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.