How can the Museum of Immigration at 19 Princelet Street justify its charitable status when it is continually intervening in party politics?

Corruption in the Labour Party

Peter Willsman writes with passion about corruption in the Labour Party:  http://www.leftfutures.org/2013/10/illegitimate-interference-by-party-staff-into-our-internal-elections/

This is a different sort of corruption to the Unite corruption in Falkirk and other constituencies.

This is apparantly an internal corruption:  "Party members do not want to be in an organisation where paid officials whose wages members pay are subverting internal democracy. All decent members want to see these degrading practices ended and not again brushed under the carpet. Party members believe that cheats should not be allowed to prosper."

Faked

Is the BBC slipping back into its old fakery ways?

There is an intriguing image that pops up in a BBC film about discrimination in the London housing market:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-24372509

What is the provenance of this photograph?  Who was the photographer and when and where was it taken?  The reason I ask is that it looks so obviously faked.  It looks as if an existing notice in a window has been photoshopped and somewhat clumsily had a new message put on, with none of the variations in tone that you would expect in an unedited photograph.  Because the image has been inserted into a film there is no clue as to where this photograph has come from.  And such an inflammatory image would surely be well-known would it not?  If it was genuine we would see it everywhere.  Diane Abbott MP would be referring to it on Question Time.  Lee Jasper would be repetitively twittering about it day after day.

If it turns out to be a fake whoever was responsible at the BBC needs to be sacked.

Deliberately ignorant article about immigration by James Kirkup:

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jameskirkup/100241161/in-their-hearts-senior-tories-think-immigration-could-be-a-good-thing-but-how-do-they-tell-the-voters/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

Mr Kirkup, there is a difference between tourists who come here for a couple of weeks and then go home again and permanent immigrants who intrude themselves into our society without democratic permission.

And as for your statement "In their secret hearts, some senior Conservatives believe that immigration is not the problem that many voters believe it to be" if this were true it would only confirm how out of touch the political elite (all parties) are.

Owen Paterson has become an embarrassment and needs to go.

Complete withdrawal

Since about midday Friday I have been ill with 'flu.  A fairly mild 'flu but I have had a continuous headache, ache all over and all I want to do is sleep.  In the hours I have been awake I read After the Coalition by a group of Conservative MPs. 

The book was published in 2011, so is not absolutely up to date.  And my illness gave a bilious sheen to the pages.  But there were many interesting ideas.

As a nation, Britain has always been suspicious of the EU project.  The vision of a United States of Europe does not appeal.  We did well to stay out of the euro, and to secure a rebate.  Nevertheless, as a country we are not yet ready for complete withdrawal...

Which implies that the authors can envisage a time when we will be ready for complete withdrawal.

Possibly after the Euro elections next year.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/After-Coalition-Kwasi-Kwarteng/dp/1849541582

Can I just check, does Bonnie Greer still welcome the appointment of Tristram Hunt as Shadow Education Secretary?

I thought she said he would "take on" Michael Gove, not agree with him whole-heartedly.

The Unite Union has commented on Tristram Hunt's announcements:  "No, no, no to this wrong-headed, ill-thought out policy".

He does not feel particularly English

Sunder Katawala (Director of British Future sic) directs our attention to a short article written by the Cambridge Blogger on the subject of feeling English (or rather how he does not feel particularly English):  http://thecambridgeblogger.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/muddled-talk-about-englishness.html

And then one notices that the author of the piece is Joe Devanny, which is (as the surname research department of Leicester University will tell you) an Irish name.

Is it possible that Mr Devanny does not feel English because his family is not in fact English?

Of course, there is no knowing how many generations the Devanny family has lived in England.

We do know however that English people have lived in Ireland for centuries without their families being accepted as "Irish".  They developed a local affinity and an Anglo-Irish culture and the English called them Irish (although the Irish called them English, or in the north British).  But did they "feel" Irish in the same way that Connemara potato-eaters felt Irish? - I think not.

Each family contains within itself a micro-culture (attitudes, beliefs, perceptions about the outside world) and transmits that culture from one generation to the next.  Family micro-cultures mutate over the generations, but we do not yet know how they mutate and how much remains constant.  It is interesting to speculate whether the constant element in a family micro-culture will transmit itself over hundreds or perhaps even thousands of years (if I forget thee oh Jerusalem may my right hand lose its cunning).

The left will only stop trying this strategy if we start doing the same

On the whole I thought yesterday's Immigration Bill was excellent.

However the Daily Express is reporting that Unite's Len McClusky is already planning to make the legal duties contained in the bill unworkable.

http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/435928/Red-Len-McCluskey-vows-to-wreck-Theresa-May-s-Immigration-Bill

We should not be surprised at this.

Len McClusky is skilled at gerrymandering the political system - within his union, within the Labour Party, and within the wider British political process.

Like an inverse King Midas he corrupts everything he touches.

Of course, he wants open door unrestricted immigration because he knows that the vast majority of those immigrants will vote Labour and irrevocably change the political complexion of the United Kingdom government.

I sometimes think the left will only stop trying this strategy if we start doing the same.

For instance, we could (quietly, with no fuss) identify a quarter million of the very poorest white people in South Africa and Zimbabwe and encourage them to move to the United Kingdom for asylum reasons or under a special "humanitarian" policy the Home Office can covertly devise.

The quarter million white Southern Africans are then directed to the 50 top marginal constituncies where they are given priority access to the best social housing (decanting out the Labour proles who might already be living there) and fast-track no-questions-asked access to state benefits.

Any opposition from Labour should be shouted down with screams of "racist racist racist" - this needs to be planned in advance to neutralise opposition.

Make sure that the new immigrants are aware of Labour's historic antipathy towards white South Africans - this needs to be hammered home so that they feel under threat.

Next election watch as 50 formerly marginal constituencies become safe Conservative seats with average 5,000 majority.

Hand out food parcels to the starving

According to the Today programme this morning the British Red Cross is contributing to emergency food relief in the United Kingdom, which I suppose puts us on a par with Haiti and Syria.

You might feel alarmed that society in the United Kingdom is presumably near collapse if the Red Cross needs to hand out food parcels to the starving.

And then you might notice that British Red Cross Chief Executive Sir Nick Young held a sinecure NHS "modernisation" position under the last Labour government as well as a sinecure position with the (now discredited) Office of the Third Sector (part of the Cabinet Office under Labour) and has spoken nostalgically about the Labour period of government as "a golden age".

Is it not a disgrace that the Labour party has been voted out of office and yet their former apparatchiks are still controlling major charitable institutions like the British Red Cross and carrying out political stunts such as this?

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/exclusive-red-cross-launches-emergency-food-aid-plan-for-uks-hungry-8872496.html

It is perhaps unfortunate that Kevin Pietersen should choose to intervene in the "who should play for England" debate.

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2013/oct/09/kevin-pietersen-jack-wilshere-twitter-englishness?CMP=twt_gu

Being English surely implies a broad loyalty to the English people.

And in a key moment of his career Kevin Pietersen was not loyal.  He removed himself from the English team and made 'phone calls to the foreign opposing team disaparaging his English team-mates.  Of course, he has since laughed this off, but some people do remember it.

Are the lefties who are attacking Jack Wilshere for his comments on the eligibility to play for England the same lefties who sneered and jeered at Zola Budd for being given a fast-track to qualify as "British" for the Olympics in 1984?

What makes a person English anyway?

As Gary Younge (Guardian) is found of pointing out, England is not a nation and does not have the "tropes" of nationhood.

At an etymological level English is an ethnicity, not a nationality - the land was named after the people (England, land of the English) unlike say America where the people are named after the land.

The badger cull pilot has failed, so the answer is... let's have another pilot.

It's like that episode of Father Ted where they keep trying the same failed idea over and over again.

The pilot has failed.

Leave the badgers alone.

Is it possible that Diane Abbott MP was sacked today as Shadow Health Minister for no other reason than because the "cull of the Blairites" was looking too one-sided?

Was she sacked because the wider Blairite claque was briefing to the press that the party was moving (indeed "lurching") to the left and Ed's team hurridly needed to prove this was not the case?

My goodness, these people!

The afternoon of the long knives continues.

Patrick Wintour (political editor of the Guardian) tells us "Big Blairite cull underway".

Is this cull a sign of strength (I can kill these people with impunity) or a sign of weakness (I cannot have these people in the team, they are not following orders).

"If I say the word MILIBAND what image comes into your mind..."

On the Today programme this morning the BBC's Political Editor Nick Robinson said David Miliband when he meant Ed. 

It was a error made last Saturday on Dateline London by Saul Zadka of Al Lon ("David Miliband" very slight pause as if he had registered his mistake "AND his brother" continuing the point).

The name "Ed" is not foremost in the mind when people discuss the leader of the Labour party - even for very experienced and professional commentators such as Nick Robinson and Saul Zadka.

If these people are experiencing confusion, what hope is there for the ordinary voter?

"If I say the word MILIBAND what image comes into your mind - quickly quickly just say what comes into your mind..."

And what comes into the mind seems to be the name David.

In part this must be because of lack of differentiation between Ed Miliband and David Miliband.

Even after all this time and all this effort.

It must be very worrying for the Labour party.

Ban from future interviews people who pull this sort of stunt

I am not happy that John Rentoul (Columnist, Independent on Sunday) used an interview on the Today programme this morning to advertise a book by David Aaronovitch (the link with the subject under discussion was so clumsy that it cannot be regarded as anything other than a gratuitous advertisement for a fellow lefty author).

This sort of thing may seem innocuous, but undermines the non-commercial status of the BBC.

If lefties are using the public broadcaster as a covert advertising medium, then how can we argue against full commercialisation?

Perhaps the BBC can ban from future interviews people who pull this sort of stunt.

Can we please not see or hear Jon Rentoul or David Aaronovitch on the BBC again.

Remember the Great War

How should the Great War centenary be marked? (2014 to 2018 and also the Treaty of Versailles centenary in 2019).

This is the (rather phallic) war memorial at Ellington in Huntingdonshire.  It commemorates the men of the village who went away and did not come back.  Every November it is still the focus of village respect.

We do not need to wonder how the servicemen of Ellington wanted us to remember the Great War and their fallen comrades.  There must be no sorrow.  We must be proud of the British victory in the Great War, especially because it was won with Ellington blood, and we must emulate the noble behaviour of the Ellington heroes.

Unusual for Bonnie Greer to welcome the promotion of public school posh boy Tristram Hunt MP in the reshuffle earlier today.

And how many millionaires does the new Shadow Cabinet contain now? (it used to be seven).

As  Kentish Town born, bad-comp-educated scion of an East End family I'm afraid I cannot take someone called "Tristram" seriously - at my school he would have got a bloody good kicking just for the name alone.

The Shadow Cabinet seems to be moving determinedly to the left - Byrne out, Twigg out, Murphy demoted.

Of course, it would be ridiculously cliched to say this was a neo-Stalinist purge.

As far as I know no ice picks have been used.

Reshuffle update:  hard left MP Jon Trickett now full member of the Shadow Cabinet and Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet Deputy Chair of the Labour Party.

Malala Yousafzai was interviewed by Mishal Husain

On the Today programme this morning Malala Yousafzai was interviewed by Mishal Husain.

Malala Yousafzai is a 16-year-old victim of terror and violence who has come to live in the United Kingdom.  Her views are taken seriously.  She has addressed the United Nations and been interviewed on the Today programme.

Ralph Miliband was a 17-year-old threatened by terror and violence who came to the United Kingdom in the 1930s.  And yet we are told that his 17-year-old views should not be taken seriously.  He was not old enough or mature enough to know what he was saying.

Double standards seem to be at play here.

Today's Observer on "identity"

(please ignore the hair in the top left of the picture - one of the dogs decided to intrude into the shot).

For such an important subject, the page in today's Observer on "identity" was surprisingly lightweight. 

An article by Sunder Katwala of British Future (sic) quoting statistics that did not seem to have any provenance.  An inauthentic use of marketing segmentation jargon.  A slapdash use of celebrity photographs.

The whole thing looked as if it had been thrown together at the last minute.

In his piece Sunder Katwala once again took it upon himself to talk about the First World War.  It might help if Mr Katwala could tell us what role his own family played in the war.  Otherwise his pronouncements invite the riposte:  what's it got to do with you.

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/oct/06/what-makes-modern-britain-great-tribes 

The Stranger's Child by Alan Hollinghurst

 

Have just finished reading The Stranger's Child by Alan Hollinghurst.

The paperback has 560 pages, and the novel is so well-written that at no time did I feel bored with it.

Ostensibly about a poet (obviously based on Rupert Brooke) it is actually a literary detective story comparable to AS Byatt's Possession.

Alan Hollinghurst is a seditious writer - he subverts the country house Brideshead genre, he undermines the reputation of Rupert Brooke, he exposes the myth-making surrounding the Great War.

The first section is slightly cloying (home life among the Honeychurches I thought), and I did not enjoy entering the soul of a bank clerk, but it is a fine book.

A new ideology of masculinity is developing

Earlier this year Diane Abbott MP made a speech on the Crisis of Masculinity.

After a generally sound assessment of the situation she put forward a number of unconvincing solutions.

In my opinion the crisis of masculinity has been brought about by the left's systematic assault on the institutions (formal, informal and social institutions) that in the past were used to tame and control masculinity.

Whether those institutions have been destroyed through stupidity, through well-meaning interference or through deliberate malevolence and spite we will leave on one side.

The fact remains that the institutions have been smashed.

And as Diane Abbott points out, there is now a crisis of masculinity.

Therefore it is reasonable to ask what the young men experiencing this crisis intend to do about it.

My own assessment is that a new ideology of masculinity is developing, independent of the traditional institutions (which have been smashed) but also independent of the left's gormless social engineering and strident political correctness.

This new ideology of masculinity has fourteen attributes which I have labelled cults, although they could equally be called enthusiasms.  This seems to be an entirely new vision of society independent of the traditional culture of the right and the crass political correctness of the left.  However I might be wrong - it is possible that what is emerging is simply a pre-industrial form of masculinity reasserting itself now that the bounds that formerly held it in check have been loosened.

1  The cult of the body.

Denied access to the identity provided by traditional masculine roles (defined within the family, within a previously all-pervasive Anglican religious culture, within the social hierarchy that used to permeate every class, within the Protestant Work Ethic that governed employment expectations, within the national myth which allotted a "place" and life-meaning for everyone etc) young men have fallen back on the most fundamental point of masculine reference - the male body.  The body has become the symbol of the new masculinity.  It is the one thing that even the most disadvantaged young men can use to define themselves and their relationship to other men and to women.

2  The cult of nudity.

Pre-war men almost never took their clothes off in public.  Now semi-nudity in public is common and complete male nudity is increasingly seen in film, television, magazines etc.  This nudity is not narcissistic but relates to a way of achieving masculine identity.  Naked display is an established way of creating masculine impact.  More than just showing-off, the body is displayed in a timeless classical context with ideal proportions and demonstrative good health.  Nude posing also symbolises fearless courage since the body is shown unprotected.

3  The cult of youth.

In the new masculinity youth is increasingly led by youth and rejects leadership from women or older men.

4  The cult of the fittest.

Over the last twenty years there has been an explosion of gym-orientated activity - for all age groups and for both genders, but primarily led by young men.   The social elite among young men is increasingly defined by physique.  This disturbing body fascism rejects those who do not participate and excel at body culture. 

5  The cult of dynamism.

In the new masculinity young men are expected to be dynamic.  Intellectual activity is not valued.  The dynamism of individuals contributes to the dynamism of the social group, and non-dynamic men (the overweight, the slow, the disabled) are excluded from core membership of the social group - as are women.

6  The cult of violence.

Brutalism is deliberately cultivated with young masculine peer groups, and the ability to inflict and endure pain is highly valued.  Previously this predilection for violence would have been tamed within socially-accepted contexts (military, sporting and educational).  Increasingly it is spilling out onto the streets.

7  The cult of inclusion.

Diane Abbott is mistaken in thinking that young men seek in gangs a substitute for family life.  It seems increasingly apparent that young men are seeking masculine social groups in preference to family life.   Loyalty (a guarantee of safety), honour (a clear code to follow, however that is defined by the group) and obedience (relief from the anxiety of making decisions) are seen as attributes young men cannot find in a family context.  In the masculine social group there is no isolation.  Once an individual has been accepted they are "in".  And making an effort to fit in becomes the over-riding imperative.

8  The cult of manliness.

Manliness is related to looking and acting like a man.  Manliness also implies having the strength to assume the role of social protector, able to defend the community (however that is defined by the social group) - not hiding from danger, not expressing fear.  It also requires (and this is a key dividing point between masculine and non-masculine men) the idea that men are expendable and might need to sacrifice themselves to defend the social group.

9  The cult of sublimated nationalism.

George Mosse famously said that love of country was erotisised nationalism.  The new masculinity can be described as nationalism without the nation (or with a highly exclusive definition of the nation, perhaps relating to the England football team).  This form of nationalism is indistinguishable from male social bonding, and becomes an abstract arena in which young men who do not know each other experience a close fraternity.

10 The cult of hero worship.

With the increasing rejection by large numbers of young men of formal education we are seeing an increasing emphasis upon emulation of role models.  Young men watch and interact with other young men to learn social roles.  The objective appears to be the transformation of feelings of alienation into ecstatic feelings of community led by "heroic" figures.

11  The cult of performance and achievement.

Within the new masculinity individuals are expected to develop a strong ego and sense of self-confidence.  The emphasis is upon performance and perfectionism, and is often associated with extreme behaviour.  The new masculinity is above all related to security and survival, and all members of the social group are expected to contribute towards achieving this.

12  The cult of health.

Remaining absolutely healthy is an obsession of the new masculinity, although ironically the pursuit of health often results in counter-productive behaviour (the taking of steroids for instance).  Diseased individuals are shunned.  Extreme monotonous diets are often adopted.

13  The cult of competition.

The emerging new masculinity is hyper-competitive.  Competition within social groups, competition between social groups, and competition with external forces (authority).

14  the cult of fraternity.

As we have seen, instead of a post-industrial masculinity emerging we are seeing the reassertion of a pre-industrial primeval autochonthus masculinity.  At what point will this new masculinity go mainstream and be adopted by society and integrated within the wider collective fraternity?  And what impact will it have on the rest of us?

The Crisis of Masculinity

Article in the New Statesman by Alan White on the subject of gang culture:  http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2013/10/how-do-we-talk-about-gang-culture

Alan White links to Danny Finkelstein's depthless article Even now, we still don't understand the riots:  http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/columnists/danielfinkelstein/article3836013.ece

However Diane Abbott MP has already explained, with great cogency, that gang culture is a symptom of the Crisis of Masculinity.

Diane Abbott made her speech approximately four months ago and it is probably the most important speech we have yet heard from her. Addressing the Demos thinktank, Ms Abbott talked about what she termed “The Crisis of Masculinity”. You can read the full speech here:

http://www.demos.co.uk/files/DianeAbbottspeech16May2013.pdf

The speech is important because a crisis of masculinity implies a crisis in society – potentially fifty per cent of the United Kingdom’s population. Unlike most of Diane Abbot’s pronouncements (which most people do not take seriously) this speech seemed well-prepared, carefully considered, and chimed with a number of observations that other social commentators have been making. Therefore I think we are justified in looking at her speech in detail and seeing if it has relevance to our own work in this area.

The speech makes forty points. Although generally and ostensibly non-partisan, Diane Abbott makes a number of ideological statements and draws predictable ideological conclusions. This bias is useful as it tells us how the left perceives the crisis in masculinity and what their policy options might be.

Her analysis is correct – there is indeed a crisis in masculinity. However Diane Abbott errs in representing this as primarily a crisis for men. It is actually a crisis for society, with political implications for both left and right.

Diane Abbott is quite wily in the way she interprets this crisis as a failure of capitalism. Predictably she does not take responsibility for helping (along with the rest of the Labour Party) to smash up the institutions that gave meaning to masculinity, helped to curb masculinity, and co-opted masculinity into the service of the nation state (the United Kingdom). We need to reassess the crisis in masculinity cross-referenced with Labour policies and the damage they have done to institutions (damage through incompetence and damage through deliberate malice masquerading as “reform”).

To go through some of the Diane Abbott's points:

“This generation no longer asks itself what it means to be a man”. The argument here is presumably that young men have become apathetic about their identity. Society’s repudiation of Weber’s Protestant Work Ethic (as a way of mobilising society) might be relevant here.

“And too often, women - particularly those who achieve success - wrongly get the blame”. This appears to be an attribution of resentful misogyny to the individuals experiencing the crisis of masculinity. Traditionally the concept of “chivalrous behaviour” tamed misogyny, but the transmission of this behaviour code has effectively come to an end (except perhaps in the public schools), and any attempt to revive it would be met with ridicule from the left.

“Tomorrow, too many British men and boys will wake up isolated and misdirected by a boundless consumer outlook, economic instability and whirlwind social change”.  Consumerism is the enemy of both left wing and right wing conceptualisations of society. Traditional forms of self actualisation have been destroyed (go to school, get a job, get married, have a family, participate in social rituals) and replaced by identity through materialist consumerism which is only available at a cost and in any case can never be fully achieved.

“…too many British men shouldering the burden of a growing economic mess they did not create will commit suicide”. Pessimism in society is a result of the failure of the traditional forms of consolation, particularly religious consolation. Derided by atheists as “pie in the sky when you die” religion (specifically Anglicanism) did at least console people experiencing social setbacks - people who are now left with no consolation.

“British society has given in to a fatalism about outcomes for boys…” Fatalism is a false philosophy (nothing can be done, therefore we should do nothing). It can only be erased by replacement with a more positive philosophy –how individuals can fit in to a historical and cultural continuum that gives meaning to their lives.

“A generation of British men without realistic heroes, who feel like they have been set up to fail”. Who has smashed up the British icons and replaced then with ideological models such as Mary Seacole? Young men increasingly feeling that this society is not designed for them, therefore is it any wonder they feel resentment?

“A ‘we’ve got nothing left to lose’ generation of British men”. This is the real crisis in the Crisis of Masculinity, that a growing section of society is of the opinion that they have nothing to lose, therefore they will be open to quasi-revolutionary solutions. Without institutions there is no bulwark against volatile changes in society, with the result that revolutionary options are an increasing threat.

“A nation of atomised, lonely, entrepreneurial boys, who often have lives without meaning”. The two thousand year traditional historical and cultural continuum was able to compensate have-nots with abstract concepts such as national loyalty (which was seen as two-way) and national belonging. Since the 1960s this tribal view of society has been systematically undermined, with nothing satisfying put in its place.

“A society where British manhood is now shaped more by market expectations – often unachievable ones - than by fathers, family values, a sense of community spirit and perseverance”. The left has relentlessly promulgated policies designed to destroy the institution of the family (divorce, abortion, permissiveness etc). Even a very modest attempt to support marriage through the tax system has been met with ferocious opposition.

“…there is a powerful role for fathers”. And yet the left routinely attacks the “patriarchy” of traditional families with fathers in influential roles. We need to assess what is the cost to society of patriarchy, what is the cost to society of an absence of patriarchy, and what is the cost-benefit analysis comparison?

“…we need to work towards creating a society and an economy in which young boys and men can talk about their identity, and find their way in the world without shame, isolation, or feelings of resentment.” Who decides what identity we are going to have? Pre-1960s western cultural identity grew organically over two thousand years but post-1960s this organic identity has been subverted and there is no general agreement on what to put in its place.

“Yesterday’s heroes, in the fantasies and the realities of British life, were affirmed, in part, by physical strength, silent stoicism, and athletic daring. Fewer men than ever are able to connect the fabric of their lives to those archetypes”. Here Diane Abbott seems to be talking about Manliness Archetypes and the way they were celebrated through institutions (educational establishments, sporting clubs, the armed forces etc) and popular culture.  If young men are not given manliness archtypes to emulate they will invent their own.

“The decline of heavy industry and manufacturing jobs has left a lot of men in a position where they don’t feel the jobs on offer – particularly service jobs – are ones they feel comfortable with.” The occupational roles may have gone but the physical bodies remain. Not everyone is going to want to sit at a desk all day, and some thought needs to be given to this.

“The masculine predilection for risk and violence, far from saving national pride, often collides with modern workplaces, industries and our outlook in Britain today”.  And yet the predilection for risk and violence remains. It is not going to disappear because of lecturing and hectoring, it needs to be tames through social institutions.

“Many British men have no authentic voice”. You can say that again. The elite increasingly represents only itself – this is a problem for all of us, but young men with a predilection for risk and violence are in a position to do something about it.

“For many, what makes a man in modern Britain is his ability to flaunt consumer power”. Money has corrupted society. Politicians have corrupted society.

“Hard work, love, community, and family are no longer necessarily part of a British right of passage (sic)”. A rite of passage going where? The traditional historical-cultural continuum took individuals on a journey through society and the expectations of society - the deliberate junking of concepts such as duty, loyalty and responsibility (even to mention these words is to invite ridicule) has resulted in people living lives devoid of social meaning.

“I’m particularly troubled by a culture of hyper-masculinity – a culture that exaggerates masculinity in the face of a perceived threat to it”. Unless masculinity is tamed by social institutions it must result in hyper-masculinity. One only has to make anthropological comparisons to understand what men will regress to if no longer controlled by society.

“At its worst, it’s a celebration of heartlessness; a lack of respect for women’s autonomy; and the normalisation of homophobia. I fear it’s often crude individualism dressed up as modern manhood”. It is silly to say that the fault is individualism. We are really witnessing a reversion to physical instincts as opposed to intellectual reasoning.

“Look into the eyes of many of the men sitting in the cubicles of bureaucratic English office, with a disintegrating family life”. Is it any wonder family life is disintegrating when the family as an institution has been so thoroughly undermined? Families are the building blocks of society and without traditional families the situation is increasingly volatile.

“It’s an unfortunate political landscape that catches many men between the belief that all human beings are essentially equal, and the collapsing pillar of patriarchy that mistakenly says men are naturally superior to women”. The Crisis of Masculinity is a crisis for feminism also – it is not “patriarchy” that is claiming male superiority but the animal instincts of the natural world. Without social institutions there is no bar to an increasing reversion in some sections of society to animalistic impulses of varying degrees (an ape does not respect the autonomy of a female ape, nor is there gender equality among the apes).

“But the messages being sent to our boys are just as limiting and restrictive: be macho, be strong, don’t show your emotions”. How does society control machismo? Traditionally this is done through social institutions but many of these have been warped by political interference so that they no longer work properly.

Anyway, I have probably written enough for now, and you will have your own lines of enquiry to follow.

Following Diane Abbott's speech I did some research of my own in this area which I hope to write up in the next few days.

The Daily Mail article about Ralph Miliband

I'm afraid I'm becoming bored with the faux outrage over the Daily Mail.

This morning on the Today programme Lord Glasman (someone I have always regarded as sensible and moderate) was comparing the situation to Apocalypse Now (a fictional gotterdammerung set in 1970s south east Asia).

And Twitter is filled this morning with right-on commentators (Caitlin Moran, Richard Angell, Ellie Mae O'Hagan, Patrick Kingsley, Diane Abbott MP and so many others I cannot list them) ecstatically promoting a YouTube clip of Mehdi Hasan denouncing the Daily Mail on Question Time yesterday.

Presumably they are unaware of Mr Hasan's October 2011 article in the Guardian in which he gratuitously "outs" David Cameron as the great great grandson of a Jew (and a Jewish financier to boot - how's that for an antisemitic cliche):  http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/oct/12/steve-jobs-david-cameron-immigration

But perhaps they are aware of it and they just don't care.  That Mehdi Hasan is a hypocrite is an observation that hardly needs pointing out.  The important thing for these people is to attack the Daily Mail.

Anyway, since we cannot escape the Daily Mail article about Ralph Miliband perhaps I can be allowed to comment about the comments that have been made about it.

Is the diary entry Ralph Miliband wrote as a 17-year-old relevant to our judgment of him? (and let us make no mistake, we have been invited to judge him by Ed Miliband himself).  I think the Daily Mail has a point here.  This was not some idle harmless musing by a precocious teenager.  This was a comment written in wartime hoping that Britain would lose the war.  Had the authorities seen this diary entry Ralph Milband would have been interned as an enemy alien (and had his working class neighbours seen the diary entry they would have given him a beating).   

Can we compare Ralph Miliband's diary entry with the diaries of other Jewish teenagers of the time?  The most obvious comparison would be with the diary of Anne Frank.  Did Anne Frank express in her diary the hope that Britain would lose the war?  I think not.  Do we dismiss the diary of Anne Frank as unimportant and irrelevant?  No, young as she was, her writings are regarded as important historical evidence.

Why should Ralph Miliband have made such a comment in the first place?  We need to consider the context.  Up until June 22nd 1941 Nazi Germany was in an alliance with Soviet Russia and communists in the West were instructed to support the alliance, which (incredibly) meant supporting the idea that Germany would win the war.  Of course we have heard from various commentators that Ralph Miliband was not a communist in his later life, and condemned the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) in his later life.  But we also know that Ralph Miliband was "steered away" from the CPGB by Harold Laski, which implies that he had some relationship with the CPGB to be steered away from.  There is a lot of grey here - was the teenage Ralph Miliband just venting teenage angst in his diary, or was it a more candid expression of communist policy at the time (that the fascist and reactionary forces in the West must fight themselves to a standstill before Soviet liberation can sweep in from the east).

Is it true that Ralph Miliband was a "hero" for fighting in the British armed forces?  On one level yes, they were all heroes.  But let us not be starry-eyed here.  In wartime all eligible men were conscripted and therefore if he had not volunteered he would have been called up a few months later (and those who volunteered a few months early had more options about where they would end up, especially if they had a "mentor" like Harold Laski - and is it not curious that Ralph Miliband made no attempt to join the Belgian Free Forces).

But enough of all this.

The most important thing to know about Ralph Miliband is that he failed in the central political objective of his life.

His eldest son failed in the central political objective of his life.

And (nothing personal) I am hoping and working to ensure that his youngest son fails in the central political objective of his life.

Rafael Behr:  "I sense this Ed v Mail thing tipping into another excuse for UK media to obsess at length about itself."

I think when we reach the point when the People's Assembly makes an issue a cause celebre we can safely assume it has lost any valid content and has become a focus for placard slogans and reductionist chanting.

High Tide on the Coast of Lincolnshire

I don't usually give much thought to "days" - there are too many of them, and they all seem to be mildly accusatory.

But national poetry day is harmless enough, and therefore I will use the day to draw attention to a neglected poem High Tide on the Coast of Lincolnshire by Jean Ingelow:

Alle fresh the level pasture lay,
And not a shadowe mote be seene,
Save where full fyve good miles away
The steeple towered from out the greene;
And lo! the great bell farre and wide
Was heard in all the country side
That Saturday at eventide.

The swanherds where their sedges are
Moved on in sunset's golden breath,
The shepherde lads I heard afarre,
And my sonne's wife, Elizabeth;
Till floating o'er the grassy sea
Came downe that kyndly message free,
The 'Brides of Mavis Enderby.'

http://www.bartleby.com/246/604.html

I have visited the place where Jean Ingelow was born - the house has been pulled down and the site is now a car park.

Wonderful news that the Crystal Palace is to be rebuilt:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-24375547

Perhaps the Alexandra Palace can also be restored.

The dear little dog had to be smacked for stealing (jumping up onto a chair and taking food from a plate on the table).

It was a traumatic moment for both of us.

Erudite discussion on the Today programme this morning - Jonathan Franzen interviewed about his new book The Kraus Project (in which the footnotes assume greater prominence than the original text).

On the eve of the Conference I think we need to take this proposal seriously:

http://www.spectator.co.uk/features/9034391/lets-make-a-deal/

The Conservatives only need to win another twenty seats!

"I hope you enjoyed my Tesco FINEST Paella you thieving little shit!"

A note has apparently appeared on the Guardian staff noticeboard today: "I hope you enjoyed my Tesco FINEST Paella you thieving little shit!"

The complainant presumably does not understand that we are living in a post-Miliband-speech world in which the principles of socialism are once more in vogue.

Therefore here are a few pointers Mr/Ms Complainant should bear in mind:

1  From each according to their means to each according to their needs - the person who took the paella obviously needed the paella so quit complaining.

2  All property is theft.  You cannot "own" a paella, it is the common property of the people.  You have no more right to that paella than anyone else.

3  The paella was unused at the time it was liberated - are you some kind of blood-sucking capitalist to sit on assets surplus to your actual requirement (and don't give me that guff about wanting it in the future as we cannot afford people accumulating extra paellas any more than we can afford people sitting on banks of land on the spurious grounds they might be needed in the future).

4  Your capitalised use of the word "FINEST" has been noted - what sort of bourgeois class enemy are you to consume "FINEST" food instead of the proletarian fare everyone else has to eat!  Engels would have you shot for this alone (were he still alive and working for the Guardian).

5  What sort of class traitor are you to shop at Tesco - an evil organisation that thrives on unpaid neo-slave work experience.

Back to basics socialism

In the aftermath of Ed Miliband's speech (paraphrase:  we are all socialists now) it is amusing to see the lefties goading each other on with ever more expressions of socialist zeal.

Here we have John McTernan telling us what we already know about immigration:  http://www.policy-network.net/pno_detail.aspx?ID=4474&title=The-left-has-to-get-politically-tough-on-labour-migration

Some quotes: 

"...seriously, who would listen to their voters? Particularly the lumpen mass with their half-formed thoughts and fully-formed prejudices. 

"...it is not a crisis if entry level jobs are taken by citizens from another EU country. Filling minimum wage jobs with migrant workers is progressive. Full stop.

"It used to hardly need saying, but apparently now it needs broadcasting – ethnic voters vote Labour. Let me repeat that. These new workers will vote out of preference for a centre-left party. Why, when the left is electorally in retreat across Europe, would we think it made sense to ban potentially loyal voters from even entering our country?"

Of course he expects the right to be outraged by this, but somehow his outrageousness falls a bit flat.

It is rather like when a party of schoolchildren are taken to the zoo and see the baboons showing off their bare pink bottoms.  It might be a shock first time round, but they soon learn to ignore it.  John McTernan and the rest of the neo-socialists are just political baboons saying Look at me!  Look at me!  I am so daring!

However hidden among all Mr McTernan's back-to-basics socialism are three words that indicate he is out of touch with the ordinary electorate.

He tells us:  "Politics is about leadership."

That might have been true thirty years ago.

It might even have been true up to about ten years ago.

It is not true now.

The Iraq war changed everything.  The electorate no longer wants political leadership.  The electorate has come to fear political leadership.

The electorate want a system where the politicians are brought under control (and dare I say it, do as they are told by the people who elect them).

This is a work of FICTION

My goodness, after Independent writer Owen Jones told us about the sociological insights to be gained from Downton Abbey, now the New Statesman is referring to the ropey soap opera as a seminal text relevant to gender studies:  http://www.newstatesman.com/business/2013/09/what-downton-abbey-can-teach-us-about-dying-without-will

This is a work of FICTION they are talking about!

A work of modern fiction written to entertain undemanding Sunday evening audiences.

It is written by Julian Fellowes who is a jobbing script-writer married to a former lady-in-waiting to HRH Princess Michael of Kent.

If by any chance Downton Abbey has anything serious to say about the Edwardian period it is entirely by accident.  The only historical information in the script will have come about because of Julian Fellowes' research.  Why do Owen Jones and the unnamed person who wrote the New Statesman piece choose to do their research second-hand through Julian Fellowes?

Are they too lazy to do research themselves?

Are they going to look at Barbara Cartland bodice-rippers to tell us about feminism in the Napoleonic age?  Or refer to 1970s episodes of Citizen Smith (available on YouTube) to explain pre-Blair socialism?  Or perhaps 'Allo 'Allo to explain the role of the Resistance in occupied France?

Owen Jones studied History at Oxford for heaven's sake.

As taxpayers we helped pay for his "glittering prizes" education.

And this is how he repays us.

This idea of giving all United Kingdom taxpayers an itemised receipt for the tax they have paid is excellent:  https://twitter.com/theresecoffey/status/383098375060873216

Presumably only taxpayers will get the receipt.

This could work to the Coalition's advantage in that the more detail given over where taxes are spent the more insistent will be the demands for unnecessary expenditure to be cut.

Bland boxes that just appropriate overall percentages spent on "Police" and "Highways" will be meaningless.

But itemised breakdowns will spur the cuts agenda.

Jim Pickard tells us "Labour has been convulsed with in-fighting..."

And now the anti-Ed Miliband backlash has created a backlash of it's own - this article on the Financial Times website by Jim Pickard tells us "Labour has been convulsed with in-fighting..."

This perpetual oscillation of assertion and condemnation involving high-command honchos, hectoring hacks and diesen heil'gen has-beens can be very bewildering to ordinary members of the public.  How much weight shall we give to Margaret Hodge; has Caroline Flint moved into her post-Blairite self-reinvention; what can we read into Tony Blair's refusal to comment?  It's like the apocryphal story where two work colleagues leaving their company set up e-mail redirects that pinged off each other in a ceaseless interaction until eventually the server crashed.

http://blogs.ft.com/westminster/2013/09/lord-mandelson-comments-prompt-backlash-from-labour-figures/

China and the supposed "golden age"

The Today programme this morning had an interesting discussion on China and the supposed "golden age" immediately after the 1949 revolution.

Both contributors to the discussion agreed that it was only a relative golden age (relative compared to the horrors that went before).

We still know far too little about current affairs in China.

Every week Dateline London discusses the Middle East.  Every single week.  You would think that the Middle East was the only region of the world that mattered.

I would prefer less focus on the Middle East and more awareness of China, India, Brazil and Russia - these are countries that are relevant to the United Kingdom.

"Listed" architects

On the Building Design website is an article on post-war listed buildings by Elizabeth Hopkirk illustrated by a photograph that shows twenty-four of the country's living "listed" architects (the buildings are listed, not the architects).  Only one of the architects is a woman.

Which makes me wonder if brutalist architecture would have taken such a hold in the United Kingdom if the architectural profession had been more gender balanced.

The article quotes Terry Farrell saying:  "“There was a lot of rubbish built in the 1950s. I worked for the LCC and there were far more mistakes made then because people were reinventing without testing. There were an awful lot of flaws — technical as well as social".

http://www.bdonline.co.uk/news/brutalism-was-a-freak-says-architecture-tsar/5061193.article

Nick Faith writes about a new research group to be set up by Policy Exchange:  http://www.conservativehome.com/thinktankcentral/2013/09/from-nickfaith82-why-policy_exchange-is-setting-up-a-black-and-ethnic-minority-unit.html  and also http://www.policyexchange.org.uk/advancedmodules/bme-research

Can I ask who is funding this new unit, who has set the criteria, and what are their motivations for doing so?

And is it a genuine attempt to understand this demographic sector or an exercise in gathering facts and stats to support a thesis that has already been written?

I do not understand why Policy Exchange is respected.  The organisation is associated (in varying ways) with idiot savants such as Danny Finkelstein, Nick Boles and Chris Yiu.  In many ways it is an indication of where things have gone wrong.

It's started...

Former Labour Deputy Prime Minister Peter Mandelson criticises Ed Miliband's speech:  http://news.sky.com/story/1146596/mandelson-criticises-miliband-energy-plan

We are living in a world where the Official Opposition has an Opposition.

Presumably Mr Mandelson will be asked to explain himself on Newsnight this evening.

And also:  http://news.sky.com/story/1146596/mandelson-criticises-miliband-energy-plan (on her Twitter site Diane Abbott MP, a Shadow Public Health Minister, referred to the Mandelson intervention as "The Blairites rattle their chains..." - which suggests that she visualises the Blairites as the ghost of Labour past).

Why was Paul Mason doing a report from Athens on Channel 4 News this evening?

He is meant to be Culture correspondent.

Is he now a jack of all trades?

Is Channel 4 run on such a shoe-string that correspondents have to double up?

Is it like that episode of Fawlty Towers where Basil Fawlty appears to be doing all the different jobs in the hotel himself?

Is Paul Mason a Culture correspondent?  Is he a Foreign correspondent?  Does he know how to make a Waldorf salad?

It's started...

Since yesterday afternoon there has been an upbeat mood among lefties following Ed Miliband's great speech.

But now it's started... the Blairite backlash:  http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2013/09/25/milibands-speech-vacating-the-centre-ground/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Fringe meeting

At next week's Conservative Party conference look out for the British Future (sic) fringe meeting:

"At the Conservative conference we are co-hosting an event entitled ‘Future Majority: Can the Conservatives win in a changing Britain?’, with ConservativeHome. Speakers include Margot James MP, Stourbridge; Eric Ollerenshaw MP, Lancaster and Fleetwood; and Alok Sharma MP, Reading West. This event will be chaired by Ian Birrell."

Let us remind ourselves of the premise underlying this meeting:

1  There has been a tremendous influx of "vibrantly diverse" immigrants into the United Kingdom, especially under the last Labour government (whether this influx was legitimate or illegitimate we shall leave on one side for the time being).

2  There is nothing that can be done about this influx.

3  Vibrantly diverse communities vote Labour as they see the Labour Party as protecting the interests of vibrantly diverse people.

4  Vibrantly diverse people hold the balance of power in a significant number of marginal constituencies.

5  The Conservatives will have to wake up to this fact and "attract" vibrantly diverse voters or be consigned to increasing irrelevance as population changes and on-going immigration gives Labour a permanent majority (this has happened in America so the argument goes, and it is happening here).

This is of course a form of blackmail, and giving-in to blackmail is always wrong.  It is also a shameless parade of anti-democratic justification-after-the-event since the arrival of the vibrantly diverse influx was against the wishes of the majority who were not consulted in this re-engineering of the population.  And finally it is a bogus exercise in wish-fulfillment since the Tories can offer all the bribes they like to the vibrantly diverse people they will never vote for them (such is the level of hatred for "Tory scum" stirred up by Labour in the BME communities).

We are of course where we are.

It might be true that immigration has advanced to such a point that it has tipped the balance of power.

However I doubt it.

My thoughts:

Despite Labour's gerrymandering most immigrants are natural Conservatives, and often are not enamoured by the pro-immigration extremists on the left - it is possible that a proportion will vote for us anyway if we leave them alone (whereas overtly attempting to canvass their votes will invite jibes of "coconut" among the left's agitators in the BME communities).

The worst thing we could do is get into a bidding war with Labour over who can buy the BME communities since Labour has no reticence in splurging public money to buy block votes and this is an area where no Conservative would want to go.

The success of UKIP in Labour areas indicates that the Labour Party can potentially lose as many (or more) votes from the white working class as they gain from the BME influx, and by taking a hard line on immigration the Conservative Party can attract these disaffected voters.

In conclusion, it is true that the arrival of the BME influx presents problems for society, but this can best be countered by offering a policy of assimilation to new immigrants (complete assimilation so that new families effectively "disappear" into the population within one generation) as opposed to Labour's failed policy of multi-culturalism and pandering to minorities which has led to isolation, alienation and an inter-communal blame game.

http://www.britishfuture.org/events/

According to the Toronto Star the United Kingdom is expected to be a target for Somali Al Shabab terrorists:  http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2013/09/24/kenya_mall_attack_the_training_of_a_terrorist.html

In many ways, Somali terrorists are already operating in London - a disproportionate amount of "black on black" violence is initiated by Somalis.

The commanding heights of British industry

Labour MP John McDonnell has just said on his Twitter site:  "If the energy companies cartel pushes up prices before 2015 and try to undermine Labour's price cap, just bring them into public  ownership".

Is it not wonderful to see the Labour Party embracing socialism once again!

State confiscation of land.  State confiscation of corporate profits (and let us not forget that most utilities are effectively owned by pension funds, so a grab of profits will have a direct impact on pensions).  And now Labour stalwart John McDonnell is advocating a programme of nationalisation of the commanding heights of British industry!

Will Ed Miliband be wearing a donkey jacket at Remembrance Sunday next month one wonders.

In any case, if the energy companies were seriously interested in avoiding Labour's price cap all they have to do is lower prices before 2015 so it is no longer an election issue and the Tories get back in.

But sincerely, I am very glad Labour is moving to the left.

Ed Miliband

A good performance from Ed Miliband on the Today programme this morning.

His voice sounded hoarse, which added to the sense of gravitas (normally he seems to be swallowing his words, which always gives the impression that he is nervous and unsure about what he is saying).

"The cost of living crisis" seems to be the ground on which Labour is choosing to fight the next election.

This is a gamble, mainly because the average cost of living is definable in monetary terms and therefore easy to adjust (at least for twenty months or so) through taxes and subsidies.

I am surprised that no-one in the media seems to have picked up on Ed Miliband's statement that David Cameron brought in the "bedroom tax".  It was of course the last Labour government who brought in the "bedroom tax" for housing benefit tenants in the private sector - all the Coalition have done is made the requirement fair across tenants in both private and public housing.  Can someone please ask whether Labour is proposing to abolish the "bedroom tax" in both the private and public sectors? (and if for the private sector housing benefit tenants are they going to apologise for introducing it in the first place?).

Bonnie Greer:  "Labour needs to stop treating diverse communities (all of us) like vote fodder".

Ms Greer, if you behave like vote fodder you deserve to be treated like vote fodder.

Labour will never respect you.

They will take your votes and then ignore you.

Even by your own terms of reference Labour is not friendly to the diverse communities (however you are defining that).

Of course, you will have to keep voting for them - you have nowhere else to go given your extreme views on immigration.

But don't kid yourself they respect you.

https://twitter.com/Bonn1eGreer

Something to hide

Channel 4 News tried to ask Gordon Brown about Damian McBride but the former Prime Minister just turned his back and walked away (they showed this on the programme this evening).

He is still paid public money as an MP and should answer questions when they are put to him.

This is an issue of legitimate concern.

Presumably the word has gone out to Labour MPs to ignore any questions on Damian McBride.

As a PR strategy this is misguided.

It just makes them look as if they have something to hide.

He called him David Miliband instead of Ed!

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

Rafael Behr (writer for the New Statesman) was on the PM programme on BBC Radio 4 early this evening giving us his thoughts on Ed Miliband's speech to the Labour Party conference.

And he called him David Miliband instead of Ed!

How we all laughed! 

If a hardened Labour activist, writing for the most committed Labour mainstream publication in the country gets the Labour leader's name wrong what hope is there for name recognition among the rest of the electorate?

And this is not just an isolated incident - it's happening again and again.

It would be tragic if it wasn't so funny.

Oh, how we all laughed and laughed...

Ed Balls in his speech yesterday seeming to renege on the HS2 project

Much has been made of Ed Balls in his speech yesterday seeming to renege on the HS2 project.

This now provides a window of opportunity for the Conservatives.

We can say that because cross-party consensus has broken down over this expensive long-term project (originally a Labour initiative) we are putting it on hold while Labour makes up its mind.

We can accuse them of dithering, we can accuse them of short-termism, we can accuse them of starting things they are not able to finish, we can accuse them of wasting money on all the initial preparation work, we say same old Labour all talk and no delivery, we can say same old Ed Balls wanting to spend the same money over and over again in a let's pretend game of faux fiscal responsibility.

It will allow us to placate the rebellious Tories in the shires along the HS2 route.

It will allow us to shoot another of Nigel Farage's foxes.

It will loosen up a big pot of money to spend in the pre-election period.

Indeed we can argue it would be irresponsible to go forward with the project and put taxpayers' money at risk when Labour is chopping and changing and saying they might cancel it if they get back into power.

Was Damian McBride a uniquely bad person

Defensive interview by Harriet Harman (Shadow Deputy Prime Minister and Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport) on the Today programme this morning.  Defensive in a different way to Rachel Reeves - Ms Harman was more skilled at stepping sideways, more reasonable in refusing to answer, more sympathetic and helpful in tone while all the time stalling and stonewalling.  But when asked about HS2 she didn't say yes and she didn't say no; when asked about public versus private housebuilding she said on the one hand this but on the other hand that; and nothing (absolutely nothing at all) passed her lips on the subject of Damian McBride so that one wonders if she had told the interviewer she was not answering questions on such a divisive figure.

However the Daily Mail today does have quotes from the Damian McBride memoirs that mention Harriet Harman:  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2430226/Damian-McBride-reveals-spread-poison-Harriet-Harman-bottler-David-Miliband.html

The question one is bound to ask is:  was Damian McBride a uniquely bad person, a rotten apple that somehow fell among the wholesome and sweetly aromatic political fruit that was the Labour offering to the public under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown?  Or did the Blair/Brown environment create the conditions in which such evil was able to flourish and if it hadn't been Mr McBride spreading the poison it would have been someone equally as bad?  Indeed, one speculates whether they were all at it - all of them fighting and hating and doing each other down, and Mr McBride just happened to be slightly better at it than all the rest.

There is a serious point to all this.

Damian McBride was not just having a go at Gordon's enemies in the rough and tumble of the political round.

He was undermining Ministers of the Crown, including Secretaries of State and the Prime Minister.

How could they have been doing their jobs properly if they had to fight off internal attacks from the likes of Damian McBride?  Did this inferno of in-fighting have any impact on the efficiency of the Tony Blair and Gordon Brown governments?  Did this screaming, screeching, hate-filled war between the factions directly contribute to the economic collapse the United Kingdom experienced in 2008? (Rachel Reeves said on Newsnight yesterday that the banks were not being monitored properly, and she was gracious enough to apologise for this).

Is it not the case that Damian McBride was guilty (by words from his own mouth) of sedition? (still an offence when Mr McBride was operating - it was not removed from the statute book until 2009).

In a less forgiving age Mr McBride would not be sitting shameless and defiant in a Newsnight studio.

He would have been carted off to Tower Hill and his head would be on the chopping block (perhaps one of the quality newspapers might ask Hilary Mantel to assess Damian McBride from the perspective of the political thugs of the early Tudor period - and I look forward to the London Dungeon including a McBride tableau among their torture scenes and disembowellings).

That Damian McBride is a bad man.

He has done many bad things, some of which are likely to come to the attention of the police.

Rachel Reeves looked very defensive on Channel 4 News this evening

Shadow Treasury Chief Secretary Rachel Reeves looked very defensive on Channel 4 News this evening.  Asked several times by Cathy Newman about key aspects of Labour's economic record she just repeated mantras like a devotee at a Labour themed ashram.  She was also very uncomfortable at being asked about the Damian McBride horrors.

Some of the McBride outrages were recreated by Paul Mason in what must have been his first report as Channel 4 News "cultural" correspondent.  We saw furniture violently thrown about, a good deal of kicking, a wastebin hurled across a room.  Was this the sort of treatment meted out to ordinary office staff who roused the ire of Gordon Brown? (and not relevant to McBride, but I have always wondered what happened to the hapless "Sue" who set up the Gordon Brown / Gillian Duffy interview - can you imagine the temper tantrum she would have had to face).

Damian McBride will be interviewed on Newsnight this evening and I would imagine everyone who has ever had to face an office bully will be watching.

The available jobs that David Lammy is referring to

"Politicians have to be honest about fact that large numbers of people in the UK don't want to do some of the jobs available" David Lammy has told the Labour conference.

We have just under two and a half million people on unemployment benefit.

The Job Centre Plus network needs to direct individuals on unemployment benefit to the available jobs that David Lammy is referring to.  If the individuals refuse to do the jobs the benefit(s) should be suspended or stopped altogether.  "No work, no food" as they used to say in socialist Russia.

This is also the answer to the "we need millions of Bulgarians" argument written about by Daniel Boffey in yesterday's Observer:  http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/sep/21/bulgaria-uk-migrants-agriculture-benefit-tourism   

A titillating piece of nonsense

Totally bizarre review of a soap opera by Owen Jones, one of the left's supposed rising stars:  http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/reviews/review-downton-abbey-season-4-premiere--a-fascinating-insight-into-the-quiet-violence-of-the-class-system-8833120.html

Downton Abbey is an anachronistic work of fiction, written and produced by people who have no first-hand knowledge of the period in question.

It is a titillating piece of nonsense filled with errors, modernisms and highly fanciful scenarios.

For an Independent writer to take this rubbish seriously makes one wonder whether dumbing-down is adequate as a descriptor.

What next one wonders?

Steve Richards using Hollyoaks as a guide to the way we live now?

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown drawing sociological insights from the latest X-Factor?

When the Independent starts dropping its standards one fears for the future of the media.

"For a Prime Minister, his towel is surprisingly small" jeers Ed Balls in a return to macho politics.

Mr Balls ought to be advised that the Prime Minister has nothing to hide from the British people unlike the cover-ups, boastings and whopping exaggerations of the Labour party.

"If you push up housing demand without housing supply, prices go up and up and first time buyers struggle" Ed Balls tells the Labour Party conference.

Actually he should be honest enough to say if you push up immigration without housing supply, prices go up and up and first time buyers struggle.

The Labour Party DID abase itself

According to Len McCluskey "You should never ever try to appease the right wing media. To do so demeans you and our party".

The chutzpah of the left's collective amnesia is astonishing.

Does Len McCluskey not recall Tony Blair's co-opting of the Murdoch press?

Or Gordon Brown's courting of Paul Dacre and the Daily Mail?

This was when Unite was (and is) the Labour Party's chief source of finance.

Or perhaps Len McCluskey is being astonishingly candid with this statement.  Perhaps he is warning us from bitter experience that the Labour Party has abased itself in the past and should not do so in the future.  This would at least be honest of him.

For the Labour Party DID abase itself under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.  It abandoned every pretence of honesty and decency and legality to get itself into power and keep itself in power.  And then once in power dithered with indecision, not knowing what it wanted to do.

Experienced at what?

Steve Richards (Independent newspaper) said on the Today programme this morning that Ed Miliband was the most experienced Opposition leader of the post-war period.

Much as I like Ed Miliband I am bound to ask experienced at what?

Experienced at helping to run the country into the rocks financially?  Experienced at helping to spend all the money raised during the boomtime, and then helping to borrow even more?  Experienced at helping to promulgate a "no more boom and bust" policy that led to the biggest bust in history?  Experienced in helping to run a covert open door immigration policy that has shocked everyone who has considered the implications of what Labour has done?  Experienced at facilitating the unilateral signing of the Lisbon Treaty without the democratic endorsement of the referendum promised in the Labour manifesto?  Experienced at looking the other way and pretending not to notice while Damian McBride intimidated, persecuted and bullied colleagues in a farcical reprise of the career of Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria?

Ed Miliband is good news for the Labour party in terms of the intellectual reinvention of socialism, but this will not be ready for 2015.  To rush things now will risk the whole of the Miliband project falling into désuétude.  His value now is to make his party realise that they are at year zero and must forget all that went before in the diastrous Blair/Brown era.