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.

OECD's Pisa 2012 exams

According to OECD's Pisa 2012 exams the United Kingdom is ranked 26th for maths, 23rd for reading, 21st for science.

This has led to anguished calls from what Denis McShane MP calls "the left-lib educational commentariat" that the United Kingdom should do more to emulate the way things are done in Shanghai and Singapore.

One aspect of our system that would not be tolerated in Shaghai or Singapore is the existence of teacher training courses where the academics are ideologically committed to a "comprehensive" template of education regardless of what politicians, parents or taxpayers want.

No would they tolerate a unionised teaching profession which protects (indeed embeds) incompetent teachers and gives them complete job security no matter how lazy or stupid they are.

The Promenade de Verdun

A government press release refers to the sacred soil of the First World War battlefields:  https://www.gov.uk/government/news/flanders-soil-arrives-in-britain

My thoughts went back to the summer when I walked around Purley Garden Estate and saw the Promenade de Verdun which also incorporates sacred soil from a Great War battlefield.

Above:  the Promenade de Verdun was designed by William Webb when he laid out the estate and was intended as a tribute to the fallen French soldiers who died at the Battle of Verdun in 1916.

Above:  a sign talks about the sacred earth that was brought from France and mixed with British soil as a symbolic foundation for the memorial.

Above:  the avenue of Lombardy poplars stretched off into the distance, the afternoon silent, the summer air fragrant.

Above:  at the end of the promenade was the memorial - a simple obelisk.  Made of granite, so it will endure for centuries.  The sense of peace at this spot was almost overwhelming.

Lots of people jumping on the Tom Daley bandwagon.

I suppose a good journalist can turn anything into money.

Turnip Prize

I am sure that Jon Snow referred to "the Turnip Prize" on Channel 4 this evening.

I am sure that's what he said.

But perhaps I was just projecting onto his words what I wanted him to say.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-25175225

Boris Johnson, by referring dismissively to people with an IQ of 85, may have made the same mistake as Sir Keith Joseph when he called for birth control for social classes 4 and 5.

People don't like this kind of talk.

And in any case, the idea that the Conservative Party would have two Old Etonian leaders in a row is ridiculous.

http://fc95d419f4478b3b6e5f-3f71d0fe2b653c4f00f32175760e96e7.r87.cf1.rackcdn.com/6B8B539B1E9A4FC6A543A22F8002B75E.pdf

Nineteen Twenty-One by Adam Thorpe

Have just finished reading Nineteen Twenty-One by Adam Thorpe.

The narrator is a weedy intellectual Oxbridge student called up right at the end of the Great War, the war ending before he is actually posted to the trenches.  Too cowardly to reveal himself as a lefty pacifist, he is injured during basic training, and thus unintentionally acquires the status of a war combatant.  Discharged from the army he retires to a broken down cottage in the Chilterns to write what he hopes will be the defining war novel.

Except that the drafts he produces are rubbish, inauthentic and pretentious.

Realising he needs inspiration he goes on an organised tour of the battlefields, which in 1921 still have much of the detritus of war in place.  Thousands of others are also visiting the former trenches, looking for the graves of family killed in the war.  The narrator falls pathetically in love with a young woman looking for the grave of her brother, and has a sordid affair with a middle-aged German woman looking for the grave of her son.

Throughout the novel characters appear who illustrate some aspect of the First World War - a farm labourer whose genitals have gone (and drops his trousers for a fee); a Chinese worker in France who shows him the "hand of General Haig" (in a deep dugout a skeletal hand that protrudes from the mud wall); a vast ossuary filled with unknown bones and open to the public who line up, dressed in black mourning clothes, to visit what might possibly be the remains of someone they once loved.

"We've still got it in the bone, the war.  It went too deep.  It's still in there, right in there, inside.  Right in the marrow.  Even those who are getting born, now, it's in them too."

Incoherent

Ian Birrell writes an incoherent article about immigration in today's Guardian:  http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/29/end-gutter-debate-britains-immigration-policy

The hostile climate to immigration today has been caused precisely because for decades the establishment having been showing "leadership" by ignoring the democratic will of the ordinary people (in every test of opinion since 1945 the overwhelming majority have said they want immigration to stop).

You do not have to talk to many people to gauge the exasperation and anger that politicians still don't get the message.

What is it going to take Mr Birrell?

How far do you and the rest of the smug self-satisfied elite intend to provoke the people?

Or perhaps you think you can provoke the people as much as you like as they will never turn on you?

"Sordid", "stinking", "rancid" - these are all words I would use about your article Mr Birrell.

Jackie Long on Channel 4 News is usually a professional and competent interviewer.

But this evening when she talked to someone who had made a film about House music she came across as very wooden.

The teenage interviewee was saying "whatever" out loud, but you could see that the same sentiment was going through Jackie Long's mind.

Sweeteners

Article in The Independent by Jenny Pennington writing about foreign students in the United Kingdom:  http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/immigration-stats-are-bad-news-for-the-government-but-worse-news-for-britain-8970577.html

The giveaway line is "Sweeteners include the ability to stay on in the country to gain work experience for a few years or to support themselves by working alongside their studies."

Sweeteners indeed.

What these colleges and universities were effectively saying under Labour was: "bung us several thousand pounds and sit through our courses for a few years and we will sell you British citizenship at the end of it".

This went on for years under Labour.

A rotten and corrupt and evil government.

Skedaddle

"Seeking refuge is not a crime" says Ellie Mae O'Hagan (Centre for Labour and Social Studies).

What would have happened in the Second World War if, instead of organising to fight tyranny, huge numbers of the British population just ran away and sought "refuge" in America?  If in occupied France the Resistance stopped resisting and crept away to Quebec?  If in occupied Poland the freedom fighters left the forests and sneaked away to some neutral country where they insisted on their right to "refuge"?

The vast majority seeking "refuge" in the United Kingdom should be back in their own countries fighting for a better life for everybody.

Not practising an I'm-alright-jack me-first-sod-the-others skedaddle to a cushy "refuge" in the West.

Thank goodness Theresa May is in the Cabinet and able to talk sense on this issue: 

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/politics/5291652/immigration-britain-eu-soared-past-year.html

A lie by Heather Rolf

Referring to an article about immigration (by Malcolm James and Naaz Rashid) Heather Rolf, Researcher at NIESR, writes on her Twitter page "In 2004 migrants were largely welcomed to the UK. Now xenophobia is shaping the debate."

This is a lie by Heather Rolf.

She cannot produce any evidence from 2004 (or any other year post-1945) showing that the ordinary people welcomed migrants, despite many surveys on the subject being commissioned.

You are a liar, Ms Rolf.  You have no business passing yourself off as a serious researcher.  And by telling such an absurd lie you have rather made a fool of yourself.

The article by Malcolm James and Naaz Rashid:  http://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/malcolm-james-naaz-rashid/romanian-and-bulgarian-migrants-it%E2%80%99s-not-immigration-but-xenoph

The severity of neurological experiments on monkeys

On the Today programme this morning the issue of experiments on animals was discussed, and Dr Jarrod Bailey told us "the severity of neurological experiments on monkeys has been routinely underestimated."

The solution would be to require live broadcasting (available on the web) of all experiments on animals as a condition of the licences for such experiments.

One can say with a fair degree of certainty that the experiments would then come under immediate democratic scrutiny and control.

The same requirement of live broadcasts could be applied to abbatoirs - an area which has a dubious record in humane treatment of animals.

Jon Snow interviewed the Romanian ambassador on Channel 4 News this evening, discussing the migration of Roma people from the Balkans to the United Kingdom.

And yet he failed to ask about persecution of the Roma in Romania.

Rubbishy journalist is he not?

David Cameron is destined to achieve greatness

The Today programme led this morning with the news that David Cameron is to seek to curb the free movement of people in the EU.



Financial Times:  http://www.ft.com/cms/s/add36222-56be-11e3-ab12-00144feabdc0,Authorised=false.html?_i_location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fcms%2Fs%2F0%2Fadd36222-56be-11e3-ab12-00144feabdc0.html%3Fsiteedition%3Duk&siteedition=uk&_i_referer=http%3A%2F%2Ft.co%2FfkqgJ7zIb0#axzz2lpwe6JUG


A few weeks ago Andrew Rawnsley wrote in the Observer a rather slighting article about the supposed vacuity of David Cameron's premiership:  http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/17/david-camerons-convictions  


I have never doubted that David Cameron is destined to achieve greatness.    He will seek, in good faith, to negotiate with the EU to achieve those objectives desired by the ordinary people (an end to free movement and the dumping of surplus labour in the United Kingdom; an end to "ever closer union"; an end to arbitrary "directives" imposed without the agreement of the Westminster parliament).  He will meet obdurate opposition and the talks will break down.  He will call a referendum on the EU and will go down in history as the Prime Minister who reaffirmed our sovereignty and led us out and into the world.  


I am not opposed per se to the idea of EC membership (EU is going too far) but in the unlikely event that the negotiations are successful and are approved by the electorate I think we need to introduce the safeguard of a principle of continuing assent to membership, with a scheduled referendum every ten years. 

Kenan Malik on the subject of diversity and immigration

Article by Kenan Malik on the subject of diversity and immigration:

http://kenanmalik.wordpress.com/2013/11/25/in-defence-of-diversity/

In 2,785 words he does not once mention the democratic right of the majority to decide who they share their country with.

And yet this is the key to the whole issue of immigration.  Get democratic consent for immigration Mr Malik and you can have as much as you want.  The counter argument is that without democratic consent none of the immigration that has occurred in the post-war period is legitimate, including Mr Malik your own arrival and continued residency in this country (I hope you will forgive me for being so personal, but you have been highly provocative in your article and I wanted to be equally provocative).

Quoting examples of Victorian and Edwardian immigration is irrelevant as the United Kingdom was only a partial democracy, and the ordinary people were unable to control who came into the country.

The disgrace has been the post-Second World War period when every test of public opinion has said NO to immigration and it yet it continues to happen, and the bogus argument advanced that this is just some elemental force that no-one can control (German military "immigration" into the United Kingdom in the period 1939 to 1945 was very successfully controlled - indeed, absolutely stopped).

Interviewed on the Today programme this morning Nicola Sturgeon told us that negotiations between an independent Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom would be guided by what was best for all parties.

It is ironic that a nationalist should advance this opinion.

Ms Sturgeon should know, as a nationalist, that nationalism is not guided by rationality.