Underclass News

Those two sadly-departed organs of the State, the Coppersblog and Inspector Gadget, frequently opined that they spent too much police time on the psychodramas of the local underclass - Shayne would complain that Wayne was harassing her by text or on Facebook just because she'd been with Dwayne, Wayne would counter-complain etc etc. It was very hard to establish who was telling the truth and nine times out of ten would lead to "no further action".

This seems to be spreading to people who actually work for a living. A worrying trend.

It could of course be a sign of the End Times. 

It's Just Like The Crucible, Isn't It ?

The BBC (and Newsnight**) are in the doo-doo because of Jimmy Saville*.

It's getting out of control, everyone saying that everyone else should be investigated, so they turn round and point the finger elsewhere.

"If I'm bad, look at him!"













* FWIW, back in the 70s, a nurse at St James's in Leeds told me "all the nurses know not to let him get you alone in a stock cupboard". But there are a fair few blokes like that in the world.


** Were the BBC right to pull the Saville prog after all ? The magnificent Anna Raccoon rips the story open - better than anything you'll read in the press or see on TV. Turns out she was a resident at one of the children's homes where JS allegedly did dirty deeds. Seven posts - "Past Lives and Present Misgivings" - exhausting/riveting to read, what must they have been like to write? And I note that a 14 year old Anna was quite a character then, too.

OK, what happened at Hillsborough ?

I asked this question at CiF last night only to be deleted immediately. Some facts are obviously not as sacred as others.

There seems to be an awful lot of heat but not much light around - enough that I still can't establish from the media coverage what actually happened that day.

The version I had in my head (doubtless influenced by various police leaks) was - large numbers of p****d-up Scallies, some without tickets, turned up shortly before kick-off, things looked nasty outside the ground, and the officer in charge opened the gates, condemning many people inside to an awful death. I didn't have any ideas that the people inside were anything but victims of a most unfortunate (to put it mildly) decision.

And that's pretty much what the interim Taylor report said - with the exception that the police opened the gates not because they feared for public order but because they feared crush deaths outside the ground :


64. Meanwhile, the crowd grew at the Leppings Lane entrance. As more arrived at the back the crush at the front grew worse. Entry to the turnstiles became more difficult. Their efficiency was impaired and their rate reduced. Arrivals at the back exceeded deliveries through the turnstiles, so the build-up increased. The foot officers outside were unable to function and in danger themselves so they went through the turnstiles and out again through gate C where they did what they could to relieve pressure by the tubular barrier. The mounted officers were surrounded by the dense mass of people and became ineffective. Superintendent Marshall was in the midst of the turmoil. He extricated himself and stood on a parapet of the bridge to get a clear view. A drunken fan tried to push him off: a beer can was thrown at a mounted officer. But these were isolated acts by individuals; the menace came from the massive numbers single-mindedly determined to be in for the kick-off with time running out. At the back of the crowd fans were frustrated by the lack of progress as 3 o'clock approached. Some, mostly young men who had been drinking, tried to push and force their way forward. At
the front, people were jammed together and against the turnstile walls. Some panicked as the pressure intensified. Some youngsters and women were fainting and in distress. They were helped out through the tubular barrier by turnstile G or were passed over the turnstiles elsewhere. Fans climbed up and over the turnstile building or on to the dividing fence. This was to escape the crush rather than to gain free entry since most of them had tickets.

65. At 2.44 pm Mr Marshall radioed for reinforcements, for the Tannoy to request the crowd to stop pushing and for a vehicle with loudspeaker equipment to come and request the same... The Tannoy was used but with little effect. Reinforcements, including mounted officers from Penistone Road, were sent. The third request, for a Landrover, was received direct by its driver PC Buxton who arrived at 2.46 pm and urged the crowd by loudspeaker not to push. This was no more effective than the Tannoy. The mounted officers besieged near the turnstiles came outside the perimeter gates. An attempt was made to shut them against the crowd outside, to enable the throng inside to be dispersed or at least thinned through the turnstiles. The pressure from without, however, opened the gates again. Mounted officers, now reinforced to greater numbers, formed a cordon across the elbow of Leppings Lane from the sweet shop to the bridge, again with the object of reducing pressure inside the gates. They were successful in this for some minutes despite desperate individuals forcing their way under or between the horses. However, this exercise was overtaken by a more dramatic relief of the pressure.

"Open the Gates"
66. Between 2.40 pm and 2.45 pm the crowd inside and outside the turnstile approach had swelled to over 5,000. At the head of the phalanx conditions had become intolerable. Those who got through were short of breath and sweating profusely. Many complained to police officers on the concourse inside the turnstiles and asked them in forceful terms to do something. Exit gates A and B were being shaken. It was clear the crowd could not pass through the turnstiles by 3 pm. Police Constable Buxton radioed from the Landrover to control asking that kick-off be postponed. The suggestion was acknowledged but rejected.

67. Superintendent Marshall realised the crowd had become unmanageable. Although loth to do so, since it was contrary to basic police strategy, he decided to request the exit gates be opened to relieve the pressure. Otherwise, he feared fatalities would occur. Other senior officers outside the ground agreed. At 2.47 pm he radioed control to permit the gates to be opened. At 2.48 pm, whilst Mr Duckenfield was considering the request, gate C opened to eject a youth who had climbed in with no ticket. Immediately, fans outside took advantage and about 150 managed to get in before a mounted officer enabled the gate to be closed again. Mr Marshall repeated his request. Still no response from control. He repeated it a third time, adding that if the gates were not opened someone was going to be killed. In the control room, Mr Duckenfield had not made a decision. Mr Murray asked him "Are you going to open the gates?". Mr Duckenfield gave the order and Sgt Goddard radioed to Mr Marshall "Open the gates". Neither the Club control room nor any police officers inside the turnstiles were told of this order before or after it was given or of any action it would require.

68. At 2.52 pm, gate C was opened wide.

Now the new improved report is out, and I've glanced through it, but I've been out most of the evening and it's 354 pages. OK, can anyone tell me what evidence has emerged to revise the above picture?

I couldn't find any but it's quite possible I've missed it.

(Every national newspaper, the House of Commons and the BBC tell me that this report totally changes our view on what happened. So they must be right.)

Britain - Terror Spreads Following Reports of "Failed Coup"

Sud-Deutscher Zeitung, London : There are reports from London tonight of increasing repression, following what has been described in ruling circles as a 'failed coup' by Ruprecht von Murdoch and Obergruppenfuhrer Brooks, the rabble-rousing, charismatic leader of the feared "red-tops", paramilitary wing of Murdoch's 'Neues Internazionale' (NI) organisation.

Brooks' 'red-tops' muster several million fanatical working-class readers, and have increasingly been seen as a revolutionary threat to the aristocratic ruling elite, who have held power behind the scenes through different political administrations. It is believed that Brooks was shot this afternoon after her arrest yesterday, but this is not confirmed. What is known is that mass arrests continue, and that the bodies of a number of senior NI personnel have been discovered.

In an increasingly violent and hysterical speech this evening, a haggard but triumphant HochGuardianista Reichsgräfin von Toynbee, propaganda chief of the ruling elite, called for further action against enemies in the press. "Murdoch - kaput ! Brooks - tot ! Jetzt muss der Daily Mail auch kaput werden !" The whereabouts of the leader of the 'TagesPost' or Daily Mail faction, Paul Dacre, is giving increasing cause for concern - he has not been seen since he was bundled into a car by unknown assailants as he left work yesterday. The newspapers premises were cordoned off by armed police yesterday, following the replacement of the capital's Chief of Police by a nominee of the ruling party, and journalists are said to be 'too frightened' to attempt to enter their former workplace.

As reprisals become more indiscriminate, it appears that elements in the ruling faction are taking the opportunity to pay off old scores. It was reported this afternoon that the body of Margaret Thatcher, who as Premier suppressed the so-called "Scargill putsch" in 1985, has been found in woodland near Beaconsfield.

Queen Abdicates As Crisis Spreads

LONDON, July 18 - The Queen of England and the United Kingdom today announced her decision to abdicate, following the 'Millygate' phone hacking scandal which has seen a number of prominent individuals step down from their posts.

In a short statement released by the Palace today, the Queen said : "The recent revelations have saddened me more than I can say. I have always tried to do my duty by this country, but on this occasion I have fallen short of the high standards the country rightly expects. It would be wrong to hide behind the fact that I did not know - I ought to have known. It happened on my watch, and the buck stops here - at Buckingham Palace".

Earlier in the day the governing body of English cricket, the MCC, announced that they were to disband themselves - a spokesman saying that "In the current climate, when such appalling disclosures have been made, it is unthinkable that we should continue to devote ourselves to what is in the end only a game. As token of our most earnest and sincere contrition, Lords is to be demolished and the outfield sown with salt."

"He That Will Not When He May, When He Will He Shall Have Nay"

I confess that I haven't a clue why Cameron suddenly pronounced the death of multiculturalism - which death took place on 7/7 and has been previously announced by Labour (and even Trevor Phillips). A problem - maybe the problem - with David Cameron is that when he makes a pronouncement on pretty much any subject, the first thought is not 'what's in it for me?' or 'what's in it for us/Britain?' but 'what's in it for him?'.

A/c/t the Green Party "Mr Cameron’s aim is simple as it is crude - to deflect the anger against his government’s cuts from the bankers and onto the Muslim community" - a theory rather undermined by the following "The prime minister is aping attacks by other European leaders like France's Nicolas Sarkozy, who passed legislation banning the veil, and Angela Merkel, who has also made statements denouncing multiculturalism in Germany." Now call me naive, but thought Germany was doing rather well in the credit crunch, and didn't need to deflect anything onto anybody. The French haven't done too badly either - their main economic worry being the performance of the Euro periphery. Maybe they had reasons which weren't concerned with finding scapegoats.

Three observations from a look at the transcript:

1) Cameron (or his speech-writer) is completely signed up to the post-Cultural Revolution settlement.

"So we should properly judge these organisations: do they believe in universal human rights – including for women and people of other faiths?"

"Frankly, we need a lot less of the passive tolerance of recent years and a much more active, muscular liberalism. A passively tolerant society says to its citizens, as long as you obey the law we will just leave you alone. It stands neutral between different values. But I believe a genuinely liberal country does much more; it believes in certain values and actively promotes them. Freedom of speech, freedom of worship, democracy, the rule of law, equal rights regardless of race, sex or sexuality. It says to its citizens, this is what defines us as a society: to belong here is to believe in these things."

Hmm. So if you're a Christian couple running a bed-and-breakfast, you should get back wherever it was you came from.

2) It's a funny old liberalism that says "to belong here is to believe in these things". Even in the days of Good Queen Bess, when practicing the wrong religion could lead to the stake or the block, she made no windows into men's souls regarding their beliefs. I thought that "as long as you obey the law we will just leave you alone" was pretty much the contract that Old England made with the subjects of the Crown, saving only times of national emergency - almost the definition of what it was to live in a free country .

3) the rest of the speech was pretty anodyne, once you've swallowed Cameron's remarkable insights into where Islam ends and political ideology begins. I had no idea he had studied these issues so deeply. The man's a second Hazel Blears ! Only a far-left or Green Party activist could take serious issue with most of it. You never know, he may even believe some of it, and be (as some in the Labour Party appear to be) genuinely concerned for social cohesion.

IMHO it's a bit late for that. All the Cameronian Highlanders aren't going to undo the work of the last 13-odd years, let alone the 30 before that. Over large areas of our cities (and smaller areas of our towns) there's no native culture left to assimilate to. If Cameron thinks that Human Rights Culture aka 'The Religion Set Forth By The Prime Minister' is going to unite anyone when push comes to shove, I fear he's sadly mistaken. The chances of developing a new, over-arching culture, inclusive enough to include a myriad subcultures and ethnicities, is long gone. That's why Trafalgar Square, heart of what was formerly the capital city of England, was full of Kosovans stabbing each other on Thursday afternoon :

"Violence broke out when rival groups of Albanian-Kosovans, armed with knives and hockey sticks, began to fight in one of London's most popular tourist destinations. Officers arrived at the scene on Thursday to discover running brawls between what is thought to have been Albanian-Kosovan gangs, gathered to "celebrate" the third anniversary of Kosovo's independence.

Groups of Albanian-Kosovan teenagers have met on Kosovo National Day as a "show of force" for the last couple of years. "It usually results only in fist fights rather than stabbings but it is hard to concede that this event was spontaneous because it seems that people came armed with necessary tools to commit a serious assault," said a source."

Hmm. Does that come under 'equality for all before the law', or 'equal rights regardless of race, sex or sexuality', Mr Cameron ? I can't but think the bar has come down on the Cameronian dream, if dream it be - and it came down a good many years ago.

"He that will not when he may, when he will he shall have nay".

We had a perfectly good British culture once, half a century back and before, which covered three-and-a-half nationalities - but as the half (Ireland) could witness, it was not a perfect relationship even when all components were Christian and all looked pretty much the same. And, imperfect as it was (although it was functionally pretty effective), it was forged over centuries of dispute and struggle. The results of future disputes and struggles are IMHO unlikely to look like Cameron's script. How long did Gordon Brown's script last?

"Free speech has no place in our society where the BNP are concerned..."

"... and this shows with the backing we receive from the prime Minister, David Cameron and other influential politicians who realise democracy is to fragile to be left in the hands and words of the nazi BNP.

Well done to the Police, shame you had no cause to lock him up."

This post by Dr Jason Sturgess at Saddleworth News refers to the hustings for the forthcoming Oldham West by-election, held in the fine old village of Delph, which I tootled through on my L-plated bike many a time in my youth, on that long ride from Worcestershire to Yorkshire (via EU Referendum). I think I'll let you be the judge on this one. More reports here and here :




BNP candidate is removed from 'open' hustings in Delph.

Dear Readers,
I was in email contact with Cllr Hulme who organised the event and he refused to invite 5 of the candidates included myself. I informed him that the meeting broke Electoral commission rules on hustings, the Millgate Arts Centre building recieves public funding and the meeting was advertised as an open event. The people of Delph should have been allowed to ask any questions to any of the candidates, in controlling the meeting like they did and only allowing on candidates whose parties are already discredited with scandals, deceit and lies was an insult to the people of Saddleworth and anti-democratic. Cllr Hulmes reasons were unjustified and when he lost the argument his emails reverted to All capitals and in bold ie, shouting in text language.
Stephen Morris English Democrats

Delph website disagrees :

After comments about the conduct of the Hustings Meeting held on sunday 9th January, the following statement has been issued by the Delph DCA & Traffic Group :

"Setting the record straight.

No hustings or candidates question time in this constituency has EVER had all the candidates on the platform and there is no legal requirement to do so. On Thursday night the Oldham Chronicle organised a question time with just three candidates on the platform.

It is simply not practicable to hold a question time with more than 5 speakers and with 10 candidates a choice has to be made. On Sunday the three main candidates were joined by the Green candidate Peter Allen whose party has a councillor on Oldham Council and Paul Nuttall the UKIP candidate who is also an elected member of the European Parliament for the North West.

The BNP candidate asked for and was given tickets to be part of the audience at the event. Unfortunately the candidate and his supporters organised a 'sit in' protest which disrupted the start of the meeting, their behaviour threatening a breach of the peace. Having repeatedly refused polite requests from the organisers to end their 'sit in' protest on the platform and return to their seats in the audience , the organisers had no alternative but to ask the police to escort the BNP candidate and his entourage from the building.

The organisers would like to thank the police for the calm and professional way they dealt with a difficult situation.

Delph proceeded to have a cracking election meeting which was lively, entertaining and informative.

We have to wonder why the BNP picked on a small village community group when as far as we know the Oldham Chronicle received no complaints from them about the candidates meeting they organised in Denshaw last Thursday night.'

Delph Community Association and Delph Traffic Group are non-political community organisations. No Councillor from any political party was involved in the organisation of this event"

I doubt that statement about never having all the candidates together is true. For years Oldham was a two-member constituency with usually only four candidates, and in the 50s Oldham West only had two candidates. Did they never sit in the same room ?

Candidates are :

* Debbie Abrahams (Labour)
* Derek Adams (British National Party)
* Kashif Ali (Conservative)
* Peter Allen (Green Party)
* David Bishop (Bus-Pass Elvis Party)
* The Flying Brick (Monster Raving Loony Party)
* Loz Kaye (Pirate Party of the United Kingdom)
* Stephen Morris (English Democrats)
* Paul Nuttall MEP (UK Independence Party)
* Elwyn Watkins (Liberal Democrats)

At the last election :

General Election 2010: Oldham East and Saddleworth[9]
Party		Candidate	Votes	%	±%
	Labour	Phil Woolas	14,186	31.9	−10.7
	Liberal Democrat	Elwyn Watkins	14,083	31.6	−0.5
	Conservative	Kashif Ali	11,773	26.4	+8.7
	BNP	Alwyn Stott	2,546	5.7	+0.8
	UKIP	David Bentley	1,720	3.9	+1.8
	Christian	Gulzar Nazir	212	0.5	N/A
Majority			103	0.2	−10.2
Turnout			44,520	61.2	+4.4

Word Of The Day

"Insinuendo" - Edwin Greenwood's description of the media coverage of the unfortunate (presuming his innocence) Christopher Jefferies.


UPDATE - the Mirror says his favourite poem is this - the story of a man who was hanged for cutting his wife’s throat !

But the Mail reports that he loved Christina Rossetti - and Rossetti often wrote about death !

All I can say is, he's lucky he's not teaching now. My son's GCSE syllabus includes Robert Browning - and one of the poems is Porphyria's Lover - an everyday tale of a psychopath strangler.

Gun Club Chairman "Had Guns" Shock Horror

OMG !!

Residents on a quiet suburban street were stunned when police found an arsenal of weapons including guns, missiles, grenades and rocket ­launchers.

Armed officers and an Army bomb squad uncovered more than 30 ­firearms in an early-morning raid on a semi-detached house in Worcester.

People watched in disbelief as police also carried out stocks of shells and ammunition.

How could someone amass such a collection?*

The owner of the property, gun club chairman Graham Lane, 65, was arrested on suspicion of possessing an illegal firearm and bailed. Neighbours said they had seen him wheeling a cannon out of the house. Yesterday he insisted all the weapons are fully licensed and only used for historical battle re-enactments.

I see. Could it be perhaps that the chairman of a gun club might own guns?

I don't know why, but I'm reminded of this story.

Hundreds of guns have been found in a semi-detached house in one of the Metropolitan Police's biggest ever weapons seizures.

Pump-action shotguns, M16 rifles, revolvers and antique firearms were among weapons seized during raids on three properties in Dartford, Kent.

The owner of said guns, dealer and historic weapons expert Mick Shepherd, spent ten months on remand before being acquitted on all charges. As far as I know, he's still not been compensated for those months inside and the Met still haven't returned all his property. As you might expect, he's not too chuffed about it and has a very low opinion of the Met and Operation Trident. According to the comments left on my blog post, the media had been alerted to the raid and a Sky News helicopter was overhead as they went in. The front page of the London Evening Standard screamed of the ‘Biggest haul of illegal guns in Met history’. The Mirror called it an ‘Arsenal of Murder’, and newspapers were briefed that the raid was linked to four North London murders.

What's provoked the raid on Mr Lane?

Speaking after being released from police custody, he said: “There are other matters ongoing with the police at the moment but I do not want to talk about them.”

Oh dear. I do hope someone at West Mercia isn't bearing a grudge on some unrelated matter. Alas, these things can happen - it wouldn't be the first time.

One of Mr Lane's children has commented as follows :

"My father is absolutely no threat, not a nutter and has complete confidence that all of his weapons will be returned. It's just unfortunate that his hobby is guns and militaria instead of stamp collecting!

I believe it was a "tip off" from someone (who may have done this before to my father with no success and which hadn't been publicised). Due to the lack of result the first time around, it appears that they've tried again a few months later. Hopefully that person will now be prosecuted for wasting police time.

The bomb squad was called in for a WWII hand grenade which they had found..this was a great toy of mine when I was growing up...of course it was completly deactivated (like all of his collection)...he was going to make it into a table lighter, but didn't get around to it.

The cannon shells were filled with sand and not explosives. Dad didn't want them falling over on anyone whilst giving his cannon demonstrations..the Police were very disappointed to find out it was sand and not powder...

The way this has been sensationalised is very disturbing. My father takes his hobby and his Chairmanship very seriously and has never advertised the fact that he holds firearms due to safety and security reasons. Unfortunately, now thanks to the press, that's no longer the case and anyone and everyone could easily track down the house....that is far more of a safety and security threat than my father will ever be!"

*And will the 'missiles' and 'rocket launchers' mysteriously disappear, as did the 'rocket launchers' and 'nuclear protection suits' did in the (admittedly completely different) case of Mr Robert Cottage?

Journolist - a Real Liberal Conspiracy

via Ed West at the Telegraph, this story :

In the heat of the presidential campaign, videos surfaced of Obama’s pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, angrily denouncing whites, the U.S. government and America itself. Obama had once bragged of his closeness to Wright. Now the black nationalist preacher’s rhetoric was threatening to torpedo Obama’s campaign.

The crisis reached a howling pitch in mid-April, 2008, at an ABC News debate moderated by Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos. Gibson asked Obama why it had taken him so long – nearly a year since Wright’s remarks became public – to dissociate himself from them. Stephanopoulos asked, “Do you think Reverend Wright loves America as much as you do?”

Watching this all at home were members of Journolist, a listserv comprised of several hundred liberal journalists, as well as like-minded professors and activists.

And they didn't like it - so did something about it.

According to records obtained by The Daily Caller, at several points during the 2008 presidential campaign a group of liberal journalists took radical steps to protect their favored candidate. Employees of news organizations including Time, Politico, the Huffington Post, the Baltimore Sun, the Guardian, Salon and the New Republic participated in outpourings of anger over how Obama had been treated in the media, and in some cases plotted to fix the damage.

In one instance, Spencer Ackerman of the Washington Independent urged his colleagues to deflect attention from Obama’s relationship with Wright by changing the subject. Pick one of Obama’s conservative critics, Ackerman wrote, “Fred Barnes, Karl Rove, who cares — call them racists.”

Michael Tomasky, a writer for the Guardian [my emphasis] also tried to rally his fellow members of Journolist: “Listen folks–in my opinion, we all have to do what we can to kill ABC and this idiocy in whatever venues we have. This isn’t about defending Obama. This is about how the [mainstream media] kills any chance of discourse that actually serves the people.”

Calling a political opponent a racist ? Hmm, worth a try. Not been done before.

"Discourse that serves the people". Very Soviet. But as Andrew Breitbart puts it : 'the reporters at Pravda weren't such insufferable ******* !"

More Flag-Flappers

Remember Gordon 'Union Jack' Brown ?

Remember when 'Britishness' turned out only to apply to England ?

It looks as if our rulers are giving up on 'Britishness' and worrying more about 'Englishness'. John Denham MP on England :

"the next election will be determined by which party has the most convincing story about our society and our country. Who has the most convincing tale about where we have come from: and the most positive and optimistic story about where we go next."

So it's all a matter of good PR, you see. The trouble is that the most convincing tale about where we have come from will definitely not provide a positive and optimistic story about where we go next.

These stories work because we have a sense of who we are; what our society represents. Put a different way, people ask politicians to pass the ‘people like us’ test.

Keep digging.

"... at once progressive and patriotic ... Billy Bragg ... Morrissey ... multi-ethnic identity ... white working class ... disconnect ... zzzz"

This is the nub. Been here before, of course.

The problem of multi-culturalism was not its insistence on respect for those of different cultures, or of their freedoms to express themselves as they wish: it was the neglect of the glue that binds us together; it was the failure to recognise a multi-cultural society can only work if there is equal engagement and activity in building and developing shared values and the framework of a shared identity which enables us to be multicultural within a cohesive society.

Or to put it another way, the problem of multi-culturalism comes when people don’t have shared values and identity. In other words, one common culture.

Someone tell me - what does ‘multi-’ mean again ?

PS - one of the comments at Socialist Unity - you can see the confrontation here :

At yesterday’s confrontation, the EDL demo was composed overwhelmingly of young working class men. The UAF demo consisted mainly of palpably middle class students.

Which group is “our class”?

Another comment :

It was said the EDL chanted at UAF ‘you're not English anymore’, and this much to Mark P’s annyance is actually true. Once you become a socialist your first self identity is as a worker, part of an international class, that has more in common with workers from abroad than with bosses here.

I wouldn't mind that so much were it true. But the trouble is, the UK left mostly "has more in common with workers from abroad than with workers here."

"I'm in the global justice squad, and we've been working on human rights in Burma"

I suppose the only surprise is that it's taken so long to get there. Perhaps "citizenship" had to be made compulsory first.

"It is easy to become complacent about equality and diversity, just ticking the boxes," he says. "The Stephen Lawrence Standard takes monitoring very seriously, constantly checking on students' involvement, the work going on and its results."

The original award was quick off the mark after the 1999 Macpherson report recommended such strategies in all education authorities, but Edwards points out: "Quick is a relative term. Remember Stephen Lawrence was murdered in 1993."

There are 12 criteria in the toolkit all schools are now being urged by Balls to adopt, including mandatory anti-racist training for staff and governors, a written equality policy, and individual checks on successes and setbacks for minority pupils. The system has three levels, from standard 1 to the top, standard 3.

There'll always be room for initiatives like this in schools, but don't expect to see any like this over here, btw :

The study appears in the February edition of Archives of Paediatrics and Adolescent Medicine. It was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health and involved 662 black children in Philadelphia. The students were assigned to one of four options: eight hour-long abstinence-only classes; safe-sex classes; classes incorporating both approaches; or classes in general healthy behaviour. Results for the first three classes were compared with the control group that had only the general health classes.

Two years later, about one-third of abstinence-only students said they had had sex since the classes ended, compared with about 49%of the control group. Sexual activity rates in the other two groups did not differ from the control group.

Valerie Huber, executive director of the National Abstinence Education Programme, said she hoped the study would revive government interest in abstinence-only sex education. The research was led by psychologist John Jemmott III, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, who has long studied ways to reduce risky behaviour among inner-city youngsters.

(My views on the undoubted evil of racist murder are here. I need to post this for the benefit of any readers who might presume, quite reasonably, that the MacPherson enquiry had good cause to declare the Met 'institutionally racist'.

In fact, no credible evidence of police racism was brought before the MacPherson enquiry, which was precisely why they invented the hitherto unknown concept of "unconscious or unwitting" institutional racism.

The MacPherson report was the high-water mark of liberal white idiocy in relation to race. Never before have so many educated English breasts been beaten for so much non-existent racism. It's not as if there's a shortage of the real thing.

I'd recommend people to take a look at the paper "Racist Murder and Pressure Group Politics" by Norman Dennis, George Erdos and Ahmed Al-Shahi, available as a pdf download from Civitas.

It's top stuff, well-written and an easy read. I'll just quote the summary.


The public inquiry set up under the chairmanship of Sir William Macpherson sometimes had the appearance of a judicial proceeding, but in many crucial respects it departed from practices which have traditionally been regarded as essential in English law. Rules of evidence were modified and witnesses were harassed, both by the members of the inquiry team and by the crowd in the public gallery. Representatives of the Metropolitan Police were asked to ‘confess’ to charges of racism, even if only in their private thoughts. They were even asked to testify to the existence of the racist thoughts of other people. It is part neither of the English judicial process nor of English public inquiries to put people on trial for their thoughts. The proceedings bore some resemblance to the Stalinist show trials of the 1930s.

However, no evidence of racism on the part of the police was ever produced. There was no attempt to show that the Metropolitan Police Service was racist in the sense of being formally structured to put members of ethnic minorities at a disadvantage. Nor was any evidence produced that individual officers dealing with the murder of Stephen Lawrence had displayed racism, unless one includes the use of words like ‘coloured’ which are currently out of favour with professional race relations lobbyists. No evidence was produced to indicate that the police would have handled the investigation differently had the victim been white.

In spite of this, the Macpherson report found the Metropolitan Police, and British society generally, guilty of ‘institutional’ or ‘unwitting’ racism. This claim was justified by referring to ‘other bodies of evidence’ to that collected at the public inquiry, including a list of publications consulted which in many cases had nothing to do with the Lawrence case, and sometimes nothing to do with the UK at all.

Some of the Macpherson report’s proofs of racism were circular and self-reinforcing. To question whether the murder of Stephen Lawrence was a purely racist crime was, in itself, adduced as evidence of racism. This was despite the fact that the suspects had been accused of violent offences against white people and were heard, in tape recordings made of their private conversations, to express violent hatred against white people. The tape recordings were quoted selectively, and this crucial fact does not appear in the Macpherson report.

The Macpherson inquiry, unable to find evidence of racism, produced a definition of racism that at first glance absolved it from producing any. It switched attention, in one direction, away from racist conduct and towards organisational failure. The ineffectiveness of the police had (purportedly) been demonstrated. That ineffectiveness concerned a racist crime. Therefore the ineffectiveness was due to police racism. It switched attention, in the other direction, away from observable conduct, words or gestures and towards the police officer’s ‘unwitting’ thoughts and conduct. But how could the Macpherson inquiry know what was in an officer’s unconscious mind—except through the failure of the police to be effective in the investigation of a racist crime? This definition puts charges of racism outside the boundaries of proof or rebuttal.

The Macpherson report has had a detrimental impact on policing and crime, particularly in London. Police morale has been undermined. Certain procedures which impact disproportionately on ethnic groups, like stop and search, have been scaled down. The crime rate has risen. Nevertheless, the Macpherson report has been received with almost uncritical approval by pundits, politicians and academics. It is still routinely described as having ‘proved’ that the police and British society are racist.)

Cognitive Dissonance Alert Part 492

Lawrie Penny takes issue with Simon Jenkins on the vexed issue of whether in a liberal democracy Christians can be allowed to self-organise, brilliantly parodying those who accuse secularists of 'liberal fascism' :

"Because she's an eeeeevil feminazi, OMG"

"All liberals R Nazis!!*$!"

"This whiny attempt to curry favour with the chain-smoking wingnut libertarian contingent of Guardian readers just makes me want to stub out a fag in your face, Simon."

If you want a picture of the future, imagine a cigarette being stubbed out in Simon Jenkins' face - forever.

UAF/EDL - Nottingham

Someone who went to the demo as an observer and took a fair bit of video here :

"....when discussing the EDL he was pretty adamant that the entire organisation were guilty by association with the more extreme element, yet when talking about the Muslim community his opinion was that nobody could have a complaint against them in general, only against very specific extremists. You can't have it both ways, demanding exceptions for your favourites and making generalisation about your enemies; either you're biased, or you've extra information that you're not sharing."

I agree with the general point. If you can't tar community A with the brush of the bad things some of their members have done (killing and injuring hundreds of people with bombs on buses and trains, for example, or in the case of some less competent members trying to), then you can't reverse the logic and use outliers of community B as typical of everyone in community B. Let's have some consistency here.


Someone of my age who joined the UAF protest here :

...we started to look for demonstrators among the crowds of shoppers, Goths, stall-holders, army families and British Legion members.

I spotted a small group of badge-wearers near the stone lions of the Council House. Cautiously I scanned the badges. This was just as well. They included a small enamal badge with the figures "18". It could have been an advertisement for a lucky Lotto number but I doubted it. I've known for years about the Combat 18 code by which 18 stands for A.H., or Adolf Hitler. There seemed some irony that a badge-wearer combined his "18" badge with a Churchill "V for Victory" badge, but I decided not to stay and point this out.

We wandered past the stalls of Neapolitan treats and olive oil and the British Legion veterans holding huge flags. Eventually someone ran up to us. "Anti-fascist demo?" he enquired. "Other end of the square."

I've Never Seen Anything Like It In My Life

I've managed to avoid posting on it so far, but I cannot believe the amount of coverage the BBC are giving the BNP this week. I don't think I've heard a single news bulletin since the weekend where they didn't get a mention. Some kind of mass hysteria seems to be sweeping the liberal psyche - a moral panic on a grand scale. Could McCarthy's America or seventeenth-century Salem top this?

Today it ranged from Laura Janner Klausener (any relation to Greville ?) on Thought For The Day :

For me, a helpful way to understand conflict is to think in terms of perpetrators, victims and bystanders. In the context of provocation by extremists, we know who'd be the perpetrators and who'd be the victims but most crucial are the bystanders. The bystanders will be the spectators at home, watching "Question Time", some may be cheering, or others tutting and shaking their heads. Some may want to switch off completely.

There's certainly only one anointed victim for tonight's entertainment. Didn't the Fall have a record called 'Live At The Witch-Trials' ?

And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat, and shall send him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness:

And the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited ...

I digress. From that, to - at lunchtime - Victoria Derbyshire on R5 asking some hapless BBC executive words to the effect of 'will you be able to sleep in your bed at night knowing you've facilitated all the racist attacks which are going to happen" ?

The salivating ex-decents of Hebden Bridge are doomed to disappointment, I fear.

Tonight in the pub, by no means a bastion of bigotry, nevertheless much chat from sundry locals about Nick Griffin appearing tomorrow on Question Time. Much was seriously depressing. He "has a point" say people I have thought were decent. Many, it seems, will be watching with anticipatory glee.The ratings are likely to go through the roof- for entirely the wrong reasons.

My money is on the whole thing being called off after a series of bomb scares. Martin McGuiness wasn't at the Labour Conference for his health, you know.


UPDATE - Telegraph live-blogging includes this spot-on quote from Conservative Home's Tim Montgomerie.

7:23pm Conservativehome director Tim Montgomerie tells Sky that the only thing that will undermine the BNP is a mainstream party which opposes unbridled immigration.

More Telegraph - Richard Preston (any relation?) :

"Only hours to go now until the fascist takeover ..."

Oh dear

The story of Noor Ramjanally, abducted and threatened by BNP thugs for the crime of leading Muslim prayers in an Essex community centre, was all over the left blogs a week or two back. And indeed, as MacGonagall might put it, if it were true, it would indeed be sad.

Those commenters who reckoned it was a put up job were given short shrift as jackboot-wearing apologists for etc etc. I was agnostic - had no idea one way or other of the truth, so "lay low and said nuthin'".

Alas for human frailty.

A Muslim community leader who claimed he was kidnapped from his home at knifepoint and dumped in woodland after a BNP hate campaign has been arrested for perverting the course of justice. Noor Ramjanally, 36, alleged that he was abducted by two men, bundled into a car boot, driven to Epping Forest in Essex and ordered to stop his religious work. The BNP had been accused of whipping up racial tensions in the area after it issued an inflammatory leaflet about Mr Ramjanally's Islamic community group - the first in Loughton.

His alleged ordeal became a cause celebre among the Muslim community both locally and nationally after it was reported in the national press. Recalling the supposed abduction, he said: "I have got the whole UK Muslim community behind me now. I am not just on my own." And after the alleged arson attack, high-profile community figures, including Loughton Mayor Ken Angold-Stephens, religious leaders, teachers and members of the police attended the hall where he holds prayer sessions in a show of support.

Compare And Contrast

"The sentence today reflects the seriousness of the offences"

Thus a police officer (Humberside Police head of diversity and community cohesion Adil Khan) on the conviction of Simon Guy Sheppard and Stephen Whittle, who got four and a half years and two years respectively for 'publishing written material to stir up racial hatred'. The paper doesn't say what they actually did, but the BBC report that :

One leaflet claimed that Auschwitz had not really been the location of industrial mass murder but had been, instead, a holiday camp provided by a benevolent Nazi regime for Europe's Jewish population. Jonathan Sandiford, prosecuting, told the jury that it held up survivors of the Holocaust to "ridicule and contempt", accusing them of lying about the genocide of six million Jews. Another story was illustrated with photographs of dead Jews. Sheppard also wrote that Holocaust victim Anne Frank's diary was "evil".

Now they don't sound like very nice people, or indeed the sharpest knives in the drawer. But should they be imprisoned for being unpleasant about the Shoah and its victims, vile though their sense of humour seems to be ? Apparently not :

Reviewing lawyer Mari Reid, of the Crown Prosecution Service's counter-terrorism division, said members of the public were entitled under the law to hold racist and extreme views.

But ?

But she added: "What they are not entitled to do is to publish or distribute those opinions to the public in a threatening, abusive or insulting manner either intending to stir up racial hatred or in circumstances where it is likely racial hatred will be stirred up."

Me no understand, doctor. I'm presuming there was no threatening involved. Threats or incitement are criminal acts in themselves. There's presumably little doubt that what they wrote was abusive and insulting - though in that case why is the Devil still at large ? I can see how you might distribute something to the public in a threatening manner - attach to brick and hurl through windows, for example. But how do you publish something on the Web in a "threatening, abusive or insulting manner" - hit the 'enter' key with a hammer ?

It appears that it's perfectly OK (legally, I mean) for them to hold their thoughts in their heads - but an imprisonable crime for them to share them with third parties.

Yet others, who seem to non-lawyer Laban far closer to public acts of incitement (well, how do you interpret 'take that homosexual and throw him off the mountain' ?) seem to escape censure - indeed, it's those who bring such statements to wider attention who end up being investigated.

Most odd. But I digress - it was another double standard that got me :

Two Nepalese men have received three-year prison sentences at the Old Bailey today, for the manslaughter of Esher waiter Bishal Gurung last year.

Morden residents Rocky Gurung, 21, from Haig Place, and Kemik Thakali, 21, from Legion Court, both pleaded not guilty to murder during the trial last month but were found guilty of the manslaughter of the 23-year-old waiter.

During the trial, the court was told Bishal Gurung, who worked at the Sherpa Kitchen in Esher High Street, was chased along the Thames Embankment by a gang of 10 to 15 men including Rocky Gurung in the early hours of April 13, 2008, after being falsely accused of hitting Kemik Thakali with a bottle during a boat party to celebrate Nepalese new year.

He was kicked and beaten before being rolled into the Thames by Rocky Gurung and Thakali, the court was told.

Right. A guy with some unpleasant obsessions and (to put it gently) debateable theories publishes them - four and a half years. A mob chases an innocent man, beating him, kicking him and throwing in a river to drown - three years.



It used to be that talk was cheap and life was precious in this country. No more.



More double standards. Do you remember when lots of young black people were being shot in English cities, and Blunkett got tough ?

UK firearms laws are to be tightened as a result of an unacceptable increase in "flagrant gun use", said Home Secretary David Blunkett.

The changes - which come just days after two teenage girls were killed at a Birmingham New Year party - will see a mandatory jail sentence of five years for gun possession.

So the law was 'toughened' - and, to cut down on the number of black youths being shot in London, gun enthusiasts from Bromsgrove to Wrexham were banged up. The Wrexham guy got four years for the empty revolver in the drawer at his Mum's house.

Five years later the prisons were chocker and the whole thing was a bit more nuanced :

A Ministry of Justice spokesman said: "The mandatory five-year term for possession of a firearm is a starting point. Judges must then take aggravating and mitigating factors into consideration when determining the final sentence." He added: "Sentencing in individual cases is a matter for the courts."

I see. 'Mandatory' means whatever the judge thinks is proper. And now what's this :

Two men have been jailed for a total of more than eight years for drugs and firearms off-ences.

Munir Hussain, 28, was jailed for five years and six months and Kab Khaliq, 25, was handed a three-year term when they were sentenced by judges in separate cases...

Khaliq, of Barkerhouse Road, Nelson, was arrested by officers from Pennine police’s targeted crime team who executed a search warrant. They discovered a black hand gun, four rounds of ammunition, £700 of cocaine and £1,600 of heroin. At Preston Crown Court, Khaliq was jailed for possession of a handgun and possession of class A drugs with intent to supply.

So you've got the gun, bullets, smack and coke - and get only three years ?

My first thought was that Khaliq must have been 'helping the police' - but then the so-called 'Mr Big' only got five. I wonder if the answer lies with the judge ? According to these posts the judge in one of the trials (doesn't say which) was Beverley 'Let 'em all out' Lunt.

UPDATE - Samizdata :

The state only regards people stating their extreme opinions as "incitement" if they belong to ritually abominated groups like white racists, whose extreme views must be punished because there is no political cost to doing so. For groups who actually throw bricks when the cops come calling, well, stating their extreme views is treated rather differently.

This is hardly new of course. Incite violence with words, but be unlikely to actually do anything, well you might well go to jail... actually kill people over many years, ah, that eventually gets you invited to help govern. No? I have two words for you: Sinn Fein.

Last time I called Britain a police state, I was dismissed as overheated because, after all, I can run this blog and state my contrary opinions, so this is hardly a police state.

Yet were Simon Sheppard and Stephen Whittle not just jailed for running a website on a US server (just as Samizdata is on a US server)? If you cast your eyes back through our archives, you will find we have on many occasions called for this or that group to have fairly violent things done to them (Ba'athists for example... and certain Wahhabi folk on occasion too... and certain Serbian nationalists)... and I suspect trawling through the archives of the Daily Telegraph would turn up articles 'inciting' not just 'violence' but calling for full blown wars.

Well it is now clear that we can say what we think, not by right as 'freeborn Englishmen' (hah!) but rather at the sufferance of the likes of Adil Khan and the whole apparatus of thought control that people like him represent. They do not feel the urge to come after us because we are not unpopular enough, although I doubt they like folks like us suggesting they prose a vastly greater threat to liberty and, gasp, "social cohesion" than a couple comically wacko racists.

Have you seen this being hotly debated in the media? Even a little? Pah. So much for the fearless and 'essential' media guardians of our liberal western order.

"A Beacon of Holocaust Excellence"

Told you so. But even I didn't think they'd take it to this extreme. The Germans don't, and they were the ones who committed the crime, with help from assorted Eastern Europeans. This blog, on Shoah Memorial Day last year :

As long as our rulers feel that we need to be reminded of the evil of the Mail or Sun's views on asylum and immigration, the drum will continue to be banged and schoolchildren will continue to make unpleasant remarks to German exchange visitors ...

Our government are worried about how all the different tribes in the UK will get on. Hence the dire warnings. Strangely, they seem convinced that it's the natives who are most at risk of packing cattle trucks or doing some quick machete work. I'd disagree.

They could of course try to reverse, or at least slow down, the tribalisation of Britain - by which I mean the proliferation of disparate ethic/religious/cultural groups with no common culture - surely not a recipe for harmony in Kenya, Kent or Kathmandu. But I think an increased "educational" effort in the schools is far more likely.

TES :

Hundreds of schools across the country are to become specialist centres of Holocaust education under a national scheme launched today.

The plan, which will be rolled out in 300 schools, forms part of the new £1.5 million Holocaust education programme run by London University’s Institute of Education.

As The TES revealed in November, the Holocaust Education Development Programme will provide extensive specialist training for 3,500 teachers - one from every secondary in England.

The first cohort of 150 will attend a one-day workshop in London at the beginning of November and a second workshop three weeks later. This will be followed by similar sessions in Liverpool. The training will then be introduced across the country over the next two years.

From these teachers, 300 will be able to follow up their training with a masters degree module in Holocaust education. Their schools will then become designated beacons of excellence in the subject.

But they still won't know what 'despot' means.

Hmmm ...

Not noticed this chap (parental advisory - foul language) before, but ...

"Griffin - I will not grace you with the honorific 'Mister', which applies to members of the human race - YOU, and your cabal of ***** are the ones who are not British. You have no concept of what the word means, no sense of responsibility to this country. Your deluded, vile, racist leaflets harken back to the awful days of the Reich's 'Nuremberg Laws'.

You and your ilk are the ones who don't deserve the right to exist in this country. One day, I fervently wish you get your own Nuremberg moment. I'll even pull the lever myself."

Er ... are you wishing that he actually carries out a genocide and starts a war that kills 50-odd million people ?

Or do you want the trial and punishment without the bother of finding any evidence ?

Just asking.




(and will people stop using the female pudendum as a term of abuse ? Just asking.)

Chalk One To Mr Fawkes

Fair do's. Our taxes are paying this slug's salary. And what do we get for it ?

McBride goes on to suggest that the website should spread rumours that pictures exist of Osborne “posing in a bra, knickers and suspenders” and “with his face ‘blacked up’ ”.

“He wouldn’t be the first student to do some cross-dress-ing at university. But . . . why would a student in the late 1980s black up his face for the amusement of friends in their private college rooms? This in the era when young Tories wore ‘Hang Mandela’ T-shirts.”

In what is perhaps the most vicious section, McBride suggests spreading rumours about the mental health of Frances, Osborne’s wife, following the furore over his discussions with a Russian oligarch during a party on a yacht last summer.

I must say Frances looks rather a sweetie, much as I'm prepared to believe the worst of her husband, who always seems to come across as a public school bully in the Commons. Take a horsewhip to him, George, and I swear I'll join the Tories.