‘Tis Pity She’s A Guardianista

How strange. I find myself agreeing with Madeleine Bunting about the Sun’s rather pathetic anti-Clare Short campaign. Ms Short has no intention of reviving her legislative campaign against the Sun’s Page Three (twice her private member’s bills have failed) – she simply said she believed it should be banned.

The Sun’s campaign – featuring a bus parked outside Short’s home and unflattering fake photomontages of her topless, isn’t even, as Ms Bunting points out, remotely funny. And I’m no fan of the MP for Ladywood – though for years I considered her a kind of antiparticle Ann Widdicombe, whose honesty you can applaud even while disagreeing with her. Clare’s antics over Iraq – staying in the Cabinet and then resigning after the war, along with her ambivalent views on murderous Irish republicanism have caused me to change my mind.

I wish these Guardianistas would make their minds up, though.

Is selling sex in all its forms, from car adverts through Page Three and ladmag shoots to Amy and Lara, a major cause of gang rape, frustration and impotence, and eating disorders (Ms Bunting), ‘violence against women’ (femiluni Julie Bindel), is it just another job - sex work, or is it ‘a girl power thing’ where the exploited are the poor sad male punters (A Good Thing) rather than the girls (A Bad Thing)?

After all, if sex is just another recreational activity, like a rubber of bridge or a game of tennis, then why shouldn’t some individuals sell their God-given talents and abilities ? And in a free market, you sell your assets or services at the market rate.

For the TUC and their Women’s Equality Officer Rebecca Gill, ‘sex workers’ are ‘legitimate workers in need of protection’. Even the great Aaronovitch seems chilled about it. Madeleine talks of women who claim ‘to be "empowered" by sticking her breasts at a camera’. Yet surely it’s the cheque that’s empowering, not the act. Or as one escort said ‘my self-esteem went through the roof. It made me feel like the next best thing to Claudia Schiffer, to be paid all this money by men who wanted to spend time with me.’ I get a distinct impression that the money is important here. So what’s the problem ?

For the Bindels, Dworkins or Catharine MacKinnons of this world the objection seems to be that men are involved, with all the violence and misogyny inevitably associated with the extra Y chromosome. Worse, they actually get something out of it. But the high tide of gender feminism has long passed and such voices have little influence - besides, as the Spectator reports, we sent most of them to Iraq - a far better use of taxpayers money than 'toys for the boys' like flak jackets.

Surely only the prudish, moralistic or (heaven help us) religious would argue that sex is in any sense sacred, private, or related to the conception and rearing of children ? Yet Madeleine and her pals remain uneasy. Something, somewhere seems wrong.

She’s right of course. But until she becomes prudish, or moralistic, or (heaven help us) religious she’ll never quite know what it is, and she’ll continue to rail at what she calls ‘fascistic norms’ and what I call secular post-Christian culture.




PS - Lordy, her sense of history ! I’ve noted her inability to comprehend the Victorians. She writes "In peasant cultures of the past, it was the reproductive powers of the female body which dominated representations of women. Now it is their power to provide male sexual pleasure. It doesn't seem much like progress".

Hang on – I thought the change from breeding machine to autonomous sexual being was progressive. And I presume when she says ‘now’ she’s no longer talking about peasant cultures. But when she writes about the representations I don’t think she means the Sheela–Na-Gig or the Venus of Willendorf (who incidentally bears a remarkable resemblance to the Sun’s idea of a naked Clare Short). I think she’s got in mind one particular woman with one particular child, which dominated all representations of women from Russia to Ireland for a thousand years.

Tipton Taleban

In the light of reports that the British captives at Guantanamera may soon be released, and having nothing else to say, I reprint an item from the time when almost every week a son of Luton or the Black Country was captured in Afghanistan.

Dudley, Worcestershire, Dec 2nd 2001 - Reuters

Following the revelation that Al Quaeda appear to have had a cell in the Black Country, there are reports that US Special forces have moved into the area. Communication is uncertain due to the difficult terrain and language difficulties (few US troops speak Black Country, and two SAS men from Dudley are acting as translators), but there are reports of heavy fighting in the Lower Gornal area - though that is not unusual on a Saturday when enough Banks's has been consumed. Armed Islamic groups are battling the US in Smethwick and Blackheath, but the US are being supported by local forces. Cradley Heath and Lye are under the control of Baptist militia, and last night a column of armed Jehovah's Witnesses were reported to be moving towards Blackheath from Old Hill. In the North, Pentecostal warlords are currently remaining neutral.

All US bombing has been suspended, following the tragic incident when a coach-load of pensioners from Kidderminster were killed by a B52 strike on the Merry Hill Centre, mistakenly called in after a Debenhams Tannoy announcement that 'Bed Linen is on the Second Floor' was intercepted by SIGINT specialists at Menwith Hill.

And tonight there are reports of unmarked Hercules transports continually landing and taking off at Halfpenny Green Airport.

Already liberal commentators on the Express and Star as well as the Birmingham Evening Mail are asking the question - 'why do they hate us - what have we done ?'. Some have seen a possible cause in the Islamophobic 'pig culture' which has been a part of Black Country life for over two hundred years, and which has produced the crowning glories of Black Country cuisine - pork scratchings and 'faggits un pays'. Others see the root of the offence as the Black Countryman's love of alcohol, as witnessed by the magnificent beers of Banks's, Bathams and Doris Pardoe. A few Christian commentators suggest that the current troubles may be divine retribution for the satanic 'metal' bands such as Led Zep, Sabbath, and Judas Priest that the area has produced. In a statement, Rob Halford of Judas Priest sought to distance himself from the controversy, claiming that he came from Birmingham - and that anyway, under no circumstances did the sounds on track 3 side 2 of 'Hell Bent for Leather', when played backwards, make up the words 'Pork Sword of Death for the Infidel Unbeliever'.

But wiser voices are pointing to the pernicious influence of the U.S. It is known that the aboriginal inhabitants have become hopelessly addicted to the products of the high-tech, superior culture from overseas. Once-proud warriors, the descendants of brawny-armed, 14-pints-a-day steelworkers and miners, now slouch shiftily in the ubiquitous Blockbuster stores, waiting to spend their benefits on the violent, degraded products of Hollywood. Hideous diseases such as 'satellite dish' and 'Jerry Springer' are endemic. Islamic colonists see the degrading effects of such things upon the natives, and are determined that their children shall not imitate the native culture. Hence the virulent hatred of all things American.

For more info on the Black Country see this site.

British Justice

Go out looking for someone to kill. Stab a 14 year old more than 20 times.

"The judge at Cardiff Crown Court told Shelley Farr that she would not be considered for parole before she had served at least four years and three months."

That'll teach them.

Or sexually assault and beat up an octogenarian, leaving her with 51 separate injuries and in a psychiatric ward. Six years - which means you'll be out in three.

Nothing to do ? Why not kick a mentally ill man to death with your mates ? Nine years max. Still out by the time you're twenty-six.

Where do they get our judges from ?

Is It Too Early To Open A Bottle ?

David Blunkett mourns the tragic suicide of Harold Shipman.

"You wake up and you receive a phone call telling you that Shipman has topped himself. And you think, is it too early to open a bottle?

"Then you discover that everybody's really upset that he's done it. So you have to be very cautious in this job, very careful."

Blunkett really is a political genius. As long as he keeps coming up with knockabout stuff like this and attracting the 'right-wing' tag from horrified guardianistas, the Great British Public will ignore his letting all the burglars out and the 'asylum-seekers' in.

A Rare Sighting

Migrationwatch chairman Sir Andrew Green in the Scotsman.

"In England, the numbers have simply got out of hand. In Scotland, the reality is that immigration is largely irrelevant. Why? For the very simple reason that immigrants usually do not come to, and certainly do not stay, in Scotland.

Taking first the picture in Britain as a whole, not many people realise that until the early 1990s, more people left than arrived. That picture has changed dramatically in the past decade. Net migration has climbed rapidly to more than 150,000 a year. These are just the legal immigrants. An estimated 50,000 people were detected last year attempting to enter Britain illegally; nobody knows how many succeeded.

The picture in Scotland is quite different. In most years there has been a net outflow. Over the period 1992-2001, net immigration to the UK totalled 875,000, while there was a net outflow of 41,000 from Scotland. Thus, if experience is any guide, David Blunkett's suggestion that massive immigration into Britain will help Scotland's "problem" must rank among his less impressive contributions to the debate.

So where have all these immigrants gone? The short answer is London."

Of course he's right. The only immigrants to Scotland and Wales are English. Why ? Because as I posted a few months back

"If you were an asylum seeker headed for the UK, where would you like to go ? To Scotland ('Whae's Like Us') or Wales, with their strong Nationalist parties ? To Ulster, where Sinn Fein/IRA ('Ourselves Alone') are still killing people because their forebears were immigrants four hundred years ago ? Or to a country whose national flag should really be emblazoned with the word 'Sorry !'. No choice, really, is it ?"

In Wales the locals aren't too happy about it. With good reason. The Welsh language and culture are dying, killed by the A55 dual carriageway and the M4, enabling scallies to deal smack in Caernarvon's villages (Anglesey has a major heroin problem) and alternative types to colonise Cardigan and Presceli.

You can hear as much Scouse as Welsh spoken in the streets of Bangor. And a few years ago I was at a party in a remote village in a Welsh-speaking part of Pembrokeshire with more than a hundred other people. They were all English and living within 30 miles, drawn by the local Steiner school.

A Disgraceful Column

Littlejohn indulges in some outrageous stereotyping of Islamic 'militants', human rights lawyers and ex-Labour talk-show hosts.

"KILROY: My next guest is a young man, Ali, from Salford. He's just volunteered to go to work in Jerusalem as a suicide bomber. That's an interesting career choice.

ALI: I've always wanted to travel and kill Jews.

(AUDIENCE: Death to Israel! Death to The West!)

KILROY: Good for you, Ali. So many young people are prepared to sit around on their backsides these days. Not like when I was a young, working class lad in the West Midlands, before I became a famous TV personality and newspaper columnist. "

And in todays Times. Michael Gove ponders Tim Collins' resignation.

"The practices and customs that sustain an effective warrior ethos are under assault from political forces inimical to the nation's defence. Those forces, all central to the domestic agenda of Blairism, are the growth of the rights culture, an hostility to tradition and a public spending strategy driven by ideology rather than Britain's real needs."

A Dutch Tony Martin ?

From the Euro-paradise of cheap drugs, slightly (but not much) more expensive women, and euthanasia comes this story.

"AMSTERDAM — A 71-year-old invalid vehicle yard owner has been arrested for shooting and killing a man during an attempted armed robbery last month, but the businessman claims he acted in self-defence.

Cees Gardien, of Leidschendam, said via his lawyer on Monday that he would have been killed if he had not fired his weapon. But Gardien, the victim of three other robberies and nine burglaries, has been charged with manslaughter.

Suffering from throat cancer and confined almost permanently to a wheelchair, Gardien — who has owned a vehicle yard for almost 50 years — was confronted on the morning of 15 December last year by five people clad in balaclavas and armed with knives and guns.

Gardien has carried a gun since a robbery at his business in 2001 and claims he acted out of fear when he pulled the trigger last month. As the robbers made a dash for it, he escaped into his business premises and closed the burglar-proof roll shutters.

But the bullet is alleged to have hit illegal Turkish immigrant Yacup Yuruyucu — renowned for assaults, blackmail and threats — and he was found dead by a motorist later that morning. A knife was found next to his body."

Thanks to SKC for the link.

Double Standards ?

The BBC and other liberal media give sympathetic and generous coverage to the 'right to die' lobby. It seems that being able to take your own life is a basic human right - and that if you're ill it's fair enough for someone to 'assist' you.

Save in one instance.

When those who wish to die are prisoners, then it suddenly becomes of primary importance to prevent their suicide.

I wonder why ? Do our liberal ruling class care more about keeping prisoners alive than they do about keeping old people alive ?

Only asking.

The great Dalrymple (a prison doctor) has written before on prison suicide.

"The suicide rate in British prisons has doubled despite—I use the word despite in its loosest possible sense—official attempts to reduce it. Although the average citizen is probably not too deeply concerned about this rise, there has been a great deal of adverse publicity about it. It is one of the many ways in which compassionate liberals wear their hearts on their sleeves."

'Compassionate liberals wearing their hearts on their sleeves'. Sound of nail struck firmly on head. Where were the liberals when Martin James committed suicide ?

UPDATE - Peter Briffa in great form ...

"Tomorrow's Guardian today:

WE ARE ALL DIMINISHED BY THIS MAN'S DEATH

The sad news of Harold Shipman's death yesterday should bring neither joy nor happiness to anyone hearing it. Certainly, he was a very bad man, and it is not being overtly judgmental to say so.
The murder of over two hundred pensioners should never be glossed over. Yet perhaps it is time to put this all in perspective. During the time period Dr. Shipman was busy acting - as he no doubt saw it - as an Angel of Mercy, over twenty women and children were being killed on the streets every hour, by drivers, alcoholics, and husbands. The combined total of Shipman's victims could be crammed into a small one bedroom flat in Glasgow.

In no way does this diminish what Shipman did, but it is worth thinking about the next time you hear some right-wing commentator describe Dr. Shipman as evil."

And for what it's worth - people have been asking why Dr. Shipman did what he did. Here's my simple answer.

Because he could.

UPDATE 14/1/03

It's hard to caricature the Guardian, who seem to have forgotten their frequent calls for the right to die. Surely they should be calling for prison doctors to help people like Dr. Shipman 'die with dignity' ?

David Ramsbotham asks 'how could it happen ?' - not the deaths of a few hundred pensioners of course, only the death of their murderer. After all we shouldn't 'focus on the crime committed rather than the future life of a fellow human being.' Perish the thought.

The Sun strikes a slightly different note with the headline 'Ship Ship Hooray !'

"Wesley Jones, whose gran was among the 260 people murdered by Dr Death, spoke for scores of families when he said: “I’m delighted. I’m glad he has gone.”

Machine operator Wesley, 34 — who lives in the GP’s old hunting ground of Hyde, Greater Manchester — added: “When I heard he was dead I just thought, ‘Absolutely brilliant, yippee’.”

Jean Pinder, whose aunt died at the hands of the monster, said: “I am happy for all the relatives who lost loved ones to this man. I am happy for taxpayers who were forking out thousands of pounds to keep him in prison.

“Justice has been done, although he should have been hanged by the state.”

Thea Morgan, 65, who lost her 90-year-old mother, said: “It couldn’t have happened to a nicer man.” "

But what do they know ?

Disaster

The classic Harry J. All-Stars 1969 reggae instrumental, 'The Liquidator', is after thirty-three years no longer to be played at West Brom's home games because of the obscene chanting which often accompanies it. What makes this news particularly distressing is that Albion's great rivals W***** W********, who copied our use of the song, will continue to play it.

Harry J hit the UK charts in 1970, when reggae was big with rough white boys and Richard Allan's 'Skinhead' books were in every school playground. I got a lot of stick from my Led Zep and Neil Young-loving classmates for buying 'Reggae Chartbusters Vol 2'.

How long ago it all seems ... but you can revisit the charts at this Russian site, of all places. Ah, the Chairmen Of The Board, Bob and Marcia, 'Tears Of A Clown', 'the Green Manalishi' ! Though there was an awful lot of trash as well ...

Policing Norfolk-Style

According to the mighty Littlejohn, Tony Martin was leaving a pub when he was stopped and breathalysed by two officers who had been waiting for him 'following a tip-off'.

Looks like he may be a marked man for bringing Norfolk Police into disrepute. Chief Constable Ken Williams, who advised homeowners to shout in order to frighten away intruders, has said that "The Force has received hundreds of letters and e-mails following the conviction for murder of Emneth farmer Tony Martin. Many have questioned the Force's actions and some have been accusatory and even threatening in their content. In addition the Force has been inundated with abusive telephone calls. The criticism of the Force and myself has been strident and with regard to myself has been very personal."

You can see his comments here, in the now-deleted Norfolk Police page retrieved thanks to Internet Archive (the page appears blank - highlight or 'select all' to see text).

Give Due Where Due's Due

Somewhere, slowly, small but detectable changes are taking place in BBC radio news and current affairs.

On Satrurday, to the credit of producer Kevin Marsh, the Today programme devoted 16 minutes to a serious discussion of the proposed 'Tony Martin Law'.

John Humphrys raised the West Lothian Question on Today this morning, in relation to Scottish MPs voting on top-up fee legislation which will only apply south of the Border.

And this morning on Radio 5, Nikki 'I'm Not A Bleeding Heart Liberal' Campbell, during yet another Kilroy-Silk debate, pointed out that Tom Paulin was still guesting on the BBC despite his publicly stated view view that American-born Israeli settlers 'should be shot'.

The Telegraph and Mail have been bemoaning BBC bias for years to no avail. This may be wishful thinking, but I think bloggers like Natalie Solent and the rest of the Biased BBC crew are actually having an effect. Too many people are documenting things. The bias is also being picked up in the States.

Don't get carried away though. We're still at the stage where they see it as a problem of perception. 'We know we're not biased, and we must be careful not to let our bias show.' The underlying culture is as one-sided as ever.

Not then a tectonic shift. But a few small and welcome hairline fractures in the 'liberal' news monolith.

British Blogging

From Shot By Both Sides a link to the Blogging Brits webring - a good idea, though the quality of blogging varies widely. There's a certain Pooterish charm in the tribulations of Redditch suburbia, and I'm truly grateful to Blatant Optimism for links to webcam astronomy sites.

I like Isabella's Teddy ... and it's not an underwear catalogue.

Bush Bashing Corporation

These were the top two stories on Radio Four news yesterday morning.

A US court ruled that a US citizen held at Guantanamo comes under their jurisdiction.

A former US treasury secretary has given an unflattering account of his time under President George W Bush, including the money quote that "at cabinet meetings the president was like a blind man in a room full of deaf people".

In fact a reading of O'Neill's complaint increases my respect for Bush.

"I went in with a long list of things to talk about and, I thought, to engage [him] on," said Mr O'Neill recalling the first meeting.

"I was surprised it turned out me talking and the president just listening... It was mostly a monologue."

Can't win, can he ? He was 'just listening'. How awful.

And then, way down the news items, Bush's plan to establish a space station on the Moon and for a manned mission to Mars.

If this is a serious proposal (and if, as Howard Dean asked, they can afford it), this was the biggest story by far. It's thirty years since we left the Moon. When students in 2500 think of 1969, they won't think of Vietnam or Man City beating Leicester 1-0. They'll say 'Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins'.

I suppose it was ever thus.

Here is the news in Castilian for 1492. Your headlines tonight.

DONGG !

The Moors have been kicked out of Spain.

DONGG !!

So have the Jews.

and finally - some Genoese sailor has returned with a fantastic story about a New World.

BBC ... BBC ...

For once, the Observer has hit the nail on the head. Kilroy-Silk is an ass. So is the BBC.

I've little original to say on this. It's all so predictable - the BBCs grovelling, Lynne Jones' *******, Trevor Phillips' idiocy (he claimed the article would 'give comfort to the weak-minded'. It's about time something was done for them, in my opinion). The only shock is Harry seating himself firmly on the fence.

The BBC spent the weekend apologising. Yesterday and today Radio 5 seemed to devote most of their non-sports coverage to it, wheeling out one pundit after another to criticise RKS, including a professor from Manchester who castigated RKS's ignorance but seemed herself to believe that the Sumerians and Mesopotamians of 5,000 years ago were Arabs.

Of course, Tom Paulin is still OK with the BBC.

BBC Knows Best ...

How did 15-year old Amjed el-Masri die ?

BBC version

"On Saturday morning, Amjad al-Masri, 15, died after being shot in the chest by Israeli troops as they fired into a large crowd of protesters. "

No source given.

We do get the Palestinian and Israeli sides, after a fashion. No names given to any of the deceased.

"Palestinian sources said three were killed by Israeli sniper fire as they broke a week-old curfew, while a fourth was shot dead during the funeral of the others."

"Israeli forces said the troops had "felt themselves in danger".

""One of the Palestinians had dropped a large concrete block in the direction of a soldier," an Israeli Army spokesman said."

What do Reuters say ?

Palestinian witnesses said Amjed el-Masri, 15, was shot in the chest by a sniper as he threw stones at an Israeli armored vehicle from a rooftop in the old city area of Nablus.

An Israeli army spokesman said Masri had been shot while dropping large bricks on soldiers from a roof top, which he called a life-threatening assault, while two other Palestinians had been shot, one while holding a pistol and the other a petrol bomb.

Now I'm presuming the full (with names) Israeli version was available to the BBC. Why didn't they quote it ? And where did they get their story of Masri's death ? Did the (unnamed) reporter actually witness the boy being shot "by Israeli troops as they fired into a large crowd of protesters." ? Or have the BBC made it up and deliberately chosen to ignore the Israeli version ?

Israel claims Masri was "dropping large bricks from a rooftop".

A Frontpage piece condemns the Aussie ABC network and Associated Press, who report the deaths as the shootings of 'stonethrowers'. Yet to the BBC he was just a random victim of troops firing into a crowd. (There is however one other possibility - that a bad sub-editor has confused the deceased 'stone-thrower' with his cousin, 17 year old Mohammed el-Masri, who was shot by troops at the funeral of the three. Now that does sound more feasible - and more as if the IDF shot when they shouldn't. Can a pall-bearer be a threat ? I don't know - and the BBC doesn't seem to either. If anyone does know please tell me.)

Here are pictures of 'stonethrowers' in Nablus, taken the day before Masri's death by AP.

Revolutionary Radio Four

From the BBC website.

20:45 The Other Candidates Are
At the last General Election there were well over three thousand candidates.

Most of them stood no chance whatsoever of getting elected. They were going to lose their deposits, and they knew it. So why do they do it? What drives them on?

2/3. In the second programme of this series, Matthew Parris meets the Revolutionaries:

The Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist Leninist) doesn't have many members but has all the features of an elaborate organisation. It has a Central Committee, it holds Party Congresses, it has Party Cadres and it produces pamphlets and a newspaper. Its leader, Chris Coleman, is no wild eyed hothead, but a self-effacing elderly man in a suit. He's a supporter of North Korea. He's convinced the revolution will happen here, but admits he's not quite sure when.

Rob Griffiths, General Secretary of the Communist Party, isn't making any predictions either. He's hoping the Communists will eventually play a part in some sort of broad left wing coalition government. The Communists think big - they want to see an end to American world dominance and to that end they're out campaigning hard in shopping centres round the country.

Dave Nellist of the Socialist Party was once a Labour MP in Coventry but was thrown out of the party for being too left wing. But he had a big local following and nothing daunted, won a seat on the Council. There are now three Socialist Councillors in the City. Dave Nellist thinks things are moving the Socialist way. He thinks that if conditions are right and if he can get some of the big unions on board, there could be a "breakthrough" in the next two to five years.

I listened as Matthew, in his nonjudgemental way. gave his three contributors free rein, with nary a difficult question.

I wonder who programme 1 was about ? And who programme 3 will be about ? Will the BBC go as far to the right as it has to the left in this programme ? Will a hundred flowers bloom and a hundred schools of thought contend, as someone once said ?

What do you think ? My money's on the late Wing Commander Bill Boakes, Natural Law and the Greens.

Fare Well

So the great Theodore Dalrymple is retiring and moving to rural France. As he says 'the French are some years behind us in the race to cultural oblivion. No doubt they will catch up with us in the end, but I hope not to see it in my rural fastness'.

Anyone who's spent time in rural France will know what he means. A couple of years ago we were in Sourdeval and attended the carnival. Several thousand people were on the streets all day, much lager and wine was consumed. We sat on the pavements until ten o'clock with our small children in an (admittedly noisy and smoky) atmosphere of perfect goodwill and freedom. Don't try that at Whitby Regatta.

I shall miss his despatches from the urban front line. What will he find to write about in rural France, where drive-by shootings or predatory youths disfigured by tattoos and/or facial ironmongery are rare ?

He is not alone in his decision. I must know of ten or more couples who have upped sticks to France. But he is rare in being totally upfront, not about why he is moving to France, but why he is leaving Britain (he currently works in a prison and hospital in inner-city Birmingham).

My university generation (mid-late 70s) has been (and is mostly still) saturated with the kind of leftism which assumes that most of society's problems stem from straight white males and the culture of our parents and grandparents. So it is strange that so many of us have ended up in the shrinking rural areas, whether here or abroad, where remnants of such culture cling on.

Dave - in turns hippy, probation officer, co-counsellor, radical therapist, musician, prison visitor - last year left Brixton for rural, white and conservative Lincolnshire while the children were still small. Pauline and Barry, impeccably liberal, in a Languedoc village whose inhabitants voted almost to a man for Jean-Marie Le Pen. Beth, ex-social worker in children's homes, travelling street magician and entertainer, from the heart of multiculti (and dangerous) Chapeltown to the isolation of the English Lakes. Gabrielle from London to the Presceli Hills, Sue from central Leeds to Perthshire. Dave and Louise from urban Bradford via rural Whitby to France. Carol from Bradford to rural California, Felicity from Vauxhall to Eire. Jill from Telford to the high Yorkshire fells (where only outcomers can afford houses now), Jenny from Peckham to Dartmouth. I could go on ...

But with the exception of Carol, who married a Californian only slightly to the left of Genghis Khan, my friends have maintained their 70s politics. The Guardian is now read on a slate worktop, overlooking a green-grey valley, or a pine table with pretty estuary views, but it's still the Guardian. They know something was wrong with the city, but it was only wrong for them as individuals. They haven't made any connections.

Similarly Billy Bragg chooses to raise his children in Dorset, Joe Strummer lived (and died) in rural Somerset, Rod Liddle (ex-Today editor) castigated English racism from Wiltshire. A couple of weeks ago I read a Jenni Murray interview in which the Woman Sour presenter and all-round PC exemplar described her decision to move from Wandsworth to rural Derbyshire (and send the kids to Cheshire grammars when they reached secondary school age). And or course every rock star buys a rural retreat or estate on getting the first million or two.

As Patti Smith (another one who headed for straight white society to raise the kids) would have said - 'Ain't It Strange'.

UPDATE - already he's found problems - namely the opening of a Starbucks in Paris. Link via Harry.

Surrender On All Fronts

David Blunkett today threw up his hands and agreed that no more criminals should be sent to prison. He also agreed to subordinate the Prison Service, which currently protects millions of people from crime by locking up some (admittedly a minority) of those who commit it, to the Probation 'Service', an organisation which vies with Social Work departments in political correctness and practical ineffectiveness. On a separate front, IRA/Sinn Fein apologist and domestic violence specialist Ken Livingstone has been readmitted to the Labour fold.

At last, a decision on prisons. The prison population has risen continually since Michael Howard's reforms first started to reduce some crimes, despite the efforts of Scots jurists. At some stage it was obvious that either the trend would have to be reversed, or new prisons would have to be built. Both Straw and Blunkett have sat hypnotised as the prison population rose, and have refused to sanction the major building program which was neccessary. They are left with no option but to try to send fewer people to jail. The methods used, mainly so-called 'community' service, are proven failures and their even wider adoption will result in more people becoming victims of crime.

It is difficult to realise the extent of the rot in the Criminal Justice System unless you have direct experience of it (usually as a victim), but one of the glories of the Web is that the grim facts are there for all to see. Image of magistrates as hard-headed traditional types ? Forty years too late mate - this gives more of a flavour of today's Bench.

"Magistrates rate Probation as having a greater effect on reducing crime than Prison.
Eight out of ten agree that community sentences punish offenders.
Eight out of ten agree that community sentences enable offenders to pay back to the community.
Seven out of ten agree that community sentences help to rehabilitate offenders. Magistrates are not aware yet of the evidence that Probation programmes reduce re-offending.
Magistrates seem to want wider public support for their use of community penalties."

I like "Magistrates are not aware yet of the evidence that Probation programmes reduce re-offending." That's because there isn't any.

If you check out the Youth Justice Board you'll find they're Guardianistas to a man - or more usually, to a woman. And as for the training of Probation Officers - take a look at this management-babble and see if you can find any mention of how they're actually going to prevent reoffending. All I gathered from it is that the male probation officer is an endangered species, outnumbered three to one in the 2000 intake. They also monitor by race and disability, though sadly not by all three - so the spectre of the disabled - no ! Don't go there !

More information on community sentencing is available at Peter Coad's invaluable links page at the Criminal Justice Association.

At It Again

Aaronovitch started his Indie columns writing about politics, but since his move to the Grauniad sex seems to be occupying him more. Today the Great Masturbator is joining Dot Comrade at Hari's Place in calling for a "regulated sex industry, with brothels and massage parlours subject to council inspection." Applicants for the post please start queueing now. Those rejected may re-apply for the Gender Recognition Panel.

He must be a bit tired after New Year to end like this.

"Finally, I want to anticipate an inevitable rhetorical objection to this line of argument. It is the one that says: 'That's all very well, but what would you say if a legal brothel opened next door, or if your daughter became a prostitute? Where would your liberalism be then?'

To which the liberal can answer with her own questions. 'How far away do you think the brothels are now? And what kind of prostitute would you rather your husband visited?' "

Sorry David, but most of us don't live in London. My nearest brothel is a good six miles away. And the last question implies that the husband in question is already frequenting brothels - not a good response to a 'what-if' question ?

Anyway, Aaro - if you really want to know who a woman might want her husband to play away with, I believe this sort of thing is popular with some couples, and is available as an anniversary or birthday gift if your darling is so inclined. Certainly a change from a romantic trip to Paris or Florence - but at about the same price.

Technical Failure ?

In what must be the most amazing bit of detective work since Inspector Morse was shifted to traffic duties, French and Egyptian officials have diagnosed the Red Sea 737 crash as a 'technical failure', despite

No black box recovery
No other telemetric data from the plane
No distress messages

In fact the only available information was that the plane took off, gained hight normally, then suddenly fell into the Red Sea.

The plane had taken off from Sharm el-Sheikh, where by chance Tony Blair is on holiday.

Now it may be that this is all a tragic coincidence. (The American Airlines crash two months after 9/11 appears not to have been terrorist-related, though interestingly a final report is still awaited more then two years later.)

But I can't see that the official Egyptian and French responses are anything more than wishful thinking, unless they know more than they're telling us.

UPDATE - AP have reported that the plane was trying to return to the airport when it crashed, which would explain how it hit the Red Sea (its route to Cairo was nearly all over land).

UPDATE2 - an obscure Islamic group has claimed responsibility. Link via Jerusalem Posts. TASS has other bits of news on the tragedy.