A liberating thought - the past week at work

Monday

Dismal experience to get up in the darkness and go back to work.  I had gone in last Thursday and Friday, but only for three hours each day.  And in any case only a few other staff had been in.

This was the formal start of a new week, indeed a new year, although whether the Institute will last the year is anybody's guess.

My only serious task today was a meeting with Mary McF from Head Office Media Relations.  She arrived late complaining about the taxis.  It surprised me that we had enough to talk about to last forty-five minutes. 

Tuesday

Most of the morning spent on an e-mail conversation with various people concerning the campaign being prepared by former Director Vijay Singh.  He behaves as if he is still Director.  I am tempted to just tell him to go away (I am almost sure that he no longer has any influence at Head Office). 

Later Marcia Walsh (Deputy Director and an opponent of the campaign) came to my desk and said "Well done with your e-mails."

Although I did very little today I felt exhausted when I got home.

Wednesday

Although I do not like Marcia Walsh, and certainly do not trust her, we are increasingly thrown together.  This morning we discussed the future of the Institute which is without a Director and is rumoured to be moving back to London.  Marcia Walsh was pessimistic in her outlook, and thought we might have six months at the most before the office closes.

Later, sitting quietly at my desk, I pondered the future.  If it is true that we just have six months left, perhaps I should just forget all the campaigns we have in the pipeline and just concentrate on the issues I cared about, calculating that it would be some time before got to hear of it and moved to stop me.  If I wanted to, I could steer the whole resources of the Institute into campaigns that I wanted to see happen.

It was a liberating thought.

Thursday

The office filled with people today, including a party of six who had come to use the Reading Room.

Somehow I couldn't get organised, even though urgent tasks are building up.  I had to deal with a complaint that came in by e-mail about a press release that was off message.  It had been issued by Mary McF at Head Office, and it was quite satisfying to forward the complaint to her, widely copied.

In the afternoon Mary McF rang me and said:  "I do not mind grovelling to ---- ------ if that will make the situation better".

Ashish Sharma rang me with various projects he wants me to action (he has taken over the Birmingham office).

Friday

The complaint against Mary McF rumbled on, and I did my best to stir it up.

Illogical reasoning by Ian Birell on today's Dateline London.

Because opposition to immigration has always been high (77% latest) that is a reason to ignore it now (he argued).

Opposition to immigration was shouted down in the past with the accusation "racist".

Now the "racist" screaming no longer works.

All the more reason not only to stop immigration now, but also to look back on the past decades and reverse some of the migration for which there was no mandate.

Do what the people want.

I feel safer

On the whole I am glad that criminals indulging in gun crime are being shot out of hand.

It would be nice to painstakingly collect evidence, marshall it into an irrefutable case, arrest the people involved, araign them before the courts, prove their guilt with devastating logic, and consign the guilty persons to very long periods in prison.

Unfortunately this process is not working (certainly not working well enough).

Therefore given the choice between anarchy and authority I am endorsing authority.

I am glad the police are shooting gun-toting criminals, and I feel safer as a result.

I don't care if this is an official policy being administered covertly, or whether it is individuals using their initiative.

I am glad it is happening and I feel safer as a result.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/10/mark-duggan-verdict-police-met?CMP=twt_gu

It is indeed difficult to avoid the suspician that Maria Miller is an idiot.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2536806/Now-Miller-called-idiot-ignoring-WWI-role-Anzacs-Culture-Secretary-attacked-amid-claims-commemoration-ignore-key-allies.html

Is it not a disgrace that Peter Mandelson should describe democratic referendum votes as "a lottery" on the Today programme this morning.

The Labour Party on a whole range of issues (the EU, immigration, declaring war on third world countries) is elitist and anti-democratic.

These are bad people.

They must not get back in.

Hilarious error in this "tweet" from the pressure group Class.

The First World War began on 28th July 1914 not in June.

Class are an organisation that champions comprehensive education.

Obviously the person that wrote this tweet was chortling along to Blackadder rather than paying attention to facts.  Not that facts feature very highly in the estimation of state school History teachers.  It's all relative and easy-going and there's no wrong answers.

Marxist interpretation of the First World War by Seamus Milne in the Guardian

An almost textbook Marxist interpretation of the First World War by Seamus Milne in the Guardian:  http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/08/first-world-war-imperial-bloodbath-warning-noble-cause

It is mostly just hyperbole.

However Mr Milne is wrong to say:  "The idea that Britain and its allies were defending liberal democracy, let alone international law or the rights of small nations, is simply absurd" and "Britain and France then divvied up the defeated German and Ottoman empires between them, from Palestine to Cameroon, without a thought for small nations' rights".

The Peace Conference at Versailles in 1919 set up the League of Nations, which formalised international law.  The territories surrendered by Germany and Turkey were held in trust by the League of Nations and given to France and the United Kingdom as trusteeships to prepare for self-government.  If the Britain and France were just interested in a cynical land grab why would they bother to set up the League of Nations and go through the rigmarole of trusteeships?

It's a question Seamus Milne ignores.

1960s version of history

An odd piece on the Today programme this morning about the First World War.

It just repeated the 1960s peacenik view without any attempt to interrogate those views.

Of course all war is to be regretted.  Of course the loss of millions of young lives is a matter of great seriousness.  Of course political leaders must be held accountable for the decisions they take, including where necessary trial for war crimes (I'm thinking of Tony Blair and his Labour colleagues).

But it is intellectually bogus to extrapolate from those general ideas and say that the First World War was a pointless conflict, that the people who died were mere dupes and drones, that the British victory in that conflict was not a magnificent achievement worthy of commemoration and indeed celebration.

We need to recognise that in the 1960s there was a cultural coup that effectively hi-jacked interpretation of the Great War and propagated the now all too familiar view that it was an imperialist war that exploited the working classes.  This 1960s version of history was a product of its time and needs to be junked.  It had nothing to do with the serious examination of history but was a leftist peacenik subversion that interpreted "peace" as supine passivity to the ideological expansionism of the Soviet Union and saw the whole of history as the inevitable progress of humanity towards communism (an idea all the more laughable now that communism has utterly failed and is dead and gone).

And can the media please stop quoting Harry Patch as some kind of distillation of the armed forces who served in the First World War.  Old codgers at the end of their lives are not the most reliable witnesses of what happened eighty years previously.  And in any case, he was just one person among many millions.

It is offensive in the extreme for descendants of people who died in the Great War to hear Harry Patch saying the deaths were "not worth it".  Not worth it compared to what?  When you think of the bovine lives that most of us (including myself) live, can we really say that our existence is so superior to those who died in that conflict? 

Compared to the idealism, courage, and self-sacrifice those young people displayed, are we really saying that the mindless consumerism, cynicism, and over-indulgence of life in 2014 is "worth" more? 

And in any case, do we not owe everything we now enjoy to the victory achieved in 1918? 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03nv0m9

Nick Robinson's documentary on immigration

On the whole I found Nick Robinson's documentary on immigration rather lightweight.

However there are two statements that need to be challenged.

Right at the start of the programme he said "We are a nation of immigrants" and later said "Britain has a long history of migration".

Recently I read A House Unlocked by Penelope Lively.  It is a history of her family home, a Lutyensesque house in the west country.  But it is also a social history of the United Kingdom during the twentieth century.

On page 203 Penelope Lively talks about the arrival here of refugees during the Second World War and says:  "Unemployment was high; this country was already overpopulated and did not have a tradition of immigration".

Nick Robinson tells us we have a long tradition of immigration and indeed we are a nation of immigrants, Penelope Lively says we had no tradition of immigration until the Second World War.

Who is one to believe?

I will watch Nick Robinson's documentary on immigration this evening (BBC 2 at 9.30) but I feel I already know what he is going to say.

"On the one hand this, on the other hand that, and notwithstanding a few local difficulties, but broadly we all benefit from immigration."

It would be nice to be proved wrong, but that's how I think it is going to go.

That is the establishment line on immigration and it is not likely Nick Robinson is going to vary it.

I am not by any means a supporter of UKIP, but I thought Nigel Farage talked a lot of sense on the Today programme this morning.

The general election will take place during the centenary of the Gallipoli landings

Ostensibly most of the left, when asked, will say that British involvement in the First World War consisted of "lions led by donkeys".

When scrutinised more carefully however you soon learn that the lefties really think it was a case of "donkeys led by donkeys".

The next four years are not going to be easy for Labour with this attitude in the ascendant.

Duncan Weldon (TUC Senior Economist) says facetiously on Twitter:  "The general election will take place during the centenary of the Gallipoli landings. I now expect this to dominate the debates."

Indeed, it might.

For what it is worth, my own direct ancestor was a stoker on a battleship during the Gallipoli landings.  As a stoker he may have been the lowest of the low, but he was not a donkey.  Duncan Weldon may not care about his reputation, but I do.

Hugh Muir raises an important point

Hugh Muir raises an important point in his article about the timescale of being an immigrant and being an "owner":  http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jan/06/how-long-be-in-britain

If the arrival of the Jamaican immigrants had been with the consent of the majority Hugh Muir's question would not need to be asked.

However, the existence in our society of millions of people whose communities are not legitimate in terms of majority agreement indicates that their position here is problematical.

The fact that Hugh Muir, decades after the arrival of the Jamaicans, still feels the necessity to raise the issue of "belonging" in a column in a national newspaper indicates that all is not well.

Indeed, it could not really be otherwise.

The pro-immigration lobby has always followed a bellicose strategy:  force through immigration despite negative public opinion, shout down any opposition ("racist racist racist"), eventually everyone will get used to the idea.

Unfortunately this strategy has not worked - majority public opinion is still resolutely opposed to the idea of inward migration, and in the eyes of most people an "immigrant" is anyone from a migrant community, whether they were born here or not.

Immigration (massive immigration) without the consent of the majority has been (indeed, is) a huge injustice.

As Ghandi, Martin Luther King and Madiba Mandela have said in the past Mr Muir, a society built on an injustice cannot endure.

Ed Miliband is not the son of an immigrant

In his article on the Labour party and immigration Mark Ferguson makes a glaring mistake:  http://labourlist.org/2014/01/labour-voters-want-to-talk-about-immigration-so-why-dont-we/

Ed Miliband is not the son of an immigrant.

He is the son of a refugee (or asylum seeker as they are now known).

The way in which asylum seekers morph seamlessly into permanent settlers is one of the abuses of the system that needs to be addressed.

Ralph Miliband should have volunteered to join the Free Belgian Forces in London.  He should have joined in the efforts to liberate Belgium.  And after Belgium was free he should have returned there to help rebuild the country.

Instead what seems to have happened is that all sorts of strings were pulled to finesse his establishment here.

That cannot be right.

PS I feel justified in referring to this case study as it has been offered up to us for scrutiny by the Miliband family.

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown is quite right, the BBC does have a duty to "moderate" its coverage of immigration:  http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/nick-robinson-is-wrong-on-immigration-the-bbc-has-a-duty-to-moderate-our-national-conversation-9039980.html

Under Equalities legislation the BBC, like all organisations in receipt of public funds, has a legal duty to promote a positive view of immigration, regardless of the actual truth.

Indeed they must tell lies and keep telling lies if they want to keep their public funding.

This is why the ordinary people (the electorate) are not being told what is happening.

Enoch Powell was right

On a blind test a prominent politician agrees Enoch Powell was right:  http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/ukip-leader-nigel-farage-provokes-anger-after-agreeing-with-basic-principle-of-enoch-powells-notorious-rivers-of-blood-speech-9040044.html

In the article Sunder Katwala, Director of the left-leaning thinktank British Future, having previously said Enoch Powell was "best left to history", breaks this self-imposed restriction and gives advice (unsolicited I suspect) to UKIP vis-a-vis Enoch Powell.

Later Sunder Katwala tells Cambridge law student Richard Nicholl, via the medium of Twitter, that the United Kingdom does not have a problem with inter-communal relations.

If everything in the garden is rosy one wonders why it is necessary to have such unusually proscriptive Equalities legislation including the self-defeating public sector duty (sic).

British Future is known for anodyne surveys asking bland questions (of the "don't you agree it's nice to be nice" variety) and then drawing sweeping unfounded conclusions from the data.

They could very easily test the level of integration in the United Kingdom by asking a representative sample when they last entertained (as friends, in their homes) someone from a different community.

The Great War poses a threat to Labour

It was inevitable that Labour would have to take a position on the commemoration of the First World War, although Shadow Education Secretary Tristram Hunt comes across as rather intemperate:  http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/04/first-world-war-michael-gove-left-bashing-history?CMP=twt_gu

The Great War poses a threat to Labour in that left-wing pacifism and internationalism cannot be integrated into the narrative (not without a lot of clunky and unconvincing revisions - eg Tristram Hunt's assertion in the article that pre-1914 Germany was "fascist", an ideology that did not come into being until the post-war period).

For the Conservatives on the other hand all they have to do is allow the centennial anniversaries to unfold one by one and waves of national pride will wash through the country, culminating in the victory anniversary in 2018.

Conservatives simply have to allow the narrative to be told.

Socialists need to revise the narrative, so that the Blackadder spin is what the public sees.  This is going to be a tough challenge.  Also one that risks branding them as unpatriotic.

Recently I read Tell England by Ernest Raymond.  Published in 1922, it became very popular and has been continuously in print ever since.  One cannot imagine an account of the war that is more at variance to the "lions led by donkeys" theme.

The novel is strongly autobiographical, and is obviously a memorial in written form of his friendship with two companions (all of them aged in their early twenties) and the deaths of his two friends at Gallipoli.  Often sentimental, the story is half a school story and half a war story.  Sometimes the author goes off on incomprehensible excursions, as if he were more concerned with giving a complete record of his friends, rather than maintaining narrative drive. 

The book contains many passages that are homoerotic, and the story can be viewed as an unconsummated love story.  Homoeroticism was of course one of the major thematic experiences of the Great War, and the whole conflict can be seen as an episode of barely repressed sexual longing (perhaps that was why so many combatants did not want to talk about it when they returned to civilian life?).  This sexual aspect may well be one of the national "discoveries" of the next four years.

"...there are three things old England has learnt to make:  ships, and poetry, and boys."

"Just look around... isn't our Tommy the most lovable creature in the world".

"And your friendship is a more beautiful whole, as things are.  Had there been no war, you'd have left school and gone your different roads, till each lost trace of the other.  It's always the same.  But, as it is, the war has held you in a deepening intimacy till the end.  It's perfect."

Richard Dunstan on the Fabian Society website

Rather unworldly article on zero hours contracts by Richard Dunstan on the Fabian Society website:  http://www.fabians.org.uk/zero-hours-contracts-a-symptom-not-the-disease/

It reminds me of that episode of Father Ted when confronted with a massive milk-float-conveyed time-bomb the best the Fathers can come up with is to say another mass.

Wishing and hoping is not going to fundamentally change the value the market places on the price of labour.

Nor will Owen Jones-style daydreams of the 1970s:  http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/how-ed-miliband-can-harness-the-rights-tactics-to-bring-in-a-wave-of-leftwing-populism-in-2014-9032903.html

The only realistic way to quickly and permanently raise the value of labour is to reduce the supply.

Disingenuous amendment

IpsosMori graph subjected to disingenuous amendment by BrightBlue twerp Jonathan Algar:

It is perfectly possible Mr Algar to be concerned about national issues even though one is not affected by them on a local level.

For instance, I am concerned about GM crops although none of the farmers in my area are growing them.

I am concerned about abortion although I am unable to actually give birth myself.

I am concerned about the high prevalence of public school twerps in the Conservative party although my local Association does not (to my knowledge) have any.

BrightBlue indeed.

We've seen your sort before Mr Algar.

Can we find out please exactly which teachers have been showing comedy films in their classes instead of teaching?

We pay these people to teach, not watch lefty comedies like Blackadder.

Is it unreasonable to ask for these lazy teachers to be sacked?

Very thought-provoking article by John Blake in the Times Educational Supplement on some of the myths that need to be debunked surrounding the First World War:  http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storyCode=6373287

As an aside on the Battle of the Somme, General Ludendorff in his memoirs said that the British Army fought the Germans to a standstill at the Somme.

Also worth reading is Michael Gove's article:  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2532923/Michael-Gove-blasts-Blackadder-myths-First-World-War-spread-television-sit-coms-left-wing-academics.html

How out of touch the political elite are

It is unusual that Keith Vaz MP should go to an airport to welcome Romanian and Bulgarian migrants.

I suppose he was thinking that even a downmarket airport such as Luton would have a VIP lounge with cushions of sufficient quality to comfort his over-sensitive posterior.

However, if he wanted to see the flood of destitute arrivals from the Balkans should he not have gone to Victoria coach station?

Or the Channel ports where the Balkan migrants arrive in beaten-up old jalopies, having driven across Europe?

Flying is for the Balkan elite, not the peasants.

But does this not illustrate how out of touch the political elite are - they think migrants are going to be flying in on first class, paid for by expenses.

Stop the inward flow of cheap labour

At last Polly Toynbee is seeing what many people have warned about for years:  http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/02/curb-immigration-pay-workers-living-wage

Unlimited supply of labour will drive down the price of labour until it is at third world levels.

Bad though the situation is, it is going to get far worse over the next ten years unless action is taken.

However the solution of the left (the fatuous call for employers to "pay a living wage") is unrealistic to the point of dishonesty.

The unscrupulous employers are not obeying employment law NOW, why on earth should we suppose that they would obey new laws.  And is this not a typical Blairite attitude - let's just pass another law and the problem will be solved.  Laws can of course be enforced by an all-embracing surveillance culture armed with draconian powers, but I can't see this happening under any of the available options for the next government.

The only practical solution is to stop the inward flow of cheap labour.

Stop it completely and stop it immediately.

Then as the economy grows employers will have to offer higher wages and other incentives (company pensions, longer holidays, continuing training and development, subsidised share options, company cars, subsidised season tickets etc) to attract workers to their companies.

And if they don't offer theses incentives they must either automate (which will happen anyway), move overseas (and good riddance to bad employers), or go out of business.

We know this will happen as this is exactly what did happen in the post-1945 period when labour was scarce and before open-door immigration began to undermine the United Kingdom wages structure.

And on a wider political note, is it not slightly alarming that Ed Miliband seems to be leading his party towards adopting a prices and incomes policy?  I thought that idea was completely discredited?  And please don't suggest stronger unions - we all know the sort of bullying and blackmail that will lead to.

Symbols

It was inevitable that this sort of breakdown would occur in Northern Ireland:  http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/northern-ireland/final-draft-on-dealing-with-northern-irelands-past-released-after-failure-on-agreement-29878841.html

You cannot compromise with democracy.

If the majority do not rule then everyone is living in a variation of tyranny.

The symbols are important because they symbolise the wider situation (I hope that is not a tautology).

Our duty is clear - support the democratic will of the majority.

Seamus Milne and the rest of the pro-immigration lobby still don't get it.

You can have as much immigration as you want Mr Milne.  You can have tens of millions of immigrants brought into this country.  All you have to do is put it up front in a political manifesto and ask the people to vote for it.

No democratic mandate and none of the immigration is legitimate.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/01/scapegoating-bulgarian-romanian-migrants-britain-crisis

Daniel Hannan's book

Very interesting article by Matt Ridley in today's Times.

Especially the last paragraph.

I wonder if any economic historian has done an assessment of where the United Kingdom would be now had we not become enmeshed in the EEC / EC / EU ?

I will be buying Daniel Hannan's book and I advise you to do the same.

The Daily Star

Even the most impartial of commentators when presented with the front page of today's Daily Star must conclude:  Enoch Powell was right.

The Daily Star has a circulation of 706,000 (The Guardian has 189,000).

Richard Spillett wrote the article on the secret Home Office report.

Brandy cream is wonderful in coffee.

This Champion beer is an incredible 7.3% by volume.

Six bottles are going to be enough I think.

The poll featured on the front page of the Observer today was utterly fatuous

Is it not disturbing that a growing number of people who ought to know better are shamelessly dismissing democratic majority views on immigration as "populism"?

And the poll featured on the front page of the Observer today was utterly fatuous.

Ask a silly question and you will get a silly answer.

68% per cent of those surveyed said they do not object to immigrants who learn English, get a job, pay taxes and become part of their local community - in other words completely assimilate.

Unfortunately immigrants by and large do not assimilate. 

Would it not be more sensible to assimilate the millions who have already arrived here before we allow any more in?

Ostentatious grandstanding that is merely symbolic

Are we really supposed to admire Germany for taking in one thousand Syrian refugees?

To quote a German cartoonist of a hundred years ago:  what is one pretzel amongst so many?

And I think I agree with the commentator on The World This Weekend who identified refugee fatigue as a reason why we are not taking any of these people.

When even Trenton Oldfield and his family claims "refuge" from the vicious racist state of Australia we know that the asylum system has zero credibility.

And even if we were to agree to take a thousand Syrians, the suspicion is that they will be wealthy Syrians with contacts - the rich Syrians who can afford to get out.

Far better the current policy of giving half a billion pounds in aid to Syria's refugees.  Practical help locally provided.  Not ostentatious grandstanding that is merely symbolic.

How fed up I am with newspapers that fill pages and pages with mindless moronic lists - events of the year, people of the year, books of the year.

Too slight to say anything significant, and yet pages and pages are covered with them.

Drivel I'm afraid.

Geoffrey Hill's Selected Poems

I have finished reading Geoffrey Hill's Selected Poems.

I read it a poem a day, so it has taken a couple of months.

I bought the book specifically to read Mercian Hymns, and was so impressed I printed out an article by William Milne (which I have also read several times now).

I knew immediately that I wanted this poem to be part of my life.

Visiting other people can be wearing, especially when they have children.

I am sure Jamie Hamblett is full of all the virtues, but there is only so much Union J one can take.

Anyway I went to the farmshop to get a lamb joint for lunch on New Year's Day.

There was a half leg that looked a bit big, but you can never tell how much people are going to eat, so I pointed at it and said I would have that one.

The assistant looked surprised and went to get the butcher.

He put the joint on the scales and said (I thought) "Fourteen forty-three - is that alright?"

I said OK, and instead of handing me the joint over the counter he carefully wrapped it up, brought it all the way round the counter, and reverentially put it in the wire basket I was holding.

At the till the girl rang up £40.43.

I was aghast.

It will have to go four meals at least.

Later I justified the purchase.  It is not the farmshop meat that is too expensive.  It is the supermarket meat that is too cheap to ensure the animals have a decent life.

Interesting article by Shadow Education Secretary Tristram Hunt on the impact of immigration:  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/10539925/Labour-White-boys-underachievement-linked-to-mass-migration.html

No posting on this site until after Christmas.

One of the great Feasts of the medieval church

Christmas Eve, and once again I am impressed by the all-encompassing totality of the Christmas festival.

And how medieval the Feast is this year - the gaudy colours, the raucous merry-making, the co-option of folklore both modern and ancient.

Even atheists and minorities appear to be joining in the celebrations (and this is all that is specified by the Thirty-Nine Articles - belief is not necessary, all that is required is conformity).

So for all those secularists trying to explain away Christmas here is a statement of the position:

•  Notwithstanding the state's sincere toleration of religious belief, all people in England are, under the Thirty-Nine Articles, auto-enrolled in the Church of England whether they like it or not.

•  In a few hours time the official and commercial activity of the country will come to a halt in respectful honour of the religious event.

•  Tonight and tomorrow the churches will be full.

•  Tomorrow the Head of the Church of England will make a televised broadcast to the nation that will be watched by millions.

•  Almost the entire population will celebrate one of the great Feasts of the medieval church.

Last night on The Papers on BBC News 24 (there was no Newsnight) Independent writer Owen Jones told us:  "This is a relatively irreligious country".

In your dreams mate, in your dreams.

Note slightly amended to replace United Kingdom with England.

It may seem ridiculous, but I am discovering Fleetwood Mac for the first time.

And feeling entranced by how beautiful the songs are.

Formerly I just dismissed them as a relic of the 1970s - and like everything to do with the 70s thought they were beneath contempt.

Drowning in a sea of love indeed. 

Interesting question asked by Tim Montgomerie (and Matthew Ridley in The Times).

"Hanging, spitting at meals, cock fighting, homophobia have become unacceptable.  What'll be next?"

Immigration.

Immigration without the consent of the democratic majority is already totally unacceptable to the majority of ordinary people.

The pro-immigration lobby has no arguments to deploy and resorts to insults (forgetting that the "racist racist racist" chant doesn't work anymore).

So go ahead Mr Cable.  Go into the 2015 election with your Liberal Democrat colleagues arguing for more immigration.  You and your party will go the way of the dodo.

And do please talk about Enoch Powell.  He was one of the greatest Conservatives.  Comparison with Enoch Powell is a great compliment to a Conservative.

Reading

Because I am working until lunchtime on Christmas Eve I have had to get all the shopping done this weekend.

In the town this afternoon I was walking past Waterstones and found myself going in to buy books for myself, despite the boxes of books I have still to read (at least two hundred).

Above:  one of the books I bought was The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald, inspired to do so by a recent article (which I have read several times) by Robert McCrum.

Above:  the other book I purchased was Stoner by John Williams.  I am a bit doubtful about this novel (it has been extravagantly praised by all sorts of people, and yet somehow it looks dull).  Anyway, I bought the hardback version as it was (with the £3 discount) the same price as the paperback.

This is how I intend to spend the Christmas break - reading.

Above:  this stone has eroded so that the date "1914" is no longer recognisable.

Good news that the Government has allocated money towards the restoration of First World War memorials:  https://www.gov.uk/government/news/millions-of-pounds-to-support-restoration-and-repair-of-first-world-war-memorials

Anjem Choudary interviewed on the Today programme

When I heard Anjem Choudary interviewed on the Today programme this morning the thought once again came into my mind:  Enoch Powell was right.

And later in the programme when I heard about the systematic abuse of young girls by BME gangs the thought again insisted to me:  Enoch Powell was right (not withstanding the idiocy of the senior police officer who tried to tell us this was all run of the mill domestic abuse nothing to get worked up about).

We do not need these people in our society and I would like to see policies (covert if necessary) to reduce their numbers.

Tibet

A senior Tibetan monk has been beaten to death in police custody.

http://www.tibetsociety.com/content/view/447

Where are all the lefties who were preening themselves last week on how they brought down apartheid?

Why arn't Mr and Mrs Bercow holding candlelit vigils outside the Chinese embassy? (oh I forgot, their anti-apartheid campaigning was entirely fictional).

What has happened to Peter Hain MP that he should be so strangely silent on this issue?

There is only one course of action we can recommend

Mr Coates needs to realise that we are not taking the EU renegotiations seriously as we do not intend to stay in.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/politics/article3952977.ece

Obdurate and intransigent Eurocrats lecturing us in mittel Europa accents and saying "No" all the time is exactly what we want.

The narrative:  we have tried to be reasonable, we have made every effort to seek a compromise, but you can see for yourself what these people are like.  Drunk with power and arrogance they seek to dominate every part of our lives.  Regretfully there is only one course of action we can recommend to the British people...

Airplanes do not just travel in one way Mr Birrell

What a bizarre argument Ian Birrell deploys when offering us yet another of his pro-immigration articles.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/families-that-need-18600-to-spend-christmas-together-the-shameful-earnings-threshold-imposed-on-british-citizens-wanting-to-bring-their-foreign-spouses-here-9013882.html

Airplanes do not just travel in one way Mr Birrell.  All the examples you quoted could see their families any time they like simply by going to where they are.  Presumably the cost of an air ticket London to Fiji is roughly the same as an air ticket Fiji to London?

And what do you mean by politicians showing "leadership" over the matter of immigration?

By this do you mean ignoring the democratic will of the overwhelming majority of the ordinary people? (as expressed in every test of public opinion on the subject of immigration since 1945).

We have seen rather too much of that sort of "leadership" since 1997 thank you very much.

We want MORE political accountability, not less. 

Including the facility to put politicians and civil servants on trial for exceeding their authority.  

Grammar schools

Owen Jones, writing in the Independent, once again attacks grammar schools:

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/anachronistic-and-iniquitous-grammar-schools-area-blot-on-the-british-education-system-9013626.html

I think he misses the point that although grammar schools may have been a preserve of regional and county professionals (although that is not entirely proven - one 1950s report is very slight evidence) they brought the elite a lot closer to the working class than the present system of hyper-elitist public schools.

The children of doctors, teachers and local government officers may have been middle class, but they would have been familiar with the working class communities they lived among and served, which is why previous decades were more cohesive (more "one nation" if I can use a Disraelian Young England phrase).

With the abolition (largely) of grammar schools and the forced conscription of all state pupils into bog-standard comps that link was lost, and the public schools have swept the board of all professional, political and civil service positions - with the result that we now have an establishment elite that (through no fault of its own) has only a tenuous understanding of socio-economic classes C1, C2, D and E.

Grammar schools are vital to provide much-needed competition to the public schools.

For the record, I went to an appalling comp and left at 16 with almost no qualifications - it took me years to gain qualifications in the evenings while working full time.

Cronyism

Paul Mason has just delivered a report on Channel 4 News about the United Kingdom's fleet of military drones.

Paul Mason Channel 4 News Culture correspondent and yet this was not a culture story.

He is Channel 4 News Digital correspondent and yet this was not a digital story.

Who one wonders is going to be pushed out of Channel 4 News to make way for Paul Mason's carefully choreographed rising star?

Is Faisal Islam for the chop?  Is Jackie Long about to get the boot?  Is Cathy Newman going to be moved aside?

When it comes to cronyism the left looks after its own.

Ben Page, Chief Executive of Ipsos MORI, tells us:  "Concern about immigration and personal finances both now almost level pegging with anxiety about economy."

http://www.ipsos-mori.com/Assets/Docs/Polls/Dec13IssuesIndexSlides.pdf 

A grand total of twenty-four

One doesn't wish to disparage the efforts of these eight individuals, but was this the best that India could do?

A grand total of twenty-four pilots out of a population of 316,000,000.

Are we supposed to be grateful for this?

Is this supposed to "justify" the millions of immigrants coming here after the war (against the wishes of the majority)?

How many Sikh, Muslim and Hindu Indians joined the German and Japanese forces may I ask?

I have looked in vain for holly wreaths that do not include bits of leylandi and plastic flowers (or plastic berries).

I think I will probably have to have them made.

"No evidence average wages depressed" says Jonathan Portes

"Really no evidence average wages depressed" says Jonathan Portes on his Twitter site, commenting about the effects of immigration.

Here he violates one of the primary rules of academic discourse - absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Of course in a very literal sense he (and Mehdi Hasan and James Bloodworth and all the rest of the lefties piling in to comment) might be right.

Suppose a factory has an annual wage bill of one million pounds over 50 staff (including the owner who pays himself a salary as a tax dodge), paying them an average of £20,000 per annum.

The owner then decides to replace 49 of the staff with cheapo uncomplaining immigrants and just pay them £10,000 per annum and raise his own salary to £510,000.

The number of staff remains the same.  The wage bill of £1 million remains the same.  The average salary remains the same.

Jonathan Portes prances around with his sliderule and tells us immigration has no impact.

Matthew Goodwin learnedly pontificates about "deprivation" for the poor immigrants.

The Labour party lectures us on "vibrant diversity".

You see how this trick is played?

The ethnic peoples bring the deprivation with them

Matthew Goodwin (Associate Professor of Politics at Nottingham University, Fellow of Chatham House, Co-author Revolt on the Right) draws our attention to a graph that tells us "Ethnic minority groups in UK more likely to live in deprived neighbourhoods in 2001 and 2011".

https://twitter.com/GoodwinMJ/status/412879738361741312/photo/1

The implication is that these ethnic people are being crowded into deprived ghettos by a society riddled with institutional racism.

The truth is the reverse.

The ethnic peoples bring the deprivation with them.

As a teenager and into my early twenties I lived in the Dallow ward area of Luton.

Not a wealthy suburb, and not a wealthy town, but Dallow ward was a respectable working class area.

I saw for myself the arrival of waves after waves of BAME immigrants.  Very swiftly the area declined - overcrowding in houses; schools and medical facilities packed (and I mean PACKED) with people who could not speak English; illicit businesses (including two doors from us an all-hours car repair operation in a former front garden hardly bigger than a car); noise all the time; people hanging around the streets at all hours; litter and rubbish everywhere.  House prices fell, so that although the original residents wanted to move away they were effectively trapped as they could not afford housing anywhere else (my parents struggled all their lives to buy their own home, and this happened to them).

Of course, Matthew Goodwin will not have experienced any of this.  As a la-di-da academic his background will be comfortable and middle-class.  To him all this is "vibrant diversity".

http://www.ethnicity.ac.uk/census/CoDE-Deprivation-Census-Briefing.pdf

Discussion on Channel 4 News about the shortage of housing.

No-one mentioned why demand for housing is so acute.

But the fact remains that you cannot allow three million people into the country (2001 to 2011) without giving some thought as to where they are going to live.

Presumably Labour thought:  get the immigrants into the country first and we can work out later where they are going to live.

Slavery in the United Kingdom

Theresa May gave a very sound interview on the Today programme this morning on combating slave trafficking.

Labour were in power for thirteen years and did nothing on this fundamentally important issue.

I suppose they just thought the more immigrants the better, whatever conditions they have to endure.

And still whenever discussing slavery in the United Kingdom the left is saying can we let the illegal immigrants stay anyway.

It's as if immigration is the only aspect they are bothered about.

Curiosities

At the back of the building we were shown a glass topped cabinet displaying various antiquarian curiosities dug up in the surrounding fields.

Ammonites 190 million years old; Neolithic flint scrapers 6,000 BC; Bronze Age pottery 3,000 BC; Iron Age pottery 100 BC; Roman coins; Anglo-Saxon pottery 420 AD.

Later a walk down a very muddy lane to see the site of a medieval building.

We made vague unspecified plans to reschedule - the past week at work

Monday

Mud and fog characterised my drive to work.

Effectively I had a day of coasting, doing very little real work.

I sent an e-mail withdrawing my application for a post at Head Office as I do not think I could stand a return to commuting to London.

The afternoon very static.

Tuesday

I woke at 5am and didn't really get back to sleep again. 

When I got to the office I found that Maria B, my visitor from Head Office, had cancelled.  This was a relief as she would have been at the Institute four hours, which is a long time to keep someone interested and entertained.  I called her and we made vague unspecified plans to reschedule.

It was rather a boring day.  There was little to do, and I could not motivate myself to do even that.  Late morning an e-mail from Alec Nussbaum asking me to rattle various cages (his expression).

More freelance work came in, and I wondered if I could find enough to support me if I left the Institute and worked from home.

Wednesday

Not enjoying the cold mornings and the clammy fog.

At 10.30 I went with Tim Watts (Development and Innovation) to a nondescript motorway hotel for a meeting with Callum Smith (outgoing Director) and Vijay Singh (former Director who left us some months ago).  Before Vijay Singh arrived Tim explained that we had to have the meeting at the hotel as Alec Nussbaum will not allow him back in the Institute's offices.  We discussed a campaign that Vijay Singh wants to carry out, using the Institute's network.

I was as critical as possible while still maintaining a surface appearance of co-operation.

Thursday

All my preparation wasted as tomorrow's Management Meeting has been cancelled.

Most of the day I replied to e-mails, looked at reports, collected papers together.

Friday

In the afternoon I travelled up to London to attend a 4 o'clock meeting at planning Head Office.  Anne Boswell-Urquart came into the meeting late eating a bread roll that dripped mayonnaise (she is such a slob) and sat at the back giving us the benefit of her opinions.  I dislike her so much that I couldn't help opposing everything she said.  Rumours circulate that she is to be Director of the Institute if it moves back to London.

Horrible train journey back, and I had to stand the whole way.

Pikey

Why is Jack Dromey MP referring to a "pikey"?

He has laughed it off as a reference to Dad's Army.

Has anyone spoken to Gareth Martin in Erdington Royal Mail Sorting Office and asked him why he is called "pikey"?

In any case, does not using this word (broadcast to the world on Twitter) show a lack of judgment?

The dog in the film The Dambusters is called "Nigger".  It is the fictional name of a black dog.  But would anyone today call their dog such a name, even as a jokey reference to The Dambusters?

Southern Ireland needs to be told, at government level, to stop dumping their unemployed people into the United Kingdom.

The free movement between Southern Ireland and the United Kingdom is an anomoly that needs to be ended (and if that means a proper land border then so be it).

Also the "right" (sic) of these people to automatically vote in British elections.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/unemployed-told-to-leave-ireland-in-desperate-move-to-slash-welfare-costs-9002720.html

Camilla Schofield's Enoch Powell and the Making of Post-Colonial Britain

Vernan Bogdanor reviews Camilla Schofield's Enoch Powell and the Making of Post-Colonial Britain and tells us "Schofield distinguishes Powellism... from Thatcherism".

In this Camilla Schofield is mistaken - Thatcherism was (indeed, is) the practical and pragmatic application of Powellism, including economic policy (particularly in her first term). 

Vernon Bogdanor is himself mistaken when he says:  "Most of Powell’s prophecies (and in particular his prediction of a racial war in Britain) have proved spectacularly wrong."  Is there not a "racial" war occurring at this very moment?  Otherwise how does Mr Bogdanor account for the statistics related to the many thousands of incidents of racially-motivated violence since 1968 (statistics which are widely regarded as under-reporting the situation).

Of course, such incidents do not touch Mr Bogdanor in his little academic bubble, so perhaps he is not aware of them.

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/12/empire-state-mind

Like a scene from the film Zelig

The Mandela Memorial Service surreal sign-language debacle is on one level very funny.  The whole world seems to be laughing.  It is like a scene from the film Zelig.

But do please bear in mind that the goons and gangsters running the ANC are not known for their sense of humour.  They might think the world is laughing at them.  The poor sign language chap might end up in gaol (or even worse things might happen to him).

He is just someone's relative or crony who has been propelled into the spotlight.

In marketing communications you come across loads of these people.  You might be commissioning a website or a new publication, and you are trying to get the best person for the job.  And then a senior director comes up to you and says:  My wife's nephew is a graphic designer / photographer / website designer and he's really good, so I think we should give him a chance.

Of course, such people are never "really good".  They are usually awful.  And because they are a relative or a crony of someone important you have to put up with them.

That, I guess, is the story of the Memorial sign language interpreter.

Stupid and incompetent, but he does not deserve to be declared an enemy of the state and go the way of Wally Stuttaford.

A literary form

Author and presenter Melvyn Bragg appeared briefly on the Today programme this morning talking about Pliny the Younger.

Perhaps I misheard, but I was sure he said "eruption of Venus" rather than the eruption of Vesuvius described by Pliny the Elder ("eruption of Venus" sounds like a novel by Radclyffe Hall).

But I was intrigued to hear Melvyn Bragg say that Pliny the Younger was innovative in the way he made his letters into a literary form.  And this made me wonder if anyone is using blogs as a literary form.  Indeed, am I perhaps attempting this (in my usual clumsy and inept way) with this very blog.

I Had a Dove by John Keats

I had a dove and the sweet dove died;


And I have thought it died of grieving:

O, what could it grieve for? Its feet were tied

With a silken thread of my own hand's weaving:

Sweet little red feet! Why should you die —

Why should you leave me, sweet bird? Why?

You lived alone in the forest tree,

Why, pretty thing, would you not live with me?

I kissed you oft and gave you white peas:

Why not live sweetly, as in the green trees?

Economics Editor for Newsnight

Job advertisement for Economics Editor for Newsnight:  http://careerssearch.bbc.co.uk/jobs/job/Economics-Editor/6255

One wonders if they could afford Gillian Tett.

Sneering

Is it really necessary for Independent writer Owen Jones to attack his political opponents on the grounds of how they look?

If Mr Cameron looked young for his age would Owen Jones be sneering that he resembled a 12-year-old?

Let migrants in to top my pizzas, says Dominos boss who is struggling to fill a thousand vacancies:  http://metro.co.uk/2013/12/09/dominos-boss-lance-batchelor-let-migrants-in-to-top-my-pizzas-4224449/

Or you could just pay more Mr Batchelor.

That's the usual way a company attracts employees in a market economy.

The Today programme this morning (BBC Radio 4) said that no European leaders would speak at the Nelson Mandela memorial service held today in Johannesburg.  Is this meant to be a reproach to the Europeans?  If EM Forster were alive today would he sum up the post-1990 European attitude to Mr Mandela as: 

"Here is an African that almost behaved like a gentleman. But for the colour of his face, we might even let him join the club" (I have substituted the word African for the word Indian).

Obvious

I hope Aditya Chakrabortty will forgive me for pointing out the obvious conclusion implicit in his article:


http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/09/britain-now-developing-country-foodbanks-growth?CMP=twt_fd

If the United Kingdom allows immigration of third world people is it not inevitable that it will start to resemble a third world country?

Trenton Oldfield

The moral bankruptcy of the entire asylum appeals process is demonstrated by Trenton Oldfield claiming that he and his family have to seek refuge in the United Kingdom because their human rights would be violated if they returned to Australia:  http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/09/boat-race-protester-trenton-oldfield-wins-appeal-deportation?CMP=twt_gu

The immigration tribunal judge, Kevin Moore, does not seem to be sufficiently educated in world affairs to understand that Australia is not a state in which human rights are violated.

Note also that Trenton Oldfield is comparing the campaigners who supported his cause with the campaigners who demanded the overthrow of apartheid.  Which implies that he is comparing himself to Nelson Mandela.  A farcical note seems to be entering this whole episode (or perhaps the farce has been there right from the start).

And is it not amusing to see all the lefties who were so dismissive of the Boat Race stunt at the time now cheering on his asylum appeal - how quickly the fashions change in left-wing causes célèbres.

Paul Mason's mates

Why did Paul Mason do a report on police behaviour at the Senate House sit-in at Bloomsbury on this evening's Channel 4 News?

He is the Channel 4 News Culture correspondent, but this was not a culture story.

He is the Channel 4 News Digital correspondent, but this was not a digital story.

Am I right in thinking that we are seeing an example of cronyism here?  That Paul Mason was helped into Channel 4 News in the first available vacancy, and is now being eased into increasingly prominent news stories.  Eventually he will presented as their Politics and Economics Editor.

I suppose we cannot blame Paul Mason's mates for wanting to help him get on.

Except that this process is not very transparent, and all sorts of discrimination issues arise.

This is the way the Establishment behaves.  Not very nice is it!   Someone needs to stamp on Paul Mason and his cronies.

The barbaric regime spectrum

Reluctant as I am to encourage more wind-baggery by proto-hagiographers of Nelson Mandela, I was astonished to read Dan Hodges describe the Afrikaner hegemony in South Africa as "one of the most barbaric regimes on the planet".

Even a cursory review of world history in the period 1948 to 1990 must conclude that South Africa was not in the top ten nations on the barbaric regime spectrum.  Not even in the top twenty.  Not even in the top thirty.

Saying such a thing Mr Hodges just makes you appear silly.

But perhaps you are banking on the fact that this week commentators can say any old rubbish in favour of Nelson Mandela and no-one will dare correct them.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danhodges/100249725/nelson-mandela-tributes-david-cameron-was-no-friend-of-white-south-africa-but-his-party-was/

Have conditions at Dimbaza improved?

And have you noticed the sanctimoniousness with which anti-apartheid campaigners are now clothing themselves? And the huge numbers of lefties who are jumping on the bandwagon. Presumably during the 1980s Trafalgar Square must have been filled to bursting each and every night to contain all these empathising individuals.

Such is level of revisionism we are now asked to believe that Mr and Mrs Bercow were (in spirit if not fact) among the hand-holding demonstrators outside the South African Embassy, waving their candles and joining in a chorus of We Shall Overcome.

Last Grave at Dimbaza indeed.

Have conditions at Dimbaza improved one jot as a result of Mr Mandela and his legacy?

All you lefties need to get over yourselves.

What did Nelson Mandela do that was so noteworthy?

On a day when the United Kingdom parliament is tied up with flattery and flummery surrounding a deceased person who had a very marginal connection with this country, is it unreasonable to ask what exactly Nelson Mandela did that was so laudable?

Apparently he was someone who could have carried out a "bloodbath", but didn't.

Is it so exceptional, even in Africa, to expect politicians to refrain from slaughtering people?

No doubt the Afrikaners, other European immigrants (including a significant number of Jewish people) and the large Asian community were relieved not to have experienced a "bloodbath".  I am sure the large multi-national companies operating in South Africa are very pleased that their plunder of the economy continues unabated.  On a general level I think we can all be grateful that large numbers of people have not lost their lives.

But what did Nelson Mandela do that was so noteworthy?

Here was someone who could have behaved like a savage but restrained himself?  I don't think that is something especially worth celebrating.  Even in Africa I think we can expect, indeed demand, that politicians do not behave like savages.

He was not a Bokassa.  He was not an Idi Amin.  He was not even a PW Botha.

We might be relieved that he was none of these people, but is it not an indictment of the African continent that a politician who was not a monster is so exceptional that it warrants a special session of the British House of Commons to mark the fact.

Collecting Cultures

Plodding through the Collecting Cultures initiative, is this really the best way of managing an acquisitions policy?

This is trying to make a science out of what must be an art.

And the process is so dense and bureaucratic that it is effectively closed to involvement by non-specialists.

http://www.hlf.org.uk/HowToApply/programmes/Pages/CollectingCultures.aspx#.UqTdzCfF-hp

The Constant Economy by Zac Goldsmith

Have just finished reading The Constant Economy by Zac Goldsmith.

It is a very practical book and full of dozens of proven initiatives that could be put into operation immediately.

This is the kind of Conservative thinking I want to see adopted.

Also I am disgusted that a 1,000-cow factory dairy farm in Powys, Wales has just been approved by the Welsh Government.

Letter about Trenton Oldfield from Oxbridge "dons"

When Theresa May receives this letter (below) about Trenton Oldfield from Oxbridge "dons" she should remember Oxford's snub to Margaret Thatcher on 29th January 1985 and throw the communication into her rubbish bin.

And if Mr Oldfield resists deportation I hope he is tasered.

http://donsspeakout.wordpress.com/latest/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/january/29/newsid_2506000/2506019.stm

Good in a way - the past week at work

Monday

More economies in the office - office supervisor Gladys Y (a fat malevolent presence) has gone.

Very little work to do.  A new Director of the Institute will not be appointed until April at the earliest.  I will have to plan my own work until then (which is good in a way as I can do the projects that interest me instead of just following other people's bland ideas).

Dreary cold weather.

Tuesday

I used the morning to go through a heap of papers that has accumulated.  Some of them go back to Vijay Singh's time, and I just threw these in the bin.  The rest I put into folders and filed away.

Persistent questions to Deputy Director Marcia Walsh revealed that my budget for next year will be the same as this year.  In the absence of a Director I can sign off invoices up to £2k per project.  Anything over that has to be signed off by Alec Nussbaum.

Later in the afternoon an e-mail from the new manager of the small Birmingham office saying he wanted me to continue to do their communications (Peter Whitgift has gone).

Wednesday

I spent the day working with outgoing Director Callum Smith on a presentation he has to give.

Thursday

Nothing much to do today, but it does not bother me unduly.  The period before Christmas is usually quiet. I did some planning for next year, and all the publications for 2014 are going to be on topics that are central to my interests (unless the new Director alters things).

Friday

Alec Nussbaum was at the Institute today and reassured everyone that a move back to London looked very unlikely, mainly because of the high cost of finding new premises (but the rumour is that we are to be slotted into Head Office, so I did not take his statements entirely seriously).

The Lebanese News Agency has published a tribute to Nelson Mandela:

"Mandela became almost one hundred years old, and remained till the last minute a rare piece of brown gold that scintillates over humanity and that presents live examples of the values of forgiveness, reconciliation, the recognition of the other, and inflicting moral and ethical punishment to all the concepts that make the human being a fierce beast struggling for survival with the spirit of domination and revenge."

Perhaps it has lost something in translation.

http://www.nna-leb.gov.lb/en/show-news/17854/

It gets worse:  poet and novelist Ben Okri pays tribute to Nelson Mandela on Newsnight.

Has anyone on Newsnight read The Famished Road? (that's a rhetorical question, as the book is unreadable).

Self-immolated in Tibet

The Tibetan who self-immolated in Tibet during David Cameron's trip to China has died and officials have cremated the body in secret.

http://www.tibetsociety.com/content/view/443

And do please spare me the Reverend Jesse Jackson's tribute on Newsnight.

Boring snoring doesn't even begin to describe this.

And I think I'll give Channel 4 News a miss rather than be confronted with "Jerry Dammers' Spatial AKA Orchestra".

I'm not going to buy a newspaper today.

And probably I won't buy one tomorrow or Sunday.

It's going to be all too predictable.

Unlike when Margaret Thatcher died, and there were some interesting discussions, this is all going to be gush gush gush.

Mandela and the ANC

Hugh Muir writes about Nelson Mandela: a beacon for black Britain:  http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/06/nelson-mandela-black-britain

In this article he asks the question:  "So Black Britain... revered his life. What can it learn after his death?"

In South Africa an intransigent elite allowed unrestricted immigration against the wishes of the majority.

Mr Mandela and the ANC demonstrated that the only way to stop this unrestricted immigration (which was accumulating all the resources of the country to the detriment of the indigenous majority) was through violence.

Surely there cannot be anything to learn from this Mr Muir?

Perhaps when all the gush and mush has subsided we can see Mr Mandela for what he was.

Already I am bored with all the South African coverage.

It's not as if they are saying anything new.

It's just the same things over and over again.

Enoch Powell was right

One reads the reports of this trial and the conclusions are inescapable - Enoch Powell was right.

If you don't like it here Goldman Sachs you can fuck off.

And you can forget about ever coming back.

As a former University of London student I am unsettled about the reports of police intervention and arrests in a demonstration at Senate House.

It seems very heavy handed.

Could they not just clear them out without using violence and without arresting them?

Senate House was the model for George Orwell's Ministry of Truth in 1984.

Amazed to read that Trenton Oldfield is still in the country.

He needs to be booted out sharpish.

http://donsspeakout.wordpress.com/2013/12/04/boat-race-protester-threatened-with-deportation/

Whatever the problems faced by the people of Ukraine, someone should tell them that joining the EU is not the answer - they would be swapping one tyranny for another.

The Political Integration of Ethnic Minorities in Britain by Heath, Fisher, Rosenblatt, Sanders and Sobolewska

Review of The Political Integration of Ethnic Minorities in Britain by Heath, Fisher, Rosenblatt, Sanders and Sobolewska:

http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofbooks/2013/12/04/book-review-the-political-integration-of-ethnic-minorities-in-britain/

The review, by Ron Johnston (professor in the School of Geographical Sciences at the University of Bristol) includes the rather telling line:  "Labour has been identified as ‘their’ party by the ethnic minorities (just as it was as the party of the working class in earlier decades)".  I think we already knew that Labour had become the immigrant party.  But it is still rather surprising to find this stated so boldly.

Professor Johnston also seems incurious as to why ethnic minority attitudes include the view:  "...the main positions of their Conservative opponents – particularly with regard to restricting immigration – are viewed negatively."  Why should immigrants be so keen on encouraging other immigrants?  It suggests that they see themselves as part of a revolution to overturn society, not integrate into it.

Which in turn raises the question of which immigrants are being allowed into the country.  If immigration policy was to only allow entry to wealthy families from north America, Australasia and western Europe an analysis of this kind would find they were politically integrated into Conservative voting patterns.  If on the other hand a duplicitous government had been actively encouraging migration into the United Kingdom of Pakistani peasants hey presto! the Labour vote receives a boost.

By not enquiring into the original political activity in their home countries of the ethnic minority communities surveyed Anthony Heath and his colleagues have indulged themselves in a rather pointless exercise and produced a book (256 pages) of no real value.

Isn't Jude Law a bit old to be playing Henry V?

At Agincourt the king was 29, not 41.

It is very noticable that the people most advocating unrestricted immigration are...

...people who are themselves from immigrant communities and immigrant backgrounds: 

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/columnists/article3933863.ece

And yet Mr Aaronovitch poses as if he is impartial.

Labour's policy of keeping immigrants segregated by their ethnicity and compartmentalised into Labour-voting blocs incentivised by electoral bribes continues today with the formation of 'Sikhs for Labour' under the leadership of former MEP Neena Gill.

Enoch was right

Reading the reports of the trial of Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale the persistent thought goes through my mind:  Enoch was right.