It's A Dog's Life

For country park wardens - unless they're voyeurs. A survey of country park wardens has revealed that exhibitionists calling themselves 'doggers' are an increasing problem at Britain's country parks - not the traditional 'flasher' but couples who perform in public. And all this is enabled by the Web, which seems to have moved on from delivering pornography to facilitating public rudeness.

Another profession revolutionised by the Web is the oldest one. The Guardian had a touching story this week of the rural 'English Rose' whose partner helpfully set up her website, for which he was convicted this week of living off immoral earnings.

As I read this tale it seemed strangely familiar, and I went to search the Spectator's archives. Could lovely Jilly and her partner Michael, from Shaftesbury in Dorset, be any relation to Jilly and Mike from a bustling Dorset town near the edge of Cranborne Chase (where poor Tess Durbeyfield started her downhill slide), in this Spectator story ?

Perjuring Politicians

The Guardian (11 stories so far this month) and BBC are giving the Archer release 'big air'. This morning's Today program item seemed to imply that no politician had ever previously lied on oath.

Time to remember Richard Crossman (the man who destroyed state education in Britain), Nye Bevan and the lesser known Morgan Phillips. There are some other entertaining cases quoted by Robert Fulford.

Long Walk to Freedom .....

Probation officers permitting, political prisoner Tony Martin will be free by this time next week after more than three years inside for the crime of self defence. The British Criminal Justice system has managed to delay his release again, on the grounds of the risk he posed to members of Britain's burgling community as they went about their daily labours.

Showing great moral courage, Mr Martin again refused to show the required degree of repentance which could have earned him a release last year. But our Probation 'Service' would rather Mr Martin had not defended himself, but become a victim like this. Or this. Or this. Or this. You get the picture.

And one of the three professional criminals who targeted Tony Martin has been granted legal aid to sue him for 'loss of earnings'. The poor man has since been scraping a living dealing heroin to keep body and soul together - altogether a most worthy recipient of taxpayers money.

Richard Littlejohn is right - you couldn't make it up.

Cheerful News ....

Just when the slow drip of US casualties was becoming unsettling comes the news that Saddam's heirs appear to have been killed. And in Baghdad they're firing into the air in celebration.

Drugged Zombies

"Are we turning children into drugged zombies ?" asks Deborah Orr in the Indie.

I don't know whether you are or not, Deborah. How you bring up your children is your own affair. But you are married to Will Self.

"BBC's anti-war bias undermines its future"

Says Labour MP Gerald Kaufman in this Scotland on Sunday piece.

"The BBC is not a newspaper, but an independent public sector, publicly financed broadcasting organisation which should provide entertainment and news but should not have any opinions of its own on any subject of public controversy.

That was the key criterion laid down by the BBC’s first and greatest director-general, Lord Reith, and it is a criterion from which the BBC has been departing dangerously and increasingly. I do not mean that the BBC has a party-political allegiance in the way that both the Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail have. I mean that, on issue after issue that figures in the news, the BBC pursues an agenda."

Couldn't agree more, old chap. On immigration, globalisation, crime, sexual politics, education, asylum, GWB, Kyoto, drugs, the BBC has the same liberal agenda that all right-thinking, comfortably off Guardian and Independent readers have. And I haven't heard Gerald Kaufman utter a peep about it before.

SonS is full of good stuff today - here's my nemesis Rod Liddle with "Terminal madness of regime hell-bent on saving its skin".

Damn - he means the Government, not Greg Dyke and Co. !

Prison Works Shock- but don't tell the BBC

Goodness - the Observer, Sunday Times and Telegraph all have articles on how and why more imprisonment reduces crime. Can't remember the like.

What can have caused this ? Coincidence ? Tony Martin's forthcoming release ?

This is particularly unusual when you recall the almost total media dominance of the pro-criminal, anti-punishment view. Think of the number of anti-punishment or criminal welfare organisations, many state-funded, like NACRO, Prison Reform Trust and the Howard League. There must be literally hundreds, from the major players down to charities like Unlock.

And the BBC will reliably amplify their message. I remember when NACRO, the organisation for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders (what about caring for victims ?) decided to rebrand themselves as 'the crime reduction charity', the BBC immediately used their description. Pressure groups the BBC don't like, such as Migrationwatch, are "the self-styled Migrationwatch UK pressure group".

You can count the pro-victim charities on the fingers of one hand. And the media profile of people like Peter Coad and David Fraser is remarkably low considering their advice to Home Secretary Michael Howard in the early 90s started the fightback against crime.

Prison Works

Peter Briffa noted the link between decreasing crime and increasing imprisonment - now Civitas' David Green defends the policy in the Observer of all places.

And Andrew Rawnsley has wise words on the 'Blair Crisis' - none of which will (hopefully) be heeded. I find it hard to believe Labour could be foolish enough to depose him - but wasn't it Schiller who said 'Against stupidity the gods themselves battle in vain ?'.

It's too late (I think) to pay my £33 and get in - but time to pack up the children and park on a nearby hill for some military-industrial indoctrination at the greatest 'big boys toys' show in Britain - the Fairford Tattoo. Byee !

Blair at home and abroad ... and why we will attack the enemies of the US, but appease our own

Harry is impressed by Blair's Congress speech, but wonders why he's so much more inspiring internationally than domestically.

"What I find bizarre is that many of those on the left who would broadly back Labour on the domestic front, are reviled by Blair's actions on the international scene.

I find myself in the other camp. I'm not enthused by the domestic agenda but I am very glad we have a radical and progressive leader on the international scene."

I think I have the answer, given me by Libby Purves, and given to her by one of her mates.

"You see, the trouble with Tony Blair is that he's terribly good when it isn't his problem."

I speculated at the time I read this that "had Al Quaeda put a couple of 737s through Canary Wharf rather than the WTC - Bin Laden would probably still be living in Afghanistan and doing the occasional 'Thought For The Day' on Radio 4, while Blair would be negotiating for Sharia law to be introduced into some British cities - after all, shouldn't the law reflect the diversity of modern Britain ?".

And on Tuesday in a Times (T2) Andrew Billen interview, ex-Northern-Ireland Secretary Mo Mowlem pretty much confirmed this.

I can't find it on the Web, so here's the relevant bit verbatim.

"Her fundamental quarrel with Blair and Campbell over Iraq, however, is not over the extent of Saddam's specific weapons programme or even over whether the nation was misled, but the philosophcal question of how to defeat terrorism. "You don't defeat terrorists by bombing and shooting. They can always bomb and shoot worse than you can as a civilised country". She has an alternative approach ... her second thought was reinforced by her previous 29 months in Northern Ireland. It can be summed up in the word 'talk'.

But, I say, Osama bin Laden was never going to get round a table and discuss his demands ?

"Well, you never know. Why do you always assume that bombing will be better ? Bombing won't be. Bombing will put Osama bin Laden's back up."

Of course, Mowlem is criticising Blair here for fighting terror abroad - but he appointed her to fight terror at home !

How Adams and McGuinness must have loved her !

BBC Bias Part 138

Great Oliver Kamm post on the BBCs Congress coverage, with a well-deserved swipe at the Tories for their opportunism. Duncan Smith's intervention today was as unworthy as Patrick Cormack's remarks were praiseworthy. The Quiet Man should pipe down.

And can't the BBC site find room for the full text of the Blair speech ?

BBC Bias Part 137

The recent coverage on BBC News of WMD, African uranium and Blair's Congress speech has once again shown that the BBC is quite happy to criticise a Labour Government - as long as the criticism is coming from the Left.

When I read last night (at Stephen Pollard's) of Blair's speech and its rapturous reception by Congress, I wondered how the BBC would spin it this morning. I woke up to find the Today programme billing the speech not as a triumph, but as the case for the defence. By nine o'clock Radio Four news felt it important, in a two-minute bulletin, to quote Peter Kilfoyle's disgusting remarks comparing the US Congress (and its freely offered applause) to a Soviet or Chinese Communist Party meeting.

This didn't make it onto the BBC website. Instead, we had a report where all three BBC staff quoted were negative. Gordon Corera said "the pair left many questions unanswered on the issue of intelligence and Iraq's weapons of mass destruction - an issue that has plagued both leaders domestically and which they hoped could be settled by developing a common line during the visit. ". Nick Assinder volunteered that "Mr Blair is preparing the ground for a fresh justification for war in the event WMD never turn up". And "the BBC's Laura Trevelyan says that even by admitting (sic) the possibility that he might have been wrong will give ammunition to Mr Blair's critics."

Ms Trevelyan then flew off on Blair's jet to Japan. Half way through the flight the news of the presumed death of Dr Kelly broke. By the P.M. news programme the spin had changed. Ms Trevelyan reported how Blair's 'triumph' in Washington had been shattered by the news. Mr Blair's conquest of Congress, previously played down, was now reinstated, the better to contrast with the news from Britain.

My view is that the number one suspect in the death of Dr. Kelly must be Andrew Mackinley. I suppose a man can't be blamed for his accent, but after this unpleasantness, delivered in Mr Mackinleys whining tones, anyone would dread the prospect of a repetition.

Economic Management II ....

Just come back from having my foot X-rayed (middle-aged man does too much running). The radiographer had been there for 35 years, and we talked about the changes in equipment over that time as I admired the shiny new machine.

"Are any still made in Britain ? Or are they all from Germany and Japan ?" I asked. Alas, I was fifteen or twenty years out of date. "They're all made in India or China now. This is a General Electric machine but it's made in China. Hardly any of our equipment is British. Bit depressing, really".

Every Other Blogger Has Said It ....

I suppose I may as well add my voice to the chorus - that Oliver Kamm is good.


On John Major .....

"John Major became Foreign Secretary because he wasn't Geoffrey Howe, Chancellor because he wasn't Nigel Lawson, leader of the Conservative Party because he wasn't Michael Hesletine, and prime minister because he wasn't Neil Kinnock. His political success, in short, depended on his being less offensive to his party than anyone else, and on the Labour Party's continuing to be even less interested in public opinion than the Tories. All that changed when Blair became Labour leader; like Margaret Thatcher, he has innumerable detractors but he is plainly prime ministerial and he thereby commands respect."

And on his successor as Prime Minister .....

"He deserves credit on economic management and welfare reform (including the cuts in benefits), criticism on the pointless affectation that decries what it calls 'elitism' but which actually means excellence, and strong support on his willingess to intervene militarily in order to effect humanitarian ends. "

I would take issue on two out of those three though. Blair's economic management consisted of continuing Ken Clarke's (successful) policies, until the pressure to tax and spend conquered, and he abjectly failed to bite the bullet on welfare reform.

His 'pointless affectation' has real effects as excellence becomes increasingly confused with elitism. As Peter Hitchens said of the Gordon Brown/Laura Spence affair, where else could you make political capital by attacking your country's finest universities ?

Only on international intervention does Blair sit with the angels. And I'm not sure even then that Kosovo was a good idea. But compared to the Major/Hurd Bosnia shambles he's like a good deed in a naughty world.

Economic management ..... ?

Not a week passes without another famous UK name relocating overseas. And the Start-Rite story has a chilling descant. One of the reasons they packed up is that all the individual components of the shoes were already made overseas.

A friend who works for a car manufacturer is moving to Shanghai for a few years.

And what used to be called 'British Rail Enquiries' may be moving to Bombay.

What A Pity ...

That this announcement by a senior Muslim cleric won't get any of the publicity awarded to more inflammatory pronouncements ...

.... and that this decision won't attract any of the publicity or liberal outrage that would be incurred by, say, the USA.

I recall Amnesty International's condemnation of the treatment of internees at Guantanamera, while in Morocco a suspect was said to have died 'of heart and liver failure'. Must have been cirrhosis - you know how these Islamics put it away. Had the guy died in US custody we'd have been hearing of electric shocks and beatings.

Well It Made Me Laugh ...

"In 40 years time do you want to tell your grandchildren that you were clad in clogs, sitting by some poncey Italian lake or tell them stories of fighting three giant sausage eaters in a back street Magaluf bar......?"

Hijacked Again and Again ....

Following Rowan Williams call for a period of calm and reflection, (Loose) Canon Slee has responded by accusing Evangelicals of being the Taleban wing of the Church.
He obviously thinks homosexuals are in danger of being crushed under stone walls as happened in Afghanistan.

And Ruth Gledhill, Times religion correspondent, who seems to cheerlead for the liberal wing of the Church as Mary-Ann Sieghart cheerleads for New Labour, resurrects 'hijacking'.

Thank heavens Synod will soon be over and I can blog about something else, like what's happening to the RSPCA. Only the Tatchell protest to go - and here it is already !

He'll be back tomorrow I'm sure !

Vast Religious Conspiracy - An Evangelical Answer

Joel Edwards, of the Evangelical Alliance, in yesterday's Telegraph addresses three issues emphasised by Dr John's supporters.

To charges that the resistance to Dr. John's appointment was the work of a disaffected, unrepresentative minority (the 'hijack') he points out that "There are about two billion Christians in the world today, and at least 700 million are evangelicals. Most of these live in non-Western countries. By comparison, the worldwide Anglican communion is small: numbering 70 million, it is dwarfed by the global evangelical movement. Of course, some Anglicans - a clear majority, in fact - are themselves part of that movement."

On the idea that the Church in the Third World should defer to the greater wisdom and understanding of Western liberals:

"Liberals within the Church often call us to "listen to the voices of the Third World", but on the issue of homosexuality there has been apparent outrage that leaders from developing nations should suggest that if an appointment such as Jeffrey John's were to go ahead they might have to consider their position within the Anglican Communion. It suggests that when millions of believing Christians outside our shores hold fast to beliefs that don't fit Western pluralist assumptions, they are disregarded as outmoded and irrelevant."

And on Canon Slee's suggestion that Evangelicals are responsible for the seemingly inexorable decline in church attendance:

"There is evidence that a "Liberal Gospel" breeds decline, in the Church of England and other churches. The fact is that only a tiny minority of Christian denominations around the world have formally approved the ordination of practising homosexuals, same-sex blessings and other such measures. Two of the most notable examples are the United Church of Christ in America and the United Church of Canada. Since they adopted these policies, their membership has declined sharply. This gives the lie to the oft-quoted assumption that if the Church adapts to Western cultural trends on this matter people will come flocking through its doors."

This one will run and run, so let's turn our eyes from these somewhat sorry and ignominious facts and remember the great good the Church brings. As at a Pentecostal church in inner-city Birmingham, from the good doctor Dalrymple.

""But we are all sinners, Lord. Therefore we pray for forgiveness. We do not always follow Your ways, Lord; we are proud, we are stubborn, we want to go our own way. We think only of ourselves. That is why there is so much sin, so much robbery, so much violence, on our streets."

I recalled the faces of the young men in the prison now accused of murder: their hard, glittering, expressionless eyes—young men who recognized no law but their own desire of the moment. The old lady described (and explained) their radical egotism in a religious way.

Murmurs of assent were heard everywhere. It wasn't the police's fault, or racism's, or the system's, or capitalism's; it was the failure of sinners to acknowledge any moral authority higher than their personal whim. And in asserting this, the congregation was asserting its own freedom and dignity: poor and despised as its members might be, they were still human enough to decide for themselves between right and wrong. And they offered hope to others, too: for if a man chose to do evil, he could later elect, by an act of will, to do good. No one had to wait until there was perfect justice in the world, or all the circumstances were right, before he himself did good."

Amen to that.

Vast Religious Conspiracy

It looks as if the BBC line on Canon Jeffrey John will follow yesterdays 'hijack' line - if this report (RealAudio link) on the Today programme is anything to go by.

Though to be fair the Bishop who spoke pointed out that the opposition To Canon John's appointment had been expressed by people from all sections of the Church. It was the BBCs Robert Pigott who was the conspiracy theorist.

Apparently a tightly knit group of religiously motivated men are organising to take over the church and change it. Of course this is the reverse (inverse ?) of the truth. The Church has dispproved of adultery in all its many and varied forms for quite a long time now, and it's the 'liberals' who are bent on change. Those who resist change have in some dioceses been expelled from the Church.

But I imagine the BBC will be able to run with this for quite a while. Organisations like Reform will be presented as the Militant Tendency and the cry will go up for a Neil Kinnock. Already Libby Purves in yesterdays Times has decided Rowan Williams is more of a Michael Foot.

"It would have been possible for him to tell the narrow-hearted evangelical rebels (in a kindly, humble and caring way) to go and boil their heads.

I have to say, I thought he might just do that. Rowan Williams seemed like a wild card, an inspirer, a holy man from the West come to revive the faith. Alas, the dreadful suspicion grows that he is just another Archbishop of Canterbury. "

I would imagine Peter Tatchell and friends are planning some kind of spectacular for the General Synod.

Church Hijacked Again

Remarkable BBC R4 'Thought For The Day' this mornng by one Martin Palmer, Director of the International Consultancy on Religion, Education and Culture in Manchester, where BBC Religious Affairs are also based.

Apparently the Church has been hijacked again - by people who believe in good and evil.

After two thousand years of 'what's right for me' Christianity, evidenced by a mosaic featuring Jesus alongside Greek mythological figures, suddenly people are getting hung up about sin. A Nigerian Bishop even talked about 'Satan'.

Sometimes 'Thought For The Day' goes beyond parody.

Motorway Madness

One of the many things I hoped my Labour vote would get me in 1997 was an end to what Mrs Thatcher called 'the great car economy'. Labour had denounced the ever-increasing volume of vehicles and the ever-increasing roadbuilding programme. They stated categorically, for example that the Birmingham Northern Relief scheme would be abandoned.

In office it went ahead, as have many other schemes. So much more greenery is now under concrete. I particularly mourn the A465 from Glynneath to Neath, a magnficent valley now disfigured by four concrete lanes exactly in its centre. Work continues on making the entire length from Abergavenny to Swansea dual carriageway. Alright, so we might be in Gower 35 minutes earlier - but at what cost ?

Now look at this. If Swampy were alive he'd be turning in his grave as a 'massive' road building programme is announced.

And for what ? I guess the answer is 'to put off charging 'til after the next election'.

But why has Labour's public transport strategy failed ?

One issue consistently ignored by this joined-up government is the impact of crime and disorder on transport. Start with the no-brainer - that despite road accidents people feel safer in their cars than on public transport. There can be few Londoners who haven't had an unpleasant experience on the Tube or a bus. So people use their cars even when public transport is available. I still remember Steve 'Five Mistresses' Norris, then Tory transport minister, making disparaging remarks on the personal qualities of public transport users. More car use.

This factor extends much further.

You end up taking the kids to the edge-of-town MacDonalds on a Saturday, rather then the yob-infested town centre branch. More car use.

You drop the town centre shops for Cribbs Causeway (our nearest equivalent to that massive Essex shoperama) or Merry Hill. More car use.

You move (if you have the money) to some greenfield development or village, where you might still be burgled but neighbours from hell are much less likely. It's almost a badge of middle management where I work. More car use.

But don't worry, crime is sure to drop as our caring government teach citizenship and 'respect' to all children. I found this story particularly pathetic - and I generally admire the NAS/UWT.

And once the NSPCC get their way and disciplining children by smacking is abolished, then behaviour is sure to improve, just as it has in Scotland since the law there was changed.