive and cutting edge. In reality it is invariably puerile and embarrassing, and needless to say completely unfunny, unlike the many excellent sitcoms such as Fawlty Towers, which the BBC once produced with dependable regularity. One interesting fact which emerged from this episode was that most people over 30 found this broadcast objectionable, whereas those under 30 were puzzled what all the fuss was about. However, younger people eventually mature, and then see this kind rubbish for what it really is.

This incident has also reignited a debate about the licence fee. If the BBC had continued to produce the quality product it was once renowned for then the current licence fee would be very cheap. Alas those days have long gone, the majority of BBC programme are now wholly indistinguishable from those of the commercial broadcasters. The BBC still continues to produce some excellent programmes such as costume dramas, but even here political correctness has crept in with the recent historically incorrect casting of a black actress in a Dickens drama.

With the advent of new technology such as the BBC iPlayer which allows recently broadcast programmes to be legally viewed on a laptop without paying the licence fee, the definition of what constitutes a TV receiver has widened to such an extent that effective enforcement now looks impossible. In the circumstances, thought should be given to funding public broadcasting directly through an exchequer grant. This would be confined to Radios 3 & 4 and quality TV programmes that genuinely educate, inform and entertain, in keeping with the vision of the BBC’s first Director-General Lord Reith.

European Arrest Warrant

2008-10-13T16:03:00.000-07:00

Leftist totalitarianism and European Union aggrandizement have malignantly come together in the recent case of Dr Gerald Toben who has been arrested under the European Arrest Warrant (EAW). Dr Toben is an Australian citizen born in Germany. He was detained at Heathrow Airport whilst in transit between Canada and the Middle East. The EAW was issued by the German authorities accusing Dr Toben of publishing "holocaust denial" views on his website. His arrest raises important issues of state power and freedom of speech in Britain.

Under British law "holocaust denial" is not specifically a criminal offence as it is in Germany. However, the politically correct establishment has incrementally been pursuing a policy of curbing freedom of speech by the expansion of so called "hate crimes". These began with the outlawing of racial hatred, but have now been extended to include other categories including the "incitement to religious hatred".

Many commentators, opposed to this particular arrest, suggest that this extradition must, or should, fail since "holocaust denial "is not itself an offence in Britain. However, in taking this view they may be a little behind the times, since emerging politically correct thinking now appears to assume that denying the holocaust is, ipso facto, inciting religious hatred because of the offensiveness inherent in expressing such views, considered by many to be extreme.

So in other words we may have acquired a "holocaust denial" law by default without any debate in Parliament on the implications. If this EAW is confirmed at the forthcoming magistrate's court hearing, it could pave the way for the future extradition or prosecution of British citizens for holocaust denial.

Little Louts - A correction

2008-09-07T10:07:00.000-07:00

This blog previously referred to a young mother in Hull who was served with a fixed penalty of £75 from litter enforcement officers after her four year old daughter dropped a piece of sausage roll. This was based on media reports of the incident which now appear to be incorrect. Instead the enforcement action was taken because it was claimed the mother dropped the paper bag that contained the sausage roll. The mother denied this, claiming that it was only the sausage roll that was dropped. Magistrates have accepted the mother's version of events and dismissed the case brought by Hull City Council.

Clearly it would be difficult to claim that a sausage roll is litter, particularly as the one in question was quickly eaten by pigeons. Nevertheless, the principle behind the Council's action is sound in that it sends out a strong signal that littering is anti-social and that it will not be tolerated. It is to be hoped that other Councils follow the example of Hull on this, and not just against young mums, but against groups of louts who think littering is "cool" and anti-authority.

Up the Amazon

2008-07-20T14:20:00.000-07:00

One of the more positive developments of recent years is that ordinary people have been given a voice to express themselves to a wider society, courtesy of the internet. One example is newspapers, where the comments from readers are often more interesting than the article that prompted them. Although moderated, the comments are not censored to the extent that the articles themselves are, which allows a much greater honesty in the expression of views. This openness has spilt over into the world of retailing. Amazon, probably the largest internet retailer, invites purchasers to comment on their products, and the reviews of popular music albums make particular interesting reading.

Traditionally, the only source of reviews has been the music press, now much reduced. During the golden period of popular music, from the mid sixties to the mid seventies, there were four music weeklies, New Musical Express, Melody Maker, Sounds and Record Mirror. Only the first now survives. Melody Maker in particular was an intelligent read which provided enormous encouragement to the amazingly gifted rock bands and artists of this period. Unfortunately, with the advent of the punk aberration, the music press changed their emphasis from supporting musical quality to promoting whatever happened to be fashionable, regardless of musical or artistic merit. Thus the progressive bands of the early seventies were dismissed as "dinosaurs", and talentless punk, new wave, and new romantic bands were hyped for their "supposed "energy" and sometimes "originality". As a result the quality of the music began to deteriorate, and in time the sales of the music weeklies collapsed. For example, Melody Maker dropped from 300,000 in the early seventies to less than 30,000 when it eventually folded.

This syndrome particularly affected album reviews, where iconoclastic reviewers took pleasure in destroying the reputation of the supposedly "dinosaur" bands. One group that was subject to a particular vitriolic campaign of denigration was the immensely talented band Genesis. Despite this vituperation Genesis, year after year, continued to top the Melody Maker annual readers' poll for best band. By insulting their readership, the music weeklies have only themselves to blame for their demise.

The Amazon reviews provide a refreshing change to the cynicism of the music press. Reading the reviews of favourite albums it is gratifying to discover and share the enthusiasm of ordinary people, with no agenda to pursue other than the honesty of their views, and their appreciation and understanding of good music.

President Mugabe

2008-07-11T05:12:00.000-07:00

Robert Mugabe has recently been re-elected as the president of Zimbabwe. He was the only candidate in the ballot as his opponent withdrew after widespread intimidation and violence carried out by supporters of Zanu-PF, the governing party led by Mugabe. The British political establishment is wringing its hands on what to do about him. Unfortunately, it is suffering from a serious case of amnesia, since the liberal political class handed Mugabe power in the first place. And it was done enthusiastically, Peter Hain, the former Labour cabinet minister, was "delighted" when Mugabe came to power in 1980, a view widely shared by those of his kind at the time.

It should be remembered that in the mid 1960's Zimbabwe (Rhodesia as it was then known), under prime minister lan Smith, was the most prosperous, stable and law abiding country in the whole of Africa. However, it was an unequal society as the relatively small minority white population controlled most of the wealth and land, and comprised 95% of the electorate. For most of the first half of the 20th century, such a situation would have been considered quite normal, since it was widely accepted that Europeans brought civilization, development and prosperity to Africa, which the native Africans were considered incapable of delivering without European help.

During the 1950's this system of European paternalism towards Africa became deeply unfashionable amongst increasingly influential "progressive" liberal opinion. As a result, between 1957 and 1964, almost all black African countries were granted independence by the former European colonial powers. However, Rhodesia had a significantly larger white population, which was vehemently opposed to surrendering power. In the election of 1965, lan Smith's Rhodesia Front party won all 50 parliamentary seats reserved for whites, standing on a platform of opposition to black majority rule. The justification for this was the white's fear that handing power to the black majority would destroy the country, leading to chaos, conflict, corruption and sometimes barbarism, that was already becoming evident in many African countries that had been granted independence.

Such fears counted for nothing to the leadership of the British political parties who were adamant that Rhodesian independence could only be granted on the basis of "majority rule". As a result lan Smith declared unilateral independence in November 1965. After nearly fifteen years of sanctions orchestrated by Britain, and a guerrilla war led by Mugabe, lan Smith eventually surrendered power and Mugabe took his place.

Well over 90% of the whites have now fled Zimbabwe, they have largely been dispossessed of their land, the country is in economic meltdown, hyper inflation is completely out of control, and Mugabe retains power though systematic violence and terror. All this was predicted, yet the British liberal establishment placed their ideological commitment to "majority rule" above civilized values and government. They can hardly complain at the outcome.

So congratulations on your re-election Mr President, you have certainly delivered on all you promised.

First they came for...

2008-06-25T15:21:00.000-07:00

The Scottish Government has recently proposed new controls and restrictions on the sale and consumption of alcohol. As we have seen with the smoking ban, what is proposed in Scotland today is likely to be introduced in England tomorrow. Scotland has gone one better than England in that it has four mainstream cultural Marxist parties, against England's three. The additional party is of course the Scottish National Party, the current governing party in Scotland.

The proposals include raising the minimum age to 21 for purchasing alcohol from off licences and supermarkets, setting a minimum price by unit of alcohol, ending cut price promotions, imposing a "social responsibility fee" on retailers and introducing alcohol only checkouts in supermarkets. The reasons given for proposing these measures are the perceived need to cut down on "binge drinking", particularly amongst young people, and the damage to health caused by excessive drinking.

In practical terms it is unlikely that these restrictions will achieve much except annoy and irritate the vast majority of people who drink sensibly. One effect would be that a young soldier who puts his life in danger fighting in Afghanistan would not be considered mature enough to buy a can of lager in an off licence. This is also inconsistent with proposals to reduce the voting age to 16 in Scotland. Customers buying a bottle of wine, or a few cans of beer, would be put to the inconvenience of queuing twice, during supermarket shopping trips. The social responsibility fee would penalise retailers for the behaviour of a very small minority of customers, and is akin to fining car dealers for accidents. Increasing the price of alcohol, which is already highly taxed, will have a disproportionate effect on the low paid and is unlikely to deter the serious drinker.

One of the fantasies of out time is that you can prevent young people acquiring alcoholic drinks through legislation. In reality, they have absolutely no problem obtaining alcohol either through parents, or older friends, and it is virtually impossible to prevent this other than by draconian measures. Given this situation a better idea would be to reduce the minimum age for alcohol consumption in pubs to 16, where the prices are higher and there is a more disciplined environment due to the presence of older drinkers.

The most serious aspect of the Scottish proposals is that they further the cultural Marxist goal of controlling personal behaviour to meet ideological objectives currently in vogue. Health zealots see drinking as an activity that is bad in itself, and consider that those who practice it should be prevented from doing so, usually in incremental stages, as we have seen with smoking. In short, the apparatchik knows best.

In the words of the well known warning, first they came for the nationalists, then they came for the smokers, then the drinkers, then the overweight, then fathers, then straight men, then the married, then those with Christian values, finally they came for...

Irish Mist

2008-06-22T15:27:00.000-07:00

The Irish appear to be the toast of Europe with their "no" vote on the Lisbon Treaty referendum. This vote was achieved despite huge support for the "yes" campaign from the mainstream political parties and the majority of media pundits in Ireland. Along with the "no" votes against the EU constitution in France and Holland, it demonstrates the clear gulf between voters and an EU political establishment determined at all costs to create a gigantic centralised euro state.

The most surprising aspect of the whole affair is how little concern there appears to be amongst even the most committed EU supporters at this turn of events. This suggests there is now widespread acceptance, outside the governing class, that the inevitable outcome of the "European Project" will be to destroy nationhood and parliamentary democracy, and to create a monster that will eventually devour us all, if left unchecked. If this change of mood has occurred, it is a very welcome development, since ever greater European integration has hitherto been presented by "progressive" opinion as an inevitable step towards a social, political and economic utopia, which only the most bigoted and reactionary forces would want to oppose.

It is clear that Ireland will come under enormous pressure to reverse this decision, probably by an increase in the number of commissioners and through more tinkering to address some of the fears raised in the referendum. It is worth noting that the main "no" campaign group, Libertas, was not hostile to EU membership, just the terms on offer in the Lisbon Treaty. With a little arm twisting it should not be too difficult for the EU big guns to bring the Irish on board with a few concessions, as happened after they initially rejected the Nice Treaty.

In one respect, from a nationalist perspective, there is a negative result from the Irish "no" vote, since the negotiations to overcome it will delay the moment when the whole "European Project" collapses, an inevitable outcome as the Eureaucrats will eventually overreach themselves, by acquiring ever greater power to themselves. The Lisbon Treaty will help them achieve this since it contains all the powers the EU needs to create a totalitarian state. Fortunately, we currently still have a potential exit strategy as Parliament can vote for Britain to leave the European Union. But first we will have to wait until the current Lib Lab Con coalition is broken up, and a genuine right-wing party pursuing out national interest comes to power.

Shock resignation

2008-06-22T15:21:00.000-07:00

What are we to make of the extraordinary decision of David Davis, Tory Shadow Home Secretary, to resign his parliamentary seat and fight a by election against the government's proposals for detaining terrorist suspects for up to 42 days without charge.

It is difficult to see what he will achieve by this action. The main challenger in his constituency, the Liberal Democrats, will not be standing as they support his position. Labour, who were a distant third in the 2005 election, are also not going to stand, presumably since to do so would be to participate in what is regarded as a stunt. Nevertheless, Davis does seem to have gained significant support from the public, amazed that a leading politician could actually resign on a point of principle. In this respect the public appears rather inconsistent since opinion polls have shown a clear majority in favour of the 42 days proposal.

Davis himself is also a little inconsistent on this issue since he supports the current 28 days detention, and thus it is difficult to understand why he has made such a big issue of extending the limit to 42 days. The government is in a difficult position on this. Clearly detention for 42 days without charge is a massive erosion of individual rights, yet the threat we face from fanatical jihadists in our midst, and the complexity of gathering computer evidence against them, together make a compelling case for this measure, which moreover has the full support of the police.

Davis has extended his campaign against the "surveillance society" to include CCTV and the DNA database. Yet both of these have provided evidence to convict murderers and other serious criminals, who would otherwise have escaped justice. The most likely outcome of Davis's resignation would be his return to Parliament on a low poll with no serious opposition. It is very unlikely that he will be welcomed back on the Tory front bench as a result of his action, since politicians in his position are expected to be team players, not self indulgent egotists.

Tory resurgence

2008-06-09T15:06:00.000-07:00

The recent revival in the fortunes of the Conservative Party is seriously bad news for those hoping that a genuinely right-wing government will be elected in this country. The victory of Boris Johnson in the London mayoral election, and that of the Tory candidate in the Crewe and Nantwich by-election, makes it likely that the Conservatives will win the next general election with a clear majority.

The reason for the Tories popularity does not seem to be public enthusiasm for the party's polices but rather an apparently terminal breakdown in support for New Labour. The dominance of New Labour during the decade long leadership of Tony Blair was principally due to generally sound economic management which allowed low inflation and unemployment, together with a clear commitment to providing the necessary level of funding for public services such as health and education. To secure these benefits the public appeared willing to overlook the more malign consequences of New Labour rule, such as deliberate open ended third world immigration, the political correct "diversity" and "equality" agenda, the lunatic fantasy of multiculturalism, and the targets, expanded state control and bureaucratic interference in ordinary people's lives and decisions.

Since Gordon Brown took over this all seems to have unravelled. With his dour appearance and manner Brown clearly lacks the presentational skills and easy charm of his predecessor. His mishandling of the lOp income tax rate abolition, and the general deterioration in economic confidence as a result of the credit crunch have, fairly or unfairly, undermined New Labour's claim to economic competence.

The crucial problem with British democracy is that all three major political parties are committed to Cultural Marxist policies. In the case of the Labour and Liberal Democrat parties this is openly stated and the electorate should by now know what to expect. It is a different matter with the Conservative Party which for decades has been committed through stealth and deception to the destruction of parliamentary government by its support for the European Union and the European Court of Human Rights, its acceptance of family breakdown arising from easy divorce, its acquiescence in large scale immigration, and its craven surrender to the takeover of all our major institutions by the politically correct class.

The conservative leadership has never openly stated that these are the Party's political objectives, but it has consistently implemented them when in power. Unfortunately, the electorate appears to be once again falling for the Tory con trick, blissfully unaware that a vote for the Conservatives is a vote to continue our present social and cultural malaise.

Soft on drugs

2008-06-05T15:29:00.000-07:00

The Government has recently decided that cannabis should be reclassified from class C to class B, reversing the decision made in 2004 by the then Home Secretary David Blunkett. In reaching this decision the Government has ignored the recommendation of its own drug advisory body, which concluded that cannabis should remain at class C. The Government's decision has been welcomed by the police and by some right wing newspapers, but has received more criticism elsewhere in the media.

The dilemma for the Right on this issue is to decide which is more important, the right of people to decide for themselves what to do with their own bodies and how they live their lives within their homes, or the interests of wider society which may be adversely affected by the aberrant or anti-social behaviour of individuals pursuing a reckless lifestyle. What is abundantly clear is that the policy followed for the last half century, of tough talking but weak enforcement, has demonstrably failed. Illegal drug use is at its highest level and so is criminal activity to fund drug habits.

Clearly anyone who inhales, snorts or injects (outside medical supervision) any drug is demonstrating a serious contempt for their own body. This is not in itself considered a sufficient cause for the state to intervene in such behaviour, since it is widely accepted that adults should be allowed to smoke tobacco, a highly addictive substance. Nor is the fact that a drug can seriously alter personal behaviour a reason for it to be criminalised, since alcohol, a highly intoxicating drug, is extensively consumed by a large majority of adults.

Given the clear failure of current drug policy there appears to be two main options. One is to get very tough with drug dealers and users. The other is to decriminalise all drugs and allow individuals to take responsibility for the consequences of their actions. The difficulty with the former is that tough enforcement and sentencing measures would alienate large sections of the public, would require a huge increase in prison places to accommodate "drug abusers", and there would be no guarantee of success other than by methods that would result in a very high cost to civil liberties. On the other hand, the problem with complete decriminalisation is that it would most likely lead to a large increase in drug use with unknown consequences for the stability of society. So there appears to be no easy answer to the problem of recreational drugs. However, it should be remembered that for the first quarter of the 20th Century there were no laws against drug possession or use and relatively few people at the time considered this to be a problem.

Litter Louts

2008-05-03T02:32:00.000-07:00

The case of a mother who was handed a fixed penalty of £75 for littering when her four year old daughter dropped a piece of sausage roll provoked a hostile response from the readership of the Daily Mail. Nearly all the comments condemned the "jobsworth" council officials who imposed the penalty for overreacting and demonstrating a lack of common sense.
Unfortunately, the Daily Mail readers are showing some inconsistencies on this since normally they tend to be strong supporters of the concept of zero tolerance, which can be defined as a robust policing system that aims to ensure that no crime or anti-social behaviour, however trivial, is ignored or accepted. Littering is, of course, both a criminal offence and clearly antisocial.

The local authority concerned, Hull City Council, has a firm and clear policy on littering in their area. The Council rightly considers that "litter not only contributes to the defacement of the environment, but can adversely affect the lifestyles of members of the public and provides a negative image of the City to visitors and business". Research carried out by the Council has also shown that "people drop litter for a wide range of reasons. Most notably that by littering it keeps persons in a job. Some people think that because litter pickers are employed to pick up litter they are doing them a favour by dropping litter. This is not true. If everyone used the litter bins or recycled such materials we would in fact need more people to empty the bins and stop them overflowing. It would also stop some of the litter getting blown around and trapped in places that don't get litter picked, so the environment would be much cleaner and more attractive."
Perhaps even more disturbing than the above anti-social outlook is the Council's research into teenage behaviour which has shown that "this generation drops litter without even thinking about it and that the process of finding a bin would get in the way of whatever else they are doing and that it is easier to just drop litter. This research has also indicated that teenagers do not think of the consequences of littering, whether to themselves or the environment as a whole and consider that the action of placing litter in bins is not "cool" and that the dropping of litter is rebellious".

Given the unthinking anti-social outlook of some sections of the community Hull City Council should be commended for the determined approach taken to combat the nuisance of littering. Although it may seem harsh, the fixed penalty notice on the mother sends out a clear signal that the City Council are serious about tackling litter, and it sets a good example for other local authorities to follow.

Immigration - good or bad for Britain?

2008-04-10T15:11:00.000-07:00

A recent report from the House of Lords has concluded that, in overall terms, there are virtually no economic benefits to Britain from large scale immigration. The existence of this report, and the wide ranging debate that has followed it, is good news. It means that Britain is now just about ready to discuss immigration in a grown up, realistic and honest manner. For decades, cultural Marxists have maintained a stranglehold on serious debate on this issue by branding anybody even faintly critical of unlimited immigration as a "racist" or bigot.

It is sometimes claimed that the Labour government "has lost control of our borders". This is not the case. Labour has deliberately, as a matter of policy (albeit not openly declared) and conviction, encouraged and assisted mass migration because it believes that it is a desirable objective in itself. This is particularly so when the immigrants are non-white as it allows liberals an opportunity to parade their "enlightened" and "progressive" outlook to a wider public. Government ministers have attempted to dismiss the report's finding, claiming that immigrants pay more tax than the rest of us, but use fewer public services.

The reality is that immigration, except in very limited and defined circumstances, is always bad for a densely populated country such as Britain. On purely economic grounds, immigration impacts harshly on the most vulnerable - those with limited skills and low income, whose wages are held down by the increased pool of cheap labour. If skill shortages exist the answer is better training of the current workforce, a remedy which, if pursued with vigour, should present few difficulties in a population of over 60 million.

Mass immigration has further disadvantages. It places greater demand on housing already in short supply, and public services, such as health and education, currently under severe strain. The above factors would apply regardless of the colour, race or background of the immigrants. But if they are of a clearly different race or culture to the indigenous population you introduce the potential for future conflict, and the likelihood that social cohesion will be undermined, since the immigrants tend to congregate in their own ethnic ghettos.

The only beneficiaries of mass immigration are employers who gain a cheap source of labour without contributing to the social or training costs, and cultural Marxists seeking to destroy the British nation and its traditions.

Children - Agents of the State

2008-03-28T12:00:00.000-07:00

A disturbing news item appeared recently in the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail. It concerns a senior nurse at a public school who was reported to police by her 15 year old son for smacking her other son aged 10. According to the reports the mother hit the younger son “on the bottom” after he was abusive and repeatedly swore at her. As a result of the call to police the mother and her husband were both arrested and held in a cell for 32 hours. Both were released without charge and were notified by police that no further action would be taken.

This incident would have been disturbing enough in itself but it led to still more sinister consequences. As a result of police involvement, the local Social Services department was contacted who took the decision to put the 10 year old boy and his younger sister on the child protection register. The public school then sacked the mother from her post as senior nurse claiming that “the school’s reputation could be severely damaged in the event that parents became aware that the children of the school’s senior nurse were on the child protection register.” The mother herself commented “I have been a practicing nurse for 25 years with an unblemished career. I have no idea why my children are still on the register”.

This episode illustrated the extent to which the State, with its cultural Marxist social agenda, can now destroy the independence of families and the reputation of parents. Perhaps the most chilling aspect of the case is the way the 15 year old was willing to “shop” his parents to the authorities, in a manner reminiscent of George Orwell’s 1984, or the totalitarian regimes of North Korea and Mao’s Cultural Revolution. The reason he could do this is the campaign by the by the Marxist left to augment the powers of the State and its functionaries in the guise of “protecting children”. On the face of it nobody could object to the protection of children – so what is the problem?

Today the child protection industry is big business. For example, the NSPCC “Full Stop” campaign has raised over £250 million, and is immensely influential. The fundamental premise underpinning the campaign is that all forms of physical chastisement, including smacking, constitute “child abuse”, a term of relatively modern origin, and much broader in scope than child cruelty, which the NSPCC was originally formed to combat. The ultimate objective is to make the smacking of children a criminal offence. We have seen the result of this approach in schools, which are now plagued with problems of indiscipline. Extending this principle into family life will criminalise parents on a grand scale, and undermine their authority since parents will wish to avoid being reported to the authorities by their own children. The losers will be children who will be denied proper discipline. The winners will be those seeking the state control of family life.

Rivers of Blood - 40 Years On (Part 4)

2008-03-23T04:21:00.001-07:00

Most unfortunately, the legacy of Powell’s speech has been the complete opposite of what he hoped to achieve. The uproar it caused galvanised liberals into the creation of the vast race relations industry with intrusive new initiatives to oversee public thought and behaviour, such as the Commission for Racial Equality, race equality officers in the public sector, race monitoring by local councils, “hate” crimes, public funding of ethnic organizations, and the self righteous cant of the politically correct obsessives that has created a stifling climate in which the white population has been silenced from publicly expressing its true feelings. The extent to which the Conservative Party is still in thrall to the Cultural Marxist agenda was demonstrated by the dismissal of the MP John Townend, and the de-selection of Tory candidate Nigel Hastilow, for publicly expressing their sympathy with Powellite views on race and immigration. Powell accurately predicted race riots, ethnic ghettos, civil disturbances, the open ended increase in the numbers of ethnic people, and the ever expanding state apparatus to force race “equality” on an unwilling population. However, even he failed to anticipate the rise of British born terrorists and the extent of “parallel lives” which form a gulf between the different races and cultures in some British towns and cities. It is because of the latter development that the Government is now distancing itself from the concept of “multiculturism.” towards one of promoting “community cohesion”, seemingly unaware that until the advent of mass immigration our society was largely homogeneous and thus cohesive despite its obsession with class differences.

If current policy of open ended mass immigration continues we will continue to sleepwalk into disaster. An end to such madness is the only answer, if the risk of increasing ethnic conflict is to be avoided in the future, if traditional British culture and way of life is to be maintained and if we are ever to regain a sense of togetherness, shared values, identity and character. Mass third world immigration has introduced into British society racial conflict and tension, which we were previously spared. It is no doubt the case that the majority of people in Britain of all races can live together with a fair degree of tolerance of one another, and perhaps sometimes of acceptance. And clearly some people of ethnic origin have worked hard to integrate themselves into British society. Nevertheless, it has to be faced that the more brutish elements on the front line of the racial and cultural divide are unlikely to always share the elevated notions of political commentators such as Polly Toynbee on multicultural enrichment. The result is low level conflict spilling over at times into what are euphemistically termed “disturbances”. To manage the problem an increasingly powerful liberal elite has introduced intrusive laws and bureaucratic interference into the personal affairs of ordinary citizens and businesses, which should have no place in a free society. The “fight against racism” can never be won since it is clearly contrary to human nature. Moreover, the publicly funded bureaucracy established to combat it has a vested interest in discovering more subtle forms of “racism” to keep the issue on the boil and their jobs secure. The liberal multicultural and diversity agenda is centred on insinuating feelings of guilt into the white population. Clearly violence, harassment or abuse of people because of the colour of their skin, or their religion, is completely unacceptable. But the definition by some politically correct institutions of what constitutes “hate” has now been extended to cover those voicing the faintest criticism of immigration policy or questioning the benefits of a multicultural society. Many white people fear the epithets liberals place on them such as “racist”, “hater”, “extremist”, and “bigot” etc, applied to those who offer even the mildest dissent from their agenda. Children and young people have been brought up in an educational ethos where it is normal to denigrate their own history and culture, but to be uncritical of all others. Public concern about the level of immigration, and the changes it is causing to our communities and neighbourhoods, has for decades been suppressed and ignored. As a consequence Britain is losing its sense of shared cultural history and identity. The politically correct establishment’s only answer was to desperately promote the bogus, and now discredited, concept of multiculturalism, whilst fanning the flames of social conflict by continuing to encourage mass third world immigration. Those whom the gods wish to destroy……..

Rivers of Blood - 40 Years On (Part 3)

2008-03-21T13:58:00.000-07:00

Powell moved on to express what, he believed, to be the true feelings and views of the indigenous population by declaring that “they found their homes and neighbourhoods changed beyond recognition, their plans and prospects for the future defeated; at work they found that employers hesitated to apply to the immigrant worker the standards of discipline and competence required of the native-born worker; they began to hear, as time went by, more and more voices which told them that they were now the unwanted.” Powell then went on to condemn the Labour government’s Race Relations Bill as a “law which cannot, and is not intended to, operate to protect [the indigenous population] or redress their grievances [but rather] is to be enacted to give the stranger, the disgruntled and the agent-provocateur the power to pillory them for their private actions”. Powell then attacked the then current liberal fad for “integration”, which however, was soon to be quietly replaced by “multi-culturalism”. He acknowledged that a small minority of immigrants had made a determined effort to integrate, but realised that “to imagine that such a thing enters the heads of a great and growing majority of immigrants and their descendants is a ludicrous misconception, and a dangerous one”. This was a viewpoint that, in principle, liberals were soon to share. Powell realised that immigrant “numbers and physical concentration meant the pressures towards integration which normally bear upon any small minority [will] not operate”. He then goes on to accurately predict a multi-cultural Britain in which there will be a “growth of positive forces acting against integration, of vested interests in the preservation and sharpening of racial and religious differences, with a view to the exercise of actual domination, first over fellow-immigrants and then over the rest of the population”. Powell concluded with a further condemnation of the Race Relations Bill that it “is the means of showing that the [ethnic] communities can organise to consolidate their members, to agitate and campaign against their fellow citizens, and to overawe and dominate the rest with the legal weapons which the ignorant and the ill-informed have provided”. He feared that the American experience of race riots would be visited upon us “by our own volition and our own neglect”. He ended with the words “only resolute and urgent action will avert it even now. Whether there will be the public will to demand and obtain that action, I do not know. All I know is that to see, and not to speak, would be the great betrayal”.

This was unquestionably a historic speech, of incredible boldness, which mercilessly exposed the wilful blindness of successive governments during the previous twenty years, on an issue of crucial national importance. Powell accurately predicted the potentially unlimited growth of the ethnic population and its distribution into ghettos. He identified the disproportionate concern given to allegations of discrimination against the ethnic population, contrasted this with the near complete disregard of the fears of the indigenous population on the “open ended” nature of immigration, exposed the naiveté of policy on integration and anticipated the cultural separation of much of the ethnic population from mainstream society. Most importantly, Powell also came forward with the only credible policy for permanently addressing the problem, namely ending all further third world immigration and instituting a well funded high profile programme of offering financial incentives to persuade the ethnic population to return to their countries of origin or ancestry. Unfortunately Powell, rather unwisely, quoted verbatim from letters he had received from constituents, which contained some pejorative comments and negative generalised assumptions about the ethnic population. Many critics, either deliberately or through ignorance, attributed these views to Powell himself, and this chorus of self-righteous indignation distracted media attention from the main arguments in Powell’s speech. Although Powell was universally condemned for his speech by politicians of all parties, they nevertheless could hardly fail to notice the strong backing he had received from a sizeable proportion of the white electorate, the most celebrated example being the East End dockers who marched to Parliament in his support.

Rivers Of Blood - 40 Years On (Part 2)

2008-03-20T11:36:00.000-07:00

Powell was particularly scathing about what he termed the “insane” practice of allowing “unmarried persons to immigrate for the purpose of founding a family with spouses and fiancés whom they have never seen”. Such a policy was allowing into the country “a further 25,000 dependants per annum ad infinitum, without taking into account the huge reservoir of existing relations in this country”. He demanded that “in these circumstances nothing will suffice but that the total inflow for settlement should be reduced at once to negligible proportions and that the necessary legislative and administrative measures be taken without delay”. Powell rightly pointed out that ending immigration was not enough and that in addition it had to be accompanied by “the urgency of implementing now the second element of the Conservative Party's policy - the encouragement of re-emigration”. Incredible as it may now seem, this was, indeed, official Conservative policy at the time and a provision to this effect was included in the Immigration Act 1971. However, in government, the promotion of the measure was virtually non-existent. In contrast, Powell stressed that it should be “pursued with the determination which the gravity of the alternative justifies, the resultant outflow could appreciably alter the prospects”.

Powell covered other issues raised by immigration in his speech. In considering the rights that should be enjoyed by the ethnic population, he declared that there should be no second class citizens in Britain, but pointedly added “this does not mean that the immigrant and his descendent should be elevated into a privileged or special class or that the citizen should be denied his right to discriminate in the management of his own affairs between one fellow-citizen and another, or that he should be subjected to imposition as to his reasons and motive for behaving in one lawful manner rather than another.” Powell then moved on to the issue of discrimination, which then, as now, was disproportionably exercising the delicate consciences of liberals. He rightly pointed out the true nature of the concern in these terms “the discrimination and the deprivation, the sense of alarm and of resentment, lies not with the immigrant population but with those among whom they have come and are still coming” adding that “whatever drawbacks attended the immigrants arose not from the law or from public policy or from administration, but from those personal circumstances and accidents which cause, and always will cause, the fortunes and experience of one man to be different from another'”. He then focused on the nub of the problem, ignored by virtually all other political leaders, before and since, that “while, to the immigrant, entry to this country was admission to privileges and opportunities eagerly sought, the impact upon the existing population was very different. For reasons which they could not comprehend, and in pursuance of a decision, by default, on which they were never consulted, they found themselves made strangers in their own country”. The crucial point here is that the British people were never consulted on whether they wanted mass third world immigration or what is now termed a “multi-cultural society”.

Rivers of Blood - 40 Years On (Part 1)

2008-03-19T13:19:00.000-07:00

One of the most explosive events in post-war British politics took place on 20th April 1968. The occasion was Enoch Powell’s “Rivers of Blood” speech which spelt out, in stark terms, the consequences of continuing mass third world immigration into Britain. It was peppered with many apocalyptic allusions including “those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad - we must be mad, literally mad, as a nation to be permitting the annual inflow of some 50,000 dependants” and “it is like watching a nation busily engaged in heaping up its own funeral pyre” before ending with the much quoted finale “as I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding; like the Roman, I seem to see the River Tiber foaming with much blood.” Powell’s speech struck a deep chord with many British people - he claimed to have received over 120,000 letters as a result, the overwhelming majority sharing his concerns. Opinion polls also showed strong support for Powell’s stance. However, the British political establishment, then speedily moving in a liberal direction, denounced Powell as a populist agitator, intent upon stirring up race hatred for his own personal ends. He was promptly sacked from his shadow cabinet post by Tory leader Edward Heath for the “racialist tone” of the speech. This was a moment in time when the British nation was presented with an opportunity to look into the abyss and step back. Instead our political leaders hurled us headlong forward to our almost certain doom.

This was not the first speech in which Powell had discussed immigration, since he raised the issue a few months earlier at Walsall where he called for action against the entry of Kenyan passport holders. In making such speeches Powell was straying well outside his Defence brief and into matters that properly came within the remit of the shadow Home Secretary. His declared motives in highlighting the immigration issue were that it was the responsibility of elected politicians to discuss matters of concern to their constituents, and to raise awareness of future problems, so that avoiding action could be taken in good time. Powell drew attention to the fact that millions of ordinary people were privately discussing the question of immigration, but that politicians of all parties appeared to treat it as an almost taboo subject. He accurately predicted that, if the then current levels of immigration continued, and the higher level of fertility of the immigrant communities was maintained, the ethnic population of Britain would be in the region of five to seven million by the year 2000. Moreover, such a population would not be evenly distributed but rather “whole areas, towns and parts of towns across England will be occupied by sections of the immigrant and immigrant-descended population”. Powell warned that delay in addressing the issue would only make the problem worse and more intractable. However, he correctly identified that a remedy was at hand “by stopping….further inflow, and by promoting the maximum outflow”.

Sharia law

2008-02-28T05:00:00.000-08:00

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, has created a furore with his suggestion that the introduction of sharia law into Britain is “inevitable”. The leaders of the three main political parties have distanced themselves from his remarks, and he has been roundly condemned in much of the national media.

In one sense the Archbishop is clearly right. Given the craven surrender of all governments to the demands of the race relations industry it can only be a matter of time before sharia law is fully recognised in the British legal system. Sharia compliant forms of banking are already allowed and Muslim men can claim benefits for more than one wife. However, this is not the sense that the Archbishop had in mind. Instead, he considers that sharia law is inevitable because he believes that this would be the right thing to do, which is why he has been the focus of so much opprobrium.

The issue is a difficult one. How far do you allow minorities to do their own thing without it causing difficulties to the wider society? For the past thirty or so years governments have been promoting multiculturalism. The liberal establishment has finally noticed that this creates division, and thus potential conflict, within society. The response has been to promote the concept of “community cohesion”. The problem with this new approach is that it requires a more proactive intervention and encouragement by the authorities, which is likely to be resisted or ignored by the general population, including minorities. In contrast, multiculturalism was a more laissez faire approach that allowed communities themselves to develop as they please.

Many of the critics of the Archbishop have condemned him on the grounds that it would create one law for Muslims and another for the rest of the population. However, acknowledgement of religious belief has long been a feature of government policy. Sikhs are exempt from the requirement to wear a helmet when riding a motorcycle, there are many Catholic, Church of England, Jewish and now Muslim schools, Catholic doctors can refuse to carry out abortions. Many of the Archbishop’s critics opposed to the recognition of sharia law were the same people who supported the campaign of Catholic adoption agencies to refuse placing children with same sex couples. Thus their views were not based on consistent principles but rather their own cultural perspective.

If we want to encourage a genuinely pluralistic society then logic suggests that sharia law should be allowed if this is what the majority of Muslims want to see happen in their community. However, this would be ultimately destructive of a shared national identity. This is a fix which liberals have brought on themselves (and the rest of us) by their blind encouragement of open-ended mass third world immigration. The law of cause and effect will soon allow us to reap the whirlwind on this.

Binge Drinking Britain

2008-02-14T10:58:00.000-08:00

The subject of “binge drinking” has been in the news quite a lot recently. The Home Secretary has proposed new powers for the police to allow them to target under age drinkers. Unfortunately, behind all the rhetoric, the approach of the authorities to the problem of young people and alcohol is unrealistic and misconceived.

The first misconception is that targeting under age drinking is the same as addressing binge drinking. The two are quite separate, since the overwhelming majority of those indulging in anti-social behaviour as a result of excessive drinking are likely to be in the 18-30 age group, and quite a few will be still older. The term “binge drinking” is also fairly unhelpful, since heavy drinking does not necessarily lead to anti-social behaviour. There have always been heavy drinkers, but the culture of group anti social rowdiness fuelled by alcohol is a relatively recent trend.

The legal age for the sale of alcohol has been eighteen years for a considerable time. Until the last decade or so it was enforced relatively lightly but, in an attempt to address anti social behaviour amongst some young people, enforcement is now taken much more seriously by government, and thus also by the police. It is not clear how this hard-line approach will be effective. Most youngsters in the 15-17 age group are provided with drinks either courtesy of their parents, or bought for them by older friends. Young people are not likely to take kindly to being stopped by police searching for unopened cans of lager. Such intervention may be necessary in crackdowns on weapons in areas of high knife crime, but police officers searching young people for alcohol are likely to create resentment, and not just for those under eighteen. Similarly, the police will be asking for trouble if they enter pubs to check the IDs of young drinkers. To conclude, additional measures to enforce the law on under age drinking, as proposed by the Home Secretary, are likely to be seen as heavy handed and will have no impact on under age drinking.

The problem of antisocial behaviour by young people is caused more by lack of discipline in either the home or in school, and by the huge increase in single parenting. The government shows no signs of taking effective action to address these underlying causes of youth misbehaviour.

Baby Snatchers

2008-02-05T16:58:00.000-08:00

The case of a two hour old baby taken from her mother by Nottinghamshire Social Services has attracted widespread media attention. The overwhelming majority of comments posted on the websites of the Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph are highly critical of the Council’s action. Many commentators accuse the social workers of “baby snatching” or “kidnapping”. Normally, the general public demonstrates a greater degree of common sense than council officials, particularly those working in the social services. However, on this occasion the newspaper readers seem to have let their emotions get the better of them.

The social services team initially appears to have operated outside the correct legal framework since a high court judge ordered that the baby be returned to her mother. Subsequently, the council followed the correct legal procedures and the baby is now in council foster care. The mother in question is reported to be an 18 year old teenager with mental health problems who was taken into care after running away from home and starting to take drugs.

In other words the mother is a feckless, drug addicted, young woman, barely out of childhood, who has got herself pregnant and the father has legged it. The social workers are right to take action, since the mother is clearly unfit to bring up a child and the interests of the baby must be paramount. One of the tragedies of our times is the huge increase in single parenthood, overwhelmingly mothers. Studies have consistently shown that children brought up without fathers are the most likely to be disruptive, have lower educational attainment, greater probability of unemployment, are more likely to turn to crime and to perpetuate this cycle of deprivation.

Several of the newspaper critics accused the council of removing the baby in order to meet adoption targets. Clearly such action would be unacceptable, since adoption should be based on the needs of individual children, and not as an end in itself. However, the current problem is that there are still far too few adoptions. During the late 1960s, the number of children put into adoption was about 20, 000 a year, compared with 3,300 children in 2007. Adoption has a good record for bringing up children in a loving, caring environment. In the words of Tony Blair “We know that adoption works for children. Over the years children… have benefited from the generosity and commitment of adoptive families, prepared to offer them the security and well-being that comes from being accepted as members of new families”. For once he is right.

With a significantly increased use of adoption it should be possible to ensure that no child remains in care for more than six months. Children born to single mothers should be automatically taken into care and then placed into adoption as swiftly as possible. .Although an extremely harsh measure for the mothers concerned, the interests of the child should come first since the cycle of deprivation which single parenting brings has to be broken.

Good Old Smithy

2007-12-12T10:49:00.000-08:00

Ian Smith, the former prime minister of Rhodesia died recently. He lived long enough to witness the transformation of his country from the most prosperous, stable and law abiding country in Africa under his leadership, to the economically collapsed, corrupt, lawless, failed state that is Zimbabwe today.

Smith was demonised by the liberal establishment for his defiance of their subversive demands that he hand over power to a “black majority” government controlled by hardline Marxists. British governments, both Labour and Tory collaborated in the destruction of Rhodesia. It should be remembered that it was the Thatcher government that handed Rhodesia to Mugabe, in the full knowledge that he had waged a terrorist guerrilla campaign against the country for nearly a decade, resulting in the destabilisation of the country.

It is a curious double standard amongst the left that black people who come to white countries bring “enrichment” and “diversity”. However, white people in black countries are branded as “settlers”, who oppress the natives with their cultural and economic imperialism. Nevertheless, it has to be recognised that white colonialism, as a concept, is one that now belongs to the past.

The benefits of white colonialism in Rhodesia were clearly visible. The huge increase in prosperity, the provision of modern health and education systems and a developed transport system are all examples. However, the benefits were largely confined to the white community. The major downside of the colonial system was that the black natives were treated as almost non-people in their own country, and the overwhelming majority were barred from applying for all but the most menial of jobs. The whole ethos of colonialism was based on the almost unquestioned assumption that whites comprised a civilised elite by virtue of their race, whilst the blacks were seen as almost sub-human in comparison. The widely employed habit of calling all black men “boy”, regardless of age, was symptomatic of an unthinking contempt shown towards their fellow humans. For all his failings Mugabe did at least bring self respect back to his people, albeit at a very high price economically.

Thinkers on the Right believe that third world immigration is seriously destructive to the social cohesion and cultural identity of Britain. But to be consistent they cannot support white control of African counties since the effect there would be the destruction of their own indigenous culture and way of life. The problem to be faced is that black African countries seem largely incapable of sustaining a modern developed economy, together with sound government under the rule of law, which European countries take for granted. So, unfortunately, we are likely to be on the receiving end of liberal hand wringing on the need to “make poverty history” in Africa for the indefinite future.

Some good news on immigration

2007-11-08T16:09:00.000-08:00

The subject of immigration has been in the news quite a lot recently. This is very good news, as it means that at long last a debate is opening up on an issue which the political class has wanted to suppress for far too long. Some of the more notable issues aired are that immigration will raise the British population to over 70 million, that more than half of all the new jobs created in recent years have gone to foreigners, and that after a silence of two years Tory leader David Cameron has finally made a speech about immigration.

The view of the liberal establishment is that high immigration can only be a good thing since it brings “diversity” and “enrichment” to a moribund and stagnant society, it drives economic growth, it allows jobs to be filled that British people are unwilling or are unable to do, and is necessary because our population is aging and failing to reproduce itself. However, none of these claims are valid. In many parts of Britain with few immigrants, the indigenous people still do the low paid and unpleasant jobs as they always have done. To introduce immigrants because of an aging population is unsustainable as immigrants also grow old. Statistics show that immigration brings no discernable economic benefit as, although overall GDP increases, GDP per head remains the same. There is absolutely no evidence of demand amongst ordinary people in towns with low immigration for more “diversity”.

The attitude of the Tory Party to immigration is even worse since they raise hopes that they might tackle the issue but lack the will to take the difficult decisions to bring the problem under control. David Cameron’s recent speech on the subject is a good example of this. He claims to want to reduce the number of non-EU migrants. However, the majority of immigrants in recent years have come from within the EU, and we are powerless to stop them. Another, source of immigration is arranged marriages from the Indian sub continent. Cameron says that this is part of the Asian community’s traditions, so nothing should be done about it. However, he fails to mention is that it is no part of the indigenous population’s traditions, but they are affected by its consequences. A further source of immigration is asylum seekers, and there is no indication that Cameron is going to tackle this in any meaningful way. Even on non-EU immigrants there is nothing he can do either since the EU has recently announced a “Blue Card” scheme which will allow 20 million, mostly Africans and Asians, to enter the EU as skilled workers. Once in the EU there is nothing to stop them coming here.

The Tories spineless attitude to the question of immigration is demonstrated by the treatment of their parliamentary candidate Nigel Hastilow, whose resignation was forced because he made some entirely honest and justifiable comments about Enoch Powel’s “Rivers of Blood” speech.

Racial Equality - Fact or Fiction?

2007-10-23T11:04:00.000-07:00

Nobel prize-winner James Watson has created a furore over remarks made to the Sunday Times about the intelligence of black people. Dr Watson reflected that he was “inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa” because “all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours - whereas all the testing says not really.” He has subsequently claimed that the newspaper article misrepresented his views. The Science Museum had invited Watson to give a talk but withdrew it because “Dr Watson has gone beyond the point of acceptable debate.” Skills Minister, David Lammy (himself black) said Watson's views "were deeply offensive…. It is a shame that a man with a record of scientific distinction should see his work overshadowed by his own irrational prejudices.”

So does Watson have a valid point or is he the victim of his own irrational prejudices? Intelligence, as an abstract concept, is difficult to measure with any certainty, and the variations in intelligence between individuals within each race are far wider than any overall differences between different racial groups. However, this does not mean that we cannot come to an informed conclusion on the relative intelligence between white Europeans and black Africans. For example, In Watson’s own category of Nobel Prize-winners for Science, countless white Europeans have been awarded the prize but no black Africans. This is not due to irrational prejudice by the Nobel committee, but instead reflects the widely recognised fact that white Europeans have demonstrated an overwhelming superiority of achievement and discovery in this field.

Dr Watson refers to the “prospect of Africa” with good reason. During the past half century black African countries have been noted for their corruption, incompetence, seemingly endless conflicts, and sometimes barbarity and savagery. As a result, the avenge African is immeasurably poorer than the average European. Although, Europe does not have a spotless record, it quickly recovered form the devastation of two major wars. Just one country, Zimbabwe, formerly Rhodesia, serves as an example of the relative administrative competence between white Europeans and black Africans. Under Ian Smith and his predecessors, Rhodesia was the most peaceful and prosperous country in Africa, a wealth that had been built up by the skills, talents and energy of its white settlers. Under the black majority rule of Robert Mugabe, the economy has collapsed, most of the population are unemployed and many are close to starvation. Although Zimbabwe is an extreme case it is by no means exceptional.

The responses of both the Science Museum and David Lammy are disturbing. What they both appear to be saying in effect is that, on the subject of race, no scientific debate or research should be allowed because the conclusions might conflict unacceptably with current political orthodoxies on this subject. The Government has a vested interest in this, its employment policies are based on group rights which assume equality in competence and abilities for people of differing races.

Ethnic cleansing of British cities

2007-10-16T04:49:00.000-07:00

Shocking evidence of the extent to which many British cities are becoming ethnically cleansed of their indigenous white population is shown in figures released by the Department for Schools, Children and Families. They show that in the London boroughs of Newham, Brent and Tower Hamlets, white British children comprise less than 15% of the school population. The figures for Birmingham and Manchester are 43%, and below 60%, respectively. Nationally over 20% of primary school children are from ethnic minority backgrounds. White children are outnumbered at primary and secondary schools in 29 of the 150 local education authority areas.

This trend is set to continue indefinitely due to continuing large scale third world immigration, and the higher fertility rates of the ethnic population. So, in coming decades, many more British towns and cities will show the same ethnic breakdown in schools as currently occurs in Birmingham and Manchester. It should be remembered that the statistics for children are an early warning of the likely future adult population in the next generation.

This is an issue that was first raised by Enoch Powell nearly forty years ago. For his courage and insight he was denounced as an alarmist agitator, and since then the issue of third world immigration has been marked by suppression of debate and denunciation of those rash enough to raise their concerns. The indigenous British people gain nothing by such immigration. Economically, it depresses the wages of the low skilled. Socially, it introduces divisions and the potential for conflict where none existed previously. Culturally, it undermines our heritage and national identity.

The British people have never voted for a multicultural or multiracial society. In areas of Britain that are still largely monocultural British people still carry out the jobs which liberals and marxists claim they do not want to do in areas with large immigrant populations. There is absolutely no demand by the overwhelming majority of the indigenous population for more “diversity” and “enrichment” which multiculturalism and third world immigration is claimed to bring.

The British public really do need to wake up if disaster is to be avoided.

Tory Leader - An Apology

2007-10-09T15:17:00.000-07:00

If the Tory Party is to regain the confidence of the British public the leader will need to deliver a speech to a future conference which includes an apology along the following lines.

“A number of years ago in his speech to conference William Hague apologised for the damage caused by the reckless decision to join the ERM, which put millions out of work and caused countless businesses to collapse. Some older members may recall that Sir Keith Joseph confessed that during his period in Edward Heath’s cabinet “I thought I was a Conservative, but now I see I was not really one at all”. Today, as leader, I have to apologise for the readiness of the Conservative leadership in the past to embrace the liberal agenda of our opponents, whilst failing to support traditional Tory values. Let me explain in more detail.

Our most fundamental mistake was to collaborate in the active destruction of parliamentary democracy and national independence by signing away powers to supra national bodies such as the European Union and the European Court of Human Rights. As a result over 70% of new legislation is now decided outside our traditional system of parliamentary government, leading to the quite unacceptable situation where voters and their elected representative no longer have any control of many issues of pressing concern to them. And some people still call this country a democracy.

A second inexcusable dereliction of responsibility was to stand by whilst we lost control of our borders. The British public have had no say over whether they wanted their country to become multicultural and multiracial, since all the major political parties conspired together to suppress debate on the issue. We sometimes, very occasionally, talked tough on immigration, but when in power we did nothing. Future generations will reap the whirlwind on this.

Another shocking neglect of duty was our failure to stand up for the institution of marriage. During our last term in government nearly a third of all marriages ended in divorce, and the number of single parents soared. The result was countless children from broken homes, will all the ensuing problems and misery that resulted. Once again, the views of the British public were never sought on this far reaching change, as no reference to it was included in any election manifesto, including most shamefully, our own.

On education, we collaborated in the comprehensive system, the motives for which are egalitarianism and social engineering, not educational excellence. We could have restored the grammar schools, or better still, introduced a voucher system that would have put parents in control. But we did nothing, except to introduce additional bureaucratic targets and to dictate the contents of the curriculum, thereby undermining the professionalism of teachers and the independence of schools.

As a result of this surrender for over two generations, large sections of the electorate have been disenfranchised, since there has been no recognisably right wing party to represent them. This will now change”.

The Government We Deserve

2007-10-02T11:05:00.000-07:00

It is sometimes said that people get the government they deserve. Well the government we have got is New Labour, first elected under Tony Blair in 1997. As explained in a previous blog, Gordon Brown, as Prime Minister is unlikely to make any meaningful difference to the direction of the New Labour Project.

One of the most notable features of recent political history is the failure of both the Labour and Conservative parties to keep pace with the new challenges facing Britain or to offer a credible response to new threats and problems. As a result political debate concentrates on bogus issues whilst the major problems we face remain unaddressed. Labour’s traditional support base, the working class, has born the brunt of government failure to tackle their concerns. Yet, vast numbers of ordinary people still vote Labour, out of misplaced loyalty, failing to notice, or respond, to a party that is now working to an agenda which subverts their interests.

So what is Labour concentrating on and what issues should it be tackling? Labour’s main obsessions have been well documented - the equality/diversity agenda, extending control over British institutions and how people conduct their lives, internationalism and so called “global warming”. They play lip service to improving education, but fail to take measures to improve it, as the only effective solutions are at odds with their political dogma of state control and bureaucratic interference. On the other hand issues that Labour wilfully and deliberately ignore are open ended mass immigration, the transfer of power to undemocratic supra national institutions, the destruction of traditional family life and the causes of criminality.

So people should wake up, if they want a return to parliamentary government, immigration brought under control, support for traditional family life and values, tacking the causes of crime and an end to political correctness and bureaucratic interference, a vote for Labour is a guarantee that none of these outcomes will happen. However, there are parties that will address them. Behind all the lies, spin and deceit the truth will out in the end.

Liberal Democarat subversion

2007-09-19T02:04:00.000-07:00

Normally there would be little point in wasting space on the Liberal Democrats. However, their annual conference takes place this week and, regrettably and inexplicably, they now have over 50 MPs, so some attention needs to be paid to them.

The majority of the electorate probably consider the Liberal Democrats as nothing more than bunch of well meaning, rather earnest, individuals who occupy the centre ground in British politics, holding the balance between the Labour and Conservative parties. This may well have been the case during the days of Jo Grimond but it is no longer true today. The reality is that the Liberal Democrats are a subversive conspiracy of cultural Marxists. Their agenda is to destroy Britain as a nation, undermine traditional British culture, discredit normal family life and increase the scope and power of government and quasi-government officials to meddle in the affairs of ordinary citizens, businesses and organisations.

So it is worth examining some of their policy proposals. One consistent theme has been their unquestioned support for the European Union and the transfer of powers to it from the British parliament. They supported the now abandoned EU constitution and endorse, without a referendum, the latest treaty which incorporates over 90% of its provisions. The effect of this surrender is that future British governments’ principal function will be to act as agents responsible for ensuring that EU directives are enforced, and the British parliament will be seriously circumscribed in the laws that it can consider. The Lib Dems have also been slavish enthusiasts for regional government, further undermining the cohesion of the British nation and the authority of parliament.

The Lib Dems are obsessive about the “equality” agenda. This has nothing to do with equality of opportunity, it is solely concerned with outcomes which ensure that minorities are never disadvantaged - it is positive discrimination in all but name, against the interests of the majority population. They plan to extend the scope of so called “hate crimes” thus diverting already stretched police time and energy from catching real criminals. They believe that same sex couples in “civil partnerships” should be given the same rights as married couples, as institution cultural Marxists have effectively destroyed through easy divorce. They are in favour of an amnesty for illegal immigrants which will give the green light for more to flood in.

Needless, to say the Lib Dems are fanatical about introducing punitive measures to combat the “global warming” hoax, based entirely on dubious computer projections, and which is driven by politics not science. During the Twentieth Century temperatures were remarkably stable, despite the large increase in carbon emissions. Any change in temperature in the future will be due entirely to solar activity, as it always has been.

Anybody thinking about voting Liberal Democrat as a protest vote should think again about supporting these extremists. There are parties to the right of the Conservative Party with mainstream values that are much more worthy of support.

The Dawkins Delusion

2007-08-30T15:12:00.000-07:00

Professor Richard Dawkins, the high priest of mechanistic rationalism, has attracted a lot of attention recently which, alas, has been largely favourable. His latest book The God Delusion attacking religious belief is a bestseller. In the recent Channel 4 programme Enemies of Reason he has turned his attention to tackling “the epidemic of irrational, superstitious thinking which is blotting the light of logic and evidence”. Targets for scorn included astrologers, water diviners, tarot card readers, aura photographers, faith healers, mediums and new age psychics.

Dawkins places great emphasis on scientific observation, reason, logic and evidence. However, his fanatical insistence that the mysteries of life can be explained entirely in terms of matter, and his rejection of a cosmic designer, leads him to shamelessly break his own rules whenever it suits him. For example, he believes, without a shred of evidence, in the sudden appearance from nowhere of a “self replicating molecule” as the source of all life on earth, despite it being contrary to the most fundamental laws of both biology and chemistry. Yet Dawkins believes in its existence just as irrationally as those who claim that our personalities are determined by the conjunction of the planets. Dawkins defines monkeys as “machines for climbing trees”, in the same way presumably as cars are machines for travelling along roads. However, cars, unlike monkeys, are unable to move themselves. Dawkins “explains” the perfect order of the universe in terms of trillions of “multiverses” in which our own universe, just by chance, happens to be the one that is so finely tuned that it functions correctly. Needless to say he provides no evidence for the existence of these multiverses.

Dawkins is no doubt correct when describing many religious beliefs as superstition. However, religion is unquestionably right in its belief in the existence of the soul. This can be defined as the permanent life entity which cloaks itself in matter, namely the body, in order to gain experience and provide a vehicle for self expression. This cannot be proved scientifically, but it appeals to reason and logic much more persuasively than Dawkins’ belief, also unproven, that living beings are nothing more than the molecules that comprise their bodies.

In Enemies of Reason Dawkins mischievously lumped together the obviously bogus with the genuine. So who was genuine? The answer must clearly be the medium at the Spiritualist church. Dawkins suggestion that his responses were the result of a supposed technique known as “cold reading”, (that is the asking of leading questions to elicit a favourable response), is nonsensical and ludicrous given the accuracy and specific nature of the messages actually provided. Dawkins would, of course, have noticed this, but he is not such a fool as to destroy his reputation by admitting as much publicly.

British Democracy RIP

2007-08-09T14:09:00.000-07:00

Well over 200 service personnel have been killed in the military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq. Part of the reason why the Labour Government sent them there was to bring democracy to the people of those countries. Back home, however, the Government is steadily destroying democracy by continuing to transfer yet more power from the British Parliament to the unaccountable European Union. A referendum was promised on the EU constitution but, as it has now been replaced by a “treaty”, this will no longer be held, despite widespread agreement that the replacement treaty includes over 90% of the provisions of the abandoned EU constitution.

It is easy to see why Gordon Brown is refusing a referendum. He knows full well that the new treaty would be heavily rejected by British voters, and as a result would probably be followed by irresistible demands to pull out of the European Union altogether. Such a move would be well outside the parameters of debate controlled by the major political parties. The Tory Party predictably demonstrates its usual confusion. In campaigning for a referendum on the new treaty it fails to think through the consequences of a “no” vote. In this situation, since the other EU countries are near certain to ratify the treaty, Britain would be left totally isolated. In reality, the actual consequences of a “no” vote would be that Britain’s membership of the EU would no longer be credible. The Conservatives are as hostile as Labour and the Liberal Democrats to leaving the EU. So their demands for a referendum are just play acting, since they realise that there is no chance whatsoever of Gordon Brown acceding to their demands.

Currently about 70% of British legislation is dictated by the European Union. Once the new treaty is in place this will increase still further. A new “European Council” will be formed of EU political leaders. However, they will not be there to speak on behalf of their own countries, since their first loyalty will be to the European Union. Their primary aim will be to”promote the values, advance the objectives and serve the interests” of the European Union. In addition, the objectives of the EU have now been drawn so widely that there is virtually nothing that cannot be regarded as an EU objective. As a result of these new powers, Britain will come to resemble an occupied country with little or no control over how it is governed on a wide range of subjects. The only role left for the British Government would be to act as agents for the EU in ensuring that its directives are followed. The end result would be that Britain could no longer seriously claim to be a functioning democracy, since elections will be just an empty sham.

Marriage lite

2007-08-05T06:22:00.001-07:00

Just as it seemed almost impossible for family life to be destabilised any further the Law Commission has come up with proposals to give new “rights” to cohabiting couples. Politicians are proud to proclaim that we live in a democracy and that they are answerable to the people they serve. The reality is quite different. Most power today lies in the hands of unaccountable quangos who advise Government. Their policy proposals are invariably quickly translated into legislation, usually after a bogus “consultation” procedure. One such body is the Law Commission, which has gained a reputation for its hostility to marriage. Like most such bodies it has been infiltrated by cultural Marxists zealous to promote their own agenda.

The Law Commission is proposing that cohabiting couples, who have lived together for more than two years, should be given considerably more ”protection”. It is claimed that such couples are treated “unfairly” in comparison with married couples. However, this misplaced concern ignores the fact that cohabiting couples have deliberately chosen not to get married, and thus have only themselves to blame if they suffer disadvantage or detriment when their relationship breaks up. One argument put forward for cohabitation is that is gives couples an opportunity to live together without long term consequences should the relationship fail. Under the Law Commission’s proposal the partner with the greater financial assets would stand to lose heavily by entering into such trial partnerships.

Currently society seems to be in a muddle over marriage and relationships. The Law involves itself in matters where it should have no business yet fails to act where it could make a real difference. During the past couple of generations the traditional notion of life long marriage has become untenable. We have moved from a society in which men were largely breadwinners and women unpaid housewives, to one were both partners are just as likely to be in work and earning money. So in these new circumstances it should be no business of the state to involve itself in the arrangements which two people, of whatever sex, come to when deciding to live together. The only exception should be when a couple have children either below the age of 18, or still in full time education. Such couples should be encouraged both financially and legally to make a public commitment to stay together to allow their children to be brought up in a stable and loving environment. Couples in this position, confined naturally to thiose of the opposite sex, should be given every encouragement and support to enter into this updated definition of marriage. It should only be dissolved when it is in the best interest of the children to do so, for example when the behavior of one parent becomes unacceptable. In all other circumstances couples should decide themselves how their assets are divided when they split up. It is the business of nobody else, and nonsensical concepts such a civil partnerships or other forms of legally recognized cohabitation should end.

Tories in disarray

2007-07-30T14:47:00.000-07:00

The Tories are back in the position they have been for most of the past fifteen years – miles behind in the opinion polls and lacking any clear sense of policy direction. They invested heavily in the Southall by election only to come a poor third on a low turnout. One of the mysteries of the current political scene is why anyone still votes Tory in national elections, given the policy black hole at the centre of the Party. The only explanation must be that the Conservative name still attracts a significant brand loyalty, from a diminishing portion of the electorate which has yet to notice that the product being promoted has become wholly obsolescent.

The Conservative Party’s biggest problem is that for many decades it has been infiltrated by liberals, who have had a disproportionate influence in dragging the Party to the Left in the false belief that doing so appeals to the “centre ground”. Coupled with this is the successful campaign of cultural Marxists to denigrate right wing views to the extent that people are made to feel guilty for holding them. Witness the pathetic spectacle of former Tory Chairman Teresa May abasing herself at the Party conference with her “Nasty Party” speech.

The Tories policy line, as far as it can be understood, is over twenty years out of date, and no longer addresses in any meaningful sense the issues of most concern to the electorate today. In no particular order these are uncontrolled immigration, the loss of parliamentary and judicial powers to the European Union, family breakdown, high levels of criminality, low educational standards together with indiscipline amongst children and young people.

Each of these concerns can be addressed - by limiting immigration to all but the most exceptional cases, leaving the European Union, repealing the Human Rights Act, making divorce and single parenthood a lot more difficult, increasing the number of prisons, introducing a voucher system in education and reintroducing effective discipline in schools. If the Conservative Party adopted all of these polices and promoted them with conviction it would soon enjoy an unassailable lead in the polls, and would be returned to Government at the next election with a huge majority. But as the Party has now become so contaminated this is never going to happen.

Tories start to talk some sense

2007-07-17T14:35:00.000-07:00

Well, wonders will never cease, the Tories have actually produced a policy which makes some sense. Former leader Iain Duncan-Smith’s policy group has come out strongly in favour of marriage. Naturally this has attracted vitriolic criticism from the usual ragbag of liberal Marxists. They trot out the usual accusation of discrimination against single parents. Ken Livingstone even accuses him of being “homophobic”, as his proposed tax breaks would not apply to those in so called “same-sex relationships”.

Although Duncan-Smith’s proposals are a step in the right direction they do not fully address the problems caused by a dysfunctional underclass, aspects of which his report describes in graphic detail. Some of his critics are right, a £20 a week tax break is unlikely to reduce the level of marriage break-up very much, although it might act as a disincentive at the margin for those on low incomes. It does however send out a strong signal that marriage is to be encouraged. Duncan-Smith is also right that there should be no circumstances in which the tax and benefit system makes cohabitation or single parenting more financially advantageous than marriage.

On the question of tax breaks Duncan-Smith fails to make a distinction between married couples with the responsibility for bringing up children and those without. The reason why marriage should be supported is because it is much the best vehicle for bringing up children. So tax breaks should be confined to those with children under the age of 18 or who are still in full time education. No purpose is served by granting tax breaks to married couples who have no children, or with children who are now adults.

However, just concentrating on the financial impact of marriage will not address the problem of family breakdown. For nearly twenty years now over a third of marriages have ended in divorce. This has happened because the grounds for obtaining divorce are now far easier than was the case in the past. If social stability is to be restored, the definition of marriage will need to change drastically. It should be seen as a public commitment by two persons of the opposite sex to bring up their children in a secure, stable and loving environment. All marriage and divorce legislation should reflect this principle Thus the sole criterion when considering whether a divorce should be granted, where the children are under 18, is if it would be in the best interests of the children concerned. There should be a strong presumption that divorce, in principle, is unlikely to be in the best interests of the children. Therefore, the grounds for divorce will need to be drawn fairly tightly, where the behaviour of one of the parents has become so unacceptable that divorce would be less damaging to the children than would be the continuation of the family unit.
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Jihadists

2007-07-05T15:22:00.000-07:00

The jihadists have struck again. Fortunately, on this occasion their attempts at the mass murder of clubbers and holidaymakers were unsuccessful. However, this will not always be the case, so we can expect a continuing death toll of British civilians at their hands for the indefinite future.

So what have we done that they should want to carry out these acts of terrorism? Some say that if we had not invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, then the problem would not have arisen. This is a somewhat naïve supposition - the attack on the twin towers took place before these invasions. In any case, if the conclusion was reached that it was in the national interest, for security reasons, to invade these countries, it is ludicrous to suggest that a relatively small minority should be allowed a veto over such actions. Some politicians maintain that their ideology is a “perversion” of true Islam. However, such views are based on nothing more than wishful thinking.

Human nature being what it is, it is probable that as a whole Muslims, like Christians, embrace a wide variety of views, from the fanatical at one end of the spectrum, to those who pay no more than lip service to their professed faith at the other. The latter are likely to outnumber the former quite considerably. Unfortunately, it is the small proportion of fanatics who cause all the trouble.

Large numbers of Muslims, not just the fanatics, believe that mainstream British society is fundamentally degenerate and depraved, and an affront to their lifestyle and religious beliefs. Thus, a huge culture clash exists between the Muslim community and the majority indigenous population. Moreover, a significant number of Muslim men appear culturally divided, living in Britain but not having any real sense of belonging, or owing any allegiance, to our country. The fanatics aim is to turn the whole world into one Islamic state under sharia law, similar to that practiced by the Taliban in Afghanistan. Their message appears to be increasingly attractive to many young Muslim males, giving them a sense of purpose, and a means of hitting back at a society which they have come to despise.

Nearly 40 years ago, right wing Tory politician Enoch Powell in his “Rivers of Blood” speech, likened continued high levels of immigration from the Indian sub continent as “watching a nation busily engaged in heaping up its own funeral pyre”. His warning fell on deaf ears, and he was denounced by politicians of all parties as alarmist and inflammatory. In contrast, his views received large support from the British public as demonstrated in opinion polls and the huge number of letters he received backing his position.

The reason why we are all now at risk from the jihadists is due entirely to the misplaced moral superiority of the British political elite, who for two generations have piously ignored the many warnings of disaster that would result from the reckless encouragement of mass third world immigration.

Goodbye Tony Goodbye Part 2

2007-07-03T11:09:00.000-07:00

(continued) The biggest casualty has been the further undermining of parliamentary democracy. This has been subverted on two fronts, by the expansion of the powers of the European Union, and interference by the European Court of Human Rights, as it misleadingly styles itself. Directives and judgements either by, or at the instigation, of these two supra national bodies now severely circumscribe what political parties can promise, let alone deliver, at general elections. The three major parties are all committed to maintaining the present system more or less, thus denying the British electorate from exercising true democracy, that is the ability to decide issues for ourselves as a nation.

The next target for subversion is to destroy the cohesion of society. Fifty years ago Britain was noted for its racial homogeneity, low crime, family stability, good manners and community spirit. Since then governments have encouraged huge levels of third world immigration, totally destroyed marriage, removed all effective means of discipline from teachers, weakened the authority of parents, undermined the police and criminal justice system, and allowed a degraded and trivialised media to develop. None of the legislative, judicial or administrative measures that allowed this to happen were ever included in any election manifesto. As a consequence, in many parts of Britain, a feckless underclass has developed resulting in crime ridden, socially and culturally fragmented communities, with dysfunctional families, feral youths, drug gangs and fatherless children.

Specifically, under the Blair government well over a million third world migrants entered the country, resulting in the ethnic cleansing of neighbourhoods and the lowering of wages for the most financially vulnerable. Marriage was downgraded to the same status as single parenthood, or the nonsensical concept of same sex “civil partnerships”. Teachers were left with no means of disciplining children other than by the drastic step of exclusion, and politically correct propaganda entered the curriculum at the expense of national traditions. Instead of acting as a deterrent on the beat, police officers spent most of their time completing paperwork, as did teachers in order to meet mostly unnecessary targets or bureaucratic directives. All of these were the direct consequence of the imposition of the “progressive” agenda promoted by the cultural Marxists in the government, BBC, universities, schools, trade unions, local government, state funded “charities”, and schools.

Don’t expect any change under Gordon Brown

Goodbye Tony Goodbye Part 1

2007-07-02T16:01:00.000-07:00

So, he has finally gone. What are we to make of Tony Blair’s ten years in Downing Street? First, to get them out of the way, let’s acknowledge his successes. His government managed to keep the economy on an even keel, inflation remained low and there was no great hike in unemployment, as happened under the Tories. Underinvestment in public services was reversed (although the extra money was not always wisely targeted), disproving the notion that public spending crowds out private activity, which continued at a high level. Despite strong pressure, we also stayed out of the Euro, thus retaining control of our economy. Taken together these are considerable successes, more than the Thatcher, Major and previous Labour administrations achieved. Unfortunately for politicians, the public are usually more inclined to condemn them for their failures than to give credit for their successes.

So what then are his failures? Regrettably, there are quite a few. To begin with the cultural Marxist permanent revolution that started in the Sixties became considerably more entrenched. The ability of the British people to govern themselves without outside interference was undermined still further, and normal family life continued to be subverted. Education stayed manifestly unreformed, the causes of chronic criminality remained unaddressed, the popular media continued its downward spiral of degradation, and control of our borders was lost completely. Let us examine the background to these failures in more detail.

Many people still seem unaware that they are guinea pigs in a massive Marxist social experiment. This has happened as a consequence of most levers of power coming under the control of a subversive elite who succeeded in projecting themselves in a positive light by the skilful use of fine sounding buzz words, such as ”progressive”, “tolerant”, “modern”, “forward looking”, “inclusive” etc. This hijacking of the social agenda has allowed the subversives to define what is worthy and acceptable, leaving ordinary people confused and powerless to respond. Those who question the Marxist agenda are either ridiculed or denounced as “reactionary”, “bigots” or a subjected to pejorative leftist newspeak terms such as “racist” or “homophobic” This process has been gradual yet incremental.

It is worth examining how the Blair government has taken forward this Marxist social agenda. It should be remembered that the main objective is to gradually transfer to the state, rights that were historically exercised by ordinary people either as individuals, families or private businesses. In short, state control by trusted politically sound apparatchiks and their careerist hangers on, is the name of the game. This process has continued for over four decades now, including the supposedly “right wing” administration of Margaret Thatcher. (to be continued)

Paedophile or selfish brute

2007-06-27T14:48:00.000-07:00

Another week - another paedophile scare. The Attorney General is reported to be investigating a case in which a judge handed down a two year sentence for the rape of a ten year old girl. On the face of it, this clearly appears to be an unduly lenient response, so has the judge taken leave of his senses? Many contributors to discussion forums recommend that the perpetrator should be castrated and/or given a life sentence. They demand the sacking of the judge for what appears to be an inexplicable and indefensible decision. So are they right?

Unfortunately, the media coverage about this case and the legislative background has been selective and incomplete. Extraordinarily, although only ten, this girl looks much older and the defendant believed her claims that she was sixteen. Normally, not much credence should be given to such a self serving statement, but it appears to have been backed up by medical staff involved in the case. Additionally, and most deplorably, the girl appears to have been a willing participant in this sexual activity. Normally, rape is defined as non-consensual sex. However, all cases of sexual intercourse involving children under thirteen are deemed to be “statutory rape”, since the law assumes such children to be incapable of giving consent.

This case highlights the ambivalent and confused outlook on sexual matters in our society. For those over sixteen, sex is endlessly depicted as a liberating and fulfilling recreational activity, that can be engaged in by near strangers without attracting any condemnation. The popular media is saturated with this ethos. In contrast, children’s charities, and the tabloid media, deem sex for those under sixteen to be always traumatic. Willing participants in this activity are portrayed as victims of “abuse”, a catch all word peculiar to our age. However, according to some recent surveys, the reality is quite different since they show that nearly 40% of teenagers under sixteen are sexually active. So if all those involved were charged and convicted, the number of prison places would have to increase tenfold to accommodate them, such is the extent of the problem.

The judge in this case appears to have got the sentence about right. This is not about paedophiles, since they are not attracted to children who look like adults. Rather it is the inevitable consequence of modern society’s encouragement of casual sexual relations. Children are not immune to this and they seek, or are pressurised, to emulate their elders. As this case demonstrates they now appear to be doing this at an increasing younger age.

Blair's last act of treachery

2007-06-26T05:00:00.000-07:00

We have been here before. Tony Blair’s last act as Prime Minister was to provide one further twist to the EU ratchet by transferring yet more powers from Westminster to the European juggernaut. This latest “amending” treaty incorporates 90% of the EU constitution that has been on hold since its rejection in the Dutch and French referenda. Since this is a treaty and not a constitution the British referendum that had been promised will not now take place.

It would be tedious to catalogue the growing list of powers the British people and parliament have lost over the past 35 years since Edward Heath signed us up to the European Project. We can be sure that the current treaty will not be the end of the matter. There will be still more such treaties with the end result that the British government’s almost sole role will be reduced to acting as agents to ensure that EU directives are fully implemented. Currently about 70% of legislation affecting the British people originates from the EU, and this is sure to rise still further.

The net result of this treacherous surrender of powers to the European Union is that Britain is no longer a democracy in any meaningful sense, nor are we a nation, since we have lost effective control on how we are governed. All three major parties are signed up to the European Project, so to vote for any of them in Westminster elections is to collaborate in their treachery. At the next election anyone who wants to see British parliamentary democracy and nationhood restored clearly has no choice but to vote either UKIP, or any other party or candidate supporting EU withdrawal. There is no alternative.

Bernard Manning - bigot or genuinely funny bloke

2007-06-22T15:44:00.000-07:00

The comedian Bernard Manning, who recently died, will be remembered for his robust refusal to surrender to the demands of the politically correct thought police. As a result of such defiance this good natured man was the victim of a poisonous vilification campaign organised by the self righteous organs of “progressive” thinking. A particularly nasty example of this deranged moral superiority appeared in the Guardian the day after his death. In the eyes of the cultural Marxists, Manning was a 100% gold plated “bigot”, a favourite word used by them to denounce and demonise anyone who refuses to sign up to the multicultural madness that has gripped our country.

Bernard Manning employed a very peculiar and unusual gimmick for a stand up comedian – he was actually very funny. Normally these embarrassing impostors can be divided into two categories, those who are not particularly funny, and those who are excruciatingly unfunny. The latter description covers all the so called “alternative” comedians, that is those who have been licensed to toe the party line on all matters PC. Manning adamantly refused to do this and as a result he was barred from our TV screens.

In a sense Bernard Manning was lucky to come to national prominence just before the PC media stranglehold became overwhelming. It is an odd thing that when huge numbers of people object to a TV programme approved of by the Left, such as Jerry Springer The Opera, the issue of censorship is always raised. But when popular programmes such as the Benny Hill Show are taken off, it is due to “changing public tastes”. No mention of censorship here of course.

There is no doubt that if Bernard Manning had been allowed to remain on TV he would have continued to attract top ratings. This is demonstrated by the fact that his shows at his Manchester night club were always completely sold out until he retired through ill health.

Judge not lest ye be judged

2007-06-21T16:28:00.000-07:00

The recent court case in which a senior judge was acquitted of “exposing” himself to a woman during a train journey raises a number of interesting issues. The judge claimed that he was a victim of mistaken identity.

The first question is why this case was ever brought to court in the first place, since, in the absence of any corroborative evidence, it was one person’s word against another’s. In such circumstances the court had little choice but to acquit the judge, since to do otherwise would be to hand women generally a weapon that would allow them to destroy the reputation, career and livelihood of any man against whom they bore a grudge.

The judge in question commended the legal system for reaching the right verdict, and looked forward to resuming his judicial duties with what he seemed to hope would be an unblemished reputation. However, this is unlikely to be the case as he will always be remembered as the “flashing” judge. Moreover, acquittal is not the same as innocence, and many may suspect that the woman was telling the truth. So the fact that the case came to court, with all the attendant publicity, has seriously damaged the judge’s reputation. However, the woman who made the accusation remains anonymous. This seems grossly unfair and the law should be changed. In cases where an accuser is allowed to remain anonymous the same right should be granted to the defendant, and only removed if and when convicted. This used to be the situation but was changed following pressure from the feminist lobby to achieve more convictions in rape trials. In other words it was done to appease a vocal and favoured pressure group at the expense of natural justice.

One might also ask whether the glimpse of male anatomy by a woman in the circumstances described is really so shocking that it requires extensive police and court time, and a six month prison sentence. Women have now achieved equality in just about all areas of life, including active military service. It is difficult to believe that they are genuinely spooked by what is only after all a natural part of the male body. The determination of the woman to bring this case to court is an interesting reflection on the confused mental state of modern sisterhood, since all she had to do during her train journey was to look the other way. Having said that, the man involved, whoever he was, is clearly a sad and pathetic individual.

Sgt.Pepper - it was 40 years ago....

2007-06-14T10:36:00.000-07:00

It was 40 years ago, right at the beginning of the “Summer of Love”, when the Beatles released Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, widely regarded as the greatest rock album of all time. The new album was eagerly awaited. During the previous four years the Beatles has released seven albums, all packed with great songs, each staying on the top of the album charts for months on end. Over this time the Beatles musical style had developed from simple beat melodies to more complex song structures. Most commentators agreed that it would be almost impossible to better the previous year’s album the superb Revolver. But how wrong they were – critics were astounded by the originality of Sgt. Pepper which raised popular music to a new creative high. From day one critics fell over themselves in fulsome praise of a work that was instantly acclaimed as a masterpiece.

The year 1967 marked the musical transition from an era dominated by pop singles to one in which rock albums became the preferred vehicle of expression by the more musically adventurous “progressive” bands. The period from the late 1950s to the mid 1970s was a golden era for popular music creativity. It is interesting to note that nearly all of the best of this music during this inspired period came from just two countries, the USA and Britain, and that the performers and composers were largely all born between 1935 and 1945. Evidence for their achievement is that there were more memorable songs released each month in 1967 - the best year ever for pop singles - than for the whole of the past decade. An interesting Beatles curiosity is that Paul McCartney released the best selling British single Mull of Kintyre whereas John Lennon’s Imagine has recently been voted the best ever song. Not bad for two working class lads who grew up together just a few miles apart in the same city, Liverpool.

Are all paedophiles monsters? (Part 2)

2007-06-07T11:02:00.000-07:00

(continued) The possession of “child pornography” became a criminal offence in Britain in the late 1970s, largely as a response to the long campaign by the anti-pornography campaigner, Mary Whitehouse. Since then the penalties for the possession of the worst kinds of such degrading and depraved material have increased considerably. Until the arrival of the internet convictions were very low, probably due to the difficulty and risks involved. However, the growth of the internet facilitated “child pornography” to be accessed far more easily.

Regrettably, the laws on this subject are both vague and all embracing since “child pornography” is not specifically defined as such in legislation. Instead it is an offence to possess or make an “indecent” image of a child, and for sentencing purposes this material has been graded on a scale from 1-5. Grade 1, the lowest, consists of “erotic posing”; grade 5 is best left to the imagination. The higher the grade the more severe are the penalties. Nearly all cases of “possessing” or “making” indecent images of children are those found on computer hard drives or electronic storage devices. Images are automatically saved by personal computers, so viewing an indecent image of a child will “make” the image on the computer hard drive and an offence is committed. A person does not have to deliberately save such an image to be charged, or even to know how to access it. A “child” is defined as a person below the age of eighteen. Thus anybody who has viewed an “erotic pose” of a seventeen year old via a computer will have committed an offence and so will be deemed by the authorities to be a paedophile, and a threat to children. The minimum penalty for this offence is a police caution, acceptance of which will automatically place the individual on the sex offenders register. Anyone placed on the register will lose their job if they work with children, and all those with children will be subject to investigation by the social services with the risk that their children may be removed.

“Erotic posing” does not involve any sexual activity or, in the phrase favoured by children’s charities, “child abuse”. It is reasonable to assume that 100% of adults are sexually attracted to good looking seventeen year olds. So the law has turned us all into paedophiles – but does this mean that we are all monsters? The comments of Kidscape are fundamentally flawed. Viewing genuine child pornography, however vile, does not drive demand unless payment has been made. Paying for such material in Britain is now almost impossible, due to the near certainty of detection. You do not have to be a paedophile to view “child pornography”, the vast majority who do so are likely to be just curious. The notion that those who view it are all child molesters is as ludicrous as suggesting that all those who view adult pornography are rapists. Drivers who exceed the speed limit in towns present a massively greater threat to children than those who view child pornography, yet there are no demands to imprison all such motorists. Demand for child pornography can be effectively controlled. Internet providers can block such sites and credit card companies can prohibit payments and inform CEOP. The trawling of computer hard drives for child pornography is a massive waste of scarce police time as well as a grotesque interference in individual privacy. No genuine child pornography sites operate in Britain (other than those operated by the police for entrapment). Present laws on child pornography risk criminalising any adult male with a computer, since with the widespread use of malicious spyware nobody can be certain of what is on their computer. The turkeys voting for Christmas on Any Questions should wake up.

Are all paedophiles monsters? (Part 1)

2007-06-06T15:45:00.000-07:00

Jim Gamble, Head of the Child Exploitation Protection Centre (CEOP) has suggested that people who viewed child pornography could be given a police caution rather than a prison sentence. He believes treatment in the community is a practical way of dealing with the “huge scale” of the problem. However, Michele Elliot, Director of the children’s charity Kidscape considers that people who view child pornography should not escape jail since “they are just as guilty as the person taking the photos. If they did not view the child would not be abused.”

There can be no doubting the deep abhorrence felt my most people towards child pornography. It must be the duty of government to recognise and act upon issues of public concern if democracy is to remain credible. Some contributors to the BBC website discussion forum have accused Mr Gamble of adopting a “bleeding heart liberal approach to the paedophile menace”. About half of the audience of Any Questions agreed that those who view child pornography should always be jailed. So are the critics of Mr Gamble justified in their condemnation of his comments?

Certainly, Mr Gamble’s suggestion that paedophiles should be treated in the community seems naive, since there does not appear to be any “treatment” available to cure those who are sexually attracted to children. Homosexuals place great stress on the fact that their sexuality is something that they are born with and is part of their nature which they cannot change. So the same must be true of paedophiles. Thus the treatment of paedophiles, either in the “community” or elsewhere must surely be a waste of money, time and energy.

Unfortunately, the fear of paedophiles has become the hysteria of our age. Earlier generations took a far more balanced approach. Such deviants were then more properly known as child molesters, and parents warned children to be on their guard against unnaturally friendly men. Society rightly judged that the threat to children from such molesters was quite appreciably lower than the danger from, for example, road traffic. Strangely, the parents of today seem largely unperturbed by the latter, but appear fearfully obsessed by the former. As a result children have now lost freedoms that previous generations took for granted. (to be continued)

Tories – Select pupils by race

2007-06-02T09:51:00.000-07:00

Tory education spokesman David Willetts has suggested that schools should be allowed to select pupils by race. The aim is to combat the segregation which has arisen in some towns, particularly in the north of England. Schools in such places can be either over 90% white or 90% Asian.

It should be remembered that this segregation has not arisen because of government decree or policy initiatives but as the result of individual choices made by large numbers of parents of all races. Willetts’ idea is that city academies in northern towns should select “50% white – 50% black” - city academies being the current Tory fad for improving academic standards in the state education sector. The Conservative Party has traditionally been in favour of parental choice in education. However, the Tories now appear to think that parents cannot be trusted to decide what school is best for their children. They have thus signed up to Leftist social engineering, which is more concerned in delivering the correct “diversity” outcome, than in ensuring that children are properly educated.

Willetts has made the assumption that city academies will always be the kind of school that ambitious white parents will strive to get their children into, in much the same way that they do for grammar schools, or schools in good catchment areas. However, it is unlikely that such parents, other than the most liberal, would choose a school that is 50% non-white, when other schools that are almost exclusively white are an available alternative. This affair provides further evidence that the Tories are now fully signed up to the agenda of the liberal establishment

Guess Who's Coming To Dinner (Part 2)

2007-06-01T16:19:00.000-07:00

(continued) The film is impressive and superbly acted but nevertheless is a well crafted piece of cultural Marxist propaganda. The ostensible objective is to challenge racial prejudice, seen by liberals as “irrational”, the enemy in this case is white middle class values and solidarity, and the result is the subversion of white identity. It should be remembered that the approach of the cultural Marxists to achieving their objectives is subtle, determined and incremental. Alas, it is ultimately nearly always successful.

A film such as this would not have been made much before this date. Prior to the late sixties all married couples depicted in films belonged to the same race, almost invariably white. This reflected the then overwhelming view of society that marriage should take place between those of the same race, a view that was almost instinctive to people of all races. There is a word – miscegenation, now almost taboo, which describes the breach of this principle. At the time of the film 16 US states still had laws on the statute book against miscegenation (in the early 1940’s it was as many as 40 states) although these were struck down as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court shortly afterwards. The reason why these laws were in operation, and were hugely supported by ordinary white people, was the protection it provided to the white race, since the children of mixed race couples were considered by whites to belong to the black race. So mixed marriages undermine white society just as much as non-white immigration, which is why both need to be resisted if white society is to be preserved.

As a consequence of the taboo which this film broke, the normalisation of mixed sexual relationships became gradually more commonplace in the cinema. So it is now considered to be entirely normal for films to depict a well educated middle class white girl in a relationship with a black ghetto hoodlum. Any criticism is dismissed as bigotry.

Guess Who's Coming To Dinner (Part 1)

2007-05-31T15:02:00.000-07:00

Recently, the BBC screened the 1967 film Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner. It provided a reminder of the control that cultural Marxists have exercised over Western society for nearly half a century. The film starred Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy as the parents of a 23 year old daughter who suddenly announces that she intends to marry a black doctor, played by Sidney Poitier, whom she met only ten days earlier on holiday in Hawaii.

In the film the Poitier character is a paragon of virtue. He is a highly qualified doctor employed as a senior medical advisor to the UN. He is polite, well mannered and presentable, who has worked hard to achieve his success. Indeed, with these characteristics, he would normally be just the sort of man that any well to do middle class parents would want their daughter to marry. However, he is black suitor and it is this conundrum that the film explores.

The parents both pride themselves on their liberal outlook which in this context means hostility and contempt to what they term “bigotry”. They believe that the colour of a person’s skin is no more than a “pigmentation problem”, which reflected the then liberal line that people of all races are basically much the same underneath their differing skin colours. In the film Poitier is culturally white and his values and lifestyle conform to the ethos of traditional white American middle class society. The joys of multiculturalism and diversity still lie in the future.

The film focuses on the conflict between the parents professed liberal values and their real life response to the likelihood of suddenly acquiring a black son-in-law. Their first reaction in both cases is one of suppressed horror, instinctively at odds with their well cultivated liberal beliefs. Hepburn quickly regains her composure and soon openly supports her daughter’s decision. However, Tracy is not so easily persuaded, voicing the opinion that such a marriage would create problems. These are never clearly specified since they act as a disguise, both to himself and others, that his objections are in reality based on prejudice against his daughter marrying a black man. The outcome is of course predictable. After wrestling with his conscience, and with some assistance from his wife and a clerical friend, the film concludes with an oration from Tracy. He declares to the assembled guests, which include Poitier’s parents and his own black housekeeper (the only character to be openly hostile to Poitier as a suitor), that there can be no possible objection to the marriage, since his daughter is in love and her choice should be respected. (to be continued )

Margaret Hodge – reality breakthrough?

2007-05-30T14:50:00.000-07:00

Labour Minister Margaret Hodge, writing in the Observer, has suggested that it might not always be fair for newly arrived migrants to be given priority in the allocation of social housing over families who have lived in an area “for three generations”. The interesting point here is that she has lifted the lid on an area of New Labour policy that until now has been kept very carefully under wraps.

Housing and immigration are two issues which both Tory and New Labour governments have shown near total contempt for the concerns of the electorate, in particular, the white working class. For nearly thirty years housing supply has failed to keep pace with demand, and this problem has been exacerbated by open ended immigration. Social housing is now provided on the basis of those deemed to be in the most “need”. The result is that in many cities, but most especially London, the white working class has been displaced by newly arrived migrants - a policy carried out largely by stealth.

Predictably, Hodge has been denounced by several prominent Labour colleagues for her “divisive” remarks. They suggest that instead the real issue is the shortage of social housing, a problem they claim is shared by the indigenous population and more recent arrivals alike. Whilst there is clearly some truth in this, it has to be faced that building land in London is a finite commodity. In the short term the problem could be ameliorated by building more high density social housing, on derelict brownfield sites. But before long such land would all be used up, but the pressure for housing would continue. This pressure will persist because of the continuing open-ended mass migration which, for over half a century, governments have failed to control. Experience has shown that it is much easier for newly arrived migrants to demonstrate “need”, allowing them to leapfrog the indigenous population who are left at the back of the housing queue. Add to this the issue of race – the overwhelming majority of new arrivals are non white, and you have a potentially explosive issue.

Margaret Hodge is the MP for Barking. The official opposition on the council for this area is the BNP, demonised and ostracised by the media and political elite. The BNP has a firm policy of absolute opposition to third world immigration. It is instructive to look at the neighbouring borough of Newham. Fifty years ago, local schools there were almost 100% white, that figure has now fallen to 20%. The electorate of Barking fears rightly that the same fate awaits them. So Margaret Hodge is worried that she could lose her seat to the BNP. Although she may have had a reality check, it is clear that New Labour has no intention of responding to her fears by ending mass third world immigration. So the ethnic cleansing of London and other cities will continue.

Grammar Schools - Tory Shock Announcement

2007-05-29T08:53:00.000-07:00

Tory grass root supporters are reported to be “shocked” at the announcement of their education spokesman David Willets that the Conservative Party will no longer be supporting the creation of new grammar schools. They should really wake up – Tory support for grammar schools ended in the 1960s.

Remember Margaret Thatcher, education secretary 1970-74, who closed down more grammar schools than any of her predecessors or successors. When prime minister, no grammar schools were ever restored, nor were any under John Major, a combined period of 18 years. On this issue, like many others, the Tories surrendered to the egalitarian Leftists, with their hostility to academic achievement and addiction to social engineering.

As it so happens the Tories are probably correct to end their support for grammar schools, but certainly wrong to back the New Labour alternative of city academies, which are little more than bog standard comprehensives dressed up in shiny new modernist buildings. The problem with educational selection, grammar school style, is that three quarters of children find themselves permanently excluded from these schools, and instead have to attend secondary moderns, seen by many parents as distinctly second rate.

If the Tories want to regain the confidence of the electorate they will need to be a lot more radical. They should introduce a voucher system where money follows the child. This will allow parents the maximum control over educational provision, allowing academic standards to rise as schools compete to satisfy parental demands. The voucher system should be modified to ensure that all schools accept a minimum fixed proportion of children from less financially well off families.

Mugabe's UN Triumph

2007-05-28T07:34:00.000-07:00

Robert Mugabe, President of the bankrupt and chaotic failed state of Zimbabwe, has recently pulled off a remarkable triumph at the United Nations. His country has been elected to head the main UN environmental body, the Commission on Sustainable Economic Development (CSD). This was achieved as a result of the African members of the CSD voting 12-0 in favour of Zimbabwe. The United States and EU countries are reported as being none too pleased with the outcome

The new Chairman of the CSD is Francis Nhema, the Zimbabwean Environment and Tourism Minister. Nhema is reported to be the “beneficiary” of a 2,500 acre farm “seized” from its white owner by the Mugabe regime. The former owner claims that much of the farm is now “wasteland”. The transformation of Zimbabwe from the bread basket of Africa to yet another African basket case has been well chronicled. Under the leadership of Ian Smith, Rhodesia (as Zimbabwe was then known) was an oasis of prosperity and tranquillity in a continent of corrupt, bankrupt and sometimes savage, one party dictatorships. Successive British governments, both Tory and Labour, did their best to destroy the country, in order to appease Rhodesia’s neighbouring black dictators and, in the case of Labour, their vociferous guilt ridden backbenchers and supporters. The Smith government was eventually brought down by a murderous guerrilla campaign led by Mugabe and treachery from the then South African leader B J Vorster.

Many British political commentators appear genuinely perplexed as to why the African delegates so strongly backed Mugabe’s nominee given Zimbabwe‘s desperate economic plight and appalling human rights’ record. Unfortunately, these commentators just still do not get it, despite overwhelming evidence. They seem to be unaware that Africans suffer none of the guilt complex over race that obsesses Western white liberals. Quite the reverse, Africans are quite content to pursue their own racial interests, which is why they are so fulsome in their admiration of Mugabe who in their eyes has repeatedly demonstrated his defiance of what he terms “white colonialism and oppression”. For the same reason calls for South African President Thabo Mbeki to “do something” about Zimbabwe will also fall on deaf ears.

Blair or Brown - It makes no difference

2007-05-27T11:28:00.000-07:00

Tony Blair has now announced his intention to resign as Prime Minister. This is the culmination of a period of intense media speculation since he most inadvisably announced two years or so ago that he would not be serving a full term. Media interest has focussed largely on the personality differences and conflict between Blair and his successor Gordon Brown. Less attention has been given to any policy differences between them and whether there would likely be any noticeable changes to our governance under a Brown premiership.

The reality of course is that there would be virtually no meaningful change since both Blair and Brown are joined at the hip in support of the New Labour Project. For the uninitiated this comprises the following components:

1. Surrender of parliamentary sovereignty to the undemocratic European Union.
2. The usurpation of parliamentary governance by the judiciary, sometimes foreign, but always unelected and unresponsive to public opinion.
3. Loss of any meaningful control over immigration and a consequent deterioration in the employment opportunities and social environment of the most disadvantaged in our society.
4. Undermining the institution of marriage resulting in chronic family collapse and social disorder.
5. Maintenance of an education system in which social engineering is placed ahead of academic excellence.
6. Acceptance of a dumbed down and degraded media and the replacement of artistic excellence by cultural Marxist relativism.
7. Imposition of an extremist politically correct agenda on British institutions.
8. Destruction of independent local government and its conversion into agents of the New Labour Project.

So we can be sure that the pressing problems of our country will continue to be unaddressed under the new prime minister.