::: T h e F r e e d o m P a r t y :::

October 2006

Effects of diversity

Harvard University's celebrated political scientist Robert Putnam, described as the most influential academic in the world, has drawn some conclusions about the effects of 'diversity' - a quasi-religious object of devotion at present - which would be hilarious if it were not tragic.
The good academic tells us that the more diverse a community becomes the less people trust one another. And this applies even to relationships with other people recognised as similar.
“In the presence of diversity, we hunker down”, he says.
“We act like turtles. The effect of diversity is worse than had been imagined. And it’s not just that we don’t trust people who are not like us. In diverse communities, we don’t trust people who do look like us.”
Trust was lowest in Los Angeles, “the most diverse human habitation in human history”. but the same applies in less extreme situations.
“They don’t trust the local mayor, they don’t trust the local paper, they don’t trust other people and they don’t trust institutions. The only thing there’s more of is protest marches and TV watching.”
Does Professor Putnam think that perhaps those of us who drew the same conclusions a long time ago might have been right in thinking that immigration would not be beneficial in general - leaving aside whatever factions might cynically exploit the process? Better not pull down all the pillars of the temple at once. His conclusion is still that immigration is beneficial.
So what should be done about the glaring deficiencies of a society where no one trusts anyone else? The Professor has held back his full report until he can offer a solution. But the bones of his answer, it appears, will be that the host society must change to suit immigrants.
"Trends that have been socially constructed can be socially reconstructed".
Thus yet more turmoil and Maoist cultural revolution is to be imposed on the long-suffering West with the backing of academics whose expertise proved so lamentably in error when the utopian theory of a multicultural free-for-all was seized on by politicians for their own seedy purposes.
Putman notes that 75% of Americans trusted government in the 1950s. The proportion is now of the order of 20%. Hardly surprising when explosive social change is imposed on a host population, and its high priests eventually have to admit to what everyone else could see if they wished to - that the theory was wrong.
Tory credibility

David Cameron has two major credibility problems not solely the lack of substance most people in Britain have now concluded to be the case.
The other difficulty is whether any firm policy pledges he makes are going to be believed. He has not made a promising start by funking his pledge to withdraw from the federalist European party.
The electorate is also far wiser to the workings of spin than in 1997 and knows all too well that the results of most policies can be measured in umpteen different ways depending on whether you want a positive or negative outcome to be shown. The state of immigration control and the NHS are examples well-demonstrated by Labour. Government can do almost anything and still claim a big result.
The electorate is also wiser to ingeniously worded political verbiage which appears to announce a firm pledge but has built-in loopholes. For example, a 'firm intention to increase pensions as resources permit'.
Put together the current cynicism about politicians (Tony Blair has merely gone further along the spin path than his predecessors) with Cameron's obvious reluctance to commit himself, and he is not well-placed to convince anyone that we will get what eventually appears to be offered.
If a hung parliament results from the next election, and Cameron were able to make some alliance, then the position will be even worse. Who knows what pledges might be abandoned in order to get through the famous black door to Number 10?
The electorate might well feel better the devil you know unless David Cameron makes something of a sea change to his tactics. Perhaps he intends to try the Liberal Democrat tactic of saying anything that might please someone in the knowledge that nothing will ever be put to the test in government.
As the next election approaches, we may all be invited to salivate about free Tory pie. A few votes will be garnered - but at least no one will be offended. .

Quotes of the month

'Eighty pence in every pound in donations to Labour has come from people who have been ennobled in some way. It's clear there is a big problem.'

Daily Mail September 30 2006

'Schools which are officially full are taking in even more pupils - if they are immigrants.
The figure is officially 11,000 but is likely to be much more because many schools do not have a breakdown of where pupils come from. The migrants are being taken into schools where local children have already been turned away.'

Daily Express October 9 2006

'An innocent boy of 15 simply walking down the street was kidnapped, bundled into a car, knifed repeatedly, and finally doused in petrol and set alight.
The only reason the boy was murdered, a court in Edinburgh was told, was because he was white. His attackers, all Asian, wanted revenge for a nightclub incident.
I didn't see this story in any other national newspaper than The Times. Nor has it been on any national radio bulletin or TV newscast. Had the reverse happened, an Asian lad murdered by a white gang, the coverage would rightly have been enormous. There would have been outpourings from various agencies saying this must never happen again. But not with this lad. Have we reached the point where the media no longer believes a white skin is the equal of a brown skin?'

Kelvin Mackenzie - The Sun October 12 2006

'Media tycoon Rupert murdoch manages to belittle David Cameron by saying: 'He's charming. He's very bright and he behaves as if he doesn't believe in anything other than trying to construct the right public image.'

Daily Mail October 9 2006

September 2006

Is it a conspiracy?

During the summer, an astonishing change has occurred in political discourse about immigration.
Migration into Britain is the biggest issue facing the nation, and one concerning which most of the population are at odds with the long-standing interests and intentions of the political class. No wonder such efforts have been made to close down debate for the last forty years. The media - as a part of big business which largely makes policy anyway - has mostly supported the government of the day. It has eagerly joined in the vilification of anyone putting their head over the parapet, built up the sinister 'racism' allegation employed as a catch-all charge, and made an industry out of fictional television drama in which white people seem to be the despair of saintly ethnics.
Since the spring, a paradigm shift has taken place. The media, and some politicians, have at last been forced by the gulf between their rhetoric and the reality confronting citizens into pretending that it is alright by them to debate immigration.
The worthy Frank Field MP has now gone so far as to say that Labour's intention appears to be identical to that of Stalin towards the Ukraine. The Russian monster wanted to deport its population and replace them with peoples he regarded as loyal. A BBC man recently said that Blair did not like the British working class and had decided to import one more to his taste.
Anyone who imagines that any of this signals a change of policy will be disappointed. The entire interest of the British establishment is now bound up with what is a global power play. Business is international. Nations are impediments to profit in that societies have other interests as well as profit. It is often noticed that political leaders soon succumb to the pleasures of travelling round the world in luxury jets rather than dealing with the tedium of daily business. The Labour Party, formed to protect working people, is now up to its devious neck in the impetus towards turning Britain into an 'international labour station', as Field put it. Its leaders seem to be a coven of those with narcissistic personality flaws.
Is there thus a conspiracy - as some claim - to create a global plantation of deculturalised serf workers? Certainly the idea is not so absurd to the majority as it was even at the turn of the millennium.
There are groupings who scheme in that secret way, but the far greater part of the huge forces behind the obvious systematic destruction of British society is simply the result of a great many individuals and organisations pushing in the same direction without any overall ordering directorate.
Adam Smith noticed, two hundred years ago, how the actions of individuals in pursuing their self-interest led to an outcome so complex in its organisation that it appeared impossible without a determining mind directing events. He famously called it the 'unseen hand'.
Britain's difficulty is that all too many people get a fast profit on the way to our doom. A coterie of politicians sit on their backs waiting for a payoff. Yet they are a minute number among us. Their real power has been the ability to persuade people that they were pursuing the public good. Hence the curious manoeuvres employed to explain their immigration policy - multiculturalism, celebrating diversity, stronger by our difference and all the other tripe cooked up for public entertainment.
The admission, at last, that all is not as well as we have been told is not the end of the monstrous racket. Too many people have too much to lose. But a chink has been opened in the armour of lies which has protected the ruling system from serious question as to the real nature of its particular utopian snake oil.
No fun at the office

One would have hoped that the Law Society had more important things to do than worry about the type of socialising indulged in by staff in law firms.
Yet, in dramatic pronouncements, the society which regulates solicitors claims that gays are being driven out of their jobs by the discomforts of trips to pubs, rugby matches and lap dancing clubs - 'undertones of homophobia' in the language of PC. Not everyone's idea of a great time, but scarcely the stuff of persecution.
What do these people expect? Such entertainments are likely to appeal to a far bigger proportion of staff than the minute number of homosexuals. Do they want matters to be balanced up by trips to homosexual clubs? These people are lucky enough to have well-paid careers others can envy. There is plenty of real injustice in workplaces which demands a remedy. Sitting in a clip joint drinking over-expensive alcohol hardly meets the definition.
We predict that, before long, firms in Britain will be forced to abandon soclal activities for staff in the face of the impossibility of satisfying the various lobbies pleading persecution, and demanding that their minority tastes are included in the festivities.

Quotes of the month

'Most white people have never extended their hands out to the communities and they shouldn't be forced to. We are fine with that. All the bridges, which have had to be built a million times, have been repeatedly burnt down and now it's white Britain that has to go on its knees and beg for forgiveness. '

Aki Nawaz - The Guardian September 1 2006

'Your Editorial proclaims that 350,000 Polish immigrants "speak English as well as the natives, if not better", and have contributed to economic growth. I have good news for your editorial writer. Romanian and Bulgarian immigrants will also be arriving from 2007, many journalistically trained and keen to produce good copy at the minimum wage of £5.05 an hour.'

Letters - Sunday Times May 21 2006

'Far from liberating our economy, Gordon Brown seems bent on shackling it with higher tax and red tape. He has read the evidence showing low-tax economies are more efficient and deliver better public services - and dismissed it. He believes it is our sacred duty to give him the cash he thinks we don't need so that he can spend it better. Once he is in Tony Blair's shoes, the only way taxes will move is up.'

Trevor Kavanagh - The Sun March 20 2006

'In an attempt to ease labour shortages, people from Ukraine, Russia and Belarus will no longer need work permits to enter the country. With thousands of its citizens flocking to the UK, Poland finds itself short of skilled workers.'

Mail on Sunday September 2 2006

April 2006
Getting closer
The Daily Mail has done a great service over the last several years by publicising the way in which our way of life is being systematically dismantled by the destructive and cynical people who have seized the reins of power.
But the Mail clearly lives in holy terror of being considered to have 'gone too far'. It has resisted describing the enormity of what is being done to the British people, larding its content with little PC gestures designed to construct an image of being frank but not 'extreme'. Matters are now moving so fast in the erosion of the British people's position in this country that the Mail has now, however, been driven quite close to expressing the obvious and inevitable outcome unless there is major political change.
Max Hastings recently wrote in the Mail that Labour wants to destroy the white middle-class. Now if that is achieved with the most powerful section of white people, what chance will the rest have? What Mr Hastings well understands, and what the Mail has now edged close to saying, is the true enormity of our position - that white people are to be destroyed period.
We are now watching the newspapers for the first major article which states matters in their true colour without hedging about the advantages of diversity.
The distraction burglar
Gordon Brown increasingly resembles one of those particularly poisonous people who gain entry to homes by false pretences and then rob the householder when he is not looking.
Since 1997, Mr Brown has snuck in taking a little more tax here and a little there while having given a deliberately false impression that Labour's old ways had changed with the now notorious promise not to raise income tax.
Inevitably, useful investment has suffered along with economic growth. The famous pre-1997 talk of 'endogenous growth' was another deception. Mr Brown is too clever to have thought that his obsession with micromanagement of the economy and increasing of taxation could go hand in hand with a flourishing economy in the long-run. Either he changed his mind once getting power, reverting to type as Old Labour, or he intended to fool everyone from the start. We prefer the second explanation.
But now nervousness about the future is spreading among the public, just at the time when Mr Brown wishes to grasp what he would say is his proper reward for failure. He can see the possibility of Blair clinging on for long enough to deprive him of the big prize.
It is unsurprising that Mr Brown recently launched himself as a world statesman with the worst type of political opportunism possible - adopting the mantle of the poverty pimp.
The lack of an education for many of the world's children is deeply regrettable. But neither the Chancellor nor anyone else is going to resolve the problem by flying round the world first-class dispensing umpteen billions of our tax money. Education in poor countries is one of those things which Lincoln referred to as having to be dealt with the societies affected. No permanent solution can come from doing for people what they can and should do for themselves.
Brown is so transparent. While we are exhorted to think of the suffering millions, he can pick our pockets for more tax money and put up as a saviour of the world.
Most people would say he should be dealing with the huge problems at home. But that is unlikely, since Mr Gordon Brown is more the problem than the solution.
Quotes of the month
'Political participation is withering from the ground up. Time was when there was a list of party applicants eager to stand in local council elections. Today there is none. Constituency party memberships have dropped so fast that subscriptions cover just 13% of Labour income and 6% of the Tories’. There are now fewer than 1m members of political parties in Britain, worse than the Church of England, football attendance or visits to Madame Tussauds. As for such backbone jobs as local party agents, there has been a 60% decline since 1970.'

Simon Jenkins - Sunday Times April 9 2006

'Six out of ten muggings are never reported because the public have lost faith in the police to do anything. The devastating verdict is delivered in a report by Demos, one of Tony Blair's favourite think-tanks. The list of unreported crimes also includes 35 per cent of violent attacks by strangers, 38 per cent of burglaries and 42 per cent of thefts from vehicles.
The report adds: 'The police were more likely to be rated as doing a good job by people who had no contact with them over the past year than those who had.'

James Stack - Daily Mail April 6 2006

'North Wales police have apologised for sending me a letter accusing me of using the phrase 'Little Welshies' on Question Time. I'm happy to accept these PC Plods' regret over mistaken identity, but what about apologising for having pursued this folly in the first place.
One officer wrote to me: 'The pity is that the Chief Inspector concerned will have hit all the diversity buttons necessary for advancement to the next rank and in so advancing will no doubt instil the same garbage in fellow aspirants.'

Allison Pearson - Daily Mail April 12 2006

'The charge of madness in politics often indicates that the abuser wants to bring serious argument to a halt. Being a fully paid-up card carrying fruitcake, I know. The charge of madness was one I regularly encountered when calling for avoiding the ERM and not joining the euro. Today's fruitcakery is so often tomorrow's orthodoxy.'
Andrew Alexander - Daily Mail April 7 2006

March 2006
The unreal times
Did not Alan Clark refer to past British politics as 'the real times'?
The state of the nation now increasingly approaches unreal times. No one trying to construct a meretricious television soap about British political life could include the way matters are drifting without the plot becoming a little too far-fetched to hold the viewers' attention.
Secret loans to Labour not even revealed to its own treasurer. The party chairman tricked on what looked like his possible death bed into signing papers designed to create peerages in return for for those loans. 'Ordinary housewife' and Cabinet Minister Tessa Jowell, who had no idea about her husband's murky financial doings despite signing documents involving huge sums. The pathetic David Blunkett blustering in The Sun about how opposed he is to political correctness when he and his party have knowing used it as a key means of stifling debate. MI5 saying they wish to ditch their motto of 'Defend the realm' in favour of something more 'relevant'. Perhaps 'Defend New Labour'. Taxes higher than ever before as the Government attempts to bribe ever more people into supporting it. Nearly a million children about be ditched by NHS dentists after the greatest spending spree on public health care in history. The chief architect of an economic upturn built on the sand of unstainable growth in public employment and growth in personal debt angling to enter Number Ten before he is caught in charge of the Treasury when things go seriously wrong.
On the Tory side, the policy-free leader who seems to have become known simply as 'Dave' insisting he will drink Free Trade tea, and build a wind farm on the roof of his home. Yet more secret loans designed to prevent us knowing to whom the Tories owe favours.
The Liberal Democrat leader forced out by being a drunk. Two hopeful successors having their designs scuppered. One by his sordid relations with rent boys, and the other by being forced to admit he is homosexual having been originally elected precisely by claiming he was not - unlike his main opponent.
But the core of a usable plot for a TV drama is now beginning to emerge.
As fast as the Labour party scandalises the nation, the official opposition positions itself to offer an exact copy of the whole wretched New Labour scam. Cut to secret discussions between powerful men behind the scenes turning the screw on senior politicians by telling them in no uncertain terms that nothing must be changed except the government if that is required to reassure the public.
The only serious rationale for the extraordinary volte face of the Tories on just about everything they stand for is to re-spin New Labour's purposes as something new.
Tax reductions? Of course, but only when 'stability permits'. Immigration? Labour has shamefully lost control of the borders but immigration is a huge success. The NHS to continue unreformed as the cash guzzling monster it is while front line services are cut. 'Commissions' to look at policy are the pretext for avoiding awkward questions about what exactly a Tory government would mean.

The morality of Iraq
What do you do about a country whose leader is a monster but in a situation in which only a monster could maintain any semblance of order?
The best anyone can now hope for the Iraqi people is that another Saddam emerges to get the lights back on and the taps flowing.
No whites
News that Avon and Somerset police have been forced to fess up to binning 200 job applications from white men might be welcomed if the same practice were not continuing in a more stealthy manner in every branch of government. This police force has now paid £25,000 to one applicant who lodged tribunal proceedings. We hope the others will do the same. The Chief Constable, Colin Port, who has now admitted he acted illegally in attacking whites, should resign.
If the rejected men had been black, would he still be in his job?
Quote of the month
'When the media began to be dominated by news about demonstrations, boycots and arson attacks against the Danish flag and embassies, most agreed that September 30 - the day Jyllands-Posten published the famous cartoons - would enter into Danish history as the beginning of the most serious national crisis since the occupation (by Nazi Germany during WW2). And considering the also recently ongoing international press interest 'The Battle of Khartoon' - as the matter now is being called by funny commentators abroad - has assumed the character of a world historical event.
The parallel with the occupation era is getting more conspicuous all the time. True, the enemy doesn't have troops in our country - at least not very many -, but if you cut out the surrounding commotion and the ever more embarrassing away-explanations, which the major part of the opinion elite excels in, then this matter is really very simple: enemy forces and their local agents are trying to limit a right which the Danish population has considered self-evident, i e the right to be able to freely express one's opinion, within the law's framework.
The admonitions of several earlier foreign-affairs ministers, those floppy ex-ambassadors, those bishops ready to adapt, those authors etc remind us unpleasantly of Christan X's proclamation on April 9 1940, after the occupation of the country: 'Under these so serious conditions for our fatherland, I request all of you in the cities and the countryside to display a completely correct and dignified behaviour, as every imprudent act or statement can have the most serious consequences.'
Isn't that exactly the same we get to hear today - demands to abstain from imprudent statements - not because they would violate Danish law, but because foreign masters won't tolerate them? And these demands come at a time when the country is not occupied by military force, and when the Moslem part of the population still is between 4 and 5% only. How much liberty will there be left in 10, 15 or 20 years?'
Lars Hedegaard, historian and journalist, Jyllands Posten Copenhagen 2006

February 2006
A gathering storm
Muslims calling for mass murder in our streets. Unlimited invasion by immigrants. But no major party willing to even ameliorate what is happening in the large. Hardly anyone willing for vote for change. The newspapers feeling the public mood and reflecting it for sales. Complain, but give no encouragement to action. Like the Daily Mail.
Each warning about the future is met by the press with a festival of reassurance. A minor change here, a political tweak there, and the underlying forces will be contained. Each upset and a little more ground is given to people whose objectives have nothing in common with the British people, and a bottomless series of historical and present grudges against this country.
You need to examine the 1930s to appreciate the mindset. People wanted to believe that if everyone shouted 'peace' then those who did not want it would be stung into changing their ways. Don't provoke them and maybe they will go away.
A woman on the radio said recently that if you find burglars in your home best ask them to take everything, and then claim on the insurance. The true voice of the appeasement mindset!
During the Thirties, people thought that their being personally affected by what was happening seemed remote. With the carnage of the Great War a very recent memory, any desperate straw to clutch on was better than taking action. So people waited and waited and then.....trouble was forced upon them anyway.
In the interim, wiser men fumed in frustration at the blind eye being turned to reality.
Cameron and the NHS
David Cameron's desperate attempts to avoid controversy, while claiming to be a politician, continue with his latest wheeze for dealing with the thorny question of the NHS.
Mr Cameron says that politics should be removed from the NHS.
Now the NHS is, in fact, one of the most political issues in British politics. The demand for health services is bottomless. But the supply of funds is limited by taxpayer resistance. Add to the pot the fact that the supply of medicine is often a matter of life and death, or makes the difference between misery and pain and happiness. Add further the supply of secure state jobs which the current arrangements provide, and which the unions guard covetously, and you have one of the most difficult questions in what politics is all about - the contest between different interests whose wishes cannot all be simultaneously met.
How exactly does Mr Cameron propose that these thorny matters by decided? Presumably, civil servants will decide how to spend the cash, and take the blame from the disappointed.
That leaves us wondering exactly what politicians like Mr Cameron will do. Waft about purveying more kindergarten public relations initiatives, one assumes.
Plumbers
Plumbing is now proceeding down the same primrose path as IT.
'Skills shortages' have been a persistent cry used by Labour to justify immigration. All too many people therefore supposed that there was a bottomless pit of money to be made in certain industries, and rushed to train for careers which the press frequently chose to portray as little effort for much reward.
Before long supply will exceed demand. That is what has happened with IT, and, according to the Association of Plumbing and Heating Contractors, the supply of plumbers will soon vastly outnumber the volume of work.
Not only will new entrants be squeezed by the other 26,000 people in training, but also by immigrants who have moved in to take advantage of building boom of the last few years.
If the Government had thought a little ahead they would, at least, have made some attempt to limit the length of time foreign workers could remain here. As matters rest, people are being trained for jobs already taken by immigrants.
Quotes of the month
'David Cameron needs to be challenged over the fact that the ostensible centre ground to which he is laying such noisy claim is nothing of the kind, but is rather the forward salient of a lethal assault upon the foundations of British society.'
Melanie Phillips - The Mail January 9 2006
'Why have our commentariat rallied so readily behind Dave Cameron? Believe me, if the media establishment likes any political leader, them you may be sure that leader is a tool of the liberal elite and an enemy of the people.'
Peter Hitchens - Mail on Sunday February 6 2006
'Britain is in danger of inheriting the title of the 'sick old man of Europe' warned a report by the Bank of America. It predicts Britain's taxes will be higher this year than Germany's for the first time in recent history.
The report coincides with the publication of The Bumper Book Of Government Waste: The Scandal Of The Squandered Billions. The authors accused Mr Brown of 'presiding over the greatest waste of money in British history'.'
The Mail on Sunday January 16 2006
'As one of the greatest humourists of the 20th century, Michael Wharton, who died yesterday. constructed a parallel universe. But the astonishing thing about his flights of fancy is that so many of them became reality. No sooner had he invented the "race relations industry" than it came into being. His preposterous "go-ahead Bishop of Bevindon" now sits enthroned in almost every diocese. Sir Aylwin Goth-Jones the "greatest living policeman", who advocates the use of police helicopters to catch drink drivers, is now in charge of every force in the land.
We salute our very own genius.'
Daily Telegraph - January 24 2006

January 2006
New Year's Greetings
We wish our readers all over the world a happy new year!
And it promises to be an interesting one politically with the regimes in the US, Britain, and much of Europe becoming played out, and with their errors beginning to accumulate increasing doubts.
But it is in Britain that matters are currently most interesting. Some breath appears to be coming back into the derelict carcase of party politics. The early indications are of a period of even greater cynicism in the operations of big parties than before. But this is to the good in hopefully provoking questioning of the present three party system as to whether it provides any real basis for a meaningful democracy.
Mr Blair's plan
Tony Blair has now been found out as the empty political vessel he always was.
But no one reaches his position on the slippery pole without ample native cunning. Blair must understand well that his positive 'legacy' consists of nothing but presiding over a period of economic stability - much of the fuel for which was provided by entering office during the recovery from a massive downturn. Hardly something to make a permanent mark on Britain.
But Mr Blair does still have the potential to commit something far more lasting to British political life, and something which can cement his reputation. Better yet, it is something which would appeal to a man of his vanity.
If Labour loses the next election - probably under Mr Brown - Blair will be able to claim that he was the only Labour leader capable of winning power in the near forty years between the mid 1970s and perhaps 2009 or 2010. And capable of winning three times too. A golden age of sound Labour leadership!
It is now much in Tony Blair's interest to undermine Labour but without making it too obvious. What better way than to introduce new policies which he knows he will have to withdraw through a lack of support? That is what is now happening.
Mr Brown is well-placed to take over just as patience with Labour's loss of direction is becoming obvious. And too near the next election to do a great deal about it.
Mr Cameron's plan
It is a little early to be sure of Mr Cameron's game plan for the Tories but the press is already beginning to flutter its fans uncertainly. Plenty of talk about modernisation but little than can be pinned down to tell us what it implies in practice.
The biggest difficulty for any party leader is policy. You can't please everyone, and a case can be made against any specific proposal. It appears that Mr Cameron has decided to make a leap no party leader has dared to take before. Since policy is such a problem area, why not simply abolish policies? Policies are yesterday's thing with no place in a modernised party. The public need no longer trouble themselves trying to make sense of what the party will do, struggling through boring outdated manifestos. We have the assurance that 'the right thing will be done' so we need not trouble ourselves further. New Labour brought on the tactic very well, but never quite dared to make the final leap into full modernity.
Of course, it is necessary to maintain the illusion of policies. Voters do expect governments to have some notion of what they will do. This need can be met by a combination of generalised statements like 'reducing poverty' allied with a number of administrative measure plugged as major changes when they are not. Mr Cameron proposes that economic statistics should be provided by a body independent of government. Something like the BBC perhaps?
David Cameron now promises to reform the NHS but apparently to keep it in its giant statist form. More vast sums will no doubt be wasted. No change likely there. World poverty is to be at the forefront of Tory government concern. How exactly tiny Britain is to do much about it is a mystery, but the path is open for luxury taxpayer-funded trips round the world by Mr Cameron when things get sticky at home. You don't argue with fighting poverty.
The Tories have calculated that the pendulum is at last swinging in their direction and that all they need to do is keep their heads down and win the next election by default. Avoid distressing the proverbial metropolitan classes by issuing an endless stream of Guardian-style caring remarks and they should make it home.
Cameron says that he 'likes Britain as it is'. If Tony Blair has not lost his touch, it will not be long before he chides his opponent at Prime Minister's Questions by asking why he does not join Labour if he is so approving of their creation.
Britain desperately needs reform in umpteen major areas. The looming tragedy is now a Tory party which appears to be a reforming force but will, in fact, change nothing of any significance.
What we need in Britain is not Mr Cameron's new politics but the old politics where problems had to be addressed.
Quotes of the month
'Decline of family and community is matched at a national level by Britain's growing crisis of identity. The pernicious doctrine of multi-culturalism threatens to turn this country into a society without loyalty.
Here is this great country, the fourth largest economy in the world, which today offers itself like the meanest hooker simply as a place in which to live and work, rather than as a culture and flag to which anyone who moves here should be proud to sign up.'
Max Hastings - The Mail December 31 2005
'Weak teaching means a quarter of a million children a year cannot read, write and add up properly by the time they leave primary school, a damning Ofsted report has revealed. Four out of ten pupils leave without mastering the three Rs.'
The Mail December 14 2005
'Readers have risen to the challenge of supplying Tory leader David Cameron with 'happier expressions' for the terms 'benefit cheats', 'tax cuts' and 'illegal immigrants'. Alan White suggests 'negative taxpayers', 'social investment rebates' and 'probationary citizens'.
The Mail - December 27 2005
'The plot labours under a crushing burden of political correctness: one of the Stone brothers is deaf, gay, has a black boy friend, and is about to adopt a baby - a revelation that prompted hoots of laughter in our non-PC viewing theatre'.
Matthew Bond - Mail on Sunday December 18 2005

December 2005
What with all the excitement....
'The rapid rise of the Cameroons has been a splendid opportunity for the press to provide novelty.
After a decade of Labour dominance, some excitement can be introduced into political coverage. At last the years of British politics resembling Formula One are over - or are claimed to be. No more boring elections with the usual trail following a political Michael Schumacher to the chequered flag.
Labour's decline since the last General Election has been so swift that it would be a miracle if there were not signs of a return to the political pendulum. Add the novelty of someone with no track record of experience in government, or no 'form' to hang round their necks in another way of viewing it, and it is very likely indeed that the next election will not return a safe Labour majority. This column has never believed the Tories to be finished in terms of their ability to regain power. Our query is whether they would do anything differently from Labour.
What with all the excitement, and the wish not to kill off the goose who has given the media new avenues to sell its copy, little attention has been paid to what Cameron has actually said so far which might be divined to indicate what sort of government he might operate.
What little he has said seems to spell out no significant change being in prospect regarding any of the really big issues affecting Britain.
His first speech as leader produced the groansome ritual about 'too many white men in parliament'. Spot the difference from Labour! What Labour really seems to mean is 'too many white people in Britain'.
A Tory politician seeking to introduce a better and truly conservative way of doing things would not have said anything about the number of white men in parliament. He would have spoken of the need to get away from political correctness and to ensure that the best people regardless of race were promoted both in parliament and elsewhere.
On taxes there has been some meaningless weaseling about caring and sharing. On immigration the traditional backtracking after a single speech made his name as a radical. Cameron now says we must welcome immigrants needed by the economy. That can mean anything as he well understands. It is also identical to Labour's position. In fact, the only chink of light on offer is what appears to be a commitment to reducing the transfer of power to Brussels.
Tory thinking appears to be that they can now win the next election because of Labour fatigue and unpopularity. No need to provoke their backers or an establishment doing very nicely under Labour by offering any change that might reverse or even halt the precipitous decline of British society. The glamour and novelty of a new political set will be sufficient to sweep to power.
The prospect for Britain on the Tory showing so far is that Britain is in the grip of a form of government described by its worst critics. You can vote but you cannot change anything.
Bush's war plan
President Bush has announced that the US will not leave Iraq until total victory has been achieved.
The principal flaw in this plan is even bigger than the unlikely prospect of its achievement. Even if the US could install its ideal regime in Baghdad, the whole thing would collapse as soon as the USA left the country.
The end of the Iraq adventure is now inevitable. A new and future regime in Washington with no political investment in the war will save what little face it can and get out. Hopefully, in a little more dignified manner than the scramble for the last helicopter on the roof of the US embassy in Saigon.
Firm immigration controls
Immigration officers have been told by Labour not to detain illegal immigrants other than failed asylum seekers. The claimed reason is a lack of space in detention centres. The real reason is to avoid drawing attention to the vast numbers of illegals in Britain while making a show of removing those whose asylum claims have been rejected. The Prime Ministers pledge concerning that small segment of illegals is, it seems, all that matters.
When immigration officers and police expressed concern at a meeting, the head of removals, a certain Dave Roberts, told them: "I pay your wages. Do as you are told".
Mr Roberts has sized up the nature of this government pretty well and is no doubt familiar with what happened to Cardinal Wolsey when he failed to please. No wonder he's tetchy.
Quotes of the month
'Tony Blair's legacy won't be the Iraq war. It will be the way he has allowed people smugglers to usurp our borders and change the face of Britain for ever.'
The Sun December 8 2005
'I shudder to think what the total cost to the economy of acceding to the constant demands of minority lobby groups over the past 25 years has been.
Hundreds of these groups are happily trampling over the needs of the majority in this way - outlawing Christmas lights, banning religious jokes, stopping the Women's Institute from selling jam, censoring plays, insisting on councils writing everything in hundreds of languages and so on.
The longing to be loved has gone unrequited because virtually every other country and race has a monumental chip on its shoulder - and that chip is usually about the historical success of the English.
Why does the great silent majority put up with these abuses?'
Francis Fulford - The Mail November 26 2005
'Removing religion and what it is to be British from school has been a disaster. Where else are young people to go to learn ethics? Learning about 'citizenship' and trying not to offend any race or creed is not enough. That's why we've had bombers here. What this kind of teaching does is rob Britain of its feeling of community. And without our community we slip into a crime-riddled cesspool.'
Black youth worker Shaun Bailey - The Mail November 28 2005

November 2005
Integration? No thanks we're British
The notion that problems created by vast numbers of immigrants can be solved by 'integration' grows apace in currency - further driven by events in France.
Politicians, and all too many among the public, are preparing to cling to the proposed solution like drowning men seeing a waterlogged piece of wood.
The question not much asked is why immigrants would want to integrate, and what does the term mean anyway? What is implied, or perhaps what politicians want us to think, is that people of an entirely different racial origin and culture will cease to press for any recognition other than equal citizenship and the right to their private cultural practices within the law. These rights and recognitions, of course, are already enjoyed by ethnic groups in Britain so there will be nothing more to ask for.
Thus, sections of the community, and often sections choosing to live in their own enclaves, will decide to become ordinary British grunts having no more levers upon power and influence than the white working class.
The ethnics are, in fact, being asked to generously sacrifice the increasing power and influence they wield from an apprehension of trouble arising from their ranks, increasing numbers, and a degree of common purpose not commonly displayed by white Britons. The fabled 'community leaders' are being asked to sacrifice the positions they enjoy as front men for changing Britain to suit those with very different ideas of life in Britain to the majority.
Those with a realistic idea of human nature will not be expecting groups growing in power to voluntarily relinquish it. Indeed, many among them must think the idea a sign that politicians in the host community are barmy.
David Cameron
A foretaste of the degree to which David Cameron will get to grips with the dilemmas facing Britain, if he is elected leader of the Tories, was given recently by his comments on immigration.
Britain must welcome immigrants needed by its economy but immigration must be controlled.
Now there is not a cigarette paper to be inserted between Cameron's overview of immigration and what Labour says. Moreoever, Cameron's weasel words - as with Labour - would cover any level of immigration 'the needs of the economy' being such a flexible notion.
Since the Tories have a business lobby to please, which wants wages held down by immigration, the likely meaning of Camerons's words is a continuation of what Labour is doing.
Taking British jobs
The customary claim by those in positions of power concerning immigration is that it has no effect on the employment prospects of British workers.
The Royal Bank of Scotland has now broken with this great but farcical tradition in the face of increasing a rise in the numbers claimed to be in employment while the number of benefit claimants rises steadily. The bank says that the unemployed tend to be British while jobs are taken by new migrants.
The scale on which this is happening is, of course, far larger than it might appear from the rise in benefit claimant numbers. Immigration does not necessarily mean total unemployment for many people. It often means a reduction in the amount of work they can get. Full-time workers making a viable living become part-timers clinging on hoping for better times.
None of this is reflected in the official figures.
Quotes of the month
'This week Messrs Cameron and Davies will 'debate' on TV.
We'll decide who 'came across' best and pretend we're deciding on the issues. This is politics reduced to the accessible level of the Big Brother house, with only one question deciding the outcome: who among them is least likely to upset the status quo.'
Peter McKay - Mail on Sunday October 31 2005
'Arts minister David Lammy MP calls for more balck people in top culture jobs, saying subsidies might be cut if institutions don't become more 'diverse'. Are public institutions in Africa - or Guyana, from whence Mr Lammy's parents came in the 1950s - 'too black'. If so, should our subsidies to them be cut?'
The Mail October 28 2005
'Far from the claim that the French disturbances have been caused by a French policy of segregating Muslims into ghettos, this is a war being waged for separate development.
Some Muslims have even called for the introduction of the ancient Ottoman 'millet' system of autonomous development of different communities.
The director of the Great Mosque of Paris has previously that France should be regarded as a 'house of covenant', by which he appears to mean that France should enter into an agreement with its Muslims to grant them autonomy within the state.'
Melanie Phillips - The Mail November 7 2005

October 2005
Mr Phillips' nonsense
Increasing awareness of the very evident fact that multiculturalism is destroying our society has driven the head of the Commission for Racial Equality to make noises which appear to amount to a reversal of policy.
Trevor Phillips, the unelected boss of Labour's race propaganda machine, now pronounces on the required shape of British society. His every word is reported and pored over despite his having no qualification to do so except a degree of gift of the gab acquired as a reporter.
As always with the weasel words which make up most of Labour policy, Mr Phillips' pronouncements amount to little in practice except as a precursor for continuing with the same ruinous policies - but relabeled to suit changes in the political weather.
Whether Mr Phillips chooses to comprehend it or not, the policy of the political establishment in Britain is not to arrive at some balance where immigration on a huge scale is permitted while at the same time the rights of indigenous Britons are preserved. That is impossible. The real policy is the root and branch destruction of our society at the whim of the tiny minority who still believe in that great fantasy of the 20th century - a society rebuilt as utopia by political action entirely unbased on the realities of human nature.
What appears an admission of error by the oddly named CRE (which speaks of racial equality while most of its staff are black) is nothing of the sort. Whether Phillips be a dupe of higher powers, or knowingly speaks for their agenda, is irrelevant. Probably a little of both.
Destroying British society, while describing the process as 'equality', has run its course. The unfairness of a policy which amounts to blatant discrimination against whites often sailing close to the law - witness the Metropolitian Police's deterring of job applications from whites - has become all too obvious. It's time to rebrand, and the new line is 'integration'.
How is this new line to be interpreted? Phillips speaks of the need to learn English but the core of the matter is no different from the old policy of 'anti-racism'. What it amounts to is that more ethnics must be squeezed into Britain (Phllips rejects levels of immigration as irrelevant) and given a more prominent place. No change there then! Inevitably, whites must be further marginalised. All that has changed is that we are supposed to believe that we are parts of some grand social scheme rather than simply giving away our position out of guilt.
It's surprising that no one thought of this ingenious rebranding exercise before! What it will amount to is that no demands of any significant kind will be placed on ethnics (unless one believes in flying pigs, Mr Phillips will not wish to alienate his own people) but huge further demands will be made on whites.
Phillips admits that some British educational establishments have signs up saying 'whites keep out'. Does he plan to tackle this as a test of good faith? We doubt it. The stomach-churning meretriciousness of 'a nation of many colours combining to form a single rainbow' is much spin and no substance.
It is all typical New Labour.
The flimsy Tories
The plight of British political life was brought into sharp focus by the ups and downs of the contenders for leadership of the Tory party at their conference.
Support for the leading candidate, David Davis, collapsed following a good but light on substance speech by someone too young and inexperienced to be properly considered for the job. The Tories are so short of people with a suitable track record that one speech by David Cameron could put him in front.
It is not to devalue speaking ability in politics to say that a party so easily influenced gives all the appearances of lacking any firm sense of its own philosophy and objectives. That, unfortunately, is indeed the plight of the Tories. But equally unfortunately, the more the Tories twist and turn the worse their plight becomes. No one really knows what they believe in, and it does no service to their credibility when they make it obvious that they are casting around for something to believe in.
The shallow nature of Mr Cameron's bid for power was then exposed by his unwillingness to say whether he had ever taken drugs. It would be a miracle if he had not when drugs are so available and fashionable. The sensible approach by anyone with the weight to hold down a position like leader of the opposition would be to recognise that people can have taken drugs while also recognising the difficulty that those people who cannot control their appetites are led into by drug use.
It is perfectly possible to smoke tobacco or take alcohol while also arguing for controls over their sale and use. Yet too many politicians have boxed themselves into a corner where they refuse to answer about drug use. It convinces no one of anything, and merely emphasises how politicians run away from difficult topics.
The Tory's difficulty is not in being the nasty party. It is in being the party no one could vote into office with any clear idea of what it would mean.
A caricature
A black London policeman is suing for racial discrimination. Does he claim that he was held back in his career by prejudice? Well no. He claims he was overpromoted owing to political correctness, and then demoted when he was found not to be up to the job.
This is the sort of caricature which race relations have become in Britain.
Quotes of the month
'Schools and universities are now beginning something called 'Black History Month' which focuses exclusively on the Afro-Caribbean communities.
For all its political correctness, this is blatant discrimination. Can you imagine the outrage if anyone tried to promote 'White History Month'.'
Ray Honeyford - Daily Mail October 5 2005
'The Institute for Public Policy Research reported that immigration in the ten years to 2001 rose by more than 1.1 million.
The social costs of housing health and education for large numbers of immigrants and their dependents could well exceed any financial benefits.
Then again, can the overcrowded South East cope? And what of the charge that a growing army of pliant migrant labour encourages sections of the indigenous population to remain out of work, swelling our already bloated welfare bill?'
The Mail September 8 2005
'We continue to be battered with allegations of a cover-up over Ron Davies and another 'gay scandal'.
The best line that has never emerged was that when one of the police officers who went to the scene (on Wandsworth Common) said to Ron, 'Are you a minicab driver, because there have been a lot of attacks on minicab drivers?', Ron replied: 'No, I'm the Secretary of State for Wales'.'
A Spin Doctor's Diary by Lance Price - Mail on Sunday September 18 2005

September 2005
The bitter fruits
The question we have to force the people to face now is this: Who really is to blame for the bloodshed on Bloody Thursday - and its fortunately unsuccessful sequel - which has exposed the realities of Britain today? Do we blame the Muslim terrorists? Or do we blame the Labour-Liberal-Conservative political elite who let them into this country?
We have now tasted the bitter fruits of the multicultural, multifaith society. We now know what is really meant by the "vibrant, exciting cultural enrichment" that our political leaders promised us. Diversity means sharing our land with people who wish to destroy the "infidel", and who have every intention of putting their fanatical beliefs into practice.
Had there been a "No Immigration" policy when Enoch Powell demanded it, we would not now have been facing the threat of an Islamic Fifth Column in our own country. Even Powell's evocation of "a river foaming with much blood" did not foresee the role that a world-wide Muslim Jihad would play in destabilising the West. Powell's predictions, in fact, fell far short of the horrid truth. And all this we have to thank Heath, Wilson, Callaghan, Thatcher, Major, Blair and all the other multiracialisers, who have done so much to advance the spread of Islam in Great Britain though their immigration policies.
Blair, in his ineffable triviality, declares that the terrorists will not deter us from carrying on with the routine of our daily lives - as if the aim of the terrorists is to make us late for work or interfere with our shopping sprees! Blair cannot face the reality of the terrorists' aims, which is to establish the world-wide rule of Islam, and nothing less.
To work for the establishment of a world-wide Muslim Caliphate and the submission of the whole of humanity to Islam is not the pipe-dream of a few isolated Muslim extremists - it is the clear and repeated command of Allah as taught in the Koran, and the acknowledged duty of every Muslim man and woman.
The liberals and the Establishment always like to pretend that support for terrorism is prevalent only among "a tiny minority"; this is a complacent self-delusion. In Northern Ireland at least 50% of the Roman Catholic population are sympathetic enough to the IRA to vote for their political wing, Sinn Fein, notwithstanding the opposition of the authorities of the Church and many leading figures in that community. Among Muslims in Great Britain, although support for Islamic terrorism is fairly limited in numbers at present, and although the Government is desperate to gain the support of moderate Muslim opinion at home and abroad in their fight against so-called "international (i.e. Islamic) terrorism", the momentum of events - Muslim insurgency, leading to counter-terrorist measures, leading to further Muslim disenchantment - will ensure that the Fifth Column within the British-domiciled Muslim community gains increasing credence, support and numbers.
The IRA terror campaign was, in truth, a limited fight in an isolated backwater over a petty parcel of land. The international Jihad is a world-wide struggle, fought by people who have an iron faith in the infallible truth of the Koran, and who are determined, no matter the cost, to establish the global domination of Islam over the entire planet.
And we have Blair and his multi racialist and mass-immigrationist allies to thank for allowing the Jihad to establish their bases in this poor, benighted land of ours. We are paying for Blair's folly with the blood of our loved ones. How long before we overthrow his tyranny?
Slavery
The United Nations has warned that two million people a year are being sold into slavery.
More people than ever before are being enslaved. The trade is world-wide. Even Britain is involved because of the policy of turning a blind eye to illegal immigration. Women are brought into this country for sexual exploitation from East Europe, Asia and Africa.
As a country which abolished slavery in the 19th century, and set the Royal Navy to disrupt the trade, it is particularly shameful that Labour has allowed Britain to be involved in something once generally thought - largely because of the promoters of imperial guilt - to belong in the past.
The Battle of Britain
The shortly to be unveiled memorial to those who fought in the Battle of Britain has received not a penny towards its cost either from the Labour government or from the National Lottery.
Yet the Czech government contributed £52,000 to the memorial.
It has become tedious to keep pointing out that New Labour has no interest in Britain's history or heritage. What is rather surprising is that one would have expected the masters of spin to see an opportunity here for Tony Blair to strut about posing as a patriot whose administration backed the project. Perhaps they think public opinion to be now so cynical about Labour that it would prove counter-productive.
Quotes of the month
'Courts should let burglars off with community sentences, Britain's most senior judge said.
When you are paid a great deal of money, taken around in a chauffeur-driven car, have Special Branch officers to protect you and are treated with a reverence bordering on sycophancy by almost everyone with whom you come into contact, it must be easy to assume that this is a land of milk and honey where the few who stray can be brought back to the fold by mildness and reason. Such, we must fear, is the blissful planet Lord Woolf inhabits.'
Simon Heffer - Daily Mail August 18 2005
'This week's edition of Nice Work comes from Cardiff where the local council is advertising for a Keeping in Touch Co-ordinator. "Working closely with partners and young people you will play a critical role in the development of strategies". Call it £27,411 a year and one for yourself.'
Richard Littlejohn - The Sun August 23 2005
'The BBC is to abandon its stupid 'idents', little films of disabled Rastas dancing in wheelchairs, skateboarders hurtling through deserted docks and Tai Chi losers lurking by docks.
Please don't do this BBC. It is a constant reminder that you are what you are - a hopelessly PC, utterly biased organisation that wilfully rejects the Conservative cultural tradition and dislikes the fact that the word 'British' forms part of its name.'
Peter Hitchins - Mail on Sunday September 4 2005

July 2005
Appeasement fails
During the 1970s, public dismay at successive governments' blithe indifference to its objections to mass immigration necessitated a new approach to allaying its concerns.
For several decades, the tactic had been to claim that immigration was 'under control' and 'limited'. As some of our cities began to become unrecognisable, the falsity of official propaganda began to be too evident for political comfort.
A new tactic was adopted. What was happening was not simply the introduction of millions of people, who mostly had little in common with the British, but the construction of a splendid new type of society known as 'multicultural'.
The idea was that a society's strength would be greater the more racial and cultural strands were introduced into it. Difference would make living in Britain more varied and exciting - or in officialspeak 'vibrant'. Difference would also breed mutual respect from contact with novel ways of living.
Now there is a very obvious potential difficulty in this arrangement which was deliberately ignored - and continues to be ignored because of its inconvenience for a theory intended to reassure the public. Vigorous racial and cultural groups will wish to extend their influence and power. Where is a line to be drawn preventing the most vigorous - perhaps the most militant - groups from pushing others aside?
We were told that the degree of mutual esteem generated by contact with a rainbow society would ensure that no one would wish to do otherwise than support its continuance. A treading on other's toes would be inconceivable with such high ideals of mutual tolerance accepted by all.
As so often before with altruistic schemes for social improvement, demands were to be made upon human nature which were not going to be met.
As the years rolled on, and official credibility depended increasingly on maintaining the illusion that things were going to plan, cracks in the social edifice were met in a time-honoured manner. Appeasement of potentially troublesome groups was turned into a fine art.
New laws to deter freedom of speech were introduced. These were sparingly used in practice since the atmosphere of apprehension they created stifled dissent to a degree far greater than the laws themselves dictated.
A new caste of untouchables appeared known as 'community leaders'. These often self-appointed personages demanded and got a respectful hearing to which they were supposedly entitled not because of the large numbers of people they represented, or because of the strength of their case, but because of the very smallness of their constituency. To be a 'minority' was in itself to enjoy a special status.
Cash was readily on tap wherever discontent reared its head. The 'council grant' often replaced more vigorous social controls. In the most extreme cases, cash was sent in rather than the police.
Recognition that the most extreme brands of Islam were a potent threat to the illusion of limitless harmony between competing groups within Britain led to appeasement being taken to absurd lengths.
Blair's posturing about never giving in to terrorism had already been exposed as hollow in the simple methods employed to prevent IRA bombings on the mainland. The IRA was allowed to run its rackets and continue with violence provided it kept to Northern Ireland and refrained from the uses of explosives in large quantities.
The threat of Muslim terrorism was met in a similar manner. A lack of border controls, ample social security benefits for almost anyone coming to Britain, and a blind eye being turned to the most outrageous preaching of violence was thought to ensure that no sensible Muslim terrorist would wish to blow up Britain. To make doubly sure, a new law would be passed allowing the imprisonment of those expressing too vocal doubts about the objectives of religious groups.
The official line concerning the London bombings, which killed probably seventy people and maimed hundreds, is predictable. A tiny number of malcontents, perhaps from abroad, carried out an atrocity condemned by almost the entire community it claims to represent. That may well be factually true but misses the point.
Britain has imported militant cultures with no attachment to our way of life and whose expanding numbers cannot indefinitely be appeased into accepting themselves as one of a number of strands within society knowing their place.
The real threat to the British people is not bombers - whatever tragedy they can impose on the lives of individuals - but the demands which will be made in future by militant groups for Britain to be run in accordance with their beliefs. Appeasement will not work indefinitely in the face of their political demands, any more than it worked in deterring terrorism.
The bombings have served to distract attention from the far bigger issue of the instability of multiculturalism. Multiculti is a bomb waiting to go off, and one far larger than a few pounds of stolen or smuggled explosive.
It is a sad fact of life in Britain that, as yet, most people in our country - let alone politicians - would rather not have their attention drawn to the unexploded bomb under their feet.
Reaping the whirlwind
Page 4 National Edition (click to view pdf file)

Quotes of the month
'Cynics, some of them in the intelligence services, used to suggest that the Government's softly-softly approach towards Muslim militants was designed to protect Britain from terrorism. The sour joke had it that so many terrorists were using this country as a base from which to organise attacks on other people that they would not want to foul their own nests. If this view was ever tenable, it is no longer so.'
Max Hastings - Daily Mail July 8 2005
'Sir Ian Blair seems remarkably preoccupied with promoting himself and was all over the broadcast media yesterday after the attacks. But earlier in the day, his timing was, to put it mildly, unfortunate. For at 7.20 am, he boasted on BBC Radio 4's Today programme that the Met was seen as the 'envy of the policing world in relation to counter-terrorism'.'
Melanie Phillips - Daily Mail July 8 2005
'The Blair government has institutionalised political correctness by requiring all public bodies and private companies with public contracts to not only be non-discriminatory but to prove they are non-discriminatory.
As proving a negative is impossible, public bodies and private contractors with public contracts are now reduced to ensuring they employ people from the groups of whom the politically correct approve regardless of whether the people are the best qualified for the job.'
Letters - Camden Journal July 7 2005

June 2005
The Tory dilemma
The Tories are finally being faced with the dilemma they have evaded for more than a decade.
Is the route to power emulating Labour's pretence that it can be all things to everyone or to strike out with a convincing statement of principles about what it stands for? The former route means adopting a political strategy of avoiding controversy about hard choices. By the time of the next election the voters may have had their fill of this variety of politics. The latter involves - most prominently - judging the likely future public mood about taxation and public expenditure.
A serious party would suffer no difficulty. If your party has no bold and coherent view about how Britain should be run then it has no legitimate authority to be in business. An assumption that the electoral pendulum would continue to swing substantially between Labour and the Tories has permitted them to come under the influence of increasingly cowardly politicians. Taking risks was not seen as worth troubling with.
The public, unfortunately for the Tories, have grasped this and the limited efforts made by Michael Howard to appear distinct were unconvincing. It looked to the public that the Tories did not really expect to win the election, and that their radical pledges on immigration, for example, would not have been made if there had been any real expectation of having to carry them out. When a party is not taken seriously even when it claims to offer a vigorous alternative it is in potentially terminal difficulty.
Their own chief strategist, recruited from Australia, says that they failed to be sufficiently different to Labour. But even if they had taken greater risks by being more radical would anyone have believed them?
None of the above implies that the Tories cannot win the next election. New Labour has little to look forward to but more painful exposure of its failings. But a Tory party with no coherent message will be further weakened and exposed for its hollow nature if it takes office. Even being in power with a huge majority has not saved Labour from this fate. It's membership has halved. Disillusion with the political class will worsen.
It is difficult to imagine the Tories ever regaining sufficient radical momentum to address the problems facing the country. Immigration and Europe are simply too big for them, for example. Even Margaret Thatcher, the most radical Tory leader since the war, failed to halt the transfer of power to Europe or seriously face the fact that Britain is a tiny densely populated country which should not embrace immigration on anything but the tiniest scale.
If the Tories cannot recover as a serious party, which is the most likely outcome, then those not content to be a part of the apathetic masses should organise to replace them in the longer run. At present, there are too many small groups unwilling to work together. The biggest political task for the right over the next few years is not to establish a reasonably coherent viewpoint in tune with public opinion. Most people now agree broadly with us. The urgent job is to persuade the supporters of a myriad of small groups that there is no way forward without cooperation.
France's shock election result
The Guardian ran a remarkable piece in the wake of the vote against the European constitution.
It quoted a French sociologist as saying that the country is now in a pre-revolutionary situation as a result of the detachment of the political class from the interests of the people, and their arrogant disdain for public opinion.
The Government's monumental misjudgement in assuming that it would receive the backing of voters for an EU superstate reflects how difficult it is for any entrenched regime to grasp that there may be limits to what it can do.
Quotes of the month
'At The Job Centre where I work on Merseyside I'm disturbed by surreal attempts to correct perceived ethnic imbalances. The human resources department has just coined this corker of a phrase: "To treat me equally, you might have to treat me differently."
Human resources departments are fond of telling us that we must treat everyone equally, while at the same time introducing schemes which openly discriminate against the majority of the people of this country. When reasonable people point out the hypocrisy inherent in this they're branded racist by the rabid multiculturalists who have infiltrated public life.'
Letters - Daily Mail June 8 2005
'Race relations commissar Trevor Phillips hated Enoch Powell's views on immigration so much that he even made a documentary for the BBC in which he broadcast an invented story to try to show he was a hypocrite.
Mr Phillips is now himself trumpeting one of Powell's fears about immigration, that unless there is integration we are at risk of riots.'
Simon Heffer - Daily Mail May 28 2005
'Egged on by intellectual elites, Europeans were encouraged to despise the civilisation that had nurtured them. The nation state was pronounced a hateful anachronism that had to be replaced by a pan-European superstate. The West’s defining values of enlightened tolerance and freedom were not superior to anyone else’s. Crime was the fault of its own unfair societies. Immigrants who came to its countries were not to be forced to live by its own rules but by theirs, even if that meant “honour” killings and jihad. The effort to produce tolerant, multicultural societies resulted in the paradox of radical liberal democracies such as the Netherlands enthusiastically nurturing forces at home that sought to destroy the freedoms in which they were being incubated.
But the challenge is now upon Europe. The longer it puts off the inevitable reforms - economic, social and political - the harder it will get. And if it chooses to defer a real response for ever, the greatest civilisation in the history of the planet will simply continue to sink beneath the waves of its own economic irrelevance and moral ennui.'
Gerard Baker - The Times June 3 2005

May 2005
Election thoughts
The General Election made three things about the condition of British democracy very clear.
The electoral system is blatantly biased in favour of Labour giving it a disproportionate number of seats when compared with the Liberal Democrats and Tories - let alone small parties. It also made clear how the big parties are reluctant to offer genuine alternatives which they vigorously pursue. Timidity rules. Lastly, all too many issues are now simply ignored because the big parties cannot answer criticism of their policies. We heard little about Europe - arguably one of the two most important issues facing the country together with immigration. We also, for example, heard little about the looming question of future energy supplies which appears to have no solution except the nuclear one.
A meaningful democracy must offer choices based on the big questions of the day and allow voters to reflect their preferences in the make-up of the House of Commons. But, little by little, these basic democratic rights are disappearing leaving a hollow shell of electoral procedure. Unfortunately, the public response is, at present, to reinforce its cynicism about politicians rather than to demand reform.
Our party's result in Wombourne showed in a small way, however, that something can be done. The public are willing to vote for alternatives if they are properly presented. We suspect that Cllr Edwards would have won easily if voters had fully appreciated the level of support she enjoys. The 'wasted vote' argument must have deterred some voters who would have supported her if they had known she was within distance of winning. Small parties need credibility as contenders before they can enjoy their full potential support.
Dutch immigration
Recent BBC TV coverage of the increasing numbers of Dutch folk leaving the country because of immigration displayed how things are changing.
The BBC, which has never missed an opportunity in the past to condemn anyone who does not believe in the benefits of immigration at any level, offered almost no criticism of those saying that immigration had reached such levels that they no longer felt at home. Many were leaving to start new lives in New Zealand.
Of course, the BBC was not applying the same principles to Britain - a far more dangerous matter for the political establishment. But it cannot be long before the realities to which the right has drawn attention for many years - to a chorus of derision - are accepted as a correct analysis.
Quote of the month
'The headline above Mary Kenny’s Comment (May 2) tells us: “Our idle, yobbish dysfunctional society can do nothing but benefit from immigration”. On the contrary, immigration can perpetuate and worsen those serious problems, and add new ones.
Delusions about immigration abound, notably the idea that an influx of “cheap labour” is good for the economy. In reality it maintains unemployment and exacerbates the low-wage poverty and inequality which all rational social policy should seek to minimise. Of course employers benefit, but in the end the taxpayer must top up low wages through welfare and subsidised housing. In the long run, there is no such thing as cheap legal labour in a welfare society.
Much worse, it tempts us to side-step the solution of difficult political issues, including reforming the training, education and motivation of millions of the existing population, young and not so young, who are economically inactive, and rethinking the perverse welfare incentives that keep them so.
Permanent dependence on immigration is impossible. The supply of Estonian nannies, Warsaw waitresses and brickies from Bratislava will dry up - birth rates in Eastern Europe have been rock bottom since the early 1990s. In due course the only places with surplus population will be Ethiopia, Somalia, Yemen and the like.
There are more important things than dusting the ornaments in Ms Kenny’s lounge. One of them is building a more sustainable society without writing off the demoralised natives and driving population growth through the roof.
Letters - Oxford Professor of Demography David Coleman The Times May 6 2005

April 2005
Election time
Now that the General Election is at last upon us it is difficult to decide whether the result matters or makes no difference.
The main parties have between them created a situation in which voters increasingly conclude that there is little difference between them as regards the general state of the nation which can be expected under their administration.
Under all three, at varying speed, the corrosion of our society will continue and power will drift further towards the EU. There is simply not the radical will to resist.
On the other hand, there are substantial differences from the viewpoint of particular groups and individuals. Those belonging to the particular client groups favoured by each party may be very materially affected by the result of the election. It is difficult, for example, to see why anyone who works for government should vote elsewhere than Labour - at least if narrow self-interest is the only consideration. It is the party most likely to put more money into the increasing army employed in the public sector
The public generally have been left with little genuine democratic choice where the big parties are concerned. All three have arrived at a political formula which is more designed to avoid trouble than secure the future of the nation. Small sweeties are handed out to a multitude of different interests, and controversy is avoided by a huge apparatus of politically correct initiatives. No one must be offended according to the rules of PC.
Thus British politics is deadlocked in short-term considerations. Any party breaking ranks will be attacked, and, with taking power at stake, few will venture outside the safety of the formulaic politics which suits the political establishment.
The turnout for the general election may be low, if those all too aware of the lack of profound differences between the parties decide not to trouble voting. If may well be high if those equally aware of short-term advantage decide that there are sufficient differences to justify voting. This election is unusually unpredictable.
But whatever the turnout or result, nothing will substantially change.
What can be done in such circumstances? What is needed to break the deadlock in our politics?
The answer - short of internal revolution inside the big parties - must lie with electing outsiders. Only independents and representatives of small parties have real freedom to speak out. Parliament and local councils could be shaken to their roots by even a small number of such people. The argument that small parties like our own, for example, are not relevant or a wasted vote is simply untrue.
We urge our readers to support candidates outside the big party system. The Freedom Party can only cover a small area of the country, and we, naturally, solicit your vote if you are within that area. But there are many other groups and individuals elsewhere for you to vote for.
A remedy for our nation's decline can only be generated initially from the grass roots. We ask you to put aside the bidding war between the big parties dispensing small favours, and vote for the seeding of radical change.
Charles Murray's dispiriting vision
The American social commentator Charles Murray recently issued a dispiriting warning about what will happen in Britain concerning what has become known since the 1970s as the 'underclass'.
Murray says that what will happen here will track what has already happened in the United States.
Since the 1960s, when stable relationships within which children were raised began to go out of fashion, a growing class of unemployed people has appeared often drifting in and out of crime and living much of their lives on state benefits.
In the United States, says Murray, it was thought that state programmes could remedy the problem by drawing back the underclass into the mainstream - training, guaranteed jobs and so on. The multitude of programmes were always represented in the press as achieving magnificent results in the short-term. In the longer term they were utterly ineffectual.
But, in the United States, the underclass, which some years ago was such an obvious feature on the streets driving down the quality of life in whole neighbourhoods, is no longer a great concern. Yet it has not shrunk in numbers.
What has happened is that American society has dealt with the problem not by tackling the causes but simply by a social apartheid. Mass imprisonment and social segregation of the underclass into particular areas and schools is now standard procedure. No one imagines any more that social inclusiveness will resolve anything.
Politicians have funked addressing the underlying issues because of the political difficulty in tackling welfarism. British politicians, heedless of the US experience, still rely on 'programmes' which make good press copy but make no real difference.
But, sooner or later, politicians like Giuliani in New York will come forward in Britain to protect the ease of the better off by segregating the unsocialised and unemployable. Murray calls it 'custodial democracy'. This will begin to happen in Britain within ten or so years, he says.
It is the clearest example of the failure of mainstream politics to address the big issues facing Britain. When social discomfort among the better off becomes too great and prolonged to be politically ignored we will further divide British society as the United States has done.
UKIP's immigration fudge
"UKIP does NOT favour the application of quotas either for legal immigrants or for refugees. We believe the above measures, properly applied, will sufficiently limit the numbers taking up residence here and we shall then, once again, be able to make them all welcome."
UKIP is notoriously cowardly about addressing immigration into Britain. One might have supposed that - now even the Tories are being a little more vigorous about the subject - UKIP would have found the courage to speak out firmly as most of its members would like.
Note then the interesting choice of words in the excerpt from their election manifesto above. After a preamble concerning the need for greater controls on immigration we get to the characteristic UKIP fudge which has been the despair of so many. It speaks of 'making them all welcome'.
UKIP looks two ways at once again!
Quotes of the month
'The social fracture taking place in London will soon overtake the rest of the country.
We are seeing the pernicious effects of both the hip-hop gangsta lifestyle and the liberal approach to racism. As a socialist, I believe we have descended into a victim culture where the "victims" target their supposed oppressors. Whatever they do is justified because they live in the "ghetto". The ghetto is all in the mind but that does not matter because their peer group all thinks the same.
Where I live three miles from Brixton, I have seen the gradual disintegration of the community in the past three years. The influx of newcomers has intimidated locals. People no longer acknowledge each other and crime is steadily rising.
What is happening from Hackney to Croydon risks leading to the American experience of "white flight".
Letters - Evening Standard March 24 2005
'The NHS is wasting billions but still not treating people. Billions are being pumped into education yet the only way the Government can meet its targets is to abandon them. Vast sums are wasted on projects of social engineering. Unmotivated and uneducable young people are to be bribed £75 a week to stay on at school. Business complains that it is being regulated out of any chance of being able to take on competitors.
Welcome to Gordon Brown's wonderful world of 'fairness' and 'social justice'.
Mr Brown enjoys an untouchable status in the Labour movement. It is probably because the media is so busy hating Mr Blair that Mr Brown has got away with his charlatancy for so long.
Simon Heffer Daily Mail March 26 2005
'The idea of truth has given way to moral relativism, which turns everything into an equal opinion. It is designed to bring about the death of Western society.
Its hallmarks are mass promiscuity, the breakdown of the family, the rise of mass fatherlessness, the epidemics of casual abortion and sexually transmitted diseases, the decline in the birth rate within marriage, and the creeping acceptance of euthanasia, along with legalisation of drugs. All these things are evidence of a culture bent on mass suicide.'
Melanie Phillips Daily Mail April 4 2005
'My objection to Labour is its leadership of a cultural revolution that is obviously directed at stripping us of our liberties.
It is not, of course, a revolution that began in 1997. It has been a project for at least the past half century of our entire ruling class, which I will define - yet again - as the sum of political, administrative, educational, legal media and business interests that gain status and income from an enlarged and active state: perhaps we can also call this the Enemy class by virtue of its object: But there is no doubt that the revolution was greatly hastened when the present Government came into office.
I should also say that the overt intention of these people is not always to make us into slaves. Some, no doubt, just want more money and privilege for themselves, and do not care to think about what this means for the rest of us. Some genuinely want to create a better world, and find that the existing order of liberty gets in the way of this. Of course, I have no sympathy for this object. I can understand that the French Jacobins did not realise what they were doing. I can just about feel for some of the Communists at the end of the Great War. But we now have a 200 year experience of the fact that every road to Utopia is covered with corpses, and these people ought to know better.'
Sean Gabb - Libertarian Alliance April 2005

March 2005
The Labour mystery again
The general election is now thought to be imminent - unless Labour has changed its apparent mind in view of increasing disillusionment in the country, and thinks it best to wait a little.
The sly presentational techniques upon which Labour has based its governmental style have now caught up with it with a vengeance - techniques rooted in the slippery personality and style of the Prime Minister.
Yet, despite that fact that it is now quite clear that it is composed of recidivists entirely incapable of any reform, it retains a lead in polls - at least in so far as they can be believed. How can this be explained? Most other governments would have sunk by this stage.
Many attempts have been made to explain Labour's dominance, most depending on stability of the economy in isolation. Comparative stability is not what was expected of Labour and it has reassured the wider public. But none of the explanations are entirely convincing when there is so much doubt about most of what Labour does.
The most compelling explanation has been offered by Frank Field. One of the few Labour MPs willing to speak his mind, Field explains Labour's position from the viewpoint of the big picture concerning why it enjoys support in general rather than from the perspective of recent success or failure.
Labour's social policies, says Field, often appal it's own supporters. Given their way, social policy on such matters as immigration would have more in common with the far right than the left. But they support Labour, holding their noses, because they believe that Labour governments will look after them economically. A far more calculated position than the old refrain about "My dad voted Labour and his dad before him".
If Labour's core supporters cease to believe the above, a political cataclysm awaits the party sooner or later. And one which, says Field, can arrive very suddenly when patience snaps.
Immigration could be the issue which brings matters to a head. Yet Labour refuses to take seriously the reservations either of its own supporters, or the country at large. Mass permanent unlimited migration is the policy, and any attempt to seriously debate the matter is met with the usual platitudes about diversity, and crude condemnation of any other viewpoint as 'racist' 'bigoted' and so on.
But it can no longer be concealed that migration is beginning to seriously threaten many members of Labour natural support base - including ethnic groups. The adverse effects partially been prevented by the lack of an economic downturn, and the Government's policy of trying to take on people in the public sector as fast as they are being shed by parts of the private sector.
In a downturn, Labour's room for manoeuvre will be seriously limited when falling tax revenues meet rising unemployment. Economic protection of the natural supporter base by the means chosen can only be maintained for so long. Anyone can see that vast mumbers of foreign workers are massing in our cities willing to undercut British workers. Labour has no mechanism to reduce their numbers in a downturn.
Labour has, in fact, abandoned one of its traditional roles of defending wages paid in the private sector. The minimum wage serves more to reduce the role of government in being forced to support people with top ups from the tax payer than to maintain decent wage levels. Even African cleaners at the House of Commons have demonstrated against low wages. And the minimum wage is increasingly evaded by expansion of the twilight world of foreign workers in the black economy.
Sick benefits have provided a convenient means of parking the unemployed, who might naturally support Labour, on incomes which are not as low as the dole. But the expansion of numbers has now reached its political limits. The Tories, of course, pioneered the use of the 'sick' as a political game. They used up most of the political limits before Labour even took power.
Put everything together, and the economic protection of Labour's core supporters looks to be on increasingly shaky ground. Add general irritation about immigration, crime and so on, and particularly the feeling that those who work are being taken for a ride to support the feckless. It's is all a far cry from the old Labour dream of good wages and secure employment provided by political levers able to lean on the private economy in tandem with a huge but productive public sector which directly guaranteed wages and employment.
Labour's great compact between acceptance of disliked social policies, and hoped for economic benefit, may be on its last legs.

Is anything Labour says true?
More and more people now question whether anything they are told by the Labour government is actually true.
It now transpires, following enquiries by the national auditors, that the increase in the number of teachers claimed by Labour is a mirage. The apparent increase was arranged by the simple expedient of including in teacher numbers more than 100,000 ancillary staff.
Crisis in Sweden
The Prime Minister of Sweden has been forced to intervene in the major crisis facing the country. It has emerged that IKEA flat pack instruction leaflets do not show women putting furniture together. IKEA is now to include as many women as possible in its instructions.
It is difficult to believe that Sweden - a foremost example of progressive thinking - could have allowed such a human rights atrocity to take place.
Britain must now closely examine its own full range of instructional material to ensure that we are not guilty of similar human rights infringements.
Among the jobs which will need to be particularly closely looked at are changing sump oil, clearing drains, and digging out tree roots.
Quotes of the month
'Is Europe giving way to blackmail?
The question was raised in Germany last month by an article in Die Welt, the country's most heavyweight paper, by Mathias Dúpfner, head of the big Axel Springer publishing group. He titled it Europe - Thy Name Is Cowardice. He said that a crusade is under way "by fanatic Muslims, focused on civilians, directed against our free, open western societies " that is set upon the "utter destruction" of western civilisation. This enemy, he said, was spurred on by "tolerance" and "accommodation", which were taken as signs of weakness. Europe's supine response, he said, was on a par with the appeasement of Hitler.'
Sunday Times February 27 2005
'The key to Labour's sheer unpleasantness and amorality is the background of so many of its senior ministers. Several of them started off as thuggish student union officials with hard-Left political obsessions.
In those guises they were taught the importance of propaganda: the importance of trampling over anyone in your way, and of telling a lie so frequently that it becomes, to all intents and purposes, the truth.'
Simon Heffer Daily Mail February 16 2005
'One in twenty asylum seekers is HIV positive and it can cost the NHS £150,000 to treat each of them, a team of AIDS doctors has said.
So, even if only 10,000 asylum-seeking HIV cases have come into the NHS, they are likely to have cost £1.5 billion, enough to build 15 general hospitals.'
Daily Mail March 7 2005

February 2005

A theory of injustice
Just this month, we read in the newspapers of 'white flight' from British cities.
A remarkable turnabout in our affairs. That such headlines could appear in major British newspapers was unthinkable even five years ago. No credit can be given to the journalistic profession. They avoided such issues for years when it was obvious what was happening to Britain.
We also read about how a scout group which had been refused a lottery grant on grounds of being too white, and therefore not 'disadvantaged'. The writer of this column also noticed a jobs fair run with ratepayers' money by a left-wing local authority. The leaflet advertising the event pictured seventeen 'workers'. Not one was a white man.
Such situations are occurring all over the country.
An immediate reaction is that those in power simply favour client groups upon which their power is based, and now do it so openly that it must be presumed that they believe themselves so entrenched in power that they are untouchable.
But this underestimates the subtlety of the liberal/left, and the ingenious manner in which they construct ideology which can be perverted in their own interests.
The line taken by the dispensers of lottery money is that that they prioritise the disadvantaged. This puts an interesting slant on the word 'community', which is liberally sprinkled around any utterance from the apparatchiks who control the purse. 'Community' is no longer the generality of us, and worthy causes among us, but specific groups. The same principles apply to endless local authorities, government organisations and so on.
To understand what is happening it is necessary to comprehend that what is done is based on a theory of how society should be run, and, specifically, what can be considered social justice.
There are many ways of defining a just society. The simplest would be to say that everyone has the right to keep what they have and no obligation to share with anyone else however badly-off.
But modern societies take a more complex view of matters, reasoning that the worst-off should be helped.
The philosopher John Rawls offered one version of the just society at just the right time for the requirements of the liberal/left who were then making their long march through British society.
During the 1970s, he suggested that a just society would offer everyone equal opportunity. But where opportunity was unequal, it should be arranged to benefit the disadvantaged. Like many social theories, it all sounds very reasonable, but, as always, the devil is in the practical application.
A vital element in proceedings was that the decision as to who should be registered as disadvantaged was to be made by those ignorant of whether they personally would benefit from engineered inequality.
Now this apparently highly theoretical and academic consideration is nothing of the kind. Few people will trouble to look into such a dry matter, and this is what has given the left their opportunity.
The entire edifice of political correctness is built round a misuse of Rawl's theory of justice - but few appear to have noticed. Misused, it becomes a theory of injustice.
Those who choose who it is to be given a leg-up are not disinterested parties ignorant about who will benefit in the outturn. They are active participants in arranging matters to help themselves - either very directly - New Labourite well-paid jobs dispensed to themselves, or indirectly - in the promotion of favoured groupings which will reward them with political support.
Challenge the racket and you will be told that you must be a person who favours injustice. Do you not want to see those famous 'marginalised' groups benefiting from an alleviation of their 'special needs'? An arcane language has grown up around the theory of injustice employed by the left to advance themselves.
The world is turned upside down, with much of society occupied with obtaining the coveted 'victim status' which will often open the doors to a well-paid job - or a job in the first place - and an especially favourable eye cast on one by government.
It needs no emphasis that white people are unlikely in general to be classified as being victims. Nor white men looking for work in one London borough. Nor white children needing a scout hut.
What started as a system of promoting justice has become a deeply divisive injustice, where resentment is sown and complainants can be traduced as favouring injustice. Equality has become a classic Orwellian sham in which some are more equal - in fact unequal. As a director of the RNLI said, if you treat people equally you are doing the wrong thing. But those in power increasingly rely on the entire structure to keep their positions. Reform is impossible without a root and branch change to power structures.
So seething resentment fuels existing resentment. A resentment which even the national newspapers with their interest in keeping those in power as useful allies cannot contain.
Quotes of the month
'The Times has established that the regional lottery committees that determine grant applications are not required to set aside any of their budget to support projects which fall outside the rigid “disadvantage” criteria that has been set out. A director of one of Britain’s best-loved charities, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, labelled the policy an “absurd” example of “political correctness gone mad”.
David Brann, the RNLI’s director of fundraising and communications, said the charity had not applied for any grants because lottery organisers had made it clear that none would be successful. “As a search-and-rescue organisation, we don’t fit into the fund’s aims and objectives because we don’t discriminate against anyone,” he said.'
The Times February 12 2005
'While the PM tried to explain himself, the camera caught the face of a young woman who looked down at the Premier with all the distaste of a pedestrian enountering a dog mess.
'Democracy is a people concept!' wailed Tony, hand-waving hard.'
Quentin Letts Daily Mail January 31 2005
'Only days before the vaunted 'elections', Human Rights Watch revealed that the new 'democratic' Iraqi regime is already using the standard methods of the region against those it dislikes - electric shocks to the genitals, beatings with heavy cables, hanging prisoners by their wrists.'
Peter Hitchins Mail on Sunday February 6 2005
'The economic arguments for mass immigration are flawed.
We have a declining birth rate which means we need an increase in the working population to support the growing number of pensioners.
But the solution is to allow people to work longer. In the long-term immigration brings no economic dividend since immigrants also become pensioners and increase the burden on the state.'
Labour MP Roger Godsiff Daily Mail February 1 2005

January 2005
Sweatshop Britain
The Guardian has finally admitted what has been obvious for several years in increasing areas of Britain. Vast and increasing numbers of illegal immigrants are working as sweatshop labour and outside the law.
The house journal of the Labour political establishment and its clients says that the scale of the flow of migrants has not been seen as a fit subject for discussion since this might 'play into the hands of the right'. So we are to be deceived if possible about an issue which the Guardian itself says is now so substantial in scale that it is a 'major factor in Britain's economic competitiveness'.
The Guardian has, of course, broken cover because it can hardly continue to ignore the obvious while retaining any credibility.
But the Guardian's astonishing suggestion that 'economic competitiveness' is enhanced by illegal immigrants working for starvation wages must imply that such a situation is a good thing - and that more of the same would presumably be even better! This is what the party of the working man has come to. The lower wages can be forced the better the state of the economy.
But the term 'economic competitiveness' is ideal for the sort of slight of hand engaged in by Labour and it's friends. Sounding technical in nature and intrinsically beneficial, and thus daunting for the uninformed to challenge, it can successfully deter examination by those fearing to be shown up as ignorant. Cosmetic manufacturers employ the same methods when they proclaim that their latest gunge contains laboratory tested Formula XYZ.
The point of a sanely run economy is to improve the lot of the general mass of the population. But Labour's national labour market policy becomes clearer by the day. It is to create a sweatshop economy in which wages are forced down by immigration. No wonder the Guardian does not want to give comfort to the right. We have been correctly pointing out for many years that immigration is a cheap labour racket, and that 'diversity', 'multiculturalism' and such political paraphanalia, are merely devices to obscure and sanitise the real purposes of those in power.
Real economic competitiveness of a beneficial nature comes from increases in productivity brought about by investment in training and plant. This raises wages and improves the lot of the people. But the Labour government's policy is exactly the reverse - a perversion of policy. It is to boost profits by reducing wages. That certainly offers a boost to the economy in the sense of pleasing firms. One could make them even more pleased by providing slave labour! Indeed, if firms can boost their profits in this manner they are unlikely to trouble themselves greatly seeking better methods of production.
Many of those sucked into the illegal or marginal part of the economy are now , in fact, legal immigrants from places like Eastern Europe who find that the ability of the gangmaster economy to provide cut-price labour has destroyed the prospects they thought they had of properly regulated employment.
Next in line, of course, come our own workers as Britain races to the bottom in the name of 'economic competitiveness'.
Crime
Labour has reacted with predictable fury to the report by Civitas saying that Britain's police are the worst in the developed world.
Rubbing salt into Labour's wounds, Civitas exposes the falsity of the political establishment's pretence that there is no serious problem with crime. The idea is one held by the ignorant according to the official intellectuals.
The poor performance of Britain's police is no mystery. It proceeds from the withdrawal of the police from the daily involvement and contact with the public as was once the case. It proceeds also from the creeping and inevitable pressure upon policemen - particularly at the senior level - to ape the social perspective of fashionable politicians. Their view - that one should not be too hard on criminals, who are at least partly victims - has now unhappily been confirmed by the just-announced refusal of the Home Office to strengthen the right of householders to defend themselves against burglars. Despite huge public and media concern, the message is still one of protecting the rights of criminals.
Until the politicians change their opinions it is unfortunately unlikely that even greater community participation by the police on its own will produce any lasting improvement in our lamentable situation.
Quotes of the month
'It appears safe to conclude from the evidence that the scale of illegal working (by migrants) is very substantial, larger than previously acknowledged, and a major factor in Britain's economic competitiveness.'
The Guardian January 11 2005
'As we enter the election year, the mood of the voting public has never been so glum, so reticent and, crucially for New Labour's prospects of a radical third term, so ready to believe the worst of politicians.
These are not my views but the evidence of focus groups we commissioned among key voters in London and Birmingham who swung enthusiastically to New Labour on May 1 1997 but who now feel utterly betrayed. The findings revealed a shocking sense of bitterness and cynicism about New Labour and a powerful sense of insecurity about national identity. Across all the groups, New Labour politicians were "just a bunch of liars". The groups revealed a shocking sense of loss over what it means to be English - a loss made worse by what was seen as the latest waves of immigration. Blair, they said, "is anti-English". He supports "any country and religion, except the English".'
Neil Lawson The Guardian January 8 2005
'Under the slate roofs of a Lake District village, sinister figures are handling seditious literature. In a quiet café in Staveley, a man slides a pamphlet across the table. National Park Events 2004, says the cover. It gets even more disturbing inside, on page 16: "Gateway to the Lakes: a short but scenic walk. Climb through Craggy Wood to visit Potter Tarn.
The bespectacled man wants us to accompany him, to show us what free guided walks in the Lake District are like. Just how sinister he is becomes clear when he reveals his identity. He is Clive Langley, 60, a retired chartered surveyor. Quite clearly, he is white, middle-aged and middle class.
"You can't help it, can you?" he says, with a grin that suggests he isn't even ashamed.'
Sunday Telegraph January 9 2005
'The Queen's claim in her Christmas message that 'diversity is a strength not a threat' is an endorsement of multiculturalism rather than full integration. This is a controversial project which a growing number of reasonable people reject.
We are told that she is above politics. I fear it is the other way round. Rightly fearing abolition by New Labour, she seeks to appease them. It won't work.
They will get rid of the Crown as soon as they think they can get away with it.'
Peter Hitchins Daily Mail January 2 2005
'The Provisional IRA has been blamed for looting the Northern Bank of £26.5 million. Even the Guardian, usually an enthusiastic supporter of Irish republicanism, admits: 'Those who continue to vote for Sinn Fein should consider what they're doing'.'
Peter McKay Daily Mail January 10 2004

December 2004
Christmas 2004
The Freedom Party makes no claim to be the largest nationalist party in Britain. The substantial and growing readership of these web pages throughout the year is, we believe, because it provides a resource of considered ideas and biographical material difficult to find anywhere else. We do not provide sensation or political pornography.
Even ten years ago, the idea that organisations like ours could really reach out to anywhere in the world at virtually no cost to the reader, or ourselves, seemed far-fetched even to most of those who knew of the existence of the Web, which was then in its infancy. Yet almost everyone in developed countries now has access to the Internet either at home, at work, or in a library. It is already difficult to imagine the time when communicating political ideas not welcome within the mainstream press was impossible except on the tiniest scale through the medium of printed material.
We wish you a Merry Christmas, our readers from all over the world.
We must terminate Labour's huge majority
Few people in Britain still doubt that our country is in the control of an incompetent government of gloating swindlers.
The near universal cry is, however, that there is no alternative administration available with the potential to do better. "How then should we vote" ask the electors. Is it worth voting at all?
This seems to us a calamitous misunderstanding of the situation. The reason why Labour has been such a disaster is because it has been protected from challenge by its huge majority. If Labour cannot be replaced at the next General Election - and we are not sure that is really the case - then the priority is ensure that other parties are sufficiently strong that they can provide a real check on Labour's arrogance and misuse of power. The withdrawal of votes from Labour and their use elsewhere at the next election may well decide whether Britain has any future at all.
We believe that a close result giving no party any great advantage would be the best outcome. None of the three main parties really represents what most people in Britain want. It is logical in such a situation not to give any party untrammelled control. The release of long suppressed political forces in such a situation would be inevitable. While any party has complete dominance it is difficult to mobilise genuine opposition.
A close result, we believe, is not unlikely. The polls show Labour in a strong position but have overstated their support in the past.
Liberty attends security
It was famously said - we are told by Thomas Jefferson - that if you sacrifice liberty for security you end up with neither.
The imprisonment in Belmarsh Prison of some foreign nationals without charge or trial is a national scandal, and contrary to everything we thought were basic liberties established hundreds of years ago.
Whether the men detained are really terrorists, or merely pawns in a New Labour post 911 public relations exercise by the lamentable and now departed Home Secretary, David Blunkett, is not the point. These men are not Britons and we should not be obliged to have them in this country if we regard their presence as a threat. If they are indeed a threat, well, so are many other people depending on your viewpoint. If people are to be imprisoned for being considered a threat then that is the route to the gulag, and we are already on a slippery slope.
Imprisonment without trial is not going to stop terrorism. It merely hardens terrorists in their resolve. It also prevents the surveillance of suspects to locate their associates within the community. We are sacrificing our liberties without even obtaining security. What is needed is to restore both the right and the capacity to expel people from this country who are not British and who should not be here.
That includes illegal immigrants, failed asylum seekers, and the tiny number of terrorist suspects.
Quotes of the month
'It's wrong to say that Christmas is being banned all over Britain in order not to offend other religions.
The real reason it's being done is deliberately to cause the maximum offence to as many people as possible in line with Labour's mission to destroy all British culture and traditions.'
Richard Littlejohn - The Sun December 10 2004
'Mass immigration will swell Britain's population by 11 million over the next fifty years according to an explosive report by Treasury forecasters.
The proportion of ethnic minorities will rise from just over nine per cent today to nearly a third.'
Daily Mail December 12 2004
'When a chain-wielding thug burst into his corner shop and threatened to kill him, Suresh Patel hit the panic button and waited for police to arrive.
But instead of the wailing of sirens he was sent a letter ticking him off for pressing the alarm twice during the terrifying attack.'
Daily Mail December 5 2004
'Former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt admitted yesterday that his country had been wrong to import foreign workers to boost its economy.
Socialist Mr Schmidt said "It was a big mistake to bring guest workers with a strange culture".'
Daily Mail November 25 2004

November 2004
The US election
The result of the US presidential election has deeply shocked liberals in Britain.
Their discomfort appears to result from two quite separate misunderstandings - one of which may well signal a sea change in western politics.
The first misapprehension was perhaps understandable, but reflected the self-centred nature of the left in Britain. UK liberal opinion expected that the Iraq war would be the crucial issue in the minds of American voters when casting their votes - as it was in their own when contemplating US policy. It may well have been for the US counterparts of left/liberal opinion in Britain but not, it seems, for most of American society.
Far more importantly, voters seem to have been expressing at the ballot box the wish for some commitment to the traditional values of American society. Bush certainly did not win the election on the basis of having delivered a hugely successful economy or the completion of a foreign military adventure ending in garlanded soldiers marching out of a happy and peaceful Iraq.
It has long been a cardinal of Democratic strategy that minority groups and immigrants into the United States would eventually form a permanent and secure electoral force large enough to prevent the Republicans winning power again. In fact, Bush's campaign made some inroads into these traditionally Democratic voting blocs.
Labour's electoral strategy in Britain is based on the same reasoning employed by the Democrats. Britain is being flooded with immigrants who Blair expects will vote Labour until kingdom come. If what is happening electorally in the United States were repeated here - as it may well be on the principle that what happens across the Atlantic is soon repeated here - the basis for Labour's cynical tactics may come to grief.
Whether voter expectations that Bush's administration will halt the erosion of American society are met remains to be seen. What does seem to be the case is that there is a growing turn towards wishing for the consolidation of society after decades of radical change. This is hardly unexpected. Humankind does not want permanent revolution. With the United States being split down the middle between Republicans and Democrats, even a small shift could put the former into power for a very long time.
White working-class men
Readers, if they have not done so already, should look at the remarkable article by Rod Liddle in the Sunday Times of November 14.
He says that it is open season on white working-class males, who can be attacked by fashionable opinion in a manner which would never be allowed against any sector of any ethnic group.
The pretext is loutish behaviour, ignorance and politically incorrect attitudes rather than being white. Since there is plenty of the same among ethnic groups, the pretext employed is not overly convincing. The real reason, of course, for the constant flow of hatred and derision directed against people who were once feted by middle-class leftish opinion as heroes of socialist society is that the middle-classes want to indulge fashionable white self-hatred without suffering themselves. Working-class white men do not have much media access. They make convenient targets unable to answer back.
The vilification of white people, which has been de rigeur within left/liberalism since the 1970s, has been used by it to erode white culture and identity which it sees as obstacles to the total re-making of Western society. The difficulty with this technique for social revolution is that white leftish/liberals can only create a convenient separation for themselves from the culture of vilification for so long. The pointing finger will - sooner or later - be pointed at them. In the face of this threat, solidarity will mysteriously reappear.
Quotes of the month
'The Tories cling to the coat tails of a policy at whose core is the ultra-feminist ambition to get all women out to work while children are cared for by the state. Instead of challenging a disastrously burgeoning dependency culture in which a quarter of households with adults of working age draw more than half their income from the state, the Tories are proposing to widen still further the net of people being bribed into reliance on the Government.'
Benedict Brogan - Daily Mail November 12 2004
'The Netherlands, long hailed as a model of tolerance and racial integration, has come to the conclusion that their 30-year multicultural experiment is an abject failure. White citizens fear their own culture will be submerged under an increasingly intolerant new one.
A survey showed that a majority of Dutch expected not to feel at home in their own neighbourhood five years from now, due to the rising number of foreigners.'
Nick Craven - Daily Mail November 6 2004
'Tony Blair snubbed two Labour worthies when they met him for a beer at the Commons according to ex-Labour aide Roger Pope.
'Suddenly Blair asks me to come outside the bar. He gets his wallet out, pulls out a fiver and says "Go and buy them a round. I'm off. I can't stand these types of people."'
Black Dog - Mail on Sunday October 17 2004

October 2004
Double trouble
Max Weber distinguished between politicians who live for politics and those who live off politics.
There is no longer much doubt in most voters' minds into which category most of the present denizens of the big parties belong. There is now an additional twist in that Weber identified charisma as a feature of those who lived for politics, hopefully pursuing something more than the bureaucratic continuance of their own and their party's immediate economic interests.
Tony Blair has been able to represent himself, and his strata of the political class, as falling into the 'living for' category, while, in fact, being probably the most tawdry exponents of 'living off' politics ever known in Britain. Perhaps Weber should have warned against what might be called 'false charisma'!
In the past, Labour politicians were constrained by the revolutionary appetites of their own followers for what they regarded as social progress. That has largely gone. Almost the entire Labour machine in now a gravy train accommodating those who live off politics. The EU has added fuel to this effect, providing a source of vast salaries but little accountability. It is the ideal arrangement for the professional liver-off of politics, unfamiliar to British society but of a nature all too familiar in character to those who lived under Eastern European communism.
Ironically, it is in the years since the media gave up much of the deference to the political class which existed before 1979 that politicians have been able to deceive and get away with it on such a scale. It appears that the more searching scrutiny offered by those parts of the media opposed to particular parties has not had the effect of frightening the political class into greater honesty. Unexpectedly, the reverse seems to have happened. Perhaps constant and frantic scrutiny dulls the appetite of the public. Everything is dismissed as media circus, and politicians are more free than ever before to prevaricate knowing whatever is exposed will be the next day's proverbial takeaway wrapping. Lie fatigue has set in.
The Tories have at last dared to admit the realities of current politics in Britain. Politicians can lie endlessly to pursue their interests and get away with it. The Conservatives admit to having been guilty themselves of exploiting the erosion of accountability but maintain that the worst of it has been under Labour since 1997. This is not convincing, and a cynical electorate is going to need a great deal of convincing that there is any real appetite for a more honest politics. That is the Tory dilemma. Confession attracts attention to their failures without any certainty of benefit.
The Tory failure has been so lamentable that they have an uphill struggle on their hands. During their long period in office they attacked and undermined just about everything they claim to represent.
Most of the steps towards an EU superstate were made by them. Freedom of speech was very badly undermined by the Public Order Act, which, on the face of it, was merely intended to restrict abusive language. In practice, it created a feeling that controversial opinions risked arrest for those expressing them. Multiculturalism, now even to a degree admitted to be a mistake by the CRE, was introduced to schools undermining the cohesion of the society. The drift to lawlessness on a scale not known in modern times, and the creation of an underclass, were both mostly creations of the Tory years.
If the Tories are really to reform themselves rather than slowly die - the more likely outcome - they will have to be far more forthright than is currently the case. The public is fed up with 'aspirations' which are easily wriggled away from. Lower taxes? Restrictions on immigration? Such pledges are meaningless in today's climate without flesh on the bones. We've heard it all before.
The Tories now say that opposition from parties like UKIP at a general election will only put Labour back in office. But, without opposition, the Tories will likely heave a sigh of relief, and all the fine words about a new and more honest form of politics will soon be forgotten.
If Tory candidates find themselves opposed by candidates likely to take votes from them then the answer lies in their own hands. Stop fudging and give the public solid reasons not to vote 'protest party'. The voters are well aware that the Tories have the infrastructure to run a national government while the protest parties do not.
It is up to the official opposition to prove they can become once again a vigorous movement rather than needing replacement. Calling for those who don't believe they can do it to stand aside is not going to convince anyone. Vigorous parties stand on their own feet.
We British are arguably faced with our worst political situation since the Civil War - the double trouble of both main political movements having thrown themselves overboard as convincing alternatives, which can be entrusted with government in any larger sense than occupying positions.
Both main parties are now in the last chance saloon. More and more people see no way ahead except by something entirely new.
Latest developments in political correctness
Conker-playing Punch and Judy shows are now banned.
Quotes of the month
'(New Euro Commissioner) Laslo Kovacs, former commissar in the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party, was not asked about his communist past but about what he would do to stimulate the European Union's economy.
He replied 'All these difficulties should not stall our determination to strive to achieve our final objectives. On the contrary, commitments must be reinforced and implementing measures must be stepped up, although in a flexible manner to allow adaptation to new circumstances. A decade-long time-frame with several economic cycles is long enough to bring about circumstances that necessitate a certain refocusing in the policy setting.
Such an answer could have been lifted verbatim from the proceedings of the 12th Congress of the Hungarian Socialist Workers' Party in 1980.'
Mail on Sunday October 3 2004
'Mr Blair has talked headily of the prospect of zero unemployment in the future.
Yet this seems most unlikely. For it appears that (since 1997) instead of the numbers dropping, there has been a conroversial accounting exercise which has simply taken the jobless off one list and put them on another, where they are invisible and claim incapacity. Far from the number of unemployed going down, the figures are actually going up when those 'on the sick' are counted too.
Sheffield Hallam University said that Britain's unemployment levels would rise by 80% if the Government included all the people claiming incapacity benefit.'
Sue Reid - Daily Mail September 25 2004
'As a parliamentary candidate in Surrey, I’ve been trying to help people whose quality of life has been blighted by traveller encampments established in defiance of the planning laws, who have been campaigning against inappropriately sited mobile phone masts and whose public space is being encroached on by insensitive development. In every case the people elected to give effect to local wishes, the councillors, have been rendered increasingly powerless. The Human Rights Act has given judges the power to overrule local authorities trying to uphold the rights of established residents, and the new Compulsory Purchase and Planning Act has given central government’s agencies the power to countermand local councils’ decisions.
Democracy cannot function when votes are divorced from power.'
Michael Gove - The Times October 5 2004

September 2004
Protest is not enough
Things have changed in Britain.
The politically ingenious manner in which Mr Tony Blair has succeeded in diverting public attention from demanding results in return for the increasing burden of tax it pays is beginning to crumble. The realities of New Labour policy on unlimited immigration, crime and the EU are beginning to press in upon attention rather than being merely matters fought over in newspapers.
The miasma of New Labour's greatest skill - spin - still persuades much of the public that there is no alternative to the present regime. That is an extraordinary psychological and political trick. In other circumstances, the public would be clamouring to try anything rather than continue as we are.
But something very substantial has changed. There is an awakening to the fact that continuing down New Labour's road means the end of our society. Most people, until recently, believed no government would seek such an end, and that those who have claimed as much were alarmist.
Opposition to what is happening - although it is beginning to take some political shape - is marred by a lack of appreciation of the demands which will be made upon an opposition movement which is to succeed.
All too many still adhere to a 'peasants revolt' notion of opposition. If a big enough number of the dissatisfied rally and protest in a large enough political field then the big political parties will be 'forced to take notice'. They would do well to read about what happened in 1381! The big guns listened carefully alright, and then led those they had listened to a dance which ended in their failure to change substantially the balance of power. Does anyone believe that New Labour lacks the political skills even a young Richard II could provide? What is needed for the survival of Britain is more than some grudgingly given concessions along the way.
A successful political opposition to the destruction of Britain is going to need political work far more technically advanced than that which most of the larger current nationalist groups are offering. A mere protest requires only a ragged type of organisation able to sustain itself in the short-term.
Two of the larger groups are dogged by flaws which are likely to limit their potential to anchor themselves in communities in the manner which real political movements do. The political effectiveness of one group is entirely dependent on a tiny number of rich men. Experience teaches the fickleness of support from those quarters. The other is dogged by its own inability to organise itself in a legitimate manner which can be seen to be such.
All too many people involved in the nationalist cause still believe in a fairly short-lived programme of protest as the way forward - on a personal level, the modern peasant's revolt of letters and e-mails to newspapers and prominent figures - on a party level obtaining what amount to protest votes. That is understandable in view of the fact that most are citizens propelled into political activity by altruism, but without experience of the realities of politics. Unfortunately, there are no prizes for being well-meaning. What counts is political technique, and the left in Britain has always understood this far better than the right.
Population
Simmering under the political surface for some while has been a lobby embracing a spectrum of opinion from greens to what the newspapers call 'far-right'. The message from such as the Optimum Population Trust - regarding the green issues - has been that Britain is one of the most densely populated countries in the world and, for a variety of reasons from social harmony to sustainable resources, there is no case for expanding the population.
Yet Labour's publicly announced policy is unlimited immigration.
We now read in the house journal of Labourism - The Guardian - that the Government has suddenly woken up to green aspects of the case made against its immigration policy. We treat with considerable scepticism the notion that the Government has only just begun to notice the problems with expanding the population without limit. It is far more likely that it has been well aware all along but decided to conceal the fact for short-term political advantage.
There are many short and medium-term spin offs for Labour in a massive burst of population growth. Importing cheap labour which votes Labour is tediously obvious as a tactic - although one of the most cynical ever known which is why some people still refuse to believe it of a British government.
The idea, in our view, is to expand immigration sufficiently to ensure Labour hegemony for the forseeable future and to hell with the longer-term future. A Government as obsessed with power, and little else, as the current administration is not going to worry about what happens in twenty years. But to imagine it is not aware of the consequences of its own actions is to underestimate Blair and his colleagues. They are not stupid men. Their faults lie elsewhere.
Quotes of the month
'Huge resources are being put into the effort to present Home Office ministers in the best possible light. It does not seem to have occurred to anyone that, in the long term, simply telling the truth (on immigration) would be a much more effective strategy.
Instead, as elsewhere in the Government, getting the spin right is the main objective today. Unfortunately for them, people are not as gullible as they seem to think. They saw through it all long ago.
Indeed, a recent opinion poll showed that 80% of respondents believe that the Government is not being open and honest about the scale of immigration to Britain - a stunning indictment of the Government's credibility.'
Sir Andrew Green - The Mail August 23 2004
'Unless young black men admit that things have gone badly wrong for many of them, I fear they will never be able to regain control of their lives.
Instead, they will continue to take the easy option, as I did for many years, and blame everything - from low achievement at school, to laissez-faire attitudes to sex, drugs, crime and the fast-growing gun culture - on racism.'
David Matthews - Daily Mail August 19 2004
'Don't be taken in by the current efforts to humanise the extremist bully John Prescott.
Mr Prescott's plans to Balkanise England get their first test in the North East on November 4 in a rigged referendum. These new 'regions' are part of a plan to wipe England off the map for ever.
A man who can do this is not a joke or a national pet, but a serious menace.'
Peter Hitchins - Mail on Sunday August 22 2004
'I had to pinch myself when I read the speech delivered by Michael Howard about the evils of political correctness.
There are few institutions in this country - excluding the Metropolitan Police and the Labour Party - that have done so much to further political correctness than the Conservative Party.
The Conservative Party knows the truth but still thinks it has to suck up to all sections of society, promsing special favours to minorities, in its quest for popularity.'
Simon Heffer - Daily Mail August 28 2004

August 2004
Issues to be faced by liberals
The pressure of reality is painfully bearing in even on some bien pensant liberals.
Since the 1960s, it has been an article of liberal faith - and politically convenient dogma - that white people are bad and everyone else good. One of the evidences given for this has been that white people mostly prefer to live among their own kind, excluding other ethnic or cultural groups anxious to join in - and who nurse their hurt feelings.
The establishment of substantially ethnic areas in many parts of the country, and the growing number of substantially ethnic businesses, was attributed to white hostility rather than to preference which would be exercised even in the absence of any contraint upon ethnic choice of lifestyle.
It is now at last dawning upon many liberals that ethnic groups are, in fact, no different from white people in wanting to live their lives not necessarily in ethnic exclusivity but rooted in a social fabric composed of those like themselves. Since we are all human, one would not rationally expect any major difference in this respect between races. Indeed, the notion that white people would wish to behave differently, and in an inferior manner as seen by the liberal left, has what is fashionably known as a nasty whiff of racism about it.
The liberals are now reaching a grudging acceptance that ethnic groups display the same 'faults' as white people. This is a very great watershed in a West whose politics have been dominated by the concept of white guilt.
But the second stage of the inevitable awakening to reality promises to be even more painful for the liberal left than the first stage - and devastating for their political system.
Not only are the races similar in their wish to associate with their fellows, but the appetite to do so is no more a fault than for any individual to wish to associate with those of similar interests and background.

Dutch revolution is needed in Britain

The Dutch political system has undergone a revolution since the murder of Pym Fortuyn.
The Dutch government is at last tackling the near open border policy which threatened the existence of Dutch society. Illegal immigrants are being told in no uncertain terms to leave or be deported. The numbers taking up government grants to do so is increasing.
Meanwhile in Britain, another rescue has taken place of Chinese illegal immigrants cockling under potentially lethal conditions off Morecombe. These people are allowed to openly live and work in Britain and, it appears, nothing is being done to prevent it, or to deter others from copying them.

Labour's economic record

It is increasingly becoming clear that what has been accepted by critics as a major New Labour achievement - the only major achievement as far as the harshest judges are concerned - is not quite as meritorious as it seemed.
The core of Labour's promise to electors in 1997 was of no return to the old socialist principles of economic management. Business would thrive under conditions of economic stability and full employment.
Sufficient time has now elapsed to draw broad conclusions about the validity of New Labour's claims.
Figures compiled by the Centre For Policy Studies give little comfort to investors. The real return on the stock market since 1997 has been minus 10%! Very similar figures applied to previous Labour administrations back to the 1940s.
As regards jobs, the recent claim by Gordon Brown's economic advisor, Ed Balls, that we now have full employment is nowhere near correct. The proportion of the workforce which is working is certainly similar to that at the end of the Tory boom of the 1980s. But there are millions who would like to be in work and are not.
No wonder Labour has returned to emphasising the easily manipulated claimant count as a propaganda weapon, rather than the labour force survey measure (now showing an upturn in unemployment) which it said it would adopt as more realistic.
Worse, even the current levels of employment have only arisen because of unsustainable government spending. Worse yet, much of that spending has been shamelessly wasted in funding pretend jobs which add nothing to the real economy, but will no doubt ensure a captive Labour voting base willing to visit the polling station. Falling public participation in elections magnifies the advantage to be gained by any party which can be certain that its supporters will turn out on the day. A large pay cheque is a big incentive.
Labour is moving steadily back to the practices it claimed to have rejected with the exception of operating nationalised industries.

Quotes of the month

'Half a century of being told by patronising politicians (whose contact with ethnic minorities in Britain is generally restricted to drivers, domestics and dominatrices) that multiculturalism has enriched our lives, and that this country was a worthless, drab, early-closing little hell-hole before it discovered the joys of chicken tikka masala and Irish theme pubs, has had exactly the opposite effect to the one intended, making people dig in their heels to the extent that nine out of ten white Britons have no non-white friends, according to a recent report by the Commission for Racial Equality. And while segregation is undoubtedly a bad thing, the impulse which makes people behave in this mutinous manner is actually a healthy one - that is, refusing to be managed by their "betters" and behave like good little Stepford citizens.
Politicians must try to grasp the fact that presenting an issue of white ignorance and saintly immigrants, has strengthened rather than eroded prejudice for the simple reason that adults do not take kindly to being treated like children and told who to play nicely with.'
Julie Burchill - The Times August 7 2004
'In plain English, Lord Butler's report says that this country is now run by an unelected group appointed by Tony Blair, which bypasses the machinery of Cabinet decision- making whenever it suits him.'
Max Hastings - Daily Mail July 15 2004
'On this one occasion, I drop my normal objection to assisted suicide. The Tory Party should be helped into oblivion. Don't prolong its agony by voting for it.
The longer the Tory Party lies gasping its last, the longer Labour will rule, and the ghastly Hazel Blears - with her prediction of decades of Labour misery to come - will be proved right.'
Peter Hitchins - Mail on Sunday August 1 2004

July 2004
The elections
The Freedom Party increased its vote in Tipton this year, once boundary changes are allowed for, but we did not win.
As with many parties in many areas all over the country, we are not satisfied by the way postal voting was conducted in the ward. There is a widespread perception that elections in this country are now no longer being conducted fairly even if within the law.
The Liberal Democrats in Birmingham have now issued a writ concerning Labour's conduct of postal voting. If they win, Labour is going to have to be far more careful in future. If they do not, and the Electoral Commission does not take on board increasing cynicism about elections among voters - and take strong action to affirm the unacceptability of what is happening - the political process in Britain is going to continue to descend towards the condition of a Third World country. This descent can be arrested now in its early stages. If not, it may become unstoppable and irreversible.
The stakes are very high, and the record and nature of the New Labour government gives little ground for confidence.

Stop and search

National news covered recently an astonishing several hundred per cent increase in the number of stops and searches of Asians by police in Britain.
Complaints came thick and fast about police racism from the usual sources. We then discovered that this astonishing growth in police activity towards Asians actually amounted to half a dozen more people a day being stopped in the entire length and breadth of England and Wales.
What was, in fact, happening was that those with a political axe to grind were seizing upon anything to justify a complaint of 'racism'. What has become known as the 'race relations industry' can only flourish, and its operatives continue to obtain their often huge salaries, by finding something to complain about.
But where law and order is concerned, the fact that multiculturalism has spawned professional complainants has the most serious ramifications for being able to control crime at all. The voices of the professional race lobbyists, some of whom are no more than ambulance chasers making lucrative careers at taxpayers' expense, drowns out the voices of those calling for law enforcement - many of whom are among the very ethnic groups who are supposed to be defended by the lobbyists.
The fact of the matter is that multiculturalism is partially paralysing law enforcement in Britain. The idea behind multiculturalism was that all groups would share in common support for the basics of a civilised society.
In practice, the temptations of factional advantage are simply too strong.

Property music

Will property prices fall substantially when the present game of property musical chairs reaches its inevitable end?
Most of those with a stake in the continuance of the current property mania, like building societies and estate agents, will unsurprisingly offer their professional opinion that there is nothing to worry about. Others predict a massive fall in prices.
No can know the answer as to what will happen. Property prices are founded in the value of land which has no manufacturing cost which can referred to, unlike most things which are bought and sold. Its value resides in what people are willing to pay for it. What can be said is that previous price surges have ended in substantial falls.
What is different tbis time is that so much of the health of the economy has depended in recent years upon the perception of increased wealth by householders, and their willingness to borrow and spend on that foundation.
The big question for the economy is whether any sufficient upturn is likely in genuine investment spending to substitute for a fall in household borrowing. There is little capacity left for yet higher public spending to meet any shortfall.
If not we are in trouble.

Quotes of the month

'Typically brain-dead Labour MPs have been wheeled out to call for the costs of the royals to be cut. Politicians are less popular, less useful, less admirable, less necessary and earn less money for the country than royals. It is time they applied some restraint to their own publicly-funded gravy-train lifestyles.'
Simon Heffer - Daily Mail June 26 2004
'Gordon Brown's critics say that when the downturn comes - and it will quite soon - the British economy will find it very difficult to cope.
Steadily, Brown has made it more difficult to start new businesses.
He has done little to halt the rising tide of regulation from Brussels, and added formidable new demands of his own. Tolley's Tax Guide for small business - a useful measure of government meddling - has almost doubled in size during the seven years at the treasury.'
Peter Oborne - Daily Mail June 15 2004
'Between June 2002 and June 2003, the numbers employed in the private sector dropped by more than 100,000. This suggests that the real economy is far from booming and that current low unemployment figures depend on the rapid growth in state employment.'
Daily Mail May 27 2004

May 2004
Election editorial
A small party called the Freedom Party will be standing three candidates in local elections in the West Midlands on June 10.
Why, dear reader, should this command your attention when there are many far larger parties with massive funds also contesting the elections? Because our party is doing something hardly done before in recent British politics.
Increasing numbers of people in Britain now feel that our society is being swept away by a political class which cares nothing for their wishes. Increasingly, people say "Britain is finished". The political class, which has rightly been described as 'the party with three names' - Lib, Lab and Con, is determined to see an end to our country. They have near silenced the people with the moral blackmail of political correctness. The present ruling faction resembles something from a railway station paperback novel about some Third World country seized by a caste of gangsters.
Yet there is almost no organised political resistance to what is happening.
How could a country which saw itself as having won the Second World War have reached what seems to many as its death throes within a few decades? How could a country with so strong a historical identity have arrived at such prostration before forces determined to destroy it?
Large sections of the press have much to answer for in their thoughtless exploitation of PC as a convenient vehicle for circulation boosting denunciations of dissenters. The press has often acted like communist regimes towards anyone who dared dispute the official ideology. A climate of fear has been willingly fermented by the media. Thankfully, at least parts of the press have now recognised their error and are now tackling issues in a more responsible manner.
The record of what little resistance there has been is lamentable. Some groups which have appeared give almost the impression of being formed to accommodate lurid press exposes. Others will not tackle the range of issues facing Britain because of a desperate wish to appease the left-wing press - as though it were possible for groups with diametrically opposed views ever to obtain the left's approval.
We formed our party in 2000 to offer a coherent and responsible platform for policy and opinion and one willing to tackle all the issues. We are proud that we have been able to form a party which is properly run, and - unlike many other groups - is neither the plaything of rich men funding it nor a vehicle for opportunists and outright crooks.
We believe we have established a model for how nationalist parties should operate. In the West Midlands. we have won two council seats and provided a proper service to constituents after being elected. The Freedom Party is not a protest vote. In the areas where we have campaigned regularly, we are now largely treated by the press as a responsible and serious party.
What happens to our country will depend on whether the British people decide to re-engage with the political process from which they have largely withdrawn. No pro-British party - large or small - can succeed if almost the entire public continues to want something done by someone else.
Join us!

European democracy?

Gerhard Schroeder said that he was delighted that the German constitution did not permit referendums. "That's good for us" he said when questioned on whether the people should have any say in the introduction of the proposed European constitution.
So much for European democracy. The current rulers of Europe feel entitled to pursue their obsession with greater power regardless of what the people might want.

Quotes of the month

'At a confidential seminar Government ministers admitted that two million immigrants would arrive in Britain every ten years as a result of their policies. The minister then responsible - since forced out - Beverley Hughes, was asked if the people's consent should be sought before allowing so large an increase. Miss Hughes replied: 'Oh no. We couldn't do that. The newspapers would never let us get away with it'.
Daily Mail May 12 2004
'Does the Prime Minister share David Blunkett's view that 'there is no obvious upper limit to legal migration'. Does the Government have a policy at all?
Our small island is already 12 times as densely populated as the US, and we are a close second to Holland as the most crowded country in Europe. Indeed, England is now more crowded than India.
No mention of the 2.2 million who would like to work and whom the Government wishes to move from welfare to work.'
Sir Andrew Green - Daily Mail May 1 2004
'Three years ago, Lord Ouseley, a former head of the CRE, issued a report on the 1999 race riots in Bradford. He concluded that many local people did not dare challenge wrongdoing among young people because they feared being labelled 'racist'. He wants Bradford's schools to 'assert a core of Britishness'.
That, Lord Ouseley, was exactly what I was calling for 20 years ago. It cost me my job. Are you surprised that I am a little cynical now?'
Ray Honeyford - Daily Mail April 12 2004
April 2004

'Diversity within unity'

The surprising announcement by the head of the Commission for Racial Equality, Trevor Phillips, that multiculturalism is not such a good idea after all appears to have been generated by private discussions within government involving Labour's social affairs advisor, Professor Robert Putnam.
Putnam is reported as having concluded from research in the United States that cohesive communities are more successful and happy than disparate ones. This obvious fact has not been apparent to the liberal establishment which has dominated social policy since the 1960s, ignoring and vilifying everyone else.
The British public is belatedly realising that there is simply no end to the dilution of British society which the liberals intend to impose on Britain in the name of multiculturalism, and is beginning to become restless. Since the Blair government is currently engaged in stepping up the rate of dilution this creates a political problem for Labour. But so much of government policy, and government credibility, depends on not reversing what it is doing that one might have expected Blair to resort to the academics for something which can be presented as a solution blessed by scholars, but which does not involve any real change in substance. Enter Professor Putnam.
It now appears that what is to be floated is the notion of a Britain which continues to become ever more diverse but where some common values are be ordained as essential. The United States is to be the country from which the model is drawn. The new policy is to be described as 'diversity within unity'- a phrase with a remarkable ring of old-style communist propaganda about it let alone sounding like something from Orwell's 1984.
Now it is certainly true that the glue in American society was intended to be common values embodied in a constitution - life, liberty etc. - but the founders sought to make constitutional values central within a country which already shared a largely common racial and cultural heritage excepting the slave and Red Indian populations who had no voice anyway. Relying on constitutional values under such circumstances is a far cry from doing so when there is little otherwise in common among a multitude of different racial and cultural groups. That is the new circumstance in the United States and the experiment is much too early in its inception to be able to claim that such a society will not fragment.
Yet this is the concept that Blair now wants to impose on Britain. It is precisely what one might expect from a regime for which gestures and show are the essentials of governance. It is also a concept which does nothing to address the complaints of Britons that they want to retain their own culture and identity - nor does it address the fact that Britain is now crammed with immigrants who do not accept the concept of government based on liberal western conceptions of society. The liberal concept of society is value free in the sense of not drawing its ideals from archetypal ideas of broadly religious origin. This is not going to satisfy Muslims, for example, who have a quite different idea about where values should be taken, and it is not from the sociology departments of universities!
But Tony Blair no doubt hopes that a few pieces of gesture politics like citizenship ceremonies and a change in rhetoric will suffice to satisfy restless voters, and assure us all of the future stability and congeniality of our country. In reality, it will satisfy no one, but Blair has so successfully sold flim flam, winning two major election victories, that he probably believes he can fool all of the people all of the time.
Quite what constitutes the real difference between a diverse society and a multicultural one is a question to which Blair and his advisors will no doubt be preparing some meaningless answer.

Suicide missions

It is becoming ever more clear that to become a minister in the Labour government is to join the political equivalent of a suicide bombers organisation.
The job of ministers is to do the dirty work without any direct instruction which might leave a trail leading to Tony Blair himself, and then, if caught, to take the blame for what has been done.
Does anyone seriously believe that the recently exposed admission of vast numbers of immigrants into Britain on the nod was not authorised by Blair himself in order to reduce the number of asylum claims? One minister has blown herself up as a result and David Blunkett may well be the next to go.
Labour must be beginning to think that its failure to seriously tackle the immigration issue - as they claimed they were doing - has broken into public consciousness earlier than they expected and now seriously jeopardises their prospects at the next general election. Perhaps they thought that the sly introduction of massive numbers of illegal immigrants and other entrants would not be noticed if the headline figure for asylum claims fell. But the numbers of such people is now so large that the public can hardly fail to notice simply walking about the streets in large areas of the country.
A YouGov poll says that only 1% of the public support the present levels of immigration. The days of public acceptance of mass immigration if it can presented as 'managed', or some such, are just about over. The Labour government is now in head-on conflict with what the public wants for Britain.

Brown and immigration

Not one newspaper seems to understand the economic reason why the Chancellor, Gordon Brown, wants Britain to be flooded with immigrants. The general view is that the economic arguments do not stack up - eg 'making the country richer'. So Brown is displaying an odd lack of comprehension for such a clever man.
Brown has, in fact, understood perfectly! The entire New Labour edifice rests upon ensuring unemployment does not increase. That is why they are still in power and not trailing very badly in the polls.
The Chancellor's policy is based on Keynesian economics. Anyone who borrows and spends - householder, government or business - puts cash into spending and stimulates the economy. Household borrowing has become risky as it is near out of control. Government is already borrowing.
How then to get business to borrow more? If wages can be kept artificially low, firms will feel they are doing well and want to borrow more. The horizon is to keep the show on the road until the next election. Immigrant labour keeps wages down.
So if Brown has a reason for what he is doing why does he not state his real reasoning?
He cannot say he wants to keep employment up by lowering British workers' wages. So a general fudge about the issue in the form of fake claims about 'labour shortages' etc. Of course, Labour has other reasons too for wanting mass immigration, like its dislike for British identity, but the core of the immediate purpose is economic. Brown has a coherent reason for his actions which is short-term, soundly based on economic theory, but nothing to do with what Britons want for their society in the round.

Quotes of the month

'The encouragement of mass immigration, multi-culturalism, the attacks on self-government and the British constitution need to be seen in the context of a fundamental culture war now raging in Britain and across the western world.
In one camp are those committed to defend the nation state. In the opposing camp are those committed to trans-nationalism under which people are governed by supra-national institutions such as the EU. This trans-nationalism is fundamentally anti-democratic.
Everything New Labour has done puts it firmly on the wrong side of this momentous divide. The big political divide in this country is now clear. It is not over public services. It is nothing less than the protection of democracy.'
Melanie Phillips - Daily Mail April 5 2004
'Brown can claim responsibility for seven years' uninterrupted growth. But there are massive problems with the Brown record. It is founded on a sea of debt and reckless government spending, and is practically certain to come to a disastrous end.'
Peter Oborne - Daily Mail March 21 2004
'Targetitis has become the Blairite equivalent of legionnaire's disease.Its first symptom is an uncontrollable suppuration of paperwork. As the data in the forms must tell the great leader what he wants the voters to hear, much of it is about as reliable as the material which told Stalin how well his five-year plans were working. Tony's targeting does as much to help the British people as the pigs' targets did for the other animals' welfare in Animal Farm.'
Bruce Anderson - Independent April 5 2004
March 2004

The Bank's dilemma

The Bank of England's current economic dilemma is a prime example of the practical difficulties faced in running an economy.
Most administrations have their success or the lack of it substantially fixed by the point in the business cycle at which they come to power. There is always ample opportunity to create disaster out of thin air - as happened to the Tories in the early 1990s - but even without simple error government is in something of a prison created by the ebb and flow of confidence which has been so long noted to be the way of the world in free enterprise economies.
The surge of economic confidence which Labour inherited in 1997 largely ran out about two or three years ago. The economy has been prevented from taking a major downturn by massive government spending, and low interest rates. But the very lack of a downturn has fuelled continuation of the property boom and huge personal borrowing.
The Bank is faced with the classic problem of having two balls to hit but only one club to do it with in the form of interest rates. Nothing is certain with economies since their health depends on what people do in future and that is unascertainable. But the longer the property bubble continues and the more personal borrowing increases the more likely it is that the economy will face a hard landing.
But to take action now risks a downturn in the wider economy. Direct government spending is already at a level at which it becomes wasteful in producing anything of value - witness the weight of the Guardian jobs section with its 'coordinators' and 'outreach workers'. Not much scope there to further stimulate the economy in the face of much higher interest rates if they were introduced to stem the property speculation mania. And that would also hit the weak manufacturing sector. Yet more tax rises are becoming politically difficult let alone their consequences for economic confidence.
It is no surprise that in current circumstances Labour is so eager to bring in unlimited numbers of immigrants from Eastern Europe despite the fact that there are very large numbers of people already here who are not in work.
We note the extraordinary recent admission by the Pensions Minister, Andrew Wicks, that the reluctance to employ older British workers - which has led since the 1970s to the bizarre phenomenon of increasing life expectancy but a reduced working life expectancy - has worsened.
Why then bring in more foreign workers? Why not employ those already here? The answer is that a flood of immigrants from countries with lower real wages than those in Britain will tend to lower our own wages below the present equilibrium level. The consequent boost in profits to firms it is hoped will act as an alternative to low interest rates in fuelling investment.
The nub of it is that Labour hopes that one means for it to avoid the looming economic hole it faces is by immigration, but at the expense of our own unemployed.

Free but not too free

Liberals are always happy to tell you that they believe in freedom of speech.
If one enquires why it is that in a country under their sway the public now lives in some trepidation about saying what it thinks about anything dear to the hearts of liberals, they will tell you that the right is to freedom of speech but not to the abuse of it.
This little 'but' was in evidence at the BBC recently when Sean Gabb of the Libertarian Alliance participated in a robust discussion about multiculturalism. A point Dr Gabb has long made is that it seems to him that the introduction of such a system as official ideology in Britain has been accompanied by increasingly draconian laws and controls on freedom of speech - and that this is an unacceptable imposition. The liberal response to Dr Gabb's view was that such restrictions were necessary to avoid the various factions being at each other's throats. When Dr Gabb pressed the point that this was hardly a compliment to the participants in what is supposed to be a benign and progressive system welcomed by all, he was ejected from the programme.
Now all this concerns a minority interest BBC programme among intellectuals debating about society. But the sensitivity of those who represent the present ideological establishment about too much freedom of speech concerning what is actually involved in keeping the waters of their system tranquil - at least on the surface - uncomfortably revealed itself when too frank a discussion was permitted.
The entire output of the BBC is designed to avoid the realities of their own political position being too clearly illuminated. Cross the boundaries of self-censorship required of those who want to be on the BBC's guest list and you know what to expect!

A strange sense of priorities

The recent hue and cry about Tory MP Ann Winterton making a joke in bad taste about the Chinese, who drowned while hunting cockles, reveals the strange priorities of the political system we suffer under in Britain.
An MP is sacked from the Shadow Cabinet for making a bad taste joke in private. Yet the entire governmental system is riddled with incompetence in the manner in which the country is run, but hardly anyone is dismissed for it.

Quotes of the month

'David Blunkett confirmed Labour's open-border policy. "We need to ensure that we can meet those big areas for unskilled employment, like hospitality and catering" he said. So much for Labour being converted to the merits of a market economy where vacancies will result in pay rates rising. Cheap service for those chattering-class types is apparently more important than decent wages for cooks and waiters.'
Patrick O'Flynn - Daily Express February 10 2004
'The behaviour of the chattering classes in scaling the moral high ground on immigration while employing these people as cheap servants is distasteful. The events at Morecambe Bay were an eye-opener. In using these people to do our chores while debating their fate we, in our own way, are all gangmasters now.'
Peter Dobbie - Mail on Sunday February 29 2004
'All the changes Michael Howard wants the EU to make, such as abandoning the idea of a constitution, are admirable, but they won't happen without a treaty re-negotiation. There isn't going to be one because no other countries want one. Mr Howard is creating false expectations, which will only rebound on him.'
Simon Heffer - Daily Mail February 14 2004
'Last night, an opinion poll of British Muslims found that one in ten backed al-Qaeda-style terror strikes on the United States. The poll also showed that backing for Labour among British Muslims has slipped from 75 per cent at the last election to 38.'
Richard Ford and Andrew Pierce - The Times March 15 2004
'There is a feeling of malaise in Britain. There is an angry belief that decent, kindly indomitable people have been betrayed and that the exploitative, the charlatans and the crooks have won.'
Lynda Lee-Potter - Daily Mail February 18 2004
'The police must go on the offensive with the full backing of senior officers. Most are too busy keeping their heads down to avoid the whistle-blowers waiting to report a politically incorrect comment in the canteen. They also have to live with the crackpot outpourings of some chief constables with mad ideas on drugs and motorists. The problem is poor leadership.'
John O'Connor - Daily Express February 9 2004
February 2004

A watershed

It is difficult to identify any area of our national life not in severe decline since the greatest political charlatan anyone can remember entered Downing Street in 1997.
The spirit which has dominated Britain for quite a few years has been that the best strategy for the individual is to shut his eyes and look to his narrow interests which will be unaffected by the wider picture. Politics has become a sport enjoyed among a minority among a minority. It is obvious where any society which adopts such an attitude will go.
Societies require a constant nurturing in which the public at large must involve themselves. Sooner or later it will dawn on those who withdraw from involvement except in so far as immediate self-interest is concerned that such an attitude is untenable in the long-run. We have not reached that point yet but the ground is being laid for it.
The realities to which all too many have shut their eyes for a long time are now being forced into the awareness of more and more people by the everyday effects on their lives of the declining social fabric, and by a sea change which has taken place in some portions of the media no longer inhibited by political correctness to the degree which once obtained. Political correctness was invented to silence debate, but such a method of neutralising dissent is at odds with human nature and does not work for ever.
Debate and discussion has begun to break out even if usually muttered in corners for fear of reprisal. The state has predictably reacted by taking its prohibition on the expression of opinion to absurd lengths in the area where it has most power - the public services. 'Political correctness gone mad' is more and more in evidence as in the case of the prison officer sacked for criticising Osama bin Laden. The effect is simply to infuriate and alarm the population further.
What is lacking is any large and viable political movement to seek support from the growing army of the concerned. Some still hope that the Tories will be that force. That would be convenient since it is ready-formed and requires no action by the non-political public. They are likely to be disappointed. Every change in leader only reinforces the message that the Tories are incapable of the element of daring needed to be a real force for positive change.
There is no substantial political force in Britain as yet which will fill the political vacuum which has emerged from the failure of the post-war liberal system. What is happening is a belated recognition about how far our society has slipped. That is in itself as watershed even if there is no light so far to be seen at the end of the tunnel from a fully-equipped rescue party. But many people thought even that awakening would never occur among a population numbed by the replacement of genuine debate with the pseudo dialogue which has become politicians' stock in trade..

Pyrrhic victory

Lord Hutton's conclusions from his enquiry into the death of Dr David Kelly have been welcomed with an outbreak of triumphalism by the Labour Party.
If Labour had thought a little harder before drawing the conclusion that Tony Blair's emergence unscathed benefited them they might have been less pleased. The public response has been one of incredulity that no blame attached to the Government. It would, in fact, have been more politically advantageous if some criticism had been offered by Lord Hutton but falling short of general condemnation. Labour could then say that 'lessons would be learned' and the public might have felt satisfied that Hutton's enquiry had been full and fair.
As matters stand, Lord Hutton has confirmed the public in the view that the entire affair was improperly conducted and then covered up by the political establishment. Whether Hutton's enquiry was an establishment whitewash or not is irrelevant in so far as its effect on public opinion.
Worse, the public feels that it has had confirmed its suspicions that the wider issue of the Iraq war has been the subject of deception and evasion by the Blair government.
Labour's response to the Hutton report has lacked the quality of Machiavellian calculation which would certainly have been applied several years ago.
Blair has won a Pyrrhic victory and is left weakened for the wider war.

Too many students

Graduate recruiters have complained that too many people are being given degrees and that standards are too low. Labour's ludicrous target of fifty per cent of the population attending university makes no sense in any direction except one which they do not mention.
Firstly, half the jobs even in a advanced economy do not require graduate education. Of course, a civilised society does not merely educate people for jobs. It is also to civilise, widen horizons and broaden the appreciations of its citizens. But these latter functions of universities are for those with an appetite for such things. Few who have attended our universities in the last decade could honestly conclude that more than a proportion of the students were likely to benefit much from the experience in any direction.
Why then is Labour so bent on sending so many people to university? A back of the envelope calculation about unemployment is most revealing. Suppose a country with say thirty millions in its workforce has an unemployment rate of ten per cent or three million unemployed. If one million can be allowed to obtain sickness benefits who are not really sick, and half the population sent to university during their adult lives for three years, what will happen to the unemployment rate? It will fall to a respectable three per cent or so without a single person getting a job!
The above figures exaggerate the position in Britain but offer an insight into the temptations confronting governments which wish to reduce the apparent unemployment level.

Quotes of the month

'The Government repeatedly claims that immigrants contribute £2.5 billion more to the Treasury than they cost. This is the keystone of its argument. It turned out to be another dodgy dossier.
The Government plucked an apparently useful fact from from the depths of a long report, dropped all the caveats, and repeated it endlessly. Shades of the 45-minute Weapons of Mass Destruction claim? The report itself cautioned at least six times that the results were uncertain, that some of the evidence was contradictory, and that too much stress should not be placed on a particular figure.
Not only that, but it chose a year in which the public accounts were in surplus so everybody was contributing more than they took out. But the real howler was that it overlooked the fact that immigration adds to population so there are huge additional infrastructure costs which the authors simply ignored.
Every major study into immigration has show that the benefit to the host population is trivial - about one tenth of one per cent of GDP per year.'
Sir Andrew Green - Daily Mail January 24 2004
'A Martian reading Hutton might suppose that Alastair Campbell was a parfit gentle knight. For seven years, Campbell has been responsible for convincing the British people that their public services are improving, their constitution is being wisely reformed and their goverment is in skilled and safe hands.
It has been his professional duty to conceal from the public that the Blair project is a work of political genius, adept at retaining itself in power, yet incapable of delivering results to the British people to match its lofty rhetoric. It has been Campbell's function to serve as a professional deceiver in the service of Tony Blair.'
Max Hastings - Daily Mail January 29 2004
'Gordon Brown's campaign to boost the British economy is struggling because one in four adults cannot read and write properly.
After seven years of New Labour government and umpteen initiatives, 11 million over-18s still lack basic literacy.'
Daily Mail January 24 2004
'Ousted BBC director general Greg Dyke said that senior managers strove to find 'balanced audiences' for the BBC programme Question Time 'at a time when it is very hard to find supporters of the war.'
Mail on Sunday February 1 2004
January 2004

Artful dodgers

The lamentable inability of the Tory party to carry out its proper responsibilities as the official opposition has again been demonstrated by Mr Howard's pitiful statement of his principles.
What the Tory leader's platitudes amounted to was a statement that he was opposed to sin and in favour of everything which is good and virtuous. But Mr Howard knows very well that general principles tell one nothing about what a party would actually do in power, and are infinitely elastic in their meaning.
The only real credit that can be given to Michael Howard is that he is willing to say that the post-war system of massive levels of taxation and public spending is outdated and inefficient. Even that credit must be limited by the fact that the Tory record is little different from that of Labour when what it does in government is examined. The temptation to tax, and then spend, in an attempt to bribe people for votes with their own money is, in practice, nearly as deep seated in the Tory party as in Labour.
Unfortunately for the Tories, the public expect to know what the Conservative party would actually do if it took office, and in some detail. Its failure to live up to what it pretends to stand for in general terms is well understood by the public, and the days are gone when that party is trusted. The last Tory administrations were the main culprits in forcing Britain towards membership of the European superstate they claim to reject. They were also responsible for two massive economic recessions.
Mr Howard's calculation appears to be that he can pick up some gains at the next general election by avoiding much in the way of policy - and all that policy presentation implies in pleasing some voters and displeasing others. The hope is that discontent with Labour will be sufficient to push some votes his way. This is not an election-winning strategy as the polls show. Howard's party shows no sign of taking any clear lead despite growing unhappiness with Labour across a multitude of issues, and the now general conclusion that Mr Blair is plain dishonest.
Playing it safe, and positioning himself to appear to be honourably retiring after the next election having made some small gain in terms of seats in Parliament, appears to be Howard's self-serving and defeatist reasoning. The reason for this is clear. The Tory party is consumed by cowardice and internal self-interest. Such a strategy would leave the present ranks of Tory MPs safe in their jobs and incomes while trying to win carries considerable risks.
That is the present state of play in our failed political system. An official opposition which artfully dodges strategising to win is no real opposition at all. No wonder the public are decreasingly interested in voting.

Immigration myth

Sir Andrew Green's Migration Watch continues to do great work in exposing the massive system of outright deception being imposed on Britain by Labour concerning immigration.
Labour's now regularly repeated claim is that immigrants contribute £2.5 billion more in taxes than they enjoy in benefits. Even that claim turns out to be incorrect, having been drawn from a Government study hedged round with caveats and ignoring much of the costs of immigration in terms, for example, of the need for more housing.
Labour's policy is clear. It is to flood Britain with immigrants who will vote Labour while provoking an artificial boost to the economy by providing cheap and often black economy workers. We now learn that illegal immigrants are being permitted to register as voters, while the Electoral Commission rejects any proper controls on such false and illegal registration with the standard New Labour mantra about checks being 'racist'.

Brigands on our roads

One of reasons for the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan was the prevalence of brigands on the highways who would demand payment for safe passage.
The growing assault on motorists in Britain is now so unreasonable that it has begun to take on the quality of the brigandage which operated in Afghanistan. The British highways are haunted by people whose purpose is to extract money from anyone wishing to carry out their lawful business in a perfectly reasonable manner - and indeed one essential to the economy.
Meanwhile there are said to a million drivers outside the law with no insurance or anything else required by legitimate drivers - many of them illegal immigrants. These people are immune to any of the controls operated against motoring by legitimate citizens, and represent a sort of special class of person allowed to travel by the brigandage without hindrance.

Quotes of the month

'Of the 1.7 million jobs created since 1997, perhaps as few as 200,000 have been in the private sector. The rest have been paid for by taxpayers, and that is the reason why Gordon Brown had to admit that his borrowing has risen to £37 billion.
Past Chancellors have used the word 'growth' to mean 'wealth creation'. The 'growth' Mr Brown talks about - and which he predicts will rise to an unlikely 3.5% this year - has been fuelled on the never-never.'
Simon Heffer - Daily Mail 11 December 2003
'Sir John Bourn, head of the National Audit Office, said he could not sign off the Department of Work and Pensions accounts - the 14th year in a row this has happened.
"The amount of welfare benefit being lost through fraud and error is continuing to run at an estimated £3 billion each year." '
Daily Mail - 17 December 2003
'Before the last election, Tony Blair spoke of his belief in the "rich personality and character" of the English countryside. He pledged himself to pay "thoughtful and scrupulous attention to its charm".
This week came the U-turn.
Proposals set out by the Treasury pose a greater threat to rural Britain than any act of government since the Second World War. The purpose is to remove all local planning discretion.The Gvernment is now the target of lobbying to breach greenbelt protection and end the post-war presumption againsty building on farmland.
But what the British want is something only government can deliver - the long-term protection of their landscape.'
Simon Heffer - Daily Telegraph - November 12 2003
'While people look to the hierarchy of the Church of England for certainties, all we see is an organisation that seems intent on hedging its bets on vital moral issues for fear of offending pressure groups and being politically correct.'
Peter Dobbie - Mail on Sunday December 28 2003
'The BBC listenership voted in droves for a law allowing homeowners to defend their property by 'any means'.
The Today poll graphically highlights the mounting frustration of the British public, of all classes and races, with the way this country is governed. The priorities of the police, courts and civil authorities seem utterly warped, with more support given to criminals than the law-abiding.'
Daily Mail - January 2 2004
December 2003

The fallacy in multiculturalism

Liberals talk constantly of the benefits of diversity and its enriching effects.
But there is a fundamental problem with multiculturalism which the liberal lobby conceals - probably from itself as much as others - by painting a misleading picture of the nature of culture.
The liberal version of culture is of a private system of beliefs which have little ramification in the conduct of the society as a whole. 'Culture', in their version, consists, for example, of essentially private religious festivals and other private cultural practices. Those who challenge multiculti will be asked what problem there could possibly be in introducing a wider range of such cultural manifestations in pursuit of greater diversity.
If culture indeed amounted to such minor matters, from the viewpoint of a whole society, there would be no difficulty. But it does not. Culture has the most profound and detailed implications for the entire political and economic system. Competing cultures will not agree as to how a society should be run, and what pleases one culture will be inimical to the expectations of another.
For example, one of the major reasons for economic development in the West over the last two hundred years has been the Western banking system, which, for all its faults, has made capital freely available. Some cultures regard money lending for profit as wrong. Some cultures demand a far more stringent system of punishments for crime than others, and have a quite different notion of what wrongdoing consists than others. Every aspect of life has a cultural basis somewhere, and any culture that can gain an edge over the others will press its demands. It is a recipe for division and discontent.
The liberals have succeeded in temporarily concealing the underlying problems they are creating partly by misleading about the nature of culture, by attempting to suppress the competing demands, or by giving way to them if they become too strident for comfort. The usual argument is the avoidance of offence, but the reality is that offence is acceptable if it is given to those with weaker voices.
The entire structure of what is known as 'anti-racism' is largely an attempt to temporarily balance cultural forces which are uncontainable in the long run. Perhaps the liberals believe that their political enterprise will wear down all cultures to the point where they are merely cosmetic. History proves their hopes are likely to be misplaced.

Truth about immigration

For many years it has been clear to us on the right that the real objective of immigration policy in the United Kingdom was and is to have no real border controls at all while maintaining a charade of unenforced laws and ineffective regulatory controls intended to allay public concerns. The real policy is the total eradication of British life as we have known it, and most British people would wish it to continue.
At last the truth has been - more or less - voiced by the Home Secretary, David Blunkett.
Blunkett has said that there is no objection, as far as he is concerned, to unlimited immigration. He has admitted that large swathes of the economy in the South East are staffed by illegal immigrants working in the black economy. This has been obvious for years. The Government's inaction in dealing with it reveals their true intent. A torrent of foreign workers are also being given permits to work in Britain based on the tired old 'labour shortages' story which does not hold up when it is even minimally examined.
As Ezra Mishan pointed out many years ago, generalised labour shortages simply mean excessive demand. In fact, we do not have even excessive demand as an excuse for mass immigration. That was indeed the position for a portion of the employment 'golden age' in the fifties and sixties when mass migration started in earnest. The real figures for unemployment now are not those given by the Government. They are far higher.
But Blunkett recently played another card whose misleading face appears undetected by any commentator in the media. He said that there were about five million immigrants in Britain who paid an impressive £2.5 billion more in taxes than they received in benefits as taxpayers. Thus immigrants effectively hand over vast sums to their hosts in return for admission.
This impressive figure looks less convincing when one realises that it amounts to less than a pound a week per person among the rest of the population.
But Mr Blunkett went further. He wishes us to accept, in effect, that if we invite another five million immigrants into Britain we will enjoy a further free benefit of a pound a week each, and that this is adequate reason to pursue such a policy.
But there are other arguments for mass immigration - which also hold little water.
The 'ageing population' argument ignores several features of the reality. We could only maintain the current workforce in terms of population by impossible levels of immigration.
In any event, a slowly falling workforce in terms of population has been a feature of life for a hundred years. Increases in productivity have far outpaced the increase in dependants, and the changed nature of work generally permits participation up to a greater age than was once the case - if the economy were arranged to encourage it. Most work is no longer manual yet one would think from Labour's ideas on the subject that endless sturdy young people were needed to manually till the fields.
That leaves only one slender reed upon which an argument in favour of mass immigration can rest in economic terms. Temporary shortages of skills in particular sectors. But it is the business of government to take action to deal with such problems. Poaching skills - often from the Third World - is increasingly complained of as immoral. It is also hardly an argument for mass immigration in every sector which is the policy of the Labour government.
At last, there is some movement towards building an alliance of forces which will put up a case against Labour's undemocratic and irrational immigration policy. Groups like Migration Watch and the Optimum Population Trust are being heard in the mainstream media, and Professor Robert Rowthorn has spoken out in Prospect magazine.
The mainstream media is also at last voicing the fact that 'white flight' from the centre of the capital is taking place as British people find conditions increasingly unacceptable. London is in the front line of Labour's open borders policy. The argument that it is the middle-class doing what they always do in bettering themselves, and that they would have departed from their established areas regardless of government policy, does not hold water. The middle-classes started moving into the central areas during the 1960s because they were regarded as better places to live given an input of capital in improving the housing stock. That would still be the case without the actions of successive governments.
The flux of people fleeing the capital is not an effect of prosperity. It is a sign of the impoverishment of the social fabric brought about deliberately by the political establishment.
The battle ground between the political establishment and the public is at last becoming clear and voiced publicly after decades of evasion. The former want no border controls while the British people are ignored.
At least it's now out in the open.

The Prince of Wales

The recent spate of adverse publicity against the Prince of Wales included a curious feature uncommented on, to our knowledge, by any of the media.
A former servant said that he had found Prince Charles in bed with his valet. Now no reasonable person, in view of the history of the person concerned, would accept such a suggestion as factually based in the absence of other evidence. We do not believe that the Prince of Wales is homosexual. We think the story is hogwash convenient for selling newspapers.
But the suggestion that Prince Charles was homosexual failed to elicit the usual response from homosexual groups. There was talk of it 'bringing down the monarchy' and making the heir to the throne unsuitable to inherit. One would have expected the usual campaigning groups and individuals to rush forward in support of Charles's right to his own sexuality, talk of a homophobic response to the news, and, indeed, statements to the effect that a homosexual on the throne would be a breakthrough for tolerance. Yet there was nothing.
It appears the promoters of tolerance in all things sexual are, in fact, rather selective in their choices as to who should enjoy the benefits of their principles.

A real turkey

The news that President Bush was carrying a fake turkey for his photo opportunity in Baghdad boggles the mind. The culture of spin, it appears, has now proceeded so far that the organisers of this stupid trick were unable to perceive that it would inevitably reach the newspapers.
Airforce One must have cooking facilities. Surely they could have cooked a real turkey for the occasion?
Result - the only real turkey in Baghdad was Bush himself.

Quotes of the month

'Good, well-qualified teachers are jumping ship at an alarming rate. I met one the other day. An enthusiastic, highly talented mature entrant, she had decided to call it a day after a boy of nine stabbed her with a pair of compasses,
The teacher, herself the mother of two sons, said "I held him by the collar and marched him to the headteacher. But I was unsympathetically informed that my job would probably be on the line because I had manhandled the boy. There was no sympathy for my injury, only concern that the child's parents might sue. So I realised I could not do this job any more and resigned".
School indiscipline is a cancer which is eating into far too many of our schools.'
Susan Elkin - Daily Mail 18 November 2003
'A prison officer was sacked for making rude remarks about Osama bin Laden.
The incident illusrates how the prison service, like everything else in the public sector, has been hijacked by pursed-lipped Guardianistas, always on the lookout for thought criminals. Hand in glove with ethnic extremists on the make, they have poisoned political debate in Britain.
Why should the fascist Left get to decide what constitutes freedom of speech? Majorities have rights too.'
Richard Littlejohn - The Sun 5 December 2003
'The Government has set in train a new wave of immigration.
The extraordinary thing is that ministers are flying in the face of public opinion. Poll after poll shows 80% of the population wish to see much tighter immigration controls. This includes 52% of the ethnic minority communities, who can see this policy is storing up trouble for us all.
In a democracy the views of the public should be respected and acted upon.'
Sir Andrew Green - Daily Telegraph - November 14 2003
'It has emerged that universities are being bribed to accept trainee doctors with sub-standard A-levels. The revelation will raise serious questions about patient safety and fuel criticism that Tony Blair is discriminating against bright middle-class pupils.'
Daily Mail - November 2 2003
'The PM's spokesman, Tom Kelly, who called MOD weapons expert Dr David Kelly a 'Walter Mitty' character after the scientist killed himself, has been up to his old tricks. When hacks asked him about rumours that the PM had had a health scare, the No 10 man said 'It is 100 per cent b******.'
When they found out it was true, they screamed abuse at the spin doctor.'
Mail on Sunday - November 30 2003

November 2003

Britain’s first racist government

The British are a notoriously tolerant people whose good nature is being mercilessly exploited by politicians who care nothing for their welfare.
Most Britons believe in a fair play under which it would be wrong to treat someone differently because of their race. They are aware of race but do not want it to be a big issue unless their vital interests are affected, and would regard anything other as ‘racist’.
The idea behind the anti-racist movement was that race should not matter. It was the man who should be looked at not his colour. It is therefore ironic that Labour is the first government we have had in Britain that wants to bring race into everything. Register as unemployed? You are classified by race. Obtain a resident’s parking permit in the home of New Labour, Islington? The application form classifies you by race. What has race to do with parking? The mind boggles at the academic possibilities. ‘Race and Parking - The Hidden Injustice’ (Nerdley University monographs £18.95)
Labour screams endlessly about racism but presides over a system which increasingly looks like Nazi Germany or South Africa under apartheid in its obsession with racial monitoring. If anyone wants to forget about race, Labour is certainly not going to encourage it. Of course, the Government will say that its racial testing is designed to avoid and remedy injustice. Unfortunately, that is exactly what the Nazis said as well as the apartheid regime. Only the intended beneficiaries were different.
If people are entitled to be in this society race should be irrelevant. The fact that it is not in Labour Britain, and that race is increasingly the basis of government action, makes the present regime Britain’s first racist government.
The issue as to whether we should transform our society by mass immigration of people with whom we have nothing in common is an entirely different matter. To discuss such matters, and to hold a view that we should not do so, is not racist since it implies no ill-will towards other peoples in the world but simply a wish to preserve one’s own way of life.
Yet those who want to discuss the vital interests of the British people are endlessly portrayed as racist, while the petty race obsessionaries who really qualify for that description style themselves as ‘anti-racist’.

The Howard effect

Anyone who believes that the elevation of Michael Howard to be Tory leader will mean an outbreak of firmly conservative policies has already received a warning that they are likely to be disappointed.
The Shadow Home Secretary, Oliver Letwin, ventured not long ago that a Tory-controlled Britain would put a numerical limit on the numbers of refugees accepted. Everyone knows that the refugee convention was intended to accommodate small numbers of people. As now interpreted, it means, in practice, unlimited numbers of immigrants with no end ever in sight. The Tories appeared from Mr Letwin’s statements to have publicly recognised the realities.
In his first interview after becoming the as yet uncrowned leader, Howard, however, told The Sun’s Trevor Kavanagh that he wanted to increase the numbers of refugees taken in by Britain.

Policing and politics

The recent BBC documentary about the police managed to uncover some trainees who certainly, to say the least of it, did not display the maturity needed by those to be given power over their fellow citizens. No one of any race could have much confidence in a police force staffed by such people.
But as one might expect, the BBC’s work is now being employed to justify the exclusion from the service of anyone with views disapproved of by Labour. Impartial policing is one of the fundamentals of any society and officers are required to act accordingly whatever their private political views. But if it is to be argued that this is impossible and that private views will always intrude, which is what the Home Secretary seems to be suggesting, then we will be forced to recruit a police force with no views at all on anything important - something of a tall order!
Otherwise, where does the process of exclusion end? Many Labour party members do not like capitalism and its proponents and major beneficiaries. Are they to be excluded on the grounds that they might be partial in dealing with the wealthy or the bosses of firms?
There are many occupations in which people are required to act professionally, and exclude their personal feelings. That is perfectly reasonable. Those in that position cannot be asked to have no private views. If they were, it would simply mean in practice a police force, for example, in which everyone was forced to live a pretence in fear of dismissal.
The kind of upright man needed for policing is scarcely going to be attracted by such a career. Natural dissemblers would be in their element.

Quotes of the month

'There is one anti-social act for which Mr Blair and Mr Blunkett show zero tolerance. It is committed a dozen times a day within 100 yards of my front door and Messrs B and B are always on the case. They have enforcement officers whose job is to spot if a single motor vehicle strays two minutes over a meter limit.
This is Mr Blunkett’s priority in policing my street. He floods my street with traffic wardens who cannot deter anti-social behaviour yet strips it of police who can.’
Simon Jenkins - Evening Standard 16 October 2003
'Britain has the worst record in Europe for killings, violence and burglary and its citizens face one of the highest risks in the industrialised world of becoming the victims of crime.
Offences of violence have been running at three times the level of the next worst country in Western Europe , and burglaries at nearly twice the rate.’
Daily Telegraph - October 25 2003
Ken Brown runs a recruitment agency and knows at first hand how ineffective the Home Office is at tackling illegal foreign workers.
His staff became suspicious about an East European man. ‘We weren’t happy with his passport. Then he produced a driving licence with the same name but a different photograph. I rang the Immigration Service and passed on all his details. They weren’t interested. They said there was nothing they could do’.
Marcia Roberts. of the Recruitment and Employment Confederation, claims action against illegal workers is ‘virtually non-existent’.’
Daily Mail - October 20 2003
’Politically correct Government busybodies are now insisting on gesticulating sign language translators on the stage at the Royal Opera House under the Disability Rights Commission Act. The venue has been projecting English surtitles on to screens above the stage since 1986 and has not received a single complaint from a deaf visitor.
Now many opera lovers are dismayed by the distracting gesticulations at the edge of the stage.’
Daily Mail - November 2 2003

October 2003

Beyond the Tories

Acres of news print are now devoted to the question as to 'what happened to the Tories'.
Why does Britain have such an ineffective official opposition party when the health of democracy depends on a vigorous opposition? The answers given are correct in themselves but, in the main, ignore the larger causes or skate over them.
It is said that the Tories are hopelessly internally divided over most of the major questions of the day like Europe, immigration and taxation. Their internal culture is one of complacency, bred of their past success as the most effective political party in British history. This complacency is evidenced in the spectre of a party cast on the rocks indulging in murderous internal feuding reminiscent of a Renaissance Italian court. It is said that the end of the Cold War also diminished the apparent importance of a nationalist party as the Tories were seen to be.
All this is true, but ignores major and deletorious effects which have entered our national politics in past decades, and which afflict all three of the main parties. The Tories are the worst afflicted for reasons we will address.
During the 1960s, the entire political class decided that it had a decreasing interest in the continued existence of Britain as a country and in its society. A combination of factors coincided to bring this about, with three being predominant.
There was the growth of a notion of liberal tolerance which extended to the political class becoming embarrassed to offer any direction as to the society as a whole. The heady perfume of 1960s liberation from the yoke of any convention dictated that such matters as the very existence of a society could be left in the hands of a sense of general goodwill to all men - evidenced at the time in the lyrics of popular music. Pop singers, with little experience of life outside the recording studio, and a cotery of groupies and general flatterers, began to enjoy enormous political prestige as sages pronouncing on how society should function.

The effects of losing an empire, yet seeing the country as having won WWII and forging a previously unknown degree of prosperity, gave the impression of a nation which would always emerge successfully regardless of political direction.
Politicians also began to look increasingly across the Channel to Europe as a political stage on which they could strut, with Britain being merely a springboard.
For a party like the Conservatives, with its national emphasis, the above effects began to pull the rug from under its ideology, or at least from beneath the confidence in public acceptance it felt it could command in promoting that ideology. The virulence with which Enoch Powell was attacked by his own party for his remarks concerning immigration is perfectly explained by the internal sense of uncertainty about its ideas which the new liberationalism had created.
In the past decade, a new and far more fundamental ailment has also entered our political life which, again, has affected the ability of the Tories to present a case effectively far more than it has affected the Labour Party or Liberals - although they are far from unaffected.
Politics is a system for arriving at a conclusion about what is the best policy for groups of people to follow.
With numerous competing interests, and constantly changing circumstance, there is no scientific answer - although the communists imagined themselves to have arrived at one. The best that can be done is for a number of advocates to adopt a range of positions and try to see who has the better case. Past generations of politicians thrived on the cut and thrust of it, and in their ability to weather ferocious opposition. They accepted that their own position would not be shared by everyone. That was the lifeblood of the game.
But politicians began to feel that all this was uncomfortable to live with. Controversy meant pleasing some voters but losing the support of others. Genuinely public meetings, with their inevitable heckling and rumbustiousness, began to be avoided. The last prime minister to display his skills in this way was Harold Wilson. Little by little, politicians sought to adopt a language and style which pretended to be all things to all men. Tony Blair has brought it to a fine art
But without the adoption of a firm position there is no genuine politics. No wonder the public increasingly regards the political class as untrustworthy and elections as irrelevant.
The more leftist parties could partly avoid this problem since their own ideology saw a beneficent human nature as the main ingredient for the better society - something to be mysteriously unlocked in unprecedented quantities by their own presence in government. The Tories were traditionally a party which thought such ideas to be unrealistic flim-flam, so the new style eroded from under them their basic approach to politics. Fear of controversy is now so firmly entrenched in their ranks that their condition has become terminal unless they choose to become a pale copy of the other two. In that event, they will always be beaten at a game others will play better.
The extent of the Tory fear of adopting any firm position is well-evidenced in their current instruction to local activists that they are prohibited from campaigning on one of the issues where they are guaranteed to obtain support - asylum. This is merely a continuance of the condition of the Tory party under William Hague. He complained that Shadow Cabinet did nothing and became fearful if he did anything.
If the twin cancers which have devalued political life are not treated, it will not matter a hang which of the three big parties wins the next general election. We do not believe either disease will even begin to be tackled. Career politicians will prefer to avoid the changes the country so desperately needs.
That is why we started the Freedom Party.

Labour's 'joined up government'

Labour has announced that those over 65 will be given the choice of putting off receiving the state pension until 70 in return for the money being paid later as a lump sum, with interest. The idea is to persuade people to continue working after 65. But those who do, as a result of Labour's inaction, still have no employment rights to assist them to work in the first place.
With people over 50, or younger, being substantially excluded from employment. it is an odd kind of 'joined up government' which does not remedy the problem before telling older people to continue working.

The washing up

Important new research has revealed the true basis for the 'housework question'. Do men avoid housework and, if so, why?
Scientists have discovered that the problem is created by hormonal differences between men and women. Men, in fact, register less detail inside the home than women. In fact, men simply don't see dust and unwashed dishes. It's not our fault. Honest.
Further and major research is now taking place into the dropping towels on the bathroom floor problem.

Quotes of the month

'David Blunkett (says) "Legal managed immigation is vital for the continued growth and success of the UK's economy". Obviously, additions to the labour force are likely to add to total production. The question is whether they add to production per head and thus to the country's prosperity. All the evidence is that such effects are very small. The American National Research Council put the effect at one tenth of one per cent of GDP.
The very best that can be said is that any positive impact on the economy is likely to be small. There is a serious cost in social cohesion.'
Sir Andrew Green - Daily Telegraph September 2 2003

'It is no exaggeration to say that what I (have been) seeing is a steady slide into anarchy. Unless we tackle its root causes - the rise of disfunctional families who fail to teach their children the common decencies of life - we can expect to be engulfed by an ever-rising tide of lawlessness.
The truth is that civility is nurtured within families. As a result of our determination to avoid the sin of being 'judgmental', a significant minority of young people have no idea what constitutes decent behaviour, while a considerably larger part of the population fail to rally to the defence of decent behaviour.'
Frank Field MP - Daily Telegraph September 16 2003

'One of Britain's most senior ethnic minority police officers plans to bring a race discrimination claim against the Metropolitan Police.
Superintendent Ali Dizael consorted with lap dancers and left a threatening message for a girlfriend who dumped him. He had several mistresses and went off to have sex with them during working hours.
Clearly, racial discrimination was involved. If he'd been white, he'd have been drummed out of the police years ago.'
Lynda Lee-Potter - Daily Mail September 17 2003

'The whole stage-managed Labour conference show was designed to enable Mr Blair to survive a little longer, and to engineer Gordon Brown's eventual succession. As such, it was utterly irrelevant to 99 per cent of us.
Our rulers are playing games among themselves while the rest of us watch a country disintegrating, physically and morally.'
Simon Heffer - Daily Mail October 4 2003

September 2003

Iraq

The manner in which the invasion of Iraq was sold to the public, and its underlying rationale, is becoming clearer by the day.
When you have successfully hoodwinked most of the country for the past ten years into believing that you have a policy set and way of doing things which will transform the country for the better, as has Mr Blair, it is difficult not to believe that it will go on for ever.
One can see how Tony Blair became embroiled in the United State's plan for regime change in the Middle East. Enough WMDs, or least traces of them which could be spun into a major threat, would be found to justify the war's claimed purpose after the event. A major ally - the only superpower - would be pleased by Blair's cooperation, and an exaggerated assessment was made of the likely popularity among Iraqis of US occupation. The United States has always over-rated hamburgers and Coke as its ambassadors.
In the denouement which is now unfolding, Iraqis are not even enjoying the superficialities of American civilisation. A very few people, by military action, have been able to force US troops into a situation in which they are unable to undertake even basic fraternisation with the conquered people. Increasingly, claims are made that Britain and the United States are entering a Vietnam situation. That is an exaggeration. In Vietnam. a well-organised army was able to operate from North Vietnam against US forces. Nothing of that kind exists at present in Iraq.
Unfortunately for the US, and indeed ourselves, the lack of a large and organised resistance offers little comfort. Iraq can indeed be held indefinitely by putting in enough troops, given a willingness to accept continual casualties on a far smaller scale than Vietnam, but how long do we really want to go on doing it? Any government established by the US and run by Iraqis will be regarded as an occupation regime and fall apart immediately we leave - as did the communist government in Afghanistan on the departure of Russian troops. If occupation might be maintained for decades, it is possible that this problem might be surmounted as in the case of Germany after the war, but is the political will there? In the German case, foreign troops were not faced with guerilla actions against them.
All this places the Kelly enquiry into its proper context as small potatoes whatever the personal tragedy of Dr Kelly himself. Everyone can see that the civil service went along with the Government in allowing claims of an Iraqi threat to seem more substantial than they were. Civil servants like to please their masters, but it was not they who made the decision to go to war.
We are left with the big question unaddressed by Lord Hutton's brief for his inquiry. Why did the US want to invade Iraq? There is no real difficulty in understanding it if you put away the need for a single motive.
The US has been the only superpower for a decade. Many in its policy making circles are going to ask why all this power is not being employed. Put 911 into the frame - a direct attack from elsewhere on the US - and the scene is set for what has been happening. The United States has two major interests in the Middle East, oil and the security of Israel. Regime change in the area would be helpful to both it could easily be argued. Surely a country at the height of its power can manage such a small matter? The United States does not have the folk memory we enjoy in Britain of the disadvantages of being a colonial or neo-colonial ruler. It does have the folk memory of Britain holding down a great empire for a very long time.

The decency game

May we detect in the current approach of the Tory party to putting over its case a new and original line in spin?
The hopeless ineffectuality of the official opposition is now a small legend. But we hear from the Tories that their leader, Mr Ian Duncan Smith, is a very decent man. This decency appears to translate into a reluctance to upset anyone by solidly addressing controversial issues. As a decent person, it seems Mr Duncan Smith does not want to upset people. But this definition of decency in the political sphere unfortunately means that the leadership needed to tackle issues cannot be applied. But it permits a convenient avoidance of awkward issues.
Well we suppose it makes a change from New Labour's spin which will claim to be able to tackle every issue fair and square without upsetting anyone. If the Tories win the next election, we predict years of drift and further disillusion in politics on the part of the public.

Citizenship tests

The warm welcome given to the notion of citizenship tests for those taking up British citizenship says something about the lingering effects of New Labour's ability to successfully fool us.
Potential citizens will be required to attend community colleges, learn about British life, and then be tested on what they have learnt. But, wait a moment, is not attending elementary courses and being tested on what you have learnt otherwise known as the school system? If the citizenship tests are going to be anything like the rest of the education system, which turns out a substantial proportion of semi-illiterates, then these tests will be of the now standard 'all must have prizes' variety.
We think it will not be too long before the first newspaper expose about farcical citizenship tests where people are passed on the nod by employees of a Labour quango privately instructed to make sure hardly anyone fails. Is this too cynical? It has already been announced that the English part of the test will only require applicants to show that they have 'made progress'. This is the classic language of the prizes for all mentality which has made qualifications inreasingly devalued in the eyes of the wider world.
Meanwhile, more and more illegal immigrants flood into Britain. Many who would have been counted as asylum seekers will now not claim asylum and disappear into a country where virtually no attempt is made to detect or apprehend them. The headline figures for immigration fall while the numbers stay the same or increase.

Quotes of the month

'Here's a report from one of our oldest police forces. 'In the lift there are following posters: the Christian police officers association; the Gay and Lesbian police officers association; the Muslim sisters association; the Sikh association; a Women's network one, and occasionally a Black police officers association, all offering the same infrastructure of support due to their colour/creed/sexual denomination that we, as English, white, heterosexual police officers are blatantly denied.''
Peter Hitchins - Mail on Sunday September 7 2003

'The Conservative Christian Fellowship is based in Conservative Central Office. On its web site the CCF carries a prayer e-mail. For example, prayers are asked for MPs as they seek to approach a number of high-value donors.'
Daily Telegraph September 4 2003

'The man chosen by Tony Blair to write Labour's next election manifesto has attacked the Prime Minister's attempt to link Christianity with politics.
Matthew Taylor, 43, is reported as describing the Third Way as a 'ridiculous, fatuous claim that a mild form of Christian politics represents a new politics.' Realising his remarks may not go down too well with the New Labour hierarchy, he added in an interview: "I've f***** my peerage".'
Mail on Sunday September 7 2003

August 2003

The problem with multiculturalism

Multiculturalism has been sold to western countries with all the subtlety of the protection racketeer.
The technique has been to promise a quieter and more prosperous life for those who agree to purchase the ideological package, and with ill-concealed threats of disadvantage to those who decline. Social ostracism is the fate to be expected by anyone failing to display the requisite eagerness to see their society disappear around them. Most people in Britain have falsely believed since the 1980s that dissent concerning multiculti is an imprisonable offence.
This false impression has been carefully nurtured through newspaper stories in which police investigation is threatened against the politically incorrect - and sometimes instituted as in the recent case of Mr Robin Page the countryside campaigner. The torrent of press derision directed against the police's absurd attacks on Mr Page - which came inevitably to nothing in terms of prosecution - and greater awareness of the true state of the law is at last undermining public inhibition concerning expressing their opinions. Most of these type of press stories have included the obligatory MP condemning 'racism' and calling for the full weight of the criminal law to be applied to deviants refusing to accept the opinion of the liberal establishment.
The press must bear much of the blame for what has happened. Stories threatening imprisonment for those exerting their democratic rights made far more exciting copy than those supporting the right to comment on the state of the nation. At last, however, the media has realised that the public no longer wishes to hear about threats to the politically incorrect. The media has now realised that, to retain the confidence of their readership, the paying customers wish to hear that their right to express dissident opinion is supported not condemned. More and more articles are now appearing in mainstream publications expressing what most people have thought for years but been too intimidated to express.
But the error in the multicultural social apparatus has not been merely in the way it has been imposed. One can conceive of worthy ends imposed by dubious means. The basis of the ideology is utterly faulty, but the nature of the fault has yet to be widely identified. This is, as yet, going much too far for the mainstream media which has moved forward in terms of supporting the right to debate but not much further.
The problem with multiculturalism is that its basic arrangement is a contradiction.
The multicultural lobby treat culture and identity as something akin to belonging to a club which can be attended occasionally. If an entire area of the country becomes largely non-British in character, the multiculturalist will point to remnants of the old culture still being available and claim that the interests of the host population are therefore respected and provided for. British-style books are in the public libraries, for example, and umpteen social events available of a British nature, even if hardly anyone speaks English as a first language..
But culture and identity are not occasional and recreational in nature. They are something lived in - a daily immersion among what would be regarded as 'people like ourselves with our ways'.
The multiculturalist thinks people can live without any of this and still be regarded as retaining his way of life. The reality is that identity and culture are reduced to something like tourist attractions of the kind put on as a show once a year. Culture and identity become a charade like castles which dress their staff in medieval costume to enrich the visitor experience of the past. This is both entertaining and educational but no one would maintain it really represented a visit to the past like that which might be enjoyed in a time machine.
British culture and identity is to be like costume show for tourists yet we are to believe ourselves unaffected. Over a period of time, of course, the cultures injected by immigration will go the same way. Multiculturalism, in the long run, means no culture at all. The more cynical will say that is the whole idea. Society is to be deculturalised entirely since people without a culture have little common ability to defend themselves against the depredations of power-mad politicians.

Dental disease

The massive queues which formed outside a dental surgery recently when places for NHS patients were offered is a sad and disgraceful example of Labour's failure to provide adequate public services.
Massive sums are being injected by Labour into the NHS with little increase in the availability of treatment. In some cases, there may, in the short-term, be some excuse fot this. Organising the more complex forms of medicine may take some while to arrange. But dentistry is provided as a rule by one man and a nurse, and there are large numbers of already established facilities ready to provide it to the privately paying patient.
If, in Labour's seventh year in office, there is such a shortage of NHS dental treatment that a new and very small provision provokes national newspaper coverage then the word failure springs to mind.

Children and the future

When the sexual emancipation of the workforce was in full swing during the 1970s, the delights of the workplace were overplayed by campaigners who rightly felt that women were as entitled as men to work - and on similar terms.
As is often the case with social revolutions, what started on the basis of equity soon degenerated into an orthodoxy with tyrannical overtones. For years, the suggestion that child-rearing might be desirable and satisfying has often been treated as an attempt to force women into a second-class role. The obvious fact that, if women provide more of the workforce, they are likely to bear fewer children with consequences for the future economy has been not quite a nice thing to point out in polite society.
At last this issue is beginning to addressed, partly because the low birth rate has become recognised and partly because the experience of work has, unsurprisingly, not lived up to expectations. As the writer on management, Charles Handy, pointed out, what is generically known as 'work' embraces two entirely different activities. Most of it is largely repetitive, and lacking any creative satisfaction. A minority is well-paid, absorbing and creative. The larger and more expensive employment advertisements usually try to pretend that jobs in the former sector should be regarded as in the latter. Most of those in the workforce, unhappily, are occupied in the former sector whether men or women.
The obvious fact that the satisfactions of seeing one's children grow may be a greater pleasure than tedious and routine employment has been ignored. Not for much longer.

Quotes of the month

'Immigrants of today, unlike their predecessors of the 1940s and 1950s, are encouraged not to integrate but to keep their national identities intact.
If the Government continues with its policy of multiculturalism, it is likely that Britain, during the next few decades, may become a territorial enclave of two nations: the first (mainly non-Muslim) would put state before religion, and the second (predominantly Muslim) would continue to allow religious affinity to take precedence over territorial nationalism.
It is difficult to see how such a society could possibly maintain good race relations and social equilibrium.'
Randhir Singh Bains - The Times August 7 2003

'(Labour's) Women and Equality Unit sees a 'real problem' that 'just 48% of women with children under two are in employment compared to 90% of men with a child under two'.
Stop, blink, read the sentence again. Are there really, in the heart of government, people who object when mothers of infants under two are not out at work? Have they never met a baby? How is it possible for a government to make the airy assumption that is always best, for the majority of mothers, to drop their children with strangers, often ill-qualified and never a tenth as loving as they are?'
Libby Purves - The Times June 24 2003

'So many Chinese are being smuggled into Britain that gangs are moving their criminal rackets into the countryside to supply cheap labour to farms and food packing factories.
The Chinese population of King's Lynn has soared in months from 300 law-abiding residents to 5,000. A Home Office source said that most were illegal immigrants brought to work for gangs. Operation Gangmaster was set up as a joint operation involving the Treasury, Inland revenue, police, immigration, Department of Work and safety officials but few inroads are being made. They have no office, no budget, no boss and no minister to report to.'
The Times - July 24 2003

July 2003

Swans and multiculturalism

Anger at the news of Eastern European immigrants stealing swans and eating them has implicitly focused on the lack of respect for our way of life in Britain shown by some immigrants.
But the true enormity of what is being imposed in the name of multiculturalism has not yet impressed itself on most of the population. Establishment politicians like David Blunkett, with his 'citizenship test' wish to allay public concern by giving the impression that multiculturalism is not incompatible with maintaining some semblance of what most Britons would regard as 'our way of life'. Perhaps Mr Blunkett genuinely deceives himself. The Tories certainly do.
The fact of the matter is that, in a genuinely multicultural society, there is no such thing as a core way of life which people are entitled to look to as something at the least to be tacitly respected by newcomers. In the multicultural society, all cultures are equal. For those already within the society to speak of 'our way of life' is a demand that their own culture should take precedence before others on grounds of its prior establishment. That is obviously in conflict with the basic principle of equality of cultures.
Many immigrants understand far better than most of the British population what kind of country the political establishment are constructing. If they show no respect then this is because none is required of them.

Milton Friedman's recantation

Most people will never have heard of the Chicago economist Milton Friedman.
Yet twenty years ago, the entire basis of economic policy in Britain was based on his simple-sounding recipe for economic success. All that was needed was to control the supply of money. In the wake of the experiment, unemployment rose to three million even on the Government's own figure, and industry was devastated.
Not only did Friedman's policy prescription cause economic disaster before its gradual abandonment around the middle 1980s. It also caused lasting political damage to the right. The left had long offered a cure-all for the economy in the form of nationalisation. Not to be left out, the right seized on Professor Friedman's idea as its own magic bullet providing parity of utopian promise with the left - and had the authority of a Nobel prize winner behind what was on offer.
The trouble with monetarism is that it does not work. There is no close relationship between the volume of money and employment and output if one attempts to regulate the latter by means of controlling the supply of money. Ways will be found round it.
In Elizabethan England, there was a shortage of coin. Traders got round the shortage by agreeing among themselves to settle accounts on fair days. This allowed the available money to go further in supporting trade since it was not necessary to hold idle cash between fairs. The Elizabethans grasped the basic flaw in monetarism long before it had been invented.
Milton Friedman is now 91. He deserves some respect for admitting he was wrong. In a recent interview, he offered what William Keegan in the Observer rightly called the economic quote of the decade.
"The use of the quantity of money as a target has not been a success".

Age and employment

It is rare to be able to offer approval for anything which emerges from the EU. But, when our own government refuses to act to remedy a blatant injustice which costs billions to our economy, action from any direction is welcome.
The EU directive ordering member governments to introduce legislation banning the absurd system of age limits on employment, under which people as young as 35 are regarded as too old for many jobs, is a welcome measure. Labour is now cynically trying to take credit for what has been forced on it by the directive with a display of moral concern about the vast numbers of people in their forties and fifties forced into prolonged and often terminal unemployment by this crazy practice.
What Labour is not mentioning is that it pledged to take urgent action as long ago as 1996, but has spent its time in office trying to avoid it. It was Labour which secured a delay of several years during the EU negotiations concerning legislation.
It has been very evident thoughout Labour's period in office that it regards bringing in foreign workers in vast numbers as far more important than employing its own citizens. The IT workers are the latest to feel the effects of Labour's priorities with increasing joblessness, while work permits are dispensed to foreign workers regardless of the welfare of British citizens. The Audit Commission is now to investigate the agency administering the work permit system following complaints by the IT workers' association.
Labour has now announced that the entire workforces of the new EU countries, amounting to tens of millions of people, will have full employment rights in Britain beginning in 2004. But British workers excluded from jobs by ageism are to have to wait for relief until 2006 - nearly ten years after Labour's election.
Much criticism has been directed at Blair's government in that the timing of its announcement of forthcoming legislation to ban age limits on jobs is motivated by the cost of pensions, and that it wishes to see people work until they are seventy to deal with the problem at the expense of the public's expectations of a pleasant retirement.
The main reason is otherwise. The latest date permitted by the EU directive for new laws on ageism to be up and working is 2006. Labour cannot put off action any longer, but wishes the public to think that what it is doing is motivated by its assessment of social need, when, in fact, it is acting reluctantly having no choice in the matter.

Quotes of the month

'Britain has the frankest, most truthful government the world has ever seen. Never before in history had a government been brave enough to express national sovereignty in terms of a simple cash value. Yesterday, Gordon Brown broke that taboo: he officially announced that the cost of national independence to every Briton is £50 a year.
This, according to the Treasury, is the maximum economic gain from joining the Euro, under the best circumstances that could be imagined.'

Anatole Kaletsky - The Times June 10 2003

'British politicians mutter darkly that some critics of the Brussels paradise want Britain to quit. The suggestion is that beyond its borders lies an airless planet which no economy can survive.
Norway turned down the Common Market. Norway is prosperous, happy and free. In the 30 years from 1971 to 2003, its gross domestic product rose by 177%. The UK, which has been in the EU almost the whole period, saw an increase of 98%.'
Peter Hitchins - Mail on Sunday June 22 2003

'Alarm bells are beginning to ring among the leaders of Britain's white collar workers. Crisis talks were convened by the Communication Workers Union. For the first time, three unions were planning a joint campaign to fight the steady flow of service-sector jobs offshore.
An Amicus-MSF spokesman says "We watched the meltdown in Britain's manufacturing industry in the 1970s and 1980s when all the companies moved to the Far East. The economy was saved by growth in the financial service and IT sectors. If these go what will be left? A nation of fat cats and hairdressers?"'
Sunday Times June 8 2003

'It is not that taxpayers don't want to pay for high-quality services. Increasing numbers of people are choosing to pay for private health or education because they know they will get high standards. What they resent is paying through the nose for untreated illness and educational collapse. These failures are on a scale that makes a mockery of the idea of the welfare state. As Alan Milburn said before he resigned as Health Secretary, there are even more inequalities in health care than before the NHS was set up.'
Melanie Phillips The Mail June 23 2003

June 2003
Well-founded suspicions
There cannot be many people left in Britain who have not now come to the conclusion that a decision to go to war in Iraq was made some while ago - possibly several years - and that the reasons for this were not to be revealed to the public.
The decision having been made, some pretext then had to be found allowing the war to start on grounds which would persuade the public of the need for urgent action. The astonishing revelation by the US Deputy Defense Secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, that the threat from supposed Iraqi WMDs was merely a plausible pretext, with the potential to attract international support for an invasion, is surprising only for his willingness to admit it.
If Tony Blair believed that victory in Iraq would silence pre-war doubters, and that evidence of the dubious public relations job in the run-up to it which emerged afterwards would be seen as yesterday's issue, then he was badly mistaken. There has been a 'Baghdad bounce' but not of the kind he no doubt envisaged. Blair's extraordinary ability to shake off personal responsibility for what most of the voters now see as a duplicitous regime seems at last to be coming to an end

The European constitution

Acres of newsprint are currently being devoted to debating the extent to which the new European constitution will diminish British sovereignty. Opinions vary between the farcical claim by Peter Hain that the latest extension of EU influence is merely a 'tidying up'of existing arrangements in preparation for the entry of new countries, and the opinion that it will mean the end of Britain as a nation. The latter is, of course, the reality.
But the debate misses the real point. Even if Blair's representations - claimed to ensure the protection of British interests - were able to obtain a watering of the proposals to such a degree that almost every opponent of the superstate was satisfied, it would make no difference in the long run. The whole point of EU strategy is to entwine the European nations into a superstate at the maximum feasible political speed. Setbacks are not even setbacks within this strategy. Rejection of a step forward towards a single state simply allays suspicions and erodes organised opposition. The emergency is seen as over and everyone relaxes while the EU simply plans its next move.
The EU is already planning the inevitable next step after establishing itself as a unitary state. Since the proposed Europe will be run by bureaucrats, and will lack even a semblance of real democracy, it will not attract any large measure of public support. The growth of political groupings opposed to it is inevitable. It is now clear that such parties or groups are to be financially disadvantaged and regulated so that they can potentially be banned from registration or removed from it on the ground that they fail to uphold the interests of the EU.
In short, if you do not like your nationhood and freedoms taken away you will be prevented from voting against it. As usual with such political scenarios, all will be done in the name of the people and upholding their rights against troublemakers who do not share the overwhelming enthusiasm of nearly everyone else for living under unaccountable government.
Labour and the Liberals will be delighted. We can safely predict that the Tory party, under its present and likely future leadership, will simply abandon its core beliefs, under these circumstances, in order to remain in business.

Unemployment

The economy is probably one of the most difficult policy areas faced by government. There is no detailed or often even general expert agreement as to how economies work in terms of beneficial policy, and, unlike the military or even the hospitals, government cannot give direct orders to participants under a free market system that they should invest or employ people. Economies are also ever-changing, and no regime can hope to be always ahead of the curve in its management.
Two things can rightly be expected of good government, however. The first is to learn those broad brush lessons which may be gleaned from economic history. For example, very few people would now refute the proposition that large state-run industries tend to be chronically inefficient and soaked in unproductive bureaucracy. The NHS please note. The second is a basic honesty with voters about the economic situation.
Recent studies by Sheffield Hallam and Warwick Universities into the level of unemployment in Britain make uncomfortable reading. Their assessment is that there are 2.8 million unemployed, and that much of the claimed fall since 1997 is merely the displacement of the unemployed into other categories when they remain jobless.
Of course, the manipulation of the unemployment figures began in earnest under the Tories during the 1980s. Mass unemployment was something not seen since before the war, and now familiar techniques like expanding the sickness registers, at the expense of the lists of unemployed, bloomed like carefully tended plants at the Chelsea Flower Show.
Labour persuaded the country in 1997 that the bad old days were over. It is clear that they are not. The Sheffield and Warwick academics have found that in the East Midlands, for example, nearly half the apparent fall in unemployment was the result of an increase in hidden joblessness.
The techniques generated during the 1980s for misleading the country as to the real levels of unemployment are, it appears, unfortunately alive and well under Labour.

Quotes of the month

'Two British passport holders have detonated a suicide bomb in Israel. Did these men really think of themselves as British, kin to the heritage and culture of Jane Austen, Nelson and the Rolling Stones? Rather, they represent the dark side of multi-culturalism, of a world in which it is much harder than it was in World War II or the Cold War to know on whose side anyone belongs.
Trust in each other, the cement of society, becomes elusive. The erosion of familiar loyalties is a key ingredient in the fears of our society today.'

Max Hastings - Daily Mail May 3 2003

'I am glad Tony Blair has told the Iraqi people that he will rebuild their hospitals and schools, repair their roads and railways, make it safe for them to walk down their streets and stop burglaries and looting.
I think I may have heard him say that before....'

Letters - Daily Mail April 25 2003

'And what is the much-vaunted benefit of large scale immigration? Any addition to our population should add something to our economy. The key question is whether immigration adds to income per head in Britain.
The Economist estimates this effect at one-eighth of one per cent per year. Not much to show for the extra strain on housing, transport, schools and hospitals. Too bad if you would rather put the values and culture of your own society above those of newcomers.'

Sir Andrew Green - Daily Mail April 21 2003

'State schools cost on average nearly £5,000 per pupil every year. Scandalously, getting on for a quarter of pupils leave school functionally illiterate or innumerate. Surely it would be better for parents to be given a voucher for this sum so they can buy education in a school of their choice. The argument that this would create inequality is fraudulent. There is no equality now for the child abandoned in a sink school. The truth is that the fiction of equality is merely a device for exercising control, and its principal victims are the most disadvantaged in our society.'

Melanie Phillips - Daily Mail April 28 2003

May 2003
Our first win
Those who have not participated in politics generally have no conception as to how difficult it is to win an election in Britain if one is outside the political establishment.
However disheartened by the lack of connection between the three ruling parties and themselves, voters in this country, at any event, are remarkably reluctant to support candidates who do not have the system behind them. There are several reasons for this which are worth examination, since the establishment likes to maintain that their continued predominance is because discontent is exaggerated.
Firstly, there is the feeling that the system is all-powerful and that to defy it at the ballot box is a wasted vote. If that were true, the big parties would not go to the lengths they do in an attempt to avoid even the smallest representation from outside their magic circle. They understand very well that even a tiny signal that they are not invulnerable can trigger a growing revolt. De Tocqueville noted that people would quietly bear a great deal as long as change seemed impossible. Once the possibility of change appeared on the horizon, that which was quietly born as the way of things began to appear as intolerable and essential to remedy. That is why even a local success for those seeking to change things is so important.
Then there is a diffuse fear of isolation if one defies the dominant animals in the pack. The fact that human beings are social animals is both a strength in that it encourages cooperation, but also a weakness in allowing unsatisfactory regimes to continue long beyond the time when they should have been replaced. This is what happened with the failed communist system during the twentieth century.
Thirdly, much of the country persists in the belief that the regime resembles a court in 18th century France. The rulers in their remote palaces are simply unaware of the people's complaints and difficulties. If only a message can be carried by means of letters to newspapers and so on, the aristos will awaken with a start to their problems and take the necessary action. This belief has been mercilessly and manipulatively played on by successive governments regarding mass and illegal immigration. The rulers regularly promise action which somehow never arrives. They are, of course, looking into the matter and the peasantry must be patient.
This latter tactic was much on display within the pages of the Daily Mail during the weeks before the local elections. Keep on supporting those who have failed you, while they find time to get round to addressing your complaints, was the Mail's disappointing conclusion - when to do so simply legitimises their actions. The Mail, however, continues to do sterling work in bringing light to bear on the faulty nature of the mindset among the political class even if not admitting to the changes required.
Much of the political establishment likes what is happening to Britain no better than do unprivileged citizens. Yet they have been largely silenced by a simple trick.
The principal divide in British politics is no longer between nationalisation or socialisation of the economy and its opposite, which was the basis of politics since the war. It is between those who want to pursue an experiment in dismantling the society on the promise of utopia - one which they will conveniently benefit from in particular - and conservatives with a small c who think that gradual and cautious change is the best means of enhancing human welfare. Those who favour caution have permitted themselves to be morally blackmailed. The argument silencing them is that a failure to support extreme radicalism in imposing unproven changes on the country - to the extent of eradicating the familiar society - indicates a lack of commitment to human well-being. Throw into the pot a de rigeur 'racism' allegation - something now as British as the Tower's beefeaters used to be - and a collapse of otherwise stout parties is near guaranteed.
The Freedom Party is not planning the re-wallpapering of 10 Downing Street on the basis of a single local election win. What we do claim is that it is an indication of the possibilities in many other places. Our candidate won resoundingly without any special advantage. She was not someone who had already enjoyed office under other circumstances, and nor were local circumstances conducive to a huge protest vote. The Freedom Party simply beat the Tory opposition at their own game. The same can be done elsewhere against the other parties. We have a team of experienced people who know the ropes as well or better than many in the big parties.
Proving one can win is invaluable in obtaining credibility both with voters and those contemplating participation. Our objective is quiet progress without notoriety. That offers the best opportunity to attract the sort of support a serious party needs.

The economy

Since the beginnings of the economic upturn, around the time when the Labour government was elected in 1997, a major factor has been lending to the personal sector both in the form of mortgages and consumer spending. This form of lending has increased over the period, making up for a shortfall elsewhere. That is why unemployment has been able to decrease and giving Labour its best argument for a successful record in office.
Despite regular warnings about consumer over-borrowing, the issue has not really made great waves in an economy where property prices have, overall, continued to increase. Asset values appeared to increase in line with debt. As Wynne Godley has pointed out, for private borrowing to provide the same motor for growth during the last five years as during the last five, borrowing would have to reach the levels associated with the frenetic boom of the 1980s.
Sooner or later, the process will reverse as people try to reduce debt. The longer the delay the greater the reckoning as the credit cycle unravels. The question is then where an alternative source of demand can come from. Interest rates are already low, and the world economy does not offer any great motor at present. That leaves government spending and borrowing which it is an article of Labour policy should not be employed as it would have been during the 1970s. Further tax rises are already threatened to pay for increasing government spending at a time when taxpayer disquiet is growing.
Gordon Brown would do well to find another ministerial job before he shares the fate of so many former Chancellors whose performances were impressive in the short to medium term but ended in disappointment. The Treasury official who told him that there were two types of Chancellor, those who left in time and those who did not, understood the difficulties of managing the economy.

March/April 2003
What comes next?

A month ago, Tony Blair must have rued the day he lashed his fortunes onto America's war against Iraq.
One can see how this came about. The mood of 'something must be done' after 911 must have seemed to guarantee instant support for any war claimed to be designed to fight international terrorism. If Labour had been successful on the home front, and was seen to have broadly fulfilled its promises or even to be heading in the right direction, the public would have been more disposed to take Mr Blair's word for it that invading Iraq was a vital step forward.
Unhappily, when confidence is lost in one direction in a politician's performance in office, it is inevitable that confidence will be diminished concerning any project embarked on. The Iraq situation came at the worst time for Mr Blair since his prime ministership began. That is also true of his continuing wish to enter the European single currency. Had a referendum been held on this latter matter a few months after Labour took office in 1997 he would probably have been able to secure a majority.
The difference between the single currency and the war is that Blair only entered into an intention to join the Euro if supported by a vote. The war project has been rashly supported without any immediate means of escape excepting the Iraqi regime being seen as a direct participant in the attack on New York, or a reliance on the instinct of the country to support a successful war leader. Evidence for the former has been lacking. Iraq is no friend of the United States but nor are many other countries and there is no direct proposal to invade them. People are, however, beginning to ask where all this will lead us. The doctrine of pre-emption is ringing alarm bells all over the world.
The Prime Minister has braved out the massive level of criticism directed against him across the political spectrum. The argument that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction was broadly accepted by the public but, contrary to expectations, that was not enough to persuade the country to support a war. The British people have been too sophisticated to swallow the line that Saddam Hussein represents a similar threat to Britain as that offered by Hitler in the 1930s. So the Munich argument for war with Iraq was not made despite endless appeals by Mr Blair to support him on trust.
The war, however, has been won. The public, once it began, threw their weight quite rightly behind our troops as those fighting and dying for this country are entitled to expect. Our armed forces have once again shown themselves to be quite exceptional. The question now is what comes next. Iraq has been freed from a monstrous dictator, but the test as to whether the sacrifices made have been worthwhile in the longer run is yet to come.
The recent example of Afghanistan is not promising as it partitions into areas controlled by rival warlords. All the same arguments about removing a dictatorial regime and ushering in freedom and democracy we have heard about Iraq were also heard before the war which removed the Taliban from power.
If the US withdraws speedily from Iraq the country may descend into a condition in which the removal of Saddam will seem of little benefit. Brutality from one direction will be replaced with brutality from another as happened in Eastern Europe when the Nazis were replaced by Stalin's regime in 1945. If the US remains in force in Iraq, or is seen to have set up a puppet regime, all the claims as to US imperialism will be argued to be confirmed. The Arab view that the United States is bent on denying Arab self-determination for the sake of oil and its general power interests in the Middle East will further fuel the bitter resentments which exist.

A lamentable record

The Daily Mail is doing an excellent job is putting over many issues which concern the vital interests of the British - immigration, crime, the erosion of the educational system. Indeed, the Mail's efforts are a great relief since it appeared that no newspaper would ever pluck up the courage to tackle what most people have felt for years but few people have been willing to say in the climate of political correctness since the 1980s.
We are delighted that the Mail has now come down on the right side of the arguments but it as well to remember that the press has a lot to answer for in bringing about the very silence which they are now ending. The Mail has been far from the worst offender, but the entire press conspired for a very long time to attack those who tried to discuss sensitive issues - particularly immigration. It was all too convenient for the provision of saleable copy to attack anyone who wanted to discuss migration in particular. 'So-and-so accused of racism' has been a staple newspaper filler for decades.
Most politicians who might otherwise have raised this matter and others involving defiance against liberal dogma thought better of it. The Tories were reduced to their present pathetic condition seeking to out-PC the Labour Party.
As everyone knows, the press is becoming the main opposition to the Government. The great danger in this is that the public now tends to assume that political change can be brought about by the newspapers on their own. Of course, the press has a major effect on the political climate but the condition of the political establishment is now so rotten that a really radical change is needed. This will only come about if the public involve themselves in political action and there is still little of that.
The mood of outrage among the public over the almost total abandonment of immigration controls, in particular, has led too many to think that the system must now respond. Labour, in reality, is still employing the old methods of telling us that action has been taken but will take time to work. The recent legislation preventing people who claim asylum after entering Britain from drawing benefits was designed to be struck down in the courts under the Human Rights Act - and has been.
The same half-heartedness which betrays the real intentions, or lack of them, is obvious where policing, education and other issues are concerned. In the absence of mass political participation, Labour is likely to win the next election with a much reduced majority. It will then claim to have a mandate for continuing down the road to disaster we are following whatever the press says.

Service industries

Labour has long offered as one of its justifications for mass immigration the contention that 'immigrants do service industry jobs the British will not do'.
One of the fallacies in this argument is that immigration, and particularly illegal immigration, has pushed wages in some jobs to levels at which no one can live in reasonable decency. What legitimate British citizen wants to compete with black economy labour in kitchens, for example? The market cannot work properly under these conditions.
At last, however, we have a good example of what Labour must mean.
News that the Labour MP Clive Betts has shacked up with a Brazilian rent boy hired from an Earls Court brothel certainly seems to provide some substance for Labour's claims. Not many Britons want to enter the rent boy service industry, and, no doubt, even fewer would want to provide services to Mr Betts.

Not so incapable

Several programmes on television recently have been about what Britain was like before the Roman occupation.
Not so backward after all was the passionately expressed message. As Tacitus indicated, the Britons of that time were seduced into a condition approximating to slavery in return for baths after having been overwhelmed by the might of a far bigger power.
There has been an unspoken presumption for a very long time that what the Romans did for us was to drag us screaming into a modern progress we were incapable of creating ourselves. A national inferiority complex about our own abilities has been a growing phenomenon keenly exploited by the left with its enthusiasm for handing over political and economic control to Europe, and claims that we desperately need the importation of skills from abroad. How exactly such an inadequate people as the British came to rule much of the world is put aside.
Loss of an empire is bound to damage a country's self-esteem but it really is time that we got back our confidence. Even at the time of loss of empire in the 1950s and 1960s we did not suffer from the extraordinary cargo cult we are experiencing now. It appears we are incapable of doing very much at all until foreigners arrive with the gift of showing us the way - or at least that is what we are asked to believe.

Quotes of the month

'Interested in holding office but lacking any unifying idea, the Tory Party wasted the post-war era. For a total of 31 years the Toies fudged and failed on every important long-term issue: the family was abandoned, goodness and self-restraint mocked, the schools destroyed. The wasteful public sector swelled and the taxes needed to pay for it.
Immigration was bungled, real local government wiped out, the police wrecked, our broadcast media allowed to become the megaphone of Left-liberalism and power sucked out of Parliament and into the European Union. Ask why immigration - at rates that could never be properly absorbed - has been allowed and often encouraged. You will find the answer in the soft surrenders made by Tory governments since the Fifties in the cause of having a quiet life.
Yet there is a conservative constituency, many millions strong, waiting for the birth of a party that speaks its language on liberty and independence, crime and disorder, illegal immigration, taxation and political correctness.'

Peter Hitchens - Mail on Sunday February 23 2003

'The draft Constitution for Europe would establish a United States of Europe. It would give the European institutions power over three of Britain's chief offices of state, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Foreign Secretary, and the Secretary for Defence. The main differences between this Constitution and that of the United States are more power to the centre, less independence for individual states, weaker constitutional safeguards and it would be undemocratic.
Britain will have 13% of the seats in this weak European parliament. We would never again be able to change our real government by our own votes. Whatever he now says, we cannot afford to trust Tony Blair on the European Constitution.'

William Rees-Mogg - The Times February 10 2003

'While the Government is planning to squeeze ever more housing into the South-East, whole streets of homes are being pulled down in other parts of the country because no one wants them. The Government admits that a million houses, mainly in the Midlands and the North, have been abandoned, or are blighted for lack of demand.
To make matters worse, ministers are pushing measures through Parliament that will remove the power to decide where new housing goes from elected councils and give it to unelected regional assemblies, partly made up of businessmen.
The plans threaten to deepen the gaping economic divide between the South-East and the rest of Britain. The result will be politically explosive.'

Geoffrey Lean - Daily Mail February 6 2003

'America (has) moved from its long dark age of racism into an age of white guilt.
White guilt is the stigmatisation of whites. White individuals and American individuals must perpetually prove a negative - that they are not racist. White guilt held out the promise of a preferential life in recompense for past injustice, and the protest identity seemed the best way to keep that promise alive. We blacks fell into a group identity that has absolutely no other purpose than to collect the fruits of white guilt. Today the angry rap singer and Jesse Jackson and the black studies professor are all joined by an unexamined devotion to white guilt.
Affirmative action has been a very effective racial policy for garnering moral authority for institutions, and it is now institutions - not individual whites or blacks - that are fighting to keep it alive.'

Black academic Shelby Steele - Sunday Times January 19 2003

'Political correctness is killing the art of conversation - every time you open your mouth you are liable to offend someone.'

Mail on Sunday letters - December 2 2002

January/February 2003
Slipping away

The post-war liberal political establishment both in Britain and in most Western countries has enjoyed a remarkable degree of luck in having survived in power for so long.
Its luckiest break has been the level of economic growth since the war which has not only permitted those full bellies notorious for dissipating tendencies towards revolt but also levels of redistribution of incomes through the tax system which would have seemed politically impossible to introduce before the Second World War.
People have come to think it as a part of the laws of nature that towards one-half of the wealth they produce should be spent by government. Whether it is desirable or not that government should spend so much of people's earnings is a large question. There is certainly nothing inherent about such a situation except that it allows government to appear beneficent and to create an impression that the citizen at large would be shorter of resources without the friendly hand of those in power. Like the full belly, this militates against revolt.
In every other area of our national life than growth in the economy, which has coincided with its rule, the old gang have proved themselves a disaster. The list is now so familiar that it barely needs to be mentioned even in part. Increasing lawlessness, uncontrolled borders, an education system which spawns ferals, a falling birth rate while support is withdrawn from the family, the continuous transfer of power to Brussels and the growing political culture of deception inevitable when the record there to be defended is so poor - the grip on power by those responsible has been remarkable. The right correctly foresaw all this but the last element - the Houdini ability of the establishment to escape blame - and was accused of exaggeration and alarmism.
Now the establishment's luck is running out.
The idea that it is those in charge as a whole who are to blame rather than exceptional circumstances or temporary administrative problems is beginning to get about. The old alibis are not working as they once did. It is unsurprising that New Labour's political project was as much about media management as about policy. Even parts of the establishment press are beginning to suggest that it is the entire establishment cast of officers who might need replacing rather than their being re-shuffled when things get hot. That is a dangerous idea which has been dismissed as impractical by most of the thinking public for a long time. The unthinkable is beginning to show the first glimmers of being seen as thinkable.
The failure of the Tory Party to capitalise upon Labour's visible failure is not only because of its retreat from taking any strong position because of a fear of controversy. Like the fall in the numbers troubling to vote, it reflects more deeply the fact that the public does not now believe in the political class as it once did. Political disengagement has replaced the fears of the political
class in the 1960s and 1970s that the public were too engaged in politics for the former's comfort. Political reform in such circumstances is as likely to breed new forces of opposition as to restore trust. That is the common dilemma faced by failing regimes. Proportional representation is a good example of the double edged sword - which is why it has been quietly dropped.
There is now an air about New Labour of its era having a limited life span even if it runs on for a while in political limbo and decline.
There is a story about how, very late in Margaret Thatcher's premiership at a Downing Street reception, Mrs Thatcher was seen to be standing almost alone while the crowd drifted into a circle around John Major. The power could be felt sucking away from Thatcher, onlookers noted. Labour is close to that point. The wide circle of friends will soon be nowhere to be seen and the fear Labour has aroused with its culture of political correctness will be laughed at.
The coming divide in British political life will soon not be the vestiges of left and right, or Tories and Labour, but between the political outsiders who are slowly pushing their way in throughout Europe and the old discredited political class.

Wider still and wider

The recent news that the Labour government is considering possible future entry of North African countries into the EU underlines the shameless power seeking which Enoch Powell saw as underlying the European Union.
The right has long opposed the political unification of Western Europe on grounds not only that it would destroy any meaningful democracy but also because of the economic impracticability of uniting such disparate economies. We recognise, however, that those who have supported the principle of a united Europe were often motivated by a genuine desire to avoid any more of Europe's episodes of fratricidal warfare - the last episode of which is still well within living memory. A common European home for those with a common heritage was not in itself an unworthy ideal - however mistaken in the means by which this was to be achieved.
The power hunger of the European political elite is now engaged in a betrayal even of its closest supporters who still embrace any principals in the matter.
The future Europe is not even going to be European.

Careers in burglary

Now that a judge has declined to send to prison a machete-wielding burglar with 51 convictions, because of the man before him's new found taste for writing poetry, it occurs that there might here be an avenue for a resurgence in the British poetic arts.
Careers officers should look into the matter. A young man seeking a life in crime might be well advised to take a course on poetry before entering his vocation. Those will a solid track record in housebreaking will want available crash courses in the subject which can be referred to in pre-sentence reports.
Much work is there to be done by professional poets finding things a little commercially thin in the trade - political correctness is said to be rife among publishers - and wishing to take on teaching to supplement their incomes.

Quotes of the month

'Britain's most senior judge, Lord Woolff decreed that first-time burglars would no longer serve a custodial sentence. For invading someone's homes, relieving them of their property and leaving them in terror the judicially approved penalty is now a little light litter collection and a pep talk with a probation officer.
At the same time as the courts are giving up on prison as an effective method of dealing with thieves, Parliament and the police are growing attached to the idea that the courts are a suitable place for punishing those whose views are offensive to their
tastes.
The Metropolitan Police's most energetic campaign this Christmas is not against burglars and muggers. The villains of the season are those who may give voice to offensive sentiments. The Met is imploring us to shop anyone whose language is considered hurtful. If you catch someone abusing another "because of what they believe in" you should provide the force with "a name, address or even a description of the offenders". Putting to one side that in the 19th century Charles Darwin would have (been) had up on a charge of gratuitously offending Christians, one has to ask what respect we can have for a law that does not respect our own ability as adults to cope with unwelcome views.
What sort of law is it that cannot defend my free enjoyment of either private property or public discourse? The sort of law an anarchist might design.'

Michael Gove - The Times December 24 2002

'The explanation as to why Blair is so hated by such surprisingly large numbers of people reaches the very heart of our constitutional politics. Tony Blair received only the vote of 24.15 per cent of the entire electorate.
I don't think this is tenable any more. The fury of the dispossessed, be they Tory people or Labour supporters during the years of the Thatcher supremacy, has its roots in the most fundamental of human objections: 'It's not fair'. I just don't see how anyone can go on defending a system that hands over the kind of supreme power governments in this country enjoy without a true mandate. Eventually, the dispossessed, in the words of the poet, will go off their trolley.'

Stewart Steven - Mail on Sunday December 15 2002

'The rape threat happened on my third day as an English teacher in London.
By then, I had already filed three Serious Incident reports, one of which involved being physically thrown across a desk. This was my shocking introduction to teaching at the Greig City Academy in Haringey. In all my teaching in Australia I had never encountered behaviour like it.
When New Labour decided the answer to failing inner-city schools was to turn them into well-funded City Academies this school was earmarked to be their first and flagship academy. If I said that most of my 14-year-olds were literate to the level of nine-year-olds that would be speaking badly of nine-year-olds.
By the end of the second week I phoned to say I would not be coming back.'

Kate Gibbs - Evening Standard December 5 2002

'"The Asian community in Britain is well aware that 60 to 70% of the Pakistanis who've arrived in the last few years are bogus. They pose as Afghans or Kashmiris and appeal for asylum."
Mohammed wants to expose this deception because of the impact that asylum seekers are having on race relations.
"We see them working in factories, restaurants and shops. We taxpayers see these people take benefits and take jobs. It's not fair on anyone. The illegals have to work for starvation wages because they are illegal while, at the same time, they do us, genuine Britons, out of a job. No wonder we're angry!."'

Sue Lloyd-Roberts - Evening Standard November 18 2002

'Downing Street last night refused to be drawn into tabloid claims that Cherie Blair let a notorious conman help purchase a flat for her son, Euan. Government sources advised journalists to steer away from the story, saying it lacked credibility.'

The Guardian - December 2 2002

November/December 2002
A melancholy long withdrawing roar

During the middle of the nineteenth century Matthew Arnold wrote movingly in his poem Dover Beach of the decline in those broadly religious ideas which had underpinned beliefs for millennia. Traditional ideas about the world were in retreat in the face of modern experimental science and particularly the new ideas about how evolution had come about.
We are currently in just such a period regarding the core ideas concerning how human societies should be run which have dominated thought for more than a century - almost from Arnold's time. Socialism in its broadest definition as a credo dictating that the greater the submission of the individual to the group the more injustice will be diminished is on its last legs. The noise of its roar in the face of defeat serves to give an impression of greater vitality than it really still possesses.
As one might expect, those who lives and careers are tied to the socialist mast do not wish to admit defeat. As those who have studied the collapse of the communist branch of socialist ideology would expect, socialism in the broader definition which has taken over the political establishment in Britain has become a parody of itself. The high hopes of the early socialists in a
brotherhood of man under which individuals would suppress their selfish personal ambitions in recognition of the gains to the whole have proved hopelessly unrealistic. The demands made on human nature were too great but it needed the experiment to be tried to satisfy reason that this was the case.
The remnant of socialism in Britain has had the heart torn out and is now a system of manipulation which seeks to embarrass anyone who opposes the personal ambitions of those in power. Oppose Labour and you are 'nasty' while they themselves are without personal principle or competence in delivering what they claimed they would in 1997. Contempt has taken the place of idealism. A malicious streak has taken the place of the flourishing goodwill which marked out socialism as an endeavour in its earliest days. Orwell's Animal Farm was possibly the most prescient and penetrating comment on political life in the socialist era ever written. No wonder he provoked fury within his socialist circle. Labour's apparatchiks are the personification of Orwell's rulers with their doctrine of some being more equal than the others.
Socialism in its dying days has become yet another line in political trickery. How its founders would have wept if here to see it. The failure of a system of belief upon which such high hopes rested for so long is a melancholy affair. How much better things might have been if the experiment had not been fatally flawed. Admitting as much is hard for its disciples.

Guarding the guardians

Did the Queen really speak to Paul Burrell of 'dark forces' in operation in Britain and, if so, what did she mean?
Whatever the truth of the matter the claim has served to bring into the open a long overdue debate on the nature of the security services and the extent of their activities. The recent BBC series concerning MI5 has not received in the media the attention it deserves. The fact that there are those who imagine state activities directed against themselves has discouraged raising these matters for decades. No one wants to be laughed at.
Yet we have in this country an industry employing thousands of people who are employed to secretly watch their fellow citizens. That much is known and accepted. They are immune from public scrutiny, apparently above the law, and, although, in theory, subject to oversight by politicians, those politicians themselves are the subjects of investigation by the organisations they oversee. The former have no idea of the contents of the files held on them or what use might be made of it. That is hardly likely to encourage interference with the activities of the security services by those charged with providing checks and balances.
State security organisations are. quite obviously, ideally placed to interfere in democratic political activities as well as to legitimately monitor, for example, possible terrorist activities. That fact will not be lost on a multitude of interests who would like to misuse security organisations for their own purposes. Foremost will always be the government of the day. There is a very fine dividing line between 'watching subversives' (who defines subversive in this context?) and attempting to disrupt legitimate groups opposed to government policy.
The extent to which MI5 and those within the overt police forces cross that fine line is unknown to the public but the scraps thrown to the BBC's documentary True Spies suggest that much is still being hidden. The security services openly admitted to operating outside the law and to carrying out burglaries. Will those responsible be prosecuted and if not why not? If burglary what else? Are these activities continuing?
The above matters are now not going to go away. The public is far less trusting of the machinations of power than even twenty years ago. During the Cold War the public could be convinced of the need for the rule of law and democratic transparency to be suspended in the face of what seemed like a threat to the entire West by thousands of nuclear missiles.
It is not going to be so easy to employ the same justifications in the future. Unless the secret activities of the state are brought under some form of scrutiny sufficient to reassure the public state activities will be seen as the cause of all kinds of untoward political events in which it had no hand. That will further feed the growing cynicism about our political system among the public. How, for example, can we be sure that the state has no hand in the current disarray inside the Tory party - so convenient for Labour at a time when it is seen to have delivered so little?
The secret state frequently complains in its public pronouncements of being misunderstood and undervalued . Remedying this is a matter in its own hands which will need more than a web site and participation in a documentary largely about events twenty or more years ago in entirely different political circumstances.

United States of Europe

The cat is at last out of its bag about the European Union's real intentions which it has pointlessly denied in view of how obvious they are.
The recent announcement of a plan to call Europe a 'united states' and offer dual national and European citizenship at last make plain that a superstate is the project in hand.
What will happen next can easily be predicted from the methods used to advance the superstate project in the past. Tony Blair will claim that such an outcome is not acceptable. A summit conference will be held which will be described as a 'triumph for Britain'. Blair will smile for the cameras. Concessions by the EU will be announced which are either temporary or meaningless. The superstate will be a done deal behind the scenes.

Quotes of the month

'Blairism is not a conservative creed. Beneath rhetoric cunningly aimed to placate Middle Britain, it is nothing less than a revolutionary attack on freedom and Parliamentary democracy, which seeks to remodel the family, the nation state and even human nature itself.
Yet most Tories do not seem to grasp that Traditionalists tend to dismiss Tony Blair as a vapid and cynical spin-merchant whose ideas do not need to be taken seriously. The modernisers who surround Duncan Smith have actually swallowed wholesale the Blairite view of the world - that Britain has become 'Dianafied'.
They think that to win again they must follow suit. If anything shows they really are utterly out of touch, this is it.'

Melanie Phillips - The Mail October 14 2002

'The Left favours mass immigration because it helps to achieve its aim of destroying national identity and the existence of the nation state.
People who have paid taxes in the expectation of getting well-funded pensions and health care are right to be angry when these services are sacrificed in favour of expenditure on asylum seekers - who already cost £1.25 billion a year. Ministers must end their liberal policy on so-called asylum seekers to stop the remaining parts of our small and overcrowded country being turned into concrete.'

Simon Heffer - The Mail November 2 2002

'Why is it that the established parties are held in such low regard? When an independent such as Ray Mallon has a proven record of taking public concerns seriously, he wins by a landslide. Running against the machine has become the voters fastest-growing preference. One does not have to look far for the reasons why outsiders are succeeding. Establishment politicians decline to answer straight questions and continually talk down to voters in a self-regarding fashion. It is "I yield to no one" and "I must pay tribute" or "I say to you this". Politicians collectively trash politics.
Allied to this trend is a growing pride among non-voters in positively abstaining. Research indicates that, among the 41% who did not vote at the last election, a prime motive was not apathy but rejection of the current political system.'

Michael Gove - The Times October 22 2002

'The multi-million-pound exams industry exists to deliver information that is useful to employers and universities. It no longer delivers that information. Too many employers complain that they are interviewing graduates who cannot write a grammatically correct sentence. Too many academics are registering dismay at the lack of knowledge school-leavers now display. Our public exam system has been sacrificed on the altar of muddled ideology and electoral gain.'

Chris Woodhead - Sunday Times August 25 2002

September/October 2002
Falling or being pushed?
Every thinking person will agree that the British have brought their present situation on themselves by their decades-long passivity in accepting governments which made no secret of their disinterest in the welfare of those they are supposed to serve.
A combination of wishful thinking that what is happening to our country was an administrative error, soon to be remedied, and the supposition that someone else would be adversely affected rather than oneself has created an indifference to the defects of the regime which no one could reasonably have anticipated from a country with Britain's history and traditions. All too many people imagined that they personally could side step the decline of the society. The worst features of the British character - indifference presented as a display of traditional British tolerance, and the cowardice in the absence of war which Lord Beloff said marked us out a nation of quislings in peacetime - have taken centre stage.
Britain's decline has now reached the point where those who bear the brunt of its effects are no longer largely restricted to the underclass. The middle-classes are now being hit from all directions. Cash-denuded by the need to pay for private education for their children if they can manage it, mugged, burgled and increasingly insecure in employment as traditional norms of labour management have been eroded, there is a feeling of perplexity about how and why things have come to this.
All too many still cling, however, to the administrative accident theory of decline. Despite decades of a consistent policy of attacking the society by the two biggest parties, all too many still appear to think that the regime will shortly 'come to its senses' and put things right. If that were true there would be no need for ourselves, or indeed for any political action.
Unfortunately, Britain is not suffering a fall. It is being pushed. The entire system has been subverted by the long march of those who cling to that delusion which caused world war, mass murder and misery throughout much of the 20th century over most of the world - a belief that the destruction of existing societies would automatically pave the way for something much better.
How precisely the second half of this programme - the building of the new after the destruction of the old - can to be achieved is never spelt out. The communists at least had some definite ideas on the subject like public ownership of the economy. The present dreamers and outright charlatans who peddle a bogus freedom have no programme at all, but plenty of slogans of the politically correct variety which are long on spin and short on substance. Blair's 'fighting the forces of conservatism' is an example.
Alarm is at last in the ascendant but awareness of the pass we have been brought to, and its causes, is still in short supply.

Labour and drugs

It is clear that the policy of the Government is to legalise drugs. The Blairite Institute for Public Policy Research is studying how Britain can withdraw from its treaty obligations to fight drug abuse.
Of course, this is not to be done in a single step. As one might expect after five year's experience of New Labour political technique, the stratagem is initially create a regimen under which drugs remain illegal but are, in practice, legalised by the absence of their enforcement.
If the Government is willing to abandon international agreements, many of us will think it would be better to do so with regard to the outdated agreements on accepting refugees, so open to abuse, rather than with regard to drugs. That, of course, would be unthinkable to this administration but for the purpose of making drugs available it will no doubt be perfectly in order.
The argument of the legalisers is that drug taking is a victimless crime since individuals are not forced to partake. Human beings have always taken substances of all kinds designed to dull the miseries of life and always will, it is said.
The unvoiced principle behind this argument is that society should not attempt to protect people from themselves. If all humans were unfailingly well-balanced mature individuals throughout their lives such protections would not, of course, be required. In the real world we are not. The effect of an absence of any controls over the self-destructiveness of individuals will soon be felt by far more people than the individuals concerned. Much crime is carried out to fund drug abuse, for example.
Societies have both a duty and a need to protect their citizens from themselves. Labour has lost sight of this and we will all be paying the price.

Denying democracy

The innocent sounding Local Authorities (Model Code of Conduct) Order of 2001 was presented by the Government as intended to raise standards of conduct in local government. Its recent use by Derby Council puts an entirely different perspective on what is meant by raising standards.
A local Liberal Democrat councillor, Ann Crosby, has campaigned for the retention of the city's Art Deco bus station which the Labour-controlled council wishes to demolish. Mrs Crosby belongs to a local group set up to resist the redevelopment.
She was told by the council that, under the new regulations, she was not permitted to speak at council meetings concerning the bus station since she had a 'prejudicial interest' in the matter.
The effect is that members of a council are permitted to speak on issues concerning which their parties have a policy but opposition councillors who belong to any campaigning group opposed to that policy are said not to be in a position to offer above board argument against it.
Mrs Cosby's gagging order by Derby Council should be tested in the courts. It is difficult to see how, under human rights legislation, a ban on participation in council debate could be upheld because councillors participate in campaigns on particular issues. Derby's ban is an attempt to neutralise the vitality of local democracy which should not be allowed to succeed.

Quotes of the month

'Around a quarter of a million immigrants are coming to Britain from the Third World each year, a city the size of Cambridge every six months, an unprecedented and sustained wave of immigration to one of the world's most densely crowded islands.
This is utterly transforming the society in which we live against the wishes of the majority of the population, and damaging quality of life and social cohesion, and with questionable economic benefits. Don't be fooled by the immigration celebrationists telling you this is just history as normal. Earlier waves of immigration, from the Huguenots to Jews after World War Two to East African Asians in the 1970s, were one-off events which had an ending.
The London magazine Time Out recently interviewed a Turkish immigrant who said that the English were the foreigners now in Stoke Newington. This, of course, was reported as a cause for celebration: we must celebrate diversity. We have to celebrate it, even though for white British people celebrating diversity basically means saying sorry.
Of course, it is all culturally enriching but surveys tell us that most Britons actually don't want to be culturally enriched. it is something they have in common with most peoples. I dare the immigration celebrationists to order the Nigerians to accept millions of Arabs, whites, Indians and Chinese to enrich their culture or the Indians to accept millions of Chinese, Africans Arabs and whites to enrich their culture.'

Anthony Browne - The Mail August 10 2002

'Since 1997, spending on the NHS has already risen by 40%. Yet activity has increased by a paltry 6% - not exactly a satisfactory return on an investment. Between 1999 and 2000 alone, spending rose by 9.2%, but the number of cases dealt with increased by less than 1%.'
The problem is the NHS model itself as Scotland shows. Despite NHS spending levels 20% higher per person than in England, with more consultants, nurses, GPs and acute beds, the Scots have worsening waiting times, and worse health outcomes

Stephen Pollard - The Guardian July 16 2002

'One in five British adults struggles to read and write, official research has revealed. They are 'functionally illiterate', which means they have the reading age of the average 11-year-old or worse. One in four adults has difficulties with numbers and would not be able to write 'one hundred and four pounds and four pence in figures.'

Sarah Harris - The Mail August 20 2002

'The Tories are so worried that there will be poor turnout for their annual conference that they've been allotted a higher than usual number of tickets, says a senior party source. 'Could it be be that, having been told we're nasty, racist and homophobic by the leadership, some have decided they'd better not be seen?''

Ephraim Hardcastle - The Mail September 4 2002

'The job figures, like so many others these days, are not quite so impressive once you look closely. Another 100,000 manufacturing jobs have vanished in six months. The replacements are often part-time public service posts. Hours worked actually fell - by 1.5 per cent for those in full time work.
The casualisation of the workforce continues.'

Brian O'Connor - The Mail August 15 2002
'Africa is my passion'
Tony Blair

July/August 2002
Migration watch
The formation of Britain's first pressure group to campaign against mass immigration by former ambassador Sir Andrew Green is a very welcome and reassuring development.
For decades, the public reacted to inadequate immigration controls with disbelief. Surely the government would soon get matters under control? During the last decade, growing public alarm was countered by vilification of anyone even attempting to discuss the subject. The political parties were bullied by the Commission for Racial Equality not to mention the subject at election times despite the fact that their own poll showed over 60% of the population opposed to the levels of immigration - even among ethnic groups 46% shared that viewpoint. This farcical situation, which has been the sort of thing which occurred under the communist tyrannies and under which most of those who should have spoken out were silent, appeared to be permanent.
At last cracks are appearing in the dominance of the lobby which has tried to silence all democratic debate on one of the most important issues facing Western countries - arguably the most important. The appearance of Migration Watch UK is likely to bring to an end the ability of pro-immigration lobbies like the Refugee Council to foist themselves as presenters of hard fact uncountered in the media by any comparable group able to point to the flaws and gaps in their position.
The Government's intention is to bring in an incredible two million more immigrants during the next ten years including an almost certainly underestimated figure for illegal immigrants. The majority are likely to live in London and the South East which is already one of the most densely populated areas in Europe. Britain as a whole is already twice as densely populated as Germany, four times as populated as France, and twelve times in the case of the United States.
Why then is Labour like its predecessors set upon a policy so unwelcome to the majority of the population? One will never get a straight answer to such a question from Labour but it has been estimated that 80% of migrants are potential Labour voters

Teacher holes

One of the pet projects of the left for the past many years has been to ban private education on grounds of equality.
The revelation that Tony Blair has been paying for private education to supplement the teaching his children receive in the state sector has blown the final hole in the left's plans as well as constituting an admission from the top of the political pile as to the inadequacies of state education.
How exactly private education was to be banned was never thought through. Would private crammers be banned from operating? Would freelance teachers be prevented from offering additional tuition in the evenings? One could envisage a situation in which the better class of residence included the modern equivalent of Tudor priest's holes to conceal freelancing schoolmasters in case raids took place to uncover education going on outside the state sector. The farcical nature of any attempt to ban private tuition in any society, let alone one claiming to be free, becomes clear if one examines what this would involve in practice.
The capacity to operate a modern economy requiring high levels of skill and literacy in the future is in doubt as a result of the collapse of education in Britain. The head of one major university said recently that he could not get a competent secretary who was under 35 in terms of basic numeracy and literacy. Anything which helps to remedy this lamentable situation should be welcomed.
What is even more lamentable has been the refusal of the political establishment to admit to the failure of their policies and the pressure put on politicians to practice the kind of hypocrisy we see in particular from the Labour Party. Its leaders are required to offer a public vote of confidence in state education by sending their children to comprehensives while, as we see from Blair's private initiative, they do not believe in what they are doing.

The nobbled IDS

The public looks to its political leaders to address the issues even if they do not make themselves universally popular by doing so.
The timidity of the current leader of the Tories is one of the wonders of the age and brings to mind comparison with a nobbled horse. It is particularly surprising when it emanates from a party which was able to win elections for a very prolonged period under Mrs Thatcher and then on the back of her reputation. Whatever people might think of the Iron Lady she pursued her own policies regardless of vocal opposition. Ian Duncan Smith gives the impression that he is driven by a reluctance to say anything anyone might disagree with. This is not the stuff of leadership and it is unlikely to be enough to win him a General Election. Being everything to everyone was a trick played by New Labour which cannot be used twice without a very long period for the public to forget how they were fooled.
It has been said that the above is surprising in a military man. In reality, there are plenty of officers like that in armies and it is often the case that when war starts there are rapid changes in leadership as the deficiencies of peace-time soldiers are revealed under the pressure of hostilities.
Ian Duncan Smith appears to be a peace-time warrior not one of those whose qualities become very apparent in desperate situations.
Quotes of the month
'Anthony Brown, of The Observer, rejects the claim that we need work-hungry newcomers. Britain has a million unemployed and 2.5 million looking for work. Our population already tops 60 million, the highest figure ever. He asks why we want more. And how many more? Ten million, 20 million?
Until now anyone on the Right who raised these questions risked being lynched'

The Sun May 31 2002

'A study by the London School of Economics revealed that a child from a poor background had more chance of getting on in the world if they were born in 1958 than in 1970. (A bitter irony: when grammar schools were in place, far more kids from poor homes made it to Oxford and Cambridge.)
Our public schools now offer the best education in the world, yet our illiteracy and numeracy rates are among the worst in developed countries. Seven million grown-ups can barely order a takeaway pizza because they don't know where P comes in the phone book. Australia, New Zealand and South Africa - countries which kept a traditional system of education - now provide a huge proportion of staff in our beleaguered schools. My Australian nieces receive for free a primary education for which any London parent would have to pay through the nose.'

Allison Pearson - Evening Standard 26 June 2002

'The issues my constituents raise with me have changed beyond recognition over the 23 years I have represented them in Parliament. In the early days the inquiries were about housing, social security and employment. No matter how complicated I could always provide an answer. Slowly at first, then in a great tide, the issue of disorder swamped the agenda. Now I had no answers to give them. I could extend no hope of meeting their quite proper demands for a civilised existence.
Voters are straining at the leash to have a party to represent and counter these new fears about bad behaviour. The demand for the political class to meet the challenge is so great that political parties might be broken in the process.'

Frank Field MP - Sunday Times June 16 2002

'All white people are racist. I don't mean they are all wilful bigots. But racism is a product of prejudice and power. As a black man, I admit I am bound to suffer from prejudices of my own. I cannot be racist, however, because in the global order I do not belong to the dominant group.'

Joseph Harker - The Guardian July 3 2002

The European Parliament approved a report recommending EU-wide criminal sanctions against "racism and xenophobia". It has not defined what it means by "xenophobia", although we already have it from the EU's Racism and Xenophobia Monitoring Project that it regards opposition to the Euro as "monetary xenophobia". MEPs declared that no one must be allowed to defend themselves against charges of xenophobia by advancing "spurious arguments invoking freedom of expression".

Christopher Booker - Sunday Telegraph July 7 2002

May/June 2002
Tipton election
New Labour's unscrupulous nature was yet again paraded in the dirty tricks employed against the Freedom Party's candidate in Tipton.
Labour realised late in the local election campaign that our candidate, Steve Edwards, was and is very popular in the area having worked tirelessly to help residents with their problems. With the help of the British National Party, whose reputation for gangsterism and outright criminality is well-founded, Labour distributed to voters a leaflet claiming that the Freedom Party was the same organisation behind the scenes as the BNP. There is no doubt that many of those who intended to support Mr Edwards were put off voting for him by this false claim.
Unfortunately for Labour, the media has for once done its job. The voters have found out since the poll that a trick has been played on them. Labour's stock in the area is even lower than before. It won the election by calling out the special interest and client groups which have become its basis for support as the once vast numbers of grass-roots Labour supporters have drifted away in disgust and disillusionment. The Labour Party operates an enviably efficient machine to maintain it in power by bringing out a vote which has little to do with political principle or affiliation.
Steve Edwards was the only pro-British candidate in the country from outside the main parties to score a vote in four figures. Part of his vote undoubtedly came from disillusioned Tories as well as from traditional Labour supporters. The former's vote is ripe for picking by ourselves, or indeed anyone willing to withstand the erosion of political debate in the fearful climate which political correctness has created. We have more to say on this subject below.

An invitation to fraud

The Liberal Democrats recently complained of massive voting fraud in Pendle.
The Lib Dems' complaints concern the ease of subverting postal voting. The fact of the matter is that the entire British voting system, formulated in gentler times, is an invitation to fraud and in desperate need of reform.
Anyone can currently present themselves at a polling station, claim to be someone else and vote. The astonishing fact is that election staff have no power to check identities. The Freedom Party has been contacted by a Tipton voter who was told at the polling station that his vote had already been used. Of course, such events may sometimes be due to simple human error in marking election paperwork but is is likely that considerable fraudulent voting is occurring especially where those with a legitimate vote have left the country or died. Many local elections, in particular, are won and lost by a few hundred votes or far less. There is every incentive for a great deal of effort being put into arranging fraudulent voting.
Many people dislike the idea of identity cards currently being considered by the Government. The usual reasons given for their introduction concern combatting crime and illegal immigration. To those reasons should be added restoration of confidence in our electoral system.
At the least, the law needs to be changed to allow checks on identity at polling stations.

The Great Debate

In the wake of the support enjoyed by Jean-Marie Le Pen in the French presidential elections the media is becoming increasingly clamorous in calling for debate on issues like immigration which it is said that an increasingly remote political elite do not wish discussed.
These admirable sentiments in support of democratic debate ring hollow, unfortunately, in view of what exactly the media usually means by 'public debate' and indeed 'public opinion'. 'Debate', in practice, means more articles by the same small coterie of highly paid reporters pursuing whatever agenda suits the wealthy companies who pay them. 'Public opinion' is whatever views they express.

Strange death of the Tory party

One of the perennial questions in the history of British politics is the strange collapse of the Liberal Party during the 20th century.
Before the First World War the Liberals were a dominant party which seemed set for a permanent share in power. Yet after the Second World War they were reduced to 12 MPS becoming little more than a protest vote. Of course the Liberals have made inroads into local government in recent decades but remain tiny in parliamentary terms. It is not unlikely that the Conservative Party is now set to follow the Liberals unhappy example - but in far more surprising circumstances.
Liberal decline can be explained by the massive social changes which occurred between Edwardian Britain and the Second World War, and in particular the growth of the Labour movement which supplanted it. Yet Tory recent failure has occurred just when the core basis for the existence of socialist parties - public ownership of the economy - has bitten the dust after a century of its being the engine which inspired generations into political activism on behalf of the Labour Party. One might reasonably have expected the Tories to have emerged triumphant on the basis of fundamental principles, while Labour withered, yet the reverse is the case.
The Tory party has now lost confidence in its own values to such an extent that it is reduced to making itself victim of political and moral extortion by the left-wing press. The Conservatives and their leader, the hapless Ian Duncan Smith, seem oblivious to the fact that no matter how hard they try to placate the politically correct left-wing lobby, which is focused around the Guardian newspaper, they will never obtain its support. The natural supporters of the Tory party are left unfed while its enemies are plied with tribute.
The once great party is now a carcass waiting to be picked at by those willing to offer a home to its disappointed followers.

The assassination of Pim Fortuyn

Two lessons should be learnt from the assassination of the Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn.
The first is that political violence since the war has been a largely left-wing phenomenon and it should be no surprise that a right-wing figure has fallen victim to a left-wing assassin. The media has scrupulously washed over these simple facts for many years offering the impression that right-wing people - in so far as these labels mean anything any more - have a disposition towards violence while the left are fluffy peace lovers. Anyone with experience of politics anywhere in Western Europe knows how false is the impression created by the media.
The second lesson is how much more healthy is Dutch political life than our own. The entire country has united in horror at this dreadful event including those who were implacable political enemies. A tearful black woman said on television that if a white man like Fortuyn could be killed for the opinions he expressed then what chance was there for black people. The Dutch understand very well that freedom of speech is indivisible. If you deny political opponents the freedom to express their opinions then you will be next.
How different from our position in Britain where Labour is systematically moving Britain towards a society like that suffered in East Germany under communism.
Pim Fortuyn, rest in peace.

Quotes of the month

'The uprising in France shows exactly what happens when people are treated like sheep.
Each European country has its own culture, heritage, history and traditions. Until January, they all had their own currency - and thank goodness Britain still does.
But you can't make people into something they do not want to be. Prodi and his pals can't understand that. They think we should be grateful to them for giving us the chance to throw ourselves into a giant melting pot which destroys our identities.'

The Sun April 30 2002

'The end of communism meant that Left-liberal reformers had to find a different way to be radical: the economic argument had been lost. So what was a whole generation, reared on the ideology of of vaguely understood revolutionary jargon, to do? Why, forget economics and concentrate on society and its "moribund" institutions. They would transform social relations. All that was revered would be tested to destruction. Teachers would no longer be seen as founts of knowledge. Policemen would no longer act as enforcers of order. The governing class would be assumed to be self-serving liars.
This last aspect of the revolution appears to be unstoppable to Labour's startled discomfiture.'

Janet Daley - Daily Telegraph April 3 2002

'.I can report with confidence that the atmosphere in today's London is identical to that in New York before Rudolph Giuliani took over as mayor. Dinner party conversation now centres on crime which guest was burgled, which mugged.
It may be about to witness the same economic consequences. When thugs controlled the streets of New York, corporate headquarters fled to cities where the chief executive could feel safe seeing his children off to school. The economic future of London cannot ignore the threat posed by its dangerous streets and the unwillingness of the authorities to confront the problem in a no-nonsense way.'

Irwin Stelzer - Sunday Times March 24 2002

March/April 2002
Circling the wagons
The great media alarum concerning Jean-Marie Le Pen's vote in the French presidential elections is predictably coy about the main reason for such concern within the political establishment throughout Europe.
Bit by bit Europe's political rulers - who style themselves as 'liberals' - have grown increasingly arrogant towards the people they serve. The wealth and privilege they enjoy, as with all long-lasting political movements, has seemed to them a birthright rather than something within the gift of the public which it is entitled to withdraw if dissatisfied with performance in office. The fact that M Le Pen represents a possible challenge to the gilded lives of those within the charmed circle is the real reason for their alarm. The media wagons are now being circled to defend the regime they serve. Of course, it is not put like that by the media which speaks of high political principle and garnishes the claimed saintly proclivities of those in power with accusations of the several 'isms' employed against anyone not serving their interests.
The fact of the matter is that opposition to Europe's political class is not treated by the media as legitimate democratic activity. It is to be treated in a similar manner to that employed by corrupt regimes all over the non-democratic world. Opponents are either dubbed as criminals or something approximating to it by the weight of daily abuse directed against them. Of course, there may sometimes be some substance in the charges offered. The point is that it is irrelevant to the purpose of the regime's propaganda whether there is any substance or not.
Opposition in itself is the real crime.

What about the workers?

The current crisis concerning the provision of pensions has brought to a head the underlying issue of how many dependants Britain can support given its size of workforce.
Much nonsense is talked about this issue using alarming projections showing a steep future increase in the number of pensioners per worker. What is not often mentioned is that same thing has been happening for the last century but it has not proved a major problem. Productivity increases have far outstripped the increasing burden of supporting those who do not work.
The present alarm occurs against a background of unprecedented underuse of the available workforce which began about twenty years ago.
The Thatcher government believed that a 'flexible workforce' was the key to a successful economy. What that meant in practice was that firms had little incentive to train their workforces since it was cheaper to poach staff already trained elsewhere. In the absence of any long-term commitment to employees inherent in the notion of 'flexibility', both the provision of training and employment of the untrained unsurprisingly collapsed. A now familiar Catch 22 emerged. Those with jobs could easily change them, since they were assumed to be skilled on the basis of being employed. Those without jobs could not obtain employment in the first place. This hit both ends of the age spectrum, with alarming levels of youth unemployment and massive levels of forced early retirement as older workers were sacked on grounds of lacking the new skills needed in a rapidly changing economy. Labour 'flexibility' turned out to be more the key to the creation of an underclass than to a dynamic economy with full employment. It is no exaggeration to say that firms have attempted to operate since the 1980s in an economic fantasy world where every organisation could be staffed by those between 25 and 35.
At the upper end of the age range, one third of workers between 50 and the current retirement age are unemployed and half are drawing benefits before even reaching the age at which the state retirement pension is payable. Those without jobs in the decades before retirement are scarcely in the position to provide themselves with adequate private pensions or indeed any at all!
Yet little has been done until very recently to deal with a situation which has been evident since the early 1980s. Government was more concerned with massaging the unemployment figures - a vastly expanded list of those on sickness benefits, and expanded higher education regardless of the capacity of students to benefit are examples - than dealing with the underlying problems.
Salt has been rubbed into the wound by massive recruitment of foreign workers within the age range preferred by employers, while millions among the existing workforce were effectively treated as unemployable permanent benefit claimants. As the Oxford demographer David Coleman has pointed out, maintaining the current ratio of workers to dependants would mean a further 1.2 million immigrants a year into the United Kingdom until 2050, partly because many migrants are themselves dependants, and a doubling of the population! The facts of the matter are that people now live longer and have less children. The former factor is a welcome benefit of medical science and improved conditions of life. Immigration is not a long-term solution.
What is needed is a revolution in the workplace and support for the family. The existing workforce must be used far more effectively than has been recently the case. There may be a case for very short-term importation of foreign workers with specialist skills. A changing economy will inevitably create some short-term shortages before training can catch up. One suspects, however, that resistance to this will increase within the countries denuded of their own skills base to meet the requirements of countries which have not moved fast enough to provide training for their own workers - and especially developing countries. The West Indies, for example, is increasingly resentful concerning recruitment of its teachers to work in Britain.
British politicians - as with so many national problems - for decades have evaded formulating a long-term strategy for the workforce, while masking their failure with a mass migration which does not stand up to examination as a solution.

Maximum tolerance

As with many other parts of the country, London's streets are becoming increasingly dangerous to use.
Nearly every day now brings news of some attack on members of the public in not only areas associated with high levels of crime but also in those which were seen in the past as generally safe to live in. The Government has no genuine strategy to deal with this problem yet refuses to adopt a model for crime reduction which has been proved to work elsewhere.
The principle behind 'zero tolerance policing', adopted by New York several years ago, is simple. If small offences, which in themselves present no real threat to the public, are seen to be ignored by the police then larger offences will grow in number. 'Anything goes' will be the message sent to anti-social people.
The current experiment concerning cannabis use in Lambeth turns this argument on its head. The seductive idea is that turning a partly blind eye to the use of soft drugs will free police to deal with more serious matters. On this basis, many residents have supported the scheme subject to its bringing successful results. The predictable outcome appears to be that Lambeth is seen as a soft touch by far more serious offenders, and as the supporters of zero tolerance would predict. The effect is being masked by the current redeployment of large numbers of traffic police to fight street crime.
All this presents something of a picture of a dog chasing its tail. More serious crime is attracted to an area by ignoring small offences but a concurrent increase in policing works in the other direction. In the long run, more police are needed for the same level of personal security for residents.

Self-satire

The capacity of left-wing councils to earn the title 'loony left' never ceases to amaze.
Soutwark Council recently announced that staff would be banned from displaying the Union Jack or Cross of St George during the Queen's Golden Jubilee celebrations - but then withdrew their order following national publicity. The usual slogan was employed to justify the ban - "possible offence to ethnic minorities". The Council claimed that any display of support for this country would be "inappropriate".
We doubt whether many members of ethnic minorities are offended in the least by the national flags. The truth is that ethnic minorities are used as a convenient excuse by those who simply wish to abolish Britain for quite different reasons. The core of the matter is the left-wing appetite for destruction which has proved near unstoppable since the 1960s. An ingenious array of forms of words appeared at that time which were designed to make people feel bad about themselves if they opposed the dismantling of their own society. The technique revolved around the notion that the left was promoting fairness. What decent person could therefore oppose its objectives?
This tired old tactic re-emerged in Tony Blair's recent speech in which he purported to lay out New Labour's philosophy. What is never mentioned by the users of the ploy is the fact that there are more definitions of what fairness means in practice than any of us have had hot dinners!

Quotes of the month

' "It is a kind of reverse racism that if you are white and middle-class you cannot say or do anything that might upset someone who is black or brown" said David Blunkett in the House of Commons. My own friends had better watch out.As the Conservatives flirt with multiculturalism they are in danger of being left in a multicultural ditch with the Lib-Dems.'

Lord Tebbit - Daily Mail February 10 2002

'New Yorkers still have a higher crime rate than London. But with the same police budget and the same population, they can field 12,000 more police officers and enjoy fast-declining crime and renewed personal security. The reason for this is no longer in doubt. In London, 10 cops sit in an office for every one in the street. In New York one cop sits in an office for every 10 on the street.'

Simon Jenkins - Evening Standard February 21 2002

'The peoples of Europe are being told that decency, justice and rightful restitution require that they throw open their doors and share their national homes with the decendants of those their fathers misruled, however many wish to come. What is being demanded of them is nothing less than the demographic, national and cultural suicide of their countries.'

Patrick Buchanan - Sunday Mail January 27 2002

January/February 2002
The tide turns
The notorious ability of dissemblers to seduce their fellow men with far-fetched promises has long been the lament of honest men.
The Blair Effect has been a particularly depressing example of the syndrome. The entire country and most of the media have spent the last five years overlooking what should have been obvious to any intelligent person. The New Labour project was essentially a system of media management designed to rescue the Labour Party from the political doldrums into which it entered during the 1980s. rather than a set of policies addressing the concerns of the country.
It was already obvious well before the 1997 election that New Labour's dramatis personae resembled a group of shady time-share salesmen smirking at the naivety of their victims. Slick statements and presentations to the media would fix almost anything, and if those techniques failed personal vilification and bullying would soon silence any dissatisfied customers.
No doubt Labour came to believe that methods they employed with such success for so long would fool the public for ever. Many a politician and dishonest businessman has made the same mistake. Now the tide has finally turned and both public and media have begun to recognise the failure of New Labour in government.
Labour can fairly claim to have presided over a period of falling unemployment - their sole significant success. But even this achievement is not in the main the result of their stewardship. Long periods of economic recession, like that caused by the Tories' disastrous venture into the Exchange Rate Mechanism in 1990, tend to be followed by prolonged upturns. Labour was elected at the right time to inherit the upturn - which is now faltering with unemployment rising again.
In every other area there is little to show for five years in government. The public services are a disgrace and the streets are increasingly dangerous to tread as violent crime explodes. Everywhere there is a sense that the society is falling steadily apart and the fatalism which such situations create. Labour is increasingly becoming that caricature of its own views which many of us on the right, who had troubled to read about Russian communism, could easily predict it would become. The Government tried to deal with a row over the treatment of an elderly lady by the NHS with the catch-all charge of 'racism' against the patient. Only the specific charge is different from the communist method of dealing with anyone awkward enough to complain - under Stalin Mrs Addis would no doubt have been accused of being a western spy and saboteur running down socialist achievements.
Worst of all, there is a progressive withdrawal from participation in the political process. The big parties are dying on their feet as grass roots organisations. The public no longer believes that change can be brought about by joining a political party - yet it is only by political action that any remedy can be developed. George Monbiot predicted in the Guardian recently that the charities would soon follow as the atomisation of society deepened. This is the worst effect of Labour's cynicism and manipulation. Politics and group action as the means by which society organises to resolve its problems has been devalued in a manner unprecedented in modern political history.
Little can be expected from the Tories, who appear to have become infected by the same disease as Labour. Policy is to be constructed to please a media dominated by those whose political ideas - mostly an inheritance from their youths during the sixties - have served Britain and its people so poorly.
The core problem is not Labour's technical facility in implementing policy, poor though that is. It is the ramshackle ideas on which government bases its policies. At the heart is the false notion that a society can flourish without any system of shared ideas and values to be transmitted down the generations - a partnership between past, present and future as Edmund Burke had it. Reintroducing such a common culture is the major task without which the next government will be little better than the present one. Yet this central issue is barely yet even recognised.
There is now some cause for optimism, however. A realisation that the present system cannot deliver is growing. That is the first step in groping towards the far-reaching changes which will have to be made to restore our country's society.

So much for freedom

Just exactly what sort of society we will soon be living in if the European Union superstate takes shape is well-demonstrated by the case of a Swede banned from 14 European countries.
Per Johansson was expelled from Belgium for putting up an anti-EU poster in Brussels announcing a meeting to coincide with the recent Laeken summit. An order against him was issued which bans him from Germany, France, Italy and eleven other countries.
The European parliament has now agreed the scandalous EU arrest warrant under which anyone can be extradited for such nebulous offences as 'xenophobia'. One of the difficulties is that all too many of the public seem to believe that what is happening is somewhere else and of no application to us in Britain. All too many people are going to find out too late exactly what kind of tyranny is being established under our noses and without our consent, the like of which has not been seen in Britain since the seventeenth century. Of course, no one in government will admit to any of it.

Larks and owls

After a two-year research project, the little-known Sleep Council (yes it really exists) has found that the popular perception of people dividing into larks and owls is factually based.
Some people work best early in the day, some later. Why not then ease the problem of transport into cities and at the same time allow workers to follow their natural rhythms by staggering the working day with different shifts for larks and owls?
Here is an original and creative idea which deserves more attention.

Quotes of the month

'The sad truth is that some politicians actively want a Balkanised Britain, seeing this as as the best way to assure themselves of the votes of ethnic minorities. Nor does this vested interest apply only to MPs: in many of our metropolitan areas, local councils employ large numbers of ethnic outreach workers, racism awareness counsellors and the like. Where would these people be if we all simply regarded ourselves as British?'

Daily Telegraph - December 10 2002

'Most people would agree that we have a Third World health service and a railway system which is close to collapse. In my considered opinion after 37 years as a London bobby the police service is in danger of going the same way.
I put much of the blame at the doors of politically correct politicians and ambitious senior police officers who are too worried about advancing their careers to utter embarrassing truths or to give a lead to the men and women they are supposed to command.'

Mike Bennett, former chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation - Daily Mail January 4 2002

'The case of Shadow Home Secretary Oliver Letwin - freshly robbed but still keen on soft sentencing - calls to mind a certain New York judge. Though himself mugged, he insisted that his practice of imposing light sentences would stay.
"What can be done with a man like that?" demanded a speaker at a subsequent gathering of pensioners, fearful for their lives.
"Mug him again" cried a quavering voice.'

Andrew Alexander - Daily Mail January 11 2002

'BBC mainstream political programming is stultifyingly over-produced, minutely orchestrated and heavily manipulated. It is this deadly dedication to production values, a programme's seamlessly smooth progression down a planned path, that has killed the public's interest in televised politics. The BBC says it wants to know why most of you think its political coverage is boring. I wonder if it would listen to any answer it hadn't scripted in advance itself.'

Janet Daley - Daily Telegraph January 23 2002

November/December 2001
This uncertain war
The logic of the present war is not being set out clearly enough by either the British or American governments.
The basis for military action in Afghanistan is that destroying the bases of a world-wide Muslim fundamentalist movement in that country, and possibly its leaders like bin Laden, will administer such a shock to the entire movement, and engender such fear, that appetite for the struggle will be diminished to such an extent that its proponents cease to be any real threat.
If the terrorist movement were a series of regular armies, who might expect a rain of bombs on their heads like that unleashed on the Taliban, a deterrent effect of that variety might indeed work The terrorists are not in any such position, of course, dispersed across scores of countries. They can no more be bombed that can the Irish Republican 'Army', or ETA, and the obvious inadequacy of set piece military engagement will not be lost on the terrorists. Even the possible expulsion of the Taliban from Kabul is set to harden its own support rather than to diminish it since the Northern Alliance is primarily from different ethnic groups whose rule Afghans in the southern part of the country have every reason to fear whatever their view of the Taliban itself.
The West, and it is very noticable that most of its countries are unwilling to engage themselves to the US yoke with the enthusiasm of the Blair government, might retort that military action at least sends a message of resolve. Unfortunately, the very nature of the Muslim movement makes it unlikely to be affected. People who are fanatical for a cause in the manner of bin Laden and his supporters will take the response of their enemies merely as a sign that they are being hurt.
Too much amateur psychoanalysis is appearing in the press about the presumed effects of bin Laden's childhood on his opinions. A close study of what the man himself directly says would be more profitable - bin Ladenology to mirror the old Kremlinology.
Bin Laden's position, from his own viewpoint, is a coherent one. The United States is a neo-colonialist power which should stop interfering in other countrys' affairs. Whether this a fair view of America is neither here nor there. It is a view very widely held in much of the world, and certainly not anything peculiar to bin Laden and a few people living in caves. It is also a view which will not disappear with the replacement of the Afghan government. The US could, of course, threaten to bomb any other country which harboured Muslim terrorism, as it is now doing, but this may well harden the view that the US is a neo-colonial power in precisely those quarters of the world where such a view is already prevalent and from where the terrorist threat emanates.
One is led by the inexorable facts to the conclusion that the only rational way forward is to tighten security against terrorism at home, while considering very closely what foreign policy changes would genuinely defuse the hatred which makes people willing to become suicide bombers. This does not, of course, in any way preclude punishing particular individuals who are responsible for the atrocities in the United States where and if they can be found.
Such an approach, as the military historian Sir Michael Howard has written, is unfortunately characterised at present as appeasement. It would not be an act of friendship to the United States, however, for those elsewhere to allow the deep and entirely justifiable anger experienced in the US to dissuade us from commenting on the wider picture as it is seen in other countries.
A predictable course
The Home Secretary, David Blunkett, has enjoyed much favourable publicity - if not on the left - for his claims to be finally cracking down on illegal immigration.
We have heard much about teams being set up to find and detain illegal immigrants, new centres being established for processing asylum claims rapidly, and, most of all, that illegals would be removed from the country at a rate of at least 30,000 a year.
Those with long memories concerning failed or bogus immigration 'crackdowns', like ourselves, began to believe that Mr Blunkett was different from his predecessors. This time the 'crackdown' would be real and in earnest rather than gesture politics. It is therefore interesting to see the Home Secretary trailering a proposal in the Times - merely a 'proposal' you understand - to give an amnesty to illegal immigrants!
What form this would take is unclear, but the logical outcome would be to allow one million people living in Britain, perhaps two million since no one really knows, who have defied the law, refusal of asylum, smuggled themselves in, worked illegally or ignored the expiry of holiday visas, the right to remain. It would also send a signal that there is no serious intention to prevent unlimited numbers entering in future - a signal that will not be lost on millions more who can reasonably expect another amnesty in the course of time when the water gets too hot for a future Home Secretary.

The end of history?

Francis Fukuyama's thesis that history is coming to an end has been in the news again.
Several years ago, Fukuyama argued that the collapse of communism signalled the triumph of liberal democracy as an end point in the search for the best form of government. What was less publicised at the time was the various conditions he placed upon acceptance of that system - conditions which many people may feel unlikely to be fulfilled.
The first major condition was that humanity would enjoy a sense of 'recognition' as individuals lacking under other political systems, and this would endow a sense of worth which would encourage universal acceptance of the liberal system.
No doubt the New Labour government would regard itself as an advanced expression of liberal democracy of precisely the kind envisaged by Fukuyama. Yet many people would utter a hollow laugh at the notion of being 'recognised' as citizens under a regime which has many of the trappings of what is supposed to be liberal democracy but increasing shortfalls in the practice of it. Increasing numbers of people would say the Government is there to serve itself rather than recognise their worth or wishes.
That is in itself does not necessarily undermine Fukuyama's belief in liberal democracy. The current Government may simply be a very imperfect expression of what a liberal democracy should be. The problem is that defining an ideal system does not ensure that one can be made to work in practice, human fallibility being what it is. If it cannot, the entire basis for Fukuyama's argument collapses. One of the major differences between Left and Right is the Right's scepticism concerning perfect political systems.
Fukuyama's second major condition was that humanity did not become bored with peace and plenty.
But the fact of the matter is that human beings like excitement. That may be a very poor reason for destroying any otherwise excellent system but effective political theory must take account of reality. Plenty of people who survived the Second World War unscathed had the time of their lives despite the discomforts and fears - even if it is unfashionable to admit it. In Henry V, Shakespeare had the king urging on his soldiers with the promise of scars to show and tales to tell to an enthralled audience for the rest of the lives. General Horrocks employed a similar method to enthuse his officers before Arnhem. Most of us know someone who is in this position regarding WWII or to a lesser extent participants in umpteen dramatic events since 1945.
Fukuyama regards manifestations like Muslim fundamentalism as doomed expressions of futile resistance against the march of liberal democracy. Whether he is right or not will determine all our futures in the coming decades.

Quotes of the month

'Since the Sixties, multiculturalism has been at the core of government thinking. We were promised that this approach, with its emphasis on diversity, would build a vibrant and tolerant society. But due to a mixture of fear, self-loathing, ignorance and party politics, the doctrine of multiculturalism has been pushed too far.
The British authorities have taught the indigenous population to feel guilty about their own culture. The ancient symbols of nationhood have been treated as racist. There is a reluctance to mark traditional festivals such as Christmas for fear of giving offence. Such behaviour is particularly nonsensical when it is remembered that only 6 per cent of the population comes from ethnic minorities.
To me it is absurd to ignore the rights of 94 per cent of the population in the name of some spurious concept of 'anti-racism'.'

Manzoor Moghal, Chairman of the Federation of Muslim Organisations in Leicester - Daily Mail October 31 2001

'How many tens of thousands of British children have been taught to disparage the heritage of their own country since the mid-1970s when self-abasement set in? People now in their late forties grew up with constant reminders that Britain's empire was one long rape of the Third World. The sight of a Muslim, Sikh or Jamaican child in their classes still spurs on many schoolteachers to inculcate the impression that Britain's history consisted only of aggression, piracy, slavery and the oppression of the labouring classes.'

Christopher Hudson - Evening Standard November 7 2001

September/October 2001
Terror in New York
Reaction to the horrible deaths of thousands of people at the hands of, almost certainly it has already emerged, Islamic terrorists has properly been revulsion and condemnation throughout most of the world.
Perhaps the most poignant image of the slaughter which took place was that of two people who threw themselves to their deaths from the window of a World Trade Centre consumed by flames while holding hands. The heroism of those firemen and police officers who lost their lives attempting to save others, when the buildings collapsed, shows us that an age stripped of so much of the spiritual content which underpinned past generations has not destroyed such qualities. Indeed, courage of this kind is all the more remarkable when few people in the West believe in an after-life - a disadvantage not suffered by the terrorists who were willing to fly aircraft to their own deliberate destruction.
Revulsion is proper and natural, but it must not be allowed to obscure the circumstances which led to the worst terrorist atrocity in history. The reaction of Americans has been to display an extraordinary lack of awareness of how the United States is seen in much of the world. Arab commentators have been cautious in pressing home this point out of respect for the feelings of the survivors. The fact of the matter, however, is that much of the world does not view America's influence as the benign and beneficial thing which Americans seem to believe they have a right to expect. The core of the furnace of hatred of the US is, of course, the position of the Palestinians, yet the BBC's Jeremy Paxman claimed that the West found it difficult to understand the motives of Islamic terrorists. Increasing number of Westerners, in reality, find it easy to understand the motives while not supporting the results.
During the last months, hundreds of Palestians have been killed and thousands injured by Israel's use of weapons supplied by the United States. Israel and its American supporters will naturally retort that they are merely combatting terrorism. That may often be true, but to assign blame is not to find a solution, and there can only be one - the Palestinians must have a homeland. Much of the hatred now directed against the US would be dissipated by such an act, but it would require the US to tell its client Israel that the game is up and that it will have to accept a far smaller role in the Middle East that it seeks, and probably to accept its gradual erosion in the face of a growing Arab population. For a country which was established with such optimism half a century ago, although by terror and with an utter indifference to the fate of those already living in Palestine, it would be a bitter pill to swallow.
What will America now do? Bombing Third World countries will achieve exactly what a classic terrorist tactic is intended to achieve - to create further loathing for the initially attacked state and more support for the terrorists. Perhaps it may be possible to punish particular terrorists. The actual perpetrators are already beyond any human agency. If others are punished more will simply take their place. The US is caught between the need to satisfy its own population that retribution is being meted out, the massive Zionist influence which dictates that Israel's aims must be supported, and the need to protect its own homeland.
The terrorist tactic was to assault the United States's main financial district. The IRA did exactly the same to Britain's counterpart to Manhattan, several years ago, when it bombed the City of London. Before long one of the chief terrorists was made a government minister and for education at that. George Orwell could hardly have invented such a black joke. One may also add that the IRA's decades long bombing campaign against London was substantially funded by people in the United States, who seemed to regard the matter as an amusing game when the bombs were not exploding on their own soil, and that the US government was not exactly forward in attempting to block the funding of terror against its closest ally. So much for 'resolve in the face of terror', and 'we shall never give in to the forces opposing democracy' which are the politicians standbys in such situations!
This lesson and many similar ones will not have been lost on the terrorists.

The 'extremism' game

The media game of stories about 'extremism' intended to add spice to newspapers is getting entirely out of hand.
The army of media operatives, for whom a story which can be dubbed as concerning 'extremism' is the sort of titillation which is seen as selling newspapers, now use the technique to fill much of their columns. The ploy has taken over from past standard paper fillers like 'duchess in adultery scandal' and 'donkey dies'.
Anything is now seized on to allow the reporters' game of "Bloggs accuses you of extremism or racism Mr Smith. How do you respond". It is killing democratic debate since any statement on any important subject which is not completely bland can be seized on to fill a newspaper at the expense of some politician, and even anyone who enters a room with anyone not seen as politically correct.
Ian Duncan Smith spoke recently to a European Conservative meeting. In the audience were delegates from a party in the Italian government - that of an EU country. One Sunday newspaper said that they favoured imprisonment and deportation of immigrants, and that Ian Duncan Smith should therefore not have been in a room with them. Shock! But wait a bit, the Tory party says the same nearly every day. Labour plans to lock up more immigrants and deport them too. Yet it was made to sound as though Ian Duncan Smith was associating with people whose policies he would never contemplate, and which are unthinkable, in order to justify an 'extremism' story.
Spice on Sunday might be an amusing tradition but it ceases to be amusing when it serves to deter debate on important matters - and that is what the media are doing for short-term commercial gain. Of course, one may say that politicians should not be weeds and simply stand up to endless 'extremism and racism' allegations. In practice, however, anyone will be worn down by the tactic apart from those retired from the fray who have taken to journalism like Lord Tebbit. The Tory MP John Townend has revealed that William Hague's reaction to the former's notorious speech on immigration was to say that he was forced to condemn it despite its content being largely Tory party policy - for fear of the media and the 'extremist' tag.
Those vying for office need to be given a fair hearing or democracy becomes a sham. That is what it is becoming.

Whistling in the darkness

Residents of an estate in London's Kings Cross, besieged by crime, have been given whistles to blow if they see criminal activity in their area. That is the situation to which we in Britain are reduced by liberal policies on crime.
The Home Secretary, David Blunkett, claims he is about to get to grips with the ineffectiveness of policing. We shall see whether his inititiatives come to anything or whether, by the next election, it will all turn out to be more of the meaningless 'reorganisation' which is the stock-in-trade of politicians who are under pressure to 'do something'.
Meanwhile, Kings Cross residents whistle in the darkness which is descending on this country.

Quote of the month

'The West embodies an astonishing paradox. It is run by liberal imperialists busy pushing their own values down the throats of non-western peoples on the grounds that freedom and democracy are superior to the alternatives and must be imposed on the whole world.
Yet these very same people hate and despise western culture as racist and colonialist and want to replace it altogether by a multicultural free-for-all. So the West manages to combine a gross illiberalism towards other cultures with a death-wish directed at its own.'

Melanie Phillips - Sunday Times October 14 2001

July/August 2001
Sexual chemistry and the Tories
The recent General Election is only a month behind us yet seems almost from an earlier political era.
The currently touted viewpoint is that the Tory ideas set was outdated and unsaleable, and that political life in Britain had suffered a sea change akin to that of 1979. This view is now being seized on by Mr Portillo and touchy-feely enthusiasts within the Conservatives as pointing to Labour as the now natural party of government for the forseeable future, with a new programme designed for changed times - unless the Tories can be even more touchy-feely. The reality is quite different, although offering little comfort to the Conservatives.
Why did the Tories fail?
Firstly, voters did not like Mr Hague. Political chemistry is not dissimilar to sexual chemistry. Mr Hague's position was as though he had pursued a member of the opposite sex who had no interest in him. In such situations, it is useless to look for rational explanations which will allow an attraction to be generated. There is simply nothing to be done. Mr Hague's undoubted abilities were of no use whatever.
On policy, the Tories had little to offer which was either convincing or better than that of the existing Government.
The promise to 'save the pound' was merely for the duration of the next parliament. Hardly the stuff of great principle as regards independence and the constitution! On asylum and illegal immigration the opposition was claiming a 'crack-down' when everyone knew of their dismal failure and unwillingness to make good earlier promises during nearly twenty years in office. As regards the public services, the general view appeared to be that there was little to choose in spending plans between the parties - so no particular reason for a change in government there. The Tories had no appealing big new ideas to offer to a cynical public which does not really believe than any party will make much progress on the NHS, schools and so on. On the economy, Labour could point to the fact that its years in office had generated falling unemployment. Of course, the numbers really unemployed are far higher than those claimed by the Government, but the vast numbers consigned to various forms of unemployment limbo, not appearing in the official figures, date mostly from the Tory years in office and voters are unlikely to look to them for any relief. The first Tory recession of the early 1980s is distant enough to be factored out of the calculation, but the economic collapse of the the 1990s still affects millions and can scarcely be blamed on mismanagement by Labour.
The Conservatives were unable to generate a chemistry of attraction for their ideas any more than they could for the person of Mr Hague. This was not because their policies were any more outdated than the Government's but because Labour was seen as either pursuing similar ones more convincingly, or because neither party had anything to offer, and, in such circumstances, the devil with whom you are currently familiar is better than a devil who might have worsened since your last experience of him.
Old Labour once enjoyed the support of large numbers of captive voters from among the disadvantaged. The fact that it has now abandoned the natural constituency which led to the formation of the Labour Party was of little disadvantage to them since gains had been made among once Tory-voting middle-class sufficient to at least offset the loss. The Tories were certainly not geared to be the party of the underclass and to seize Labour's loss and make it their gain, even if it could be mobilised to visit a polling station.
The dismantling of our society continues apace, but at not much greater a speed than under the Tories. The question for voters, in a situation of a complete loss of confidence in the country and its people among the political establishment, was who would manage decline most comfortably. None of the three main parties offered anything else, or is capable of it, and voters decided, with a lack of enthusiasm evident in the low turnout, that Labour was at least as good as the rest.

Myron Magnet's warning

The American political theorist Myron Magnet's laser beam focus on the disaster being inflicted by liberals on US society is much needed in Britain.
Magnet, who edits the neo-conservative magazine City Journal, has watched with dismay as we in Britain have copied the mistakes of the US, and ignored the lessons to be drawn from the so called 'multi-cultural' project in a country where it is there to be studied at a stage more advanced than in Britain.
The assumption adopted by liberals, says Magnet, is that the entire culture must be destroyed in order to create social justice. The result is a cultural vacuum which devalues the very mechanisms which enable, for example, an escape from poverty - a stable family, education, keeping away from drug dependency, and personal responsibility. Ironically, the new orthodoxy is intended to be welcoming to immigrants while destroying many of the very features of life in Western countries which made them successful, and which attracted foreigners in the first place.
Myron Magnet's ideas are increasingly influential in the US, notably with President Bush, and, on the principle that we in Britain follow in America's footsteps several years later, may we hope for a glimmering of sanity before long? The utter madness of political correctness is, at present, making Britain increasingly resemble the ideological madhouse of Soviet Russia during the 1930s but without the gulag.

May/June 2001
Vote for freedom!
Each general election which is held in Britain presents the three main parties with an increasing difficulty - persuading the public that the differences between them amount to little more than the cosmetics of presentation and that it is worth voting.
If the narrowing of the gap in ideology represented a growing concensus among voters as to the best political arrangements which might be applied to a society then history might indeed be ending, as Francis Fukuyama suggested would be the case following the collapse of communism. It is certainly true that a broad consensus now exists as to the deficiencies of public ownership of the economy. Socialism, one of the two great strands of thought for most of the last century, came in with the 20th century and has gone out with it. The old core difference between left and right may largely be dead, as the main parties coalesce in their thinking towards a capitalist economy within which government spends about two-fifths of the national income, but a new gap has opened up. It is not between the parties but between the party system and the public. Increasingly, people regard the main parties as self-serving, arrogant, and contemptuous of their wishes.
The above phenomenon can only worsen without a familiar remedy - competition within the political process which is either sufficiently effective to throw out the rascals, or at least to frighten them as to the consequences for a political class whose arrogance grows beyond reasonable bounds. If a renaissance of politics is to occur, and we are not to slip further into what amounts to a one party state, the public must vote outside the main parties. There is a peculiar reluctance to do this at present on any great scale, which reflects just how conservative is the country we live in.
Every vote cast for candidates outside the three main parties is a vote for widening democracy. Our party is of the right, and we naturally would prefer voters to support right-wing candidates, of whom a sufficient number will be standing at this general election to permit most voters a choice other than the Tories, Labour and the Liberal Democrats. If readers do not share our political perspective then we say to them that the most pressing concern is to open up politics again to genuine debate. We would rather see small parties of the left win their votes than that they support Lib/Lab/Con.
If the public cannot be persuaded to dispose of viewing their political choices as solely between the three big parties then the outlook for us all, left or right, is not encouraging.

Rioting in Oldham
The media is currently employing its usual procedure when ethnic tensions leap into the headlines.
At all costs no admission must be made that the political establishment's handling of immigration in its broad perspective has been deeply flawed. Technical aspects of the matter - like the legal bases for appeals by refused asylum seekers or failure to discourage false claims by ensuring that those with no case are repatriated - are fair game for debate. The core of the matter - that mass immigration has been imposed by all the parties for forty years without a democratic mandate for it and with a systematic refusal to allow proper debate - is not something to be discussed. Yet the fact that there are difficulties almost entirely proceeds precisely from those two failures of proper governance. Who could reasonably expect a contented community under such circumstances? Many Britons are deeply angry at the changes imposed on them without consent. Many immigrants are angry and perplexed that they were invited here by an apparently democratic government, and might naturally therefore expect a degree of acceptance greater than that which is the case.
National debate on immigration has been increasingly suppressed since the late 1960s, when Powell forced the issue into the headlines. All the instincts of the political establishment dictate suppression in the hope that the issues will go away if they are ignored. That approach is not likely to be effective, and it is certainly not what one is entitled to expect in a free society.

Foreign Labour
The sheer scale of importation of foreign workers under a Labour government dwarfs even the Tories' efforts in that direction when they were in office.
The influx is being accompanied, as one might expect, with a panoply of loose argument concerning the necessity for a massive input of new workers into the UK economy. According to the Government, a desperate shortage of workers has developed as unemployment has fallen during the last few years. Labour, therefore, argues that selective increases in immigration are necessary in such areas as information technology and medicine.
What the Government does not care to emphasise is that very large numbers of workers are also being imported across the board in the form of illegal immigrants who perform often unskilled jobs at black economy wages. Now it may well be that some genuine shortages are indeed occurring in specific skilled occupations, but the market can be relied on to resolve these shortfalls before long - IT courses are booming for example. If foreign labour is imported before the market has time to work it is likely that those from among the existing workforce rushing to seize the opportunities on offer will find themselves ready to work just as the market is saturated.
As regards shortages in fields where the market mostly does not operate - public provision of schools and hospitals - the immoral policy of raiding the workforces of developing countries is creating increasing resentment. South Africa is rightly displeased to see trained nurses leaving to work in Britain, for example. In the long run, the proper and ethical labour market policy in any country must be to ensure that the terms offered to workers in any particular occupation are sufficiently attractive to ensure that the supply of workers meets the demand.
A particularly deceitful technique is being employed by the Government, and sections of the media which support its agenda, to justify a policy of apparently permanent mass importation of workers. This is the argument that a falling birth rate is leading to a crisis reduction in the numbers of workers in relation to those dependent on them for support - pensioners for example. Thus more workers are needed from abroad. In reality, the former effect has been occurring for a century at no less a rate than is likely in the future. Productivity increases have allowed a falling number of workers per non-worker without any crisis - and will do so in future.
As Tony Booth rightly pointed out recently in a television programme which campaigned for state pensions to be re-linked with earnings, the falling support ratio is fallaciously used by Labour to argue that re-linking is too expensive. Thus both pensioners and workers are under attack by the same fallacious argument - workers in that we are far further from full employment than the Government cares to admit.
Last year, a Government study identified five millions from among the existing workforce as being "parked" on benefits. Many among these millions are the victims of two decades of disastrous employment policies which have expelled them in practice from the workforce - older workers in particular. The Tories were perfectly shameless in shuffling off as many of the unemployed as possible into other forms of benefit which would have the effect of massaging the unemployment figures.
Labour is making some effort to reinduct the lost millions into employment, but at the same time sabotaging its own efforts in this direction because of its core obsession that the more mixed a society the better.

Our crumbling society

The deteriorating condition of society in Britain is particularly evident in the rocketing number of street attacks in London.
In 1998, there were 30,000 such attacks in the capital. The figure is now 50,000. A generation ago such attacks were a rarity. Now almost every day brings news of yet more street robberies, often in the form of local conversation about an attack on someone known to those discussing the matter.
The columnist Simon Jenkins estimates that only 6% of London's 25,000 police are on front-line duty at any time. Policing certainly involves a great deal of administrative work behind the scenes, but it is difficult to see how so few police officers can be available to create a visible presence on our streets without something being seriously amiss in the management of policing.
Of course, it would be wrong to assume that such a situation is entirely the fault of the police themselves. Politicians from the main parties have loaded onto the police an increasing burden of what amounts to political interference. Some of the ludicrous compensation claims made by police officers are the result of political obsessions with no place in policing a society. Unfortunately, there are those within the police who have come to see fulfilling political demands as the route to advancement, rather than providing what the public would see as proper policing.
The recent remarks by the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir John Stevens, on the subject of the 'compensation culture' within the police, indicate disquiet as to how far the process has gone of eroding policing in favour of political correctness.