Darfur Update

From everywhere.

African Union monitors have been trying to investigate the reported air attack on the town of Shangil Tobaya on Wednesday, where 100 people are believed to have died.

They were turned away by Sudanese soldiers on Thursday, an AU official told the BBC earlier.

Mr Pronk said observers could not get to the area because it is not safe. "We know that there are at the moment government military trucks driving in that direction," he told Focus on Africa.

He said government-linked Janjaweed militia had attacked around 40 villages in the area around Labado in south Darfur.

"Many villages around Labado are constantly being attacked - not with airplanes but by militia and these villages are being burned down and completely demolished," he said.

"Where the AU are present, they do not attack. The AU is doing an excellent job at the moment but they don't have enough people."

He described the militia as "loyal to themselves" whose objective is to "drive out all people who do not belong to their own tribes - mostly they are African tribes who are being driven out."

Never again, scar on conscience of world, etc etc.

UPDATE - Reader Gary writes

"Apparently, Bush is to blame for Darfur ... according to the Indie ...

"For the Blair government, a founding member of the International Criminal Court which has nailed its colours to the mast on Africa during its presidency of the G8 leading industrialised countries, it will be a moment to decide whether to stand up to the Bush administration."

China is only mentioned briefly at the end of the report, which is odd, because China has been the Sudanese government's "Special Friend" throughout the genocide. The EU is going to lift its arms embargo on China (the Indy does not mention this either!), in effect rewarding it for occupying Tibet, threatening Taiwan, and sponsoring the Darfur genocide (which is incidentally beneficial to Chinese oil interests).

Perhaps, it is not the US and Britain (the Indy seems to think that no other nations have any responsibility for anything, kind of ironic considering their attacks on US unilateralism) who should stop the Darfur genocide...perhaps it is China, which could easily end the killing through diplomatic pressure."

Mick Hartley also posts on Darfur and God Save The Queen on the disgraceful lifting of the arms embargo on China.

Money quote - "there are only two likely uses for any military hardware sold to China: internal repression or agression against Taiwan".

Charlotte Wyatt Update

Good Christian Justice Hedley has upheld the court-imposed (and doctor-inspired) 'Do Not Resuscitate' order upon sick baby Charlotte Wyatt, granted against the wishes of her parents.

So if Charlotte stops breathing the medics can go and have a nice cup of tea.

A further hearing 'before Easter' will hear new medical evidence, assuming Charlotte hangs on till then.

This case is not simply about one sick child, but about who is best placed to decide on the interests of that child. In 99% of cases this is, and should be, the child's parents.

The presumption, or default position, should always be in favour of preserving life, and in favour of parents as the arbiter of the childs interests. Only if these conflict should the law be called upon to decide.

One can imagine a case where the parents wished the baby to die but the doctors thought she had a good chance of survival. In such a case a call for a legal ruling could be justified. What must be far more common are cases where doctors and parents agree that resuscitation (aka 'aggressive treatment' in Newspeak) is prolonging the agony and ultimately hopeless. Fair enough.

Remember this case ?

"She described how, when doctors refused her pleas for Luke to be given an adrenaline injection and handed him to her so that he could die in her arms , she ransacked medical cabinets in Luke's cubicle to find oxygen.

Doctors also refused to administer this, she said.Though her son had stopped breathing, she gave him oxygen in a final bid to save him. "But it was no use, my precious little boy died in my arms," Mrs Winston-Jones said last night. "I was begging and pleading with them to save my boy, but they said no."

"I got down on my bended knees and begged and begged for Luke's life," Mrs Winston-Jones said. "I was weeping and saying: 'For the love of God, my baby is dying. You can save him, you know you can. There is nothing in the court ruling that prevents you giving him adrenaline. Save my little boy.' But the doctor wouldn't do it."


The arrogance of doctors and judges in believing that they understand a child's best interests better than her parents do is breathtaking. When their understanding is that the child is better off dead, and they have the power to enforce their decisions against the wishes of a parent, only words like 'evil' suffice.

Other posts on this issue here and here.

This'll Be Interesting

Charles Clarke is already starting to make David Blunkett look like a woolly liberal do-gooder. The courts having binned "Britain's Guantanamo" on the grounds that it discriminated between British and foreign subjects (presumably that's why our immigration laws also seem to be in abeyance), we are now presented with house arrest without trial.

Not just for Jordanian clerics and Yemenis who may have been backpacking in Afghanistan around December 2001 ('a friend asked me to look after his Kalashnikov. I thought it was a breed of dog ...'). British subjects will also be able to benefit from this radical new form of 'care in the community'.

In a Scotsman interview, an MP of whom I've never previously heard, Stephen McCabe, floated an interesting refinement.

Speaking after the Home Secretary, Charles Clarke, announced new laws to control the movements of terrorist suspects, Mr Clarke’s adviser, Stephen McCabe, told The Scotsman he saw this extending to other groups suspected of using violence to further their ends.

The Labour MP said: "We can envisage this applying to animal rights extremists and the far-Right, for example.

"These people are locked up because we believe they are a genuine danger based on what we think is pretty reliable evidence, even if it cannot be divulged in a court of law."

There can be no doubt that ALF and its cohorts are literally terrorists. Anyone who has followed events in Newchurch, Staffs, where an entire village is the target, will note that although no-one's been shot in the back of the neck yet, a classic feature of Soviet and Nazi terror is present - the targeting of relatives.

It is only in the last few days that Mrs Hudson has finally succumbed to the pressure and left her job after activists turned their attention to her children and grandchildren. Three vehicles owned by her children were sprayed with paint stripper, causing thousands of pounds of damage. Her daughter Jayne also received a letter which warned: "If your mother doesn't quit within one week we can't be responsible for what is going to happen to you - so can you please display these yellow cards in the bedroom where your children sleep."

Yet even in this case the police and courts could stop the terror if they wanted to badly enough. Stake out the village at night with infra-red cameras and the SAS if need be. Photograph every car 24/7. Exemplary (maximum) sentences when you nail someone. You don't need house arrest - you just need the political will to actually enforce the existing law. Which they won't do.

The far right is a more interesting case. As far as I know no areas of England live in fear of BNP members bricking their windows/digging up their grandmothers/severing their power lines. All over the country ethnic mnority people live in fear of gangs of unpleasant, violent and foul-mouthed youths, but so do many natives. That's British culture, not far-right politics.

The measures include restrictions such as house arrest, curfews and electronic tagging, a ban on telephone and internet use and restrictions on who they can speak to.

A couple of months ago police arrested the BNP leader in connection with some unpleasant speeches by various unpleasant Bradford BNP members. As part of this investigation into traditional far-right practice (one of the Bradford people was filmed boasting of putting excrement through letter boxes) they took away Mr Griffin's computers.

Now I may be naive, but it's unlikely that the police were hoping to find the following Nick Griffin email.

'Hi Dave - Nick here. It'll really help us if you could put some excrement through Mr Hussein's letter box."

The police operation had all the hallmarks of a politically inspired trawling operation. Rather than investigating known wrongdoing by Mr Griffin, they were looking for evidence of unpecified wrongdoing which might enable charges to be brought. My bete noir Rod Liddle had more to say on this in the Spectator (registration required) a while back.

The BNP uses technology effectively, having the most popular website of any UK political party. I wonder if the government is thinking in terms of 'take the leadership, admin and web people away from computers and job done' ? (In passing, an arrest has been made after the BNP site was taken out by hackers least year. The alleged hacker comes from North-East Scotland - Caberfeidh country).

Watch this space - and also watch organisations like Liberty get in a twist as they defend the ALF and Captain Hook but turn the Nelsonian blind eye if the BNP are banged up. After all, if they wouldn't defend poor old Harry Hammond, they're unlikely to do much for Mr Griffin.

What's tragic in the long term is that the government will be destroying precious historical liberties for no good reason (and it would have to be a pretty damn good reason - like World War II).

As the Native Brit population declines, and natives become the minority in more and more areas, politics will almost inevitably become split on ethnic lines. The demographics are still pointing all one way, the Tories are unlikely to win this year and less likely to make major changes if and when they do ever win.

So in 20 years or so there'll be a nativist British party, representing a substantial proportion, if not a majority, of the native English. The only question is what the name of that party will be.

It may not be the BNP. It may be Veritas, or UKIP, or English Nationalist. It may even be the Tories, but it's unlikely. By the time they wake up to the fact that, with 80% of ethnic minorities voting Labour, natives being the minority in the major cities, and inward migration unchecked, they may never recapture urban seats, they may have been fatally compromised in the eyes of native voters.

So harassing the BNP is only delaying the inevitable, destroying liberty, and probably making some people pretty cross. 'After all, they locked us up without trial'.

Remember the destruction of our education system and the collapse of Brit culture. Will the Big Brother generation's kids care who's locked up, or what for, as long as there are TV cameras pointed at them ? People like Peter Hitchens, banging on about an Englishman's liberty, the Bill of Rights and 1688 will seem, as they do now, like survivors of some forgotten age.

It occurs to me that the browsing surfer may see this post as being pro-BNP, the happy days of 'I disagree with what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it' being long past. My student generation are in power and 'no platform for fascists' applies.

I can only quote (approximately) from Mr John Wyndham, whose sci-fi book 'The Kraken Wakes' will have been read by many of my generation.

"If I should mention, as a matter of course, that autumn follows summer, that does not mean that I am all for getting a ladder and pulling the leaves off the trees".

Not Auschwitz

Maidanek



From this site.

(if everything's blank, it may be that the site is having bandwidth problems today).

More NHS Investment

In his economics text 'Eat The Rich', P.J. O'Rourke distinguishes between the four different ways you can spend money.

1) you spend your own money on yourself. You look for quality and value.

2) you spend your own money on other people. You still look for value, but quality's not so important. That's how I got given Ewan McGregor's 'Long Way Round' for Christmas (£11.99 at Tesco. I don't think my sister-in-law reads this blog. Read Ted Simon's Jupiter's Travels instead).

3) you spend other people's money on yourself. Quality - and don't worry about the cost.

4) you spend other people's money on other people. Any old thing will do - and who cares what it costs.

O'Rourke remarks "Unfortunately, most government spending falls into this last category. This is how the grateful citizens of the Soviet Union got Chernobyl."

And it's how the NHS got this.

(Pity the BBC have updated the page. In a fine example of Dumb Britain, Baluchi was originally described as an 'imminent psychiatrist'. Just about to qualify, perhaps ?)

UPDATE - that spoilsport Anthony at Black Triangle mails me to mug my beautiful post with a gang of brutal facts - chief among them the fact that the BMA, which accepted this taxi-driver as an eminent psychiatrist, is a self-regulating (i.e. private) body.

While I'm presuming that the taxpayer stumped up most of the million-odd pounds the guy made as an expert witness in asylum cases, that's an asylum issue rather than an NHS one.

While I'm in penitential mood, it's only fair to point out that a large amount of the expenditure of large corporations is category 4 cash - people spending other people's (the shareholders') money on other people. Which may be how the citizens of Bhopal got the Union Carbide plant.

Executive pay levels in said corporations are category three expenditure.

Hang On In There Baby

Remember Charlotte Wyatt ? The little girl who doctors at Portsmouth NHS (No Hope of Survival) Trust wanted to be left to die if she stopped breathing ?

She's now 15 months old. Her parents are applying for the 'do not resuscitate' injunction to be lifted.

Portsmouth NHS are still doing their best though.

"Relations between the family and the hospital remain tense. Doctors are not convinced that Charlotte has shown significant improvement. Darren Wyatt is allowed to visit his daughter only if accompanied by a security guard."

Family-friendly or what ?

Yesterday Carol Glass, a friend of the Wyatts, said: “Doctors said Charlotte would not live to see her first birthday and that was months ago. The hospital then said she was unlikely to make it through the winter months, but we are now a good way through.
“Charlotte should not have this ‘do not resuscitate order’ left hanging over her. She could now live on with the right treatment. Her parents Darren and Debbie want her to be treated and are hoping that one day she will be able to go home with them.”

Carol Glass should know. She literally had to fight the doctors to save her son's life.

A “Do Not Resuscitate” (DNR) order was put in the first applicant’s medical notes without consulting Ms Glass.

The following day Ms Glass found that her son’s condition had deteriorated alarmingly and was worried that this was due to the effect of diamorphine. The family demanded that diamorphine be stopped. Dr W. stated that this was only possible if they agreed not to resuscitate David. However, the family tried to revive David and a fight broke out between members of the family and the doctors. While the fight was going on, Ms Glass successfully resuscitated David.

Police were summoned to the hospital. Dr W. and Dr A. and several police officers were injured and all but one of the children on the ward had to be evacuated.

David’s condition improved and he went home on 21 October 1998 .

Several of David's family were imprisoned for preventing his death. David is still alive.

Immigration - The Guardian Gives You The Facts

"Now consider the (Michael Howard's) advertisement. It talked about "millions of people in other countries who want to come and live here. Britain cannot take them all." It suggested Labour supported unlimited immigration, which it does not".

Guardian leader, 24/01/2005



Blunkett: no UK immigration limit

David Blunkett has said there is "no obvious limit" to the number of immigrants who could settle in Britain last night, but added that there needs to be a "balance" between "different forms of entry, migration and residency".

Asked if there was a maximum population Britain could house, he replied: "I don't think there is".

The Guardian, 13/11/2003

Holocaust remembrance boycott

I'm not a big fan of Hypocaust Memorial Day. After all, we didn't do it - the Germans did, with some help from assorted Poles, Letts and Ukranians.

As commemorated in Britain's schools, it's an opportunity to point out to the Natives that saying bad things about asylum seekers marks you out as a potential cattle-truck-packer. As such all good multiculturalists should support it.

"British Muslims are to boycott this week’s commemoration of the liberation of Auschwitz because they claim it is not racially inclusive and does not commemorate the victims of the Palestinian conflict.
Iqbal Sacranie, secretary-general of the Muslim Council of Britain, has written to Charles Clarke, the home secretary, saying the body will not attend the event unless it includes the “holocaust” of the Palestinian intifada."

It's true - there is no mention of the Jenin Massacre, when millions of Palestinians were killed in a deliberate act of genocide.

UPDATE - Blognor Regis has an interesting link on the Mufti of Jerusalem's wartime trip to Berlin - which also throws a sidelight on why the Bosnian Serbs weren't too keen on the Croats or Muslims (but which doesn't justify their atrocities in post-Tito Yugoslavia).

BBC Bias Part 219

Michael Howard has called for limits to immigration. How do the BBC present this story ? Here's the headline :

Tories accused of 'desperation'

First paragraph:

Lib Dem leader Charles Kennedy has accused the Tories of desperation as they signalled that immigration would be central to their election campaign.

There's a pattern here. When a proposal fits the agenda the Beeb present it straight. When it offends liberal sensibilities the (negative) reaction - rather than the proposal - becomes the headline.

There's a lovely little example here.