I Can't Decide ...

If this is deliberate or a mistake. The National Front (a small UK far-right party) demonstrated outside Finsbury Park Mosque yesterday, where Abu Hamza (aka Captain Hook) preaches on the pavement each Friday to an audience of far-right Islamists, having been banned from the mosque. Half a dozen news sources, including the Guardian, report the demo as by the National Front. But the Guardian's headline reads "Police step in as BNP rallies at mosque "

UPDATE - Straightforward lies, as in the Guardian above, are one method of attacking the BNP, and I think a counterproductive one. But this method doesn't seem any better - 'vote Tory - we care as much as the BNP do'. Nothing like squarely confronting their ideas and agreeing with them !

UPDATE2 - nine days later the Guardian issue a correction. Not in headlines.

There seems to be some kind of tectonic plate-shifting in British politics of late, perhaps triggered by the scholarly, reasoned work of people like Robert Rowthorn and David Goodhart in Prospect, perhaps by other things. Imagine the furore if a person of pallor in charge of a government budget said that ethnic minority projects which didn't promote a British identity should be scrapped. Yet that's the CRE's current position. Volte-face - sorry, about-turn or what ? And when you get the secretary of the Fabian Society saying 'perhaps Enoch was right', even if only in theory, something has changed. Celebrating diversity doesn't seem to be flavour of the month and people are starting to worry about unity and social cohesion. Not before time.

So the great and the good are suddenly interested in Britishness. Only one problem - rather a serious one. As people like Spiked point out again and again, our ruling class can't agree on a definition any more. They know that 'we British are characterised by racism, genocide, colonialism, sexism and homophobia' isn't a good branding proposition, but that's what they learned back in 1976 sociology class, it's what our children are taught, and it's the only narrative they know.

UPDATE 2 - and right on schedule, here's Munira Mirza on Spiked to tell us about it.

"We need to acknowledge that the crisis of identity is not caused by the strength of Islam, but the weakness of our own society. If we do this, we can begin to realise that the solution starts here, too. If we really want to create a common culture, we need to ask the awkward questions of what our society believes in and be prepared to fight for hearts and minds."

Just so, and just as most of the problems of race in the UK are not caused by ethnic minorities but by the collapse of British culture, of which white liberal self-loathing is one symptom. Walter Williams' words about white American liberals apply to Brits too.

"Americans of European ancestry can stand straight and proud knowing they are without guilt and thus obliged not to act like damn fools in their relationships with Americans of African ancestry."

UPDATE3 - Jennie Bristow, also in Spiked. While the good people there have no answer to "the identity crisis within Western society, brought about by the collapse of common values, national institutions and traditional political solidarities", they certainly describe it brilliantly.

"An elite that is unwilling to make judgements about why any one cultural practice is better than another, to set universal standards about what role individuals should be expected to play across society, and to promote a distinct set of values that a society should agree upon, finds a useful tool in multiculturalism. This is why it has been so well-suited to Western societies in the past few decades, increasingly disorientated by the erosion of cultural and political certainties."

Spiked have no answers. For the Melanie Phillips and Peter Hitchens the answers lie in restoring the values which those of us who grew up in the Sixties and Seventies spent a great deal of time attacking. My personal view is that the cultural destruction may have gone too far to be reversed.

Niall Ferguson in the Sunday Times has an answer. Perhaps Al-Muhajiroun aren't so far-fetched after all.

This Will Mean Nothing

To those who aren't aficionados. Taken on the Liberty and Livelihood March in September 2002. It made oi larf.

Reactionary Filth

What would good liberals do without the Mail and the Sun to get their juices flowing ? They'd be lost. It's political porn for the right-on crowd. But I think this Weekly Worker report is a bit too upfront about it.

Of the Sun website, "You can search the online archives for the xenophobic content it is infamous for, but disgracefully you have to pay for access."

For those of you missing a fix of rabid, filthy Sun-on-asylum-seeker action, try this. Isn't it disgraceful the way they're persecuting the poor guy ?

An AL Kennedy Primer

"Forget the mindless celebration of Murdoch's media as Christian tank tracks crush the DMU-irradiated Iraqi baby's skull and Halliburton shares rise on hopes of a cholera outbreak in Basra. Go to work, covet the neighbour's wife's girlfriend, watch the home shopping channel and spend everything you borrowed at exorbitant rates from a bank investing in the pharmaceutical companies that are drowning millions of Africans in their own (unfortunately non-Caucasian) blood. You know it makes sense."

Oh, alright. I made that one up. But I flatter myself that a couple more paragraphs like that, and you have the essence of AL Kennedy's Guardian work. This woman makes John Pilger look like a cautious, analytical sort of chap.

A fixation with blood (good to spill if it's English, otherwise bad), hatred of Christians (hypocritical murderers), reality TV (the new opiate of the people), consumer culture (T.N.O.O.T.P. II), the tabloid press (TNOOTP III), democracy (the deluded peasants keep voting for the wrong guys), above all Bush and Blair. For a good internationalist she has an alarming tendency to believe that a command of English is the mark of a civilised being, and she's not above stereotyping foreigners - seeming, for example, to be unaware of the fact that there are nearly a million Christians in Iraq (note - this originally read 'three million' - got from an old encyclopedia - the exact number seems a little uncertain).

22/8/2000 - "The Edinburgh Festival much increases my hatred of humanity"

29/8/2000 - on computer helplines - "they are exorbitant replacements for free information websites; they are based in foreign countries and haunted by alarming pronunciation mutations" Do we detect a hint of xenophobia ?

17/1/2001 - on rebranding. "Private individuals should model their behaviour on the sparkling examples offered by government and industry. Sadly, the opportunity to poison, swindle, murder and mislead thousands of complete strangers has never come my way". But you can poison their minds as best you may.

2/2/2002 - the online chat. In which we detect a self-aware, courteous and sensitive individual. Maybe the Guardian is where Ms Id comes out to play.

24/8/2002 - Edinburgh is really good, although "Boringly, the cobbles of Auld Reekie are not running with Sassenach blood"

25/11/2002 - Polly Curtis reports - "Renowned Scottish novelist to teach at St Andrews. Speaking to EducationGuardian.co.uk today, she said she intended to work 60 hours a year at the university." Can I have a job there please ?

9/12/2002 - Germany is so civilised that she can address an audience in English. "Two generations ago, they allowed themselves to let racist pride, paranoia and greed force them into appalling crimes on a worldwide scale. Now they're looking at the UK and the US and recognising all the symptoms of the same disease." I wonder if she told her German audience why Bush and Blair are like the Nazis.

10/1/2003 - war turns Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheyney, Kissinger on. I don't know why, but when AL gets down and dirty with middle aged white enemy males it makes me feel uncomfortable. Perhaps she just seems to get into it too much. Her dreams she daren't remember - or tell us what she's seen.

"Every woman loves a fascist
The boot in the face, the brute
Brute heart of a brute like you"


13/2/2003 - war turns Bush and Blair on.

7/5/2003 - Blair prays - "If innocent civilians weren't intended to die, then Thou wouldst have saved them - and made them proper Christians." You see, all Iraqis are Muslim.

10/6/2003 - "Iraqi children are also having fun, scampering about between the cluster bombs"

10/7/2003 - Depleted uranium - our gift to Iraq

13/8/2003 - She's been away to civilised Europe and isn't glad to be home. But it's not long before she's settled in. Add to this the liberation that wasn't, the democracy that isn't and the glee on the New York Stock Exchange when 200 or so imaginatively armed US troops take hours to kill four Iraqis (one of them a teenager) and you'll realise that we're living in a world of fun.. I think we're referring to the deaths of a teenager with a Kalashnikov and two renowned psychopathic murderers. So unfair of those Americans not to give them a sporting chance.

14/8/2003 - At the Edinburgh Festival, where "the most important, moving event so far has been a reading and discussion from Anthony Swofford .... a marine in the "first" Gulf war, (who) explained how his feelings would not allow him to be a marine now. "

Funny how caring liberals never consider that a war counts unless the west is involved. The First Gulf War was of course fought between Iran and Iraq. Over a million died. Bush Senior's war was the Second and Bush Junior's the Third. No matter.

10/9/2003 - counting pints of Iraqi blood. For a full fisking click here.

8/11/2003 - how to be a writer. Miraculously, no depleted uranium nor hatred of Bush/Christians/reality TV appears to be required.

20/12/2003 - What new topic will she write about today, we wonder ? The legendary plastic Thanksgiving turkey trots out.

7/1/2004 - "let's not even talk about Gulf war syndrome and depleted uranium". If only.

10/1/2004 - on her countrymen, "administrators and cannon fodder for the empire, enthusiastic slave traders and killers with a centuries-long tradition of lunacy and genocide"

Ms Kennedy is certainly following one of those traditions.

11/2/2004 - "you've got to justify every drop of blood spilled by US and UK foreign policy. Don't think of mercy or justice."

18/3/2004 - "turning Iraq into an almost inconceivable hell ..." As compared to the conceivable hell of the previous Iraqi administration ?

7/4/2004 - "we didn't want to evaporate Iraqi civilians or irradiate Afghan infants, but our government made sure we still did. "

An Afternoon With Tony Martin

How did I miss this ? Sean Gabb on meeting a modern martyr, among other things.

Over by the Countryside Alliance stall, I fell into conversation with an old woman. She was 87, and had lost her husband and both brothers in the War. One of her sons was settled in America with his family. But another had a farm in Oxfordshire. He had been threatened repeatedly by intruders. He had lost crops and machinery to them. The Police had told him they were unable to help, but had warned him not to "take the law into his own hands". She was safe in her own home. She had good neighbours who kept an eye on her. But she looked about her with quiet despair. "I have been coming to this fair and to others like it all my life" she said. "I used to think it would go on forever - always changing with the times, but continuing generation after generation. It will see me out, I suppose. But I don't believe it will go on much after that. You should think yourself lucky you have seen it while you can. There will be nothing for your children. They will have neither country nor freedom. Sometimes nowadays, I almost regret I survived the bombing."

If The Victim Hadn't Been White ....

Would this be all over BBC News ? Must have missed it.

UPDATE - On reflection there must be some other factors at work here than simply liberal white self-hatred. This particularly disgusting murder didn't get big air either despite the alleged perpetrators being persons of pallor. Yet a few years back you couldn't listen to Today or open the Indie or Guardian without reading about Ricky Reel or those two poor guys from Telford who may or may not have committed suicide. Are racist attacks last year's thing for news editors ? Seems unlikely. So what's going on ? Don't you just hate it when the facts refuse to fit your preconceptions ?

Here We Go Again ....

PM to stage immigration summit. "Blair takes control of immigrant crisis". Blair calls immigration summit. Blair targets prolific criminals. Oh - sorry. That last one is the latest from the BBC's 'crime crackdown' archive.

I think Blair's left this one a bit late for the spin treatment (although the BBC can be relied upon to stay on-message. Remember, the BBC will only attack a Labour Government from the left).

Especially when he's in it up to his neck.

UPDATE - it gets worse and worse. Even such a cynic as I can't quite believe the unique blend of dishonesty and incompetence.

It's entertaining to see that Andrew Rawnsley can't get his head round this. It's "a relatively minor controversy". Beverley Hughes was rated by Alice Mahon and the Lib Dems. What was all the fuss about ?

It could have been worse though. Ms Hughes could have been replaced by Millie Tant.

Islamofascism ?

BNP leader Nick Griffin in the Spectator (registration required).

"I’m not necessarily saying that our ways are superior to those of Islam. In many ways they do things better than us, in my opinion. For example, they’ll cut the hands off five or six thieves a year, and as a result virtually none of their elderly folk are burgled in their own home by some scumbag who pushes them over and they die from shock a year later. So we’re squeamish about five scumbags having their hands cut off, and we’re not at all squeamish about hundreds of our pensioners dying in misery as a result of a few scumbags running around. Islam can teach us a lot."

Trouble is I think I agree with him. Scarier still, in a Weekly Worker item on the roots of Hamas ideology, I agree (mostly) with this, by Sayyid Qutb, executed theorist of the Muslim Brotherhood. And with one or two caveats I think Melanie Phillips would agree too.

" ... [the] family provides the environment under which human values and morals develop and grow in the new generation; these values and morals cannot exist apart from the family unit. If, on the other hand, free sexual relationships and illegitimate children become the basis of a society, and if the relationship between man and woman is based on lust, passion and impulse, and the division of work is not based on family responsibility and natural gifts; if woman’s role is merely to be attractive, sexy and flirtatious, and if woman is freed from her basic responsibility of bringing up children; and if, on her own or under social demand, she prefers to become a hostess or a stewardess in a hotel or ship or air company, thus using her ability for material productivity rather than the training of human beings, because material production is considered to be more important, more valuable and more honourable than the development of human character, then such a civilisation is ‘backward’ from the human point of view ..."

Not that there's anything wrong with lust, passion and impulse, mind you. They have their place in a well-ordered society. I hope. Goodnight.

Phew - She's Gone

I had that woman's card marked ever since an interview she did on the Today Programme three years back. As this website says :

"Junior minister Beverley Hughes, now thankfully moved, put up a display on the Radio 4 'Today' programme which boded ill for the future. Interviewed on 17th August 2001 with Frances Crook of the Howard League on the subject of the prison population, she seemed not to have been briefed. Jack Straw - who, if he couldn't 'walk the walk' could certainly 'talk the talk', would have made mincemeat of Ms Crook's arguments. Earlier in the year, when the usual 'highest imprisonment rate in Europe' question came up, Mr Straw fired straight back that he was more concerned about the highest CRIME RATE in Europe that was a direct cause of the imprisonment. Ms Hughes, faced with the same question, floundered hopelessly."

The mighty Littlejohn says it all :

"The truth is quite simple. Labour's policy is to allow in anyone who wants to come here while talking tough and pretending to enforce strict immigration controls.

When rumbled, they tell lies, fiddle the figures and smear their critics. "

Painted with a broad brush, but not unreasonable.

PS - don't expect too much of Ken Sutton's proposed report, if his first one is anything to go by.

"in none of the periods I have examined have I found evidence of the practice amounting, literally, to one of granting every case. Sheffield staff continued to refuse cases even during the period covered by the most recent guidance."

That's a bit like saying the good news is Harold Shipman didn't kill all his patients.

New Home Office Migration Scandal

Who Says That Minorities Can't Integrate Successfully ?

From BBC News 'Have Your Say' page.

I think the government has lost it. I am a 2nd generation Bradfordian. The number of new faces I see in Bradford city centre - all eastern Europeans has significantly increased over the past few years. I lose over £600 from my pay packet every month in taxes and when I go to the post office I see queues of eastern European queuing for state handouts without having contributed anything to society. Is there any wonder that there is quiet discontent in the country?

Tendukar Gill, Bradford

You Won't See This In The Guardian

What happens to taxpayers 'investment in communities'.

Aston Pride was formed in June 2000, under the Government's New Deal for Communities initiative, with the aim of tackling crime, poverty and unemployment in one of the country's poorest inner city areas.

By March 2003 the Aston Pride board, which had achieved little, was disbanded on the orders of the Regeneration Minister and replaced by a new delivery partnership.

The scrutiny report warned: "The board of the Aston Pride partnership was plagued with mistrust and hostility that eventually left it dysfunctional and ineffective, despite the commitment and passion of its members.

"It became a battleground between conflicting interests rather than the centre of effort on the huge task of transforming Aston.

"Members of the board lacked the experience, skills and understanding necessary for the effective leadership and direction of a complex £54 million ten-year regeneration programme, and were not provided with effective training and support to assist them in their onerous task."

Oh well. They'd probably only got through £15 million or so before being disbanded. Plenty more where that came from.

UPDATE - I recommend NewStart magazine - most entertaining.

Any More For Any More ?

So immigration controls were only abandoned for 29,000 ECAA applicants per annum who were already in the country.

Oh yes - and for everyone else with an application over three months old.

Oh, we've just found out - and for the other ECAA applicants who weren't in the country. And for applicants from Bulgaria and Romania.

But the BBC are onside as ever. Were a minister in trouble with whistleblowers over Iraq, for example, we'd see headlines like "The government is under growing pressure over the legal position of the war on Iraq". You won't see the Katherine Gun or Clare Short revelations depicted as an alliance of malcontent public servants with an agenda-driven left wing press.

Yet that's exactly what we get with this story. Carolyn Quinn on the Today programme this morning, reviewing the papers "Not unpredictably, the Mail and Express lead on immigration'. The tone is that the only people bothered about immigration are a couple of 'right-wing' papers, and even the Tories aren't really bothered but will exploit the row for opportunistic reasons.

UPDATE - how much worse can it get without a head or two rolling ?

If You Want To Know

a) why immigration and asylum is a mess
b) why large organisations are so inefficient

take a look at this - especially the development plan. This is where your tax goes.

Gotcha !

How long can Beverley Hughes survive as Immigration Minister ? According to her statements Steve Moxon's revelations about the abandonment of immigration controls only applied to one office and nobody senior knew about it. Her claim was upheld by the (internal) Sutton report.

A week ago it was revealed that a senior H.O. official knew all about what was going on at Sheffield, now the Sunday Times reveals that the policy was personally authorised by Ms Hughes.

How do you get out of that ? Well apparently the policy Ms Hughes approved was totally different to the one Mr Moxon was worried about.

Mr Moxon was worried about what appeared to be a deliberate policy of relaxing controls on the entry of people from the new EU 'accession states' in order to prevent the figures from leaping in May and June of this year. Key to this relaxation was a policy called BRACE.

"Under the relaxed guidance, ECAA migrants no longer had to provide bank statements to prove they would be able to afford to run their new 'businesses'. Neither would they need to supply a signed declaration that they would not draw welfare benefits or take ordinary PAYE employment.

Circulated to all staff in Moxon's unit last August, it stated that from then on a special policy called BRACE - a euphemism for rubber stamping - should be applied to these applications. It added: 'As this is NOT a published policy, however, no reference should be made to this either to the app/reps (applicants/representatives) or on the G-CID' (a Home Office computer system). "

Obviously this BRACE is no relation to the BRACE described in today's Sunday Times, which rubber-stamped ALL applications over three months old. Perhaps Ms Hughes is sticking to the literal truth and had no idea that in Sheffield the policy mainly impacted applications from accession states.

"The leaked memo was written by Graham Austin and Moira Bing, two senior immigration officials in the casework directorate at Croydon. It states: 'As there are a large number of applications that are over three months old waiting to be decided, it has been agreed at ministerial level that an enhanced procedure should be undertaken to clear these as quickly as possible.

'This note confirms that the decision in this case has been taken under an enhanced procedure for clearing backlog cases, which commenced on 14 July, 2003. Bill Brandon/Christina Parry (two senior immigration policy managers) have instructed that all applications - as far as possible - over three months old should be granted unless the information available on file is such that it can properly and defensibly support a refusal. Where a case will result in a refusal, the case must be cleared by a senior caseworker. No further inquiries should be made.'

The note adds: 'This exercise has been agreed by the minister of state Beverley Hughes and has Bill Brandon and Christina Parry's complete authority. They will totally support staff on its outcomes.'

It is understood that the memo was shown to Ken Sutton, the Home Office mandarin whom Hughes commissioned to report on the Sheffield fiasco, but no mention of it appears in his report. Nor does Sutton mention that Hughes herself authorised the fast-track policy at Croydon.

The civil servant who passed the memo to The Sunday Times said that the fast-tracking exercise - known as Backlog Reduction Accelerated Clearance Exercise (Brace) - 'resulted in virtually no control on applications'."

Two conclusions - it is pointless believing any figures coming from this Home Office that haven't been independently audited, and that Ms Hughes has only a nodding acquaintance with the truth.

UPDATE - the Sutton Report is typical of reports brought forth by large organisations - surprise surprise, no one is to blame for anything, the mysterious 'processes' are found to be at fault. It does contain the odd interesting item though. How about "over the last year, over half a million cases have been dealt with as general casework", a figure which puts some kind of a scale on the levels of managed immigration into the UK.

But there's a lot of stuff like "in none of the periods I have examined have I found evidence of the practice amounting, literally, to one of granting every case. Sheffield staff continued to refuse cases even during the period covered by the most recent guidance." He's choosing his words carefully, and we can be assured that at least one applicant was refused by Sheffield. So that's all right then.

The conclusions drawn hinge on a meeting on October 13, 2003, between the "Director, General Group", (can we identify her as Paula Higson ?) and the Sheffield managers, in which the Director effectively asked them 'who will rid me of these turbulent backlogs ?'.

"I am clear that there was an element of misunderstanding" says Mr Sutton. Well he would say that, wouldn't he ? I think it likely that Sheffield management understood only too well.

One recommendation seems to have fallen off the report - "Take Steve Moxon out and give him a good kicking. Send the Revenue round and instruct the police to stop his car twice a week like they do with Tony Martin". Must be in the Secret Annexe.

Ken Sutton is the director in charge of ... you guessed it .... Asylum !

Of course the BBC don't have an agenda .... Part 51

The dumbing down of Radio 4 proceeds apace, with Fi Glover following Eddie Mair across from Radio 5. Today's edition of Broadcasting House is presented from New York, of all places. Why ? What's happening there of interest to British listeners ?

"We're in New York for a special programme examining the launch of new, multi-million dollar, US radio network. 'Air America' wants to challenge the dominant right-wing talk shows in the US with a new brand of liberal political shows. We talk to the main players involved and ask can 'Air America' succeed?"

Perhaps they could save the license fee payers some money by staying at home and analysing the BBCs institutional left-liberal bias. Or the total absence of diversity of thought in UK radio, helped along by some of the most restrictive broadcasting laws in the world.

Diversity Divisions

Another fascinating Prospect piece by David Goodhart, a reflection on responses to his original essay on diversity and immigration which caused such a storm in Guardianista country.

"After publication, most white readers, whether they agreed with the general drift or not, accepted it as a perfectly legitimate argument.

With non-white readers the reactions were more complex. It is not true, as Yasmin Alibhai-Brown claimed in a column attacking me, that: "Not one non-white Briton has defended the Goodhart thesis." I have received many letters and emails of support from non-whites. Other non-white academics and commentators, such as Shamit Saggar, Kenan Malik and Anshuman Mondal (each of whom has posted a brief reply on the Prospect website), have disagreed in emphasis or detail but in a spirit of mutual exploration of a difficult topic.

Then there is a third group of non-whites who feel personally affronted. They will not engage with the argument in abstract, aggregate terms but see only some atavistic nationalist trying to exclude them - Suhkvinder Stubbs, former head of the Runnymede Trust, and Gary Younge of the Guardian even bristled at my use of the word "we" meaning British citizens. They were reading a piece which said: "diversity is bad, roll it back," rather than the actual piece which said: "diversity is desirable but let's make sure that it doesn't leave cohesion behind."

These are emotional issues. But some of the responses just seemed indulgent and knee-jerk - as if I was attacking a religious faith, which is perhaps what diversity has become to some people."

So far so predictable as far as reactions go. But Goodhart's analysis of this reaction is interesting and has a lot of truth in it. People on the political and cultural left in Britain have no problem with the concerns of Palestinians about Jewish immigration to the West Bank, or more parochially the concerns of Welsh people about the death of their culture as more and more English flee England. But just let an Englishman express unease about levels of immigration (not to mention emigration as the educated English leave for everywhere from Auchermuchty to Auckland) and you may as well start wearing jackboots to church.

"Historically, especially for people on the left, there has been a direct link between anti-racism and support for the widest possible open door for migrants into Britain. Anybody, especially a white person, who expresses concern at some of the costs of mass immigration - as I did in one part of the essay - is seen as in some way questioning the status of existing ethnic minority citizens. But this is nonsense - as I tried to say to the rather sceptical Greenwich seminar. If we are to have a sensible debate we must now decouple these two arguments, as most Britons in practice do. This is no longer the 1960s. It is possible to be a committed anti-racist and yet favour a hard-headed debate about the pros and cons of large-scale immigration."

Well - you can try.

Foiled Again

I was dubious about Pakistan's claims to have the Al Quaeda No 2 surrounded in Waziristan. Waziristan doesn't seem to be the sort of place where you can be sure of anything. If this detailed account is reliable the 'high value target' got away - whoever he was.

The Frontier region is where Charles Allen's Soldier Sahibs came of age in the 1840s and 50s. The armed units they created, the Guides and Frontier Force, still exist in the Pakistan Army, as do such romantic formations as Coke's and Wilde's Battalions, named after their Victorian founders.

But according to South Asia News, the tribes are up in arms, though I only see mention of the Afridis and Kyhberis.

"The Pakistani army is regarded as an occupation army. No wonder: it entered Waziristan for the first time in history, in the summer of 2002. These Pakistani soldiers are mostly Punjabi. They don't speak Pashto and don't know anything about the complex Pashtun tribal code. In light of all this, the presence of the Pakistani army in these tribal areas in the name of the "war on terror" cannot but be regarded as an American intervention. These tribes have never been subdued. They may even spell Musharraf's doom. "

Pepe Escobar is correct that the tribes have never been more than temporarily subdued - and the British Army only ever entered Waziristan on punitive expeditions. But I find it hard to believe that since 1947 no Pakistani soldiers have entered the area, that they don't speak Pakhtun, or that they're unaware of the Pakhtunwali code, with its obligations of honour, hospitality and revenge, which regulates tribal life. It was by an intimate knowledge of the language and culture of the people that the British not only preserved an uneasy peace on the Frontier, but were able to raise volunteer Pakhtun forces. When Nicholson captured Delhi during the 1857 Mutiny he was accompanied by Pakhtun cavalry.

UPDATE - the locals' view of the fighting is at khyber.org and a Pakistani view at hipakistan.

Of Course There's No Agenda II

From the Today Programme :

' ... and there is a gulf between republicans and unionist hard-liners ....'.

So the people who have killed two thousand-odd over the last thirty years are just 'republicans' - like say Dennis Skinner or Tony Banks. The people who refuse to be photographed with them are 'hard-liners'.

The BBC. Compromising with terror - all over the world.

Of course the BBC don't have an agenda ....

That's why there's no room on BBC News for the revelation that the senior civil servant in charge of "Managed Migration" was aware of the policy of rubber-stamping all Eastern European work permits. You know, the policy that was being carried out by a few low-level people in one office, that no-one else knew about.

Yet there's time on the Today Programme for an idiotic piece in which Will Hutton draws parallels between Enron, Worldcom, Parmalat - and Wagner's Ring Cycle. And of course Richard Clarke is all over the place like a rash - after all, its another anti-Bush story, innit ?

For relief try the Have Your Say page on Sheikh Yassin's demise.

"Was Israel's action justified? Will this just worsen the spiral of violence?"

UPDATE - as of 10 pm the 'cycle of violence' has mysteriously vanished. But the late Sheikh (aka "Spiritual figurehead") is all over BBC news - you'd think Gandhi had died. Strangely enough this story - the murder of an Arab who didn't kill Jews - doesn't seem to have made the BBC.

George Khoury, a 20-year-old economics student at Jerusalem's Hebrew University and the son of a prominent lawyer, was jogging through a neighbourhood mostly populated by Jews when gunmen shot him in the head, neck and stomach on Friday night.

His father, Elias, has represented Palestinian politicians and Israeli Arabs accused of murder, and fought renowned legal battles against Jewish settlers over land ownership. The victim's grandfather, Daoud, was killed in 1975 when a bomb hidden in a refrigerator by Mr Arafat's Fatah movement exploded in one of Jerusalem's busiest shopping streets, Jaffa road.

The Palestinian leader called Elias Khoury's home on Saturday to apologise. The al-Aqsa brigade issued a statement also expressing regret, saying the killing was a case of "mistaken identity". It said it regarded Mr Khoury as a "martyr" to the cause of Palestinian liberation.

The father called the shooting "barbaric".

UPDATE - links to the BBC's description of Yassin and the Hamas Covenant.