Moral leadership

Have just finished reading The Czar's Madman by Jaan Kross.  It is a wonderful book about the stand of one principled individual against a monolithic state that will tolerate no dissension.  Obviously my reading of the book was coloured by the Brexit struggle.

Point One of Timo von Bock's draft constitution:  The Christian faith must be the foundation of our social order.

It is a point we need to take notice of as we plan the post-Brexit nation state.

And yet the Church of England is in no condition to give moral leadership.

Since John Major, bishops have not been appointed on the advice of the Prime Minister.  Bishops have appointed themselves.  And like all self-perpetuating elites they have become corrupt.

I would like to see Theresa May reasserting control over the appointment of bishops so that the connection between the Church and the People is restored.

I thought we were going to see an end to political campaigning by charities

What are we to make of the claim by the Red Cross that the United Kingdom is facing an humanitarian crisis?  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-38538637

Is the United Kingdom really on a par with Syria, Somalia and Eritrea?

Or is this political grandstand by a supposed "charity" that is stuffed full of Blairite placemen and cronies and is playing domestic politics with the money that the public has donated thinking it is going to a good cause?

I thought we were going to see an end to political campaigning by charities?

Time to take the Red Cross charitable status away.

Greater regard for their fellow countrymen and women

We are told endlessly (on and on the nagging goes) that the NHS is almost entirely staffed by immigrants.

We are also told that sections of the NHS (the junior doctors) are going on strike.

Is it possible that there is a connection between the immigrant composition of the NHS and the willingness of NHS employees to go on strike (with all that that implies for patients)?

If the NHS is made up of mercenaries, is it any wonder that they have no regard for their patients.

That their primary interest is money.

If we paid a bit more and had an NHS in England and Wales entirely staffed by English and Welsh people is it not more likely that they would have greater regard for their fellow countrymen and women?

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/apr/24/mps-call-for-pilot-of-junior-doctors-contract-to-avoid-strike-action

Danny Finkelstein on the Daily Politics was indulging chav-hate

On Daily Politics this lunchtime non-Conservative Conservative peer Danny Finkelstein claimed that tolerance, cohesion and international peace depend on prosperity:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006mjxb

The remarks went unchallenged.

And yet they are incredible.

Is he really saying that only comfortably-off middle class people are tolerant, cohesive and peaceful?

My parents, grandparents and great-grandparents (and so on back into the past at least as far as the mid-eighteenth century) lived in the East End in conditions that were poor and without significant economic assets.

And yet they were a respectable law-abiding family, among similar respectable law-abiding families, and they formed a cohesive society that was completely at ease with their patriotic self-identity.

Danny Finkelstein on the Daily Politics was indulging chav-hate in making a link between economic wealth and civilised behaviour.

What would happen if Apple were given a confidential commission

I have only had my iPhone 6S for a few weeks but already I feel I cannot do without it.

It is so well designed and easy to use.

And it makes me wonder what the world would look like if Apple were to design more elements of our life.

What would an iCar look like?  Or an iSchool?  Or even an iSupermarket.

And whether Apple could tackle institutions and organisations.

For instance, Conservative Future will need a relaunch following the takeover by Central Office.

What would happen if Apple were given a confidential commission to create a new Conservative youth movement - cool and shiny in design and appearance, completely digitalised, irresistible to young people aged 16 to 24 (but no tinkering with policy please - we need to reconfirm Conservative values and British national identity).

Evil Muslim monster Jihadi John

Reports today that American drones have probably killed evil Muslim monster Jihadi John:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-34805924

All the media reports say Kuwati-born Mohammed Emwazi "came" to the United Kingdom aged six.

They announce this fact as if it was the most obvious, most natural thing in the world.

He just "came" here.

I would like to know who let him in and why they let him in.

Can we please know the civil servants and immigration officials and politicians who enabled the entry of the Emwazi family into the United Kingdom and why they did so.

Because we do not have an open border with Kuwait.

We are under no obligation whatsoever to allow Kuwaitis in here.

If you were to test public opinion on the subject, either now or in 1994 (under John Major's crap government) I have no doubt the resounding response would be:  DON'T LET THEM IN - we don't need them, don't like them, don't want them in our country - under no circumstances do you politicians and civil servants have a mandate to allow Arabs into our country.

So can we please know which officials (including elected officials) allowed this serial killer into our national home.

And on an anthropological level, there is enough data now from immigration statistics and intelligence reports to be able to assess how many terrorists and criminals will result from a given Muslim immigration rate.

Muslim immigration in large numbers only began in the mid-1970s.  It must be possible to say that out of every one thousand Muslims coming into the United Kingdom a statistical percentage will be "radicalised" and either help in the commission of terrorist acts or actually commit those acts.  We can then extrapolate from that evidence and predict how many more terrorists are incubating in our midst - and indeed how many of the 20,000 Syrians coming in the United Kingdom over the next five years will mutate into terrorists and go on to commit atrocities.

Immigration is not entirely a good thing

Guardian writer Owen Jones comes as close as he dares to suggesting that immigration is not entirely a good thing:  http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2015/11/take-ukip-left-needs-do-more-champion-abstract-idea-immigration

Police

Two odiously smug "experts" on Newsnight just now, glibly announcing that the police service will have to change.

Do I really have to point out to these two the bleedin' obvious - if I as a taxpayer am paying for a full police service I expect to get a full police service.

Otherwise, you can't have my taxes.

The idea that people in areas of low crime (the countryside) will have less police protection than people in areas of high crime ("vibrantly diverse" urban centres where crime is a cultural way of life) is not acceptable.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006mk25

Voter registration reform

Labour are campaigning against voter registration reform because they can see their bloc votes among immigrant communities under threat:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-34621004

No longer will "heads of household" (what an outdated phrase that sounds) be able to control family votes and no longer will Labour be able to manipulate elections in the rotten boroughs where there are high immigrant concentrations.

Women will be free of patriarchy, young family members will be free of patriarchy, even (dare I say it) closet BME Conservatives will be free of patriarchy.

The speech so many of us have been longing to hear

After a long and tiring drive I am finally home.

There is no question that the outstanding speech this week came from Theresa May.

It was the speech so many of us have been longing to hear.

Perhaps, looking ahead, under a Theresa May premiership we will finally see an end to high-handed social engineering and a re-establishment of democratic control over how fast society is changed, how the change is effected, and who is given voting rights in the United Kingdom (and thus given rights to decide the allocation of resources).

Perhaps under Theresa May as leader we will finally get a chance to say "no" to globalisation (or at least a chance to say "this model of globalisation is not good enough, go away and come back with a more acceptable version").

For all who truly care about democracy Theresa May's speech was a courageous, inspiring and ground-breaking blueprint for the future.

Just as Mrs May has shown her courage, I want all of us to show equal courage in making sure she is protected in the party, and that her cause is advanced.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-34450887

Making the completely unacceptable somehow respectable

This is really perverse:  http://cw.na1.hgncloud.com/

It is as if the Guardian is so confident of its marketing ability that is can take the the most inhuman examples of residential architecture, repackage them as "hip happening now" and people are so gullible they fall for it.

What the Guardian is doing for brutalist architecture is what Tony Blair is doing for brutalist dictators - making the completely unacceptable somehow respectable (if you don't think for yourself).

Banksy's Dismaland

Daily Politics today looks at Banksy's Dismaland, which apparently includes many political statements:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006mjxb

Is it acceptable to have an art feature that celebrates the burning of books?

To quote Heinrich Heine:  "...where they burn books they eventually will burn people".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHzM1gXaiVo

 http://dismaland.co.uk/

The two recent "open door" surges of migrants (eastern Europeans and Syrians / Afghans / North Africans) are mutually exclusive.

One rather suspects that Sunder Katwala (Director of British Future sic) is one of those people who has a great deal of theoretical knowledge on a very narrow subject and yet has no common sense or practical experience and would probably have a fit of the screaming heebie-jeebies if he had any sustained exposure to the immigrants he writes about:  http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/elections/2015/09/how-should-labours-next-leader-talk-about-immigration

It is perhaps an indication of how out of touch the Labour party has become that Mr Katwala talks of immigration in such a benign way.

He seems to be entirely oblivious of the fact that the two recent "open door" surges of migrants (eastern Europeans and Syrians / Afghans / North Africans) are mutually exclusive.

Perhaps someone should inform Sunder Katwala that eastern Europeans do not like BME people - indeed are actively hostile to BME people in a way that most people would find troubling:  http://news.yahoo.com/fear-ignorance-fuel-eastern-europes-unease-over-refugees-070541434.html

And yet these are the two main immigrant surges that are going to be cramming themselves into the poorest communities and competing for scarce resources alongside the poor (using that word in all its meanings) white indigenous working class.

Of course, inspired by a Corbyn victory the rainbow-coloured multi-cultural vibrantly-diverse migrants, refugees, displaced people, asylum seekers and their economic equivalents might forge themselves into a new kind of humanity and the "socialist man" so long anticipated by the far left might finally come into existence.

But then again, it might not.

And we will find that social cohesion is further degraded, particularly among the very poorest sections of society and inter-communal violence (already happening and yet unreported) gets worse.

You both need to take responsibility

Paul Flynn MP is absolutely right, the raising of false hope is directly contributing to the tragic fate of migrants.

Therefore individuals such as Owen Jones (Guardian) and Alan Travis (Guardian) have direct responsibility for the asphyxiation of the 71 unidentified migrants in the back of a van on the side of a road in Austria.

The deaths of thousands and thousands of migrants is an international crime for which, in the fullness of time, one hopes there will be arrests and trials and punishments (long heavy punishments one hopes).

However it is not just the people smugglers and other direct enablers who are guilty.

Just as someone who shouts "fire" in a crowded cinema is responsible in law for the deaths of those trampled to death in the subsequent stampeded, so those liberal-left voices saying migrants should be allowed to enter the EU and indeed enter the United Kingdom must also share responsibility for the deaths that subsequently ensue from the mass migration across EU borders.

Let me talk directly to Mr Jones and Mr Travis:

Sirs, in the Hyza refrigeration van that contained the 71 suffocated and decomposing bodies of migrants there were the remains of a two-year-old girl.  By encouraging the idea of open-door immigration into the EU ("We need the west to take responsibility for disaster zones it helped create, like Libya and Iraq") you are directly responsible for the death of this little girl.  Had she and her family remained in a refugee camp she would no doubt have grown up in a limited, boring and hard environment but at least she would have been alive.

You helped encourage her family to push into the EU by whatever means possible in the hope of "a better future".

You both need to take responsibility for ending this poor little life.

Alan Travis is the Lord Halifax of our time

Let's give up says the Guardian's Alan Travis (and all the Labour leadership candidates) regarding immigration:  http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/aug/27/migration-figures-what-do-the-numbers-really-mean?CMP=share_btn_tw

Good job we didn't have to rely on Alan Travis and his ilk in 1940 - he would have opened the doors and waved the Germans in.

Alan Travis is the Lord Halifax of our time.

Appeaser, coward, elitist establishment fixer.

Immigration STILL rising

How on earth is immigration STILL rising:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-34071492

It is not enough for the government to say that the figures are disappointing.  We need to see changes in the government, and if necessary a change of Home Secretary.  Why on earth do ministers not have the character or the personality to ensure that policies are enforced?

Also note that non-EU immigration is HIGHER than EU immigration!

This indicates we have a government that is not in control of THE MAIN ISSUE THAT CONCERNS THE ELECTORATE.

Can we please have deterrent custodial sentences for students and others who overstay their visas - by deterrent I mean in excess of five years.

And why are so many Chinese people being allowed into the country?  89,000 in the last twelve months.  We have ZERO obligation to allow Chinese migrants in (and China does not allow significant immigration into the People's Republic).

To say I feel pissed off by these immigration figures is an understatement.

An immoral tax

Capital Gains Tax is an immoral tax and should be abolished.

It would be a key area in defining Conservative policy compared to a Labour party lurching to the left.

https://www.gov.uk/capital-gains-tax

A case study in why young Labour activists are supporting Jeremy Corbyn

"Not that I think my choices will matter much or be of interest to anyone" says young Labour activist Calum Sherwood, writing about why he is voting for Jeremy Corbyn:  http://calum-sherwood.tumblr.com/post/126998111544/how-im-voting-in-the-labour-leadership-election

Far from being of no interest, Mr Sherwood's views are a case study in why young Labour activists are supporting Jeremy Corbyn.

Note the extraneous information we are given - Geordie living in East London; socialist and vegetarian; work in education research; Labour CND exec committee; interest in LGBT voting records; outspoken support for Palestinian rights etc.  I hope Mr Sherwood does not think I am being patronising when I say his adoption of causes and issues seems to be based on how cool and trendy they are in terms of lifestyle adornments, not on their intrinsic worth.  And it is obvious that his support for Jeremy Corbyn fits this pattern of poseur politics (that sounds dreadfully dismissive I know, but I AM making a serious point).

Jeremy Corbyn is the political equivalent of the Super Dry brand - "designed but not designer", "faux-vintage and authentic", "the styling is done for you" (I am quoting Imogen Fox here).

In terms of the left-wing luvvies who sit on Andrew Marr's sofa on a Sunday morning Jeremy Corbyn is "the label most likely to be worn by a papped celebrity carrying a Starbucks".

We have seen the Labour leadership manifested as a war criminal (Blair).

We have seen the Labour leadership manifested as an incontinent spendthrift (Brown).

We are now about to see the Labour leadership manifested as a fashion icon (Corbyn).

Demand that BME people pay their taxes

On the Today programme this morning an interesting piece on the way in which migrants disappear into the black economy:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qj9z

Yes, the rich need to pay their taxes.

But we also need to demand that BME people pay their taxes as well.

1,980,000 EU nationals working in the United Kingdom

Earlier today on BBC News 24 Anita McVey reported that there are now 1,850,000 unemployed people and 1,980,000 EU nationals working in the United Kingdom.

Therefore if we leave the EU and require the 1,980,000 foreigners to leave the 1,850,000 unemployed will be able to find work.

And can the left stop screaming from the rooftops that we are not taking enough migrants.  ALL the 1,980,000 EU nationals here are economic migrants, no different from the jungle dwellers in Calais.  We have far too many economic migrants here already without taking any more.

Asylum seekers are not of course economic migrants.  They are the responsibility of the first EU country they arrive in.  If EU countries are not happy with this arrangement they need to reopen the treaties and conventions they signed.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-33881387